Monday Morning Music Ministry

3-15-21

I have a friend who once – in fact frequently – talked about his wife. “Unburdened himself,” to use an old and somewhat curious phrase. Complaining? Actually, no. We all need someone we trust on whose shoulder we can cry, or at least provide a pair of ears now and then.

Counselors charge a lot of money; sometimes a good friend is all we need.

Anyway, his story was about a marriage where his wife chain-smoked; and then gave it up. Then she took up drinking to embarrassing excess and disappearances and blackouts. And then she quit, cold turkey. I am forgetting the order of these problems, but in between there were various drugs; and then no drugs. She also cheated on my friend on and off – more often “on,” that is, serial affairs. He knew that his three children were not his. If you wonder about bulimia and anorexia, you’re right: those too.

The first time I heard this long litany of his endless heartache and her virtually suicidal pastimes, I asked why he didn’t leave her; get a divorce.

“Because I love her,” he said.

I could end this essay there, because there is a spiritual message, or at least a picture, or a parable, or example, somewhere in there. Maybe like the story about the boy digging through a pile of manure in the belief that “there must be a pony in there somewhere!”

Maybe. Surely there are elements of unconditional love and forgiveness in his story. My friend was not a Christian, yet he reflected some of the ways our Heavenly Father treats us.

… or (we hope and pray) that He treats us.

We all have sinned and fall short of the Glory of God. We know that because the Bible tells us so. But do we believe it because we genuinely know it? How often do we change the tense and to reflect that “we all sin and fall short of the Glory of God”? — that is, we still sin. But if we have accepted Christ, the “falling short” of God’s Glory cannot be measured any more.

After all, “while we were yet sinners,” Christ took away the punishment that our sins deserve.

“Because I love them,” Jesus would say.

I want to dwell a moment on how much we are all like my friend’s wife. Yes, all of us, in all ways. She was addicted – to this, and that, and the other. Serious, deadly, ugly, dangerous, smelly, stupid, harmful. In truth, it was not nicotine or alcohol or sex or cocaine. She was addicted to being addicted.

And so are we all. We know some of our habits are bad, yet we remain in them. We apologize to enablers… yet hope they will continue to enable. Are serial cheaters looking for the perfect match, or are they in love with being in love, as if they really know what that means?

Our addictions – our continuous problems and failings; our weaknesses; our broken promises to others and to God – can be summed up in one word: sin.

We all have heard stories of people breaking from the grip of specific addictions. Haven’t we? I pray you have heard such testimonies from people. The percentage of deliverance from various addictions is astronomically higher in faith-based programs than from secular therapies. No surprise: if addictions are a reflection of a spiritual problem, they can only really be healed by spiritual means.

I want to leave you with one more thought, as, possibly, your mind is racing through the challenges you have, or a friend or family members has, or an experience you survived. We know Jesus taught us to pray, “Lead us not into temptation,” words that we realize are almost a confession of our weakness.

So we do pray for things like losing some desires we have; or that we be  gifted with a stronger will; and reminded to live responsibly. In other words, how often do we think the best place, with God’s help, is to be in a spiritual place, a morally responsible position, where we can say, “OK, God! Thank you! I’ll take it from here!”

That is not spiritual maturity. It is spiritual self-delusion.

Our Heavenly Father does not want us to be independent. Everything in God’s Word, all the lessons of saints and martyrs, the many works of Christ, point to the truth that He desires that we be dependent.

Spiritual maturity is when we confess our inability to save ourselves. Christianity can be defined as achieving victory through surrender. No other construct works that way. We cannot dance and jump for joy and run to embrace the Lord except while on our knees. Neat trick, but it’s God’s plan. He is not as much impressed by our deeds as by our obedience.

Jesus performed miracles, and God still performs miracles. We know that the earliest recorded miracle of Jesus was turning water into wine at the wedding feast. The songwriter T. Graham Brown wrote a song during the “lowest of lows” of his alcoholism. It would be a miracle, drunks know, to be freed from the desire to take that one more drink – miracle enough. But he cried out uniquely to save his life: Could God just turn the wine back to water?

A miracle is a miracle! And that perspective actually admits the dependence – at the end of a spiritual rope (have you ever been there?) – instead of seeking a miracle, maybe as a crutch.

Despite our strengths or weaknesses, deliverance is the real miracle, however God takes us there. But let us pray that we can be enabled by the Holy Spirit to invite one more addiction – to be addicted to God’s Word and God’s Will.

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Music Vid: “Turn the Wine Back Into Water”

Every few weeks, some guy hacks the music-video link. WordPress is not helping us. Either hit “refresh” a couple times, or cut and paste this URL — the song is worth watching! (Also for some readers with hand-held devices) Copy and paste link: ) https://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=nKTdbqcjogg

Click: Turn the Wine Back Into Water

6-29-15

As sure as there are troubles in our lives, there is deliverance. Not always, or so it seems to some of us. Not immediately: that is certain. It can come. When it comes – any manner of relief, answers, healing, comfort, understanding, peace – we often to pray thanks to the God whose pity and mercy we so recently sought. Or, we do give thanks or do penance or share with the world what God has done.

It is a tempting thing to suppose, especially when the Creator of the Universe wonderfully has intervened in our affairs, that the crisis is settled, that God has done His work. We adjust our sandals and move ahead, refreshed, toward the next goals in life.

But that is not exactly God’s way, not the Bible way. It is more the case, when He has delivered His people, His children, that He not only saves us from something… but for something.

St Augustine, before the year 400, preached the following words in a sermon. This important man is an essential figure in the theology, cosmology, and philosophy that is a continuum that includes Plato, other early church fathers, and Martin Luther, as readers of this column know (or at least know of my sympathy and wellsprings). It is a miracle that so many of Augustine’s sermons, lessons, and books have survived, lighting our paths through the centuries.

Anyway, he wrote about the idea of deliverance, and God “bringing His people through”:

Brothers, look and see: The Judeans [Jews] were liberated in the sea, the Egyptians were destroyed in it…. The Judeans go beyond the Red Sea and walk through the desert. It is the same way with Christians after baptism: they are not yet in the land of promise, but they live in hope….

The Egyptians who chased the Judeans out of Egypt were not their only enemies – but they were their old enemies. In the same way, our past life and our past sins… continue to haunt us. There are enemies in the desert as well…

Interesting! We know the story of Exodus; and we think of other examples in the Bible of God saving His people. When we think of it, many individuals and populations were saved… only to face greater challenges. Is these the acts of a kindly God? Yes! God is love! We remember the “Hall of Fame of the Heroes of Faith” in Hebrews chapter 11: the Bible’s greatest champions of faith and obedience are there honored.

And every one of them came short of his goal, never making it to each one’s “promised land.” Also interesting, and instructive. The Promised Land, the Land of Milk and Honey, the desert after captivity, “over the Jordan,” Canaan Land, Beulah Land – have you heard these terms?

Exodus 33 has the account of God speaking to Moses:
‘Go up to a land flowing with milk and honey; for I will not go up in your midst, lest I consume you on the way, for you are a stiff-necked people.’…  And when the people heard this bad news, they mourned, and no one put on his ornaments. For the Lord had said to Moses, ’Say to the children of Israel, You are a stiff-necked people. I could come up into your midst in one moment and consume you.’… [But] He said, ‘My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.’

Rest? These people yearned for even more, and more, and more, deliverance. Free of the Pharaohs, they wanted also to be free of… God. They wanted to live as they wished – to sin and be rebellious – and not merely trade metal shackles for moral restraints. They were free of the bondsman’s lash, and thought they deserved license to revel in decadence and debauchery. (If this sounds to you like a description of America-up-to-date, we share the same shrinking desert island…)

But God knew the basic natures of His children; He knew the desires of their hearts; and He would not answer those prayers to be free of responsibilities as well as actual chains.

The Promised Land, the Land of Milk and Honey, the desert after captivity, “over the Jordan,” Canaan Land, Beulah Land… many people believe these were earthly symbols of Heaven in the Bible, poetry and hymns. But they were not, never were. Heaven is… Heaven. If there were a physical Promised Land with miracle blooms, and flowing milk and honey, why should any inhabitants desire the real Heaven?

“Beulah,” in the Bible and in many hymns through the years, refers to “marriage,” a word, and a land, where believers might commune with God, even be in a relationship akin to marriage with the Son. But. That all precedes Heaven. Paradise, Eternity, Heaven is our final home.

As sweet as God’s promises, His deliverances, His dwelling-places of communion on earth, are… Heaven will be sweeter. A wise-guy skeptic friend of mine once challenged me: “If Heaven is so wonderful, why don’t you end it all, and go straight there for eternity?” Apart from the proposition that God hates murder, including of one’s self (and, by the way, that includes morally, not just physically), that is not in His plan, either.

We stay on earth, and should desire to, to serve Him. We cling to this life in order to fulfill whatever plans He has for us. We embrace life so that we can share His glory, bring others to saving grace, to minister to a hurting world as “imitators of Christ.”

In that perspective, we need to see, first, that the mercies He offers us here – in ways represented by Beulah Lands, “milk and honey,” Promised Lands – are havens of rest, foretastes of Heaven, gifts to make our days here sweeter as we work for the Master. Not Heaven… but on the way! We have jobs to do for Him, and they become easier, perhaps; or maybe more challenging. But the Hope, and Victory, are within view.

Truly – and always – when God saves us from something, He saves us for something.

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An old hymn, Is Not This the Land of Beulah, and a more recent gospel song, Sweet Beulah Land, share the distinctions and the reality of that place we may all seek. Wonderful words. Here, the two are explained and performed by the composer of the latter song, pastor and singer Squire Parsons. “I’m kind of homesick for that country, where I’ve never been before…”

Click: Beulah Land

1-16-12

A friend, Marti Pieper, has a unique ministry. A Christian writer and editor, she writes daily messages and Facebook posts with the simplest messages of what she is praying for that day, or situations people find themselves in, or that they might be facing.

No more, no less. Just sharing what is on her heart. I call them “under the radar” needs of people, for they are common – all too common – needs, and therefore often escape our attention. Even if they pertain to ourselves.

Some of her simple prayers are that she is “praying for those who need a way out”; “praying for those in uncharted territory”; “praying for those who are still waiting”; “praying for those who are learning to be still”; “praying for those who are returning good for evil’; and “thanking God for the little things.”

Such reminders, whether to our own situations or prompting a Christian sensitivity to those around us, in their quiet way usually speak to more urgent agendas than many of the “crises” we face. But then, sometimes we all have a way of putting our concerns into cubby holes – emergencies and predicaments, those categories at one end; or nagging, everyday headaches at the other.

But I suspect that God does not differentiate much between these, in the manner of one sin being as offensive as any sin in His eyes. That is, I cannot believe that He categorizes His responses to our prayer requests. We are His children; He responds as a perfect Father. The cries of our hearts must be all the same to Him.

It is more the case, rather, that WE categorize our prayers. Have you ever been too guilty to ask full forgiveness? or reluctant to lay everything before God (who knows all anyway)? or convinced that some things are too trivial to become petitions? If so, we are virtually breaking a commandment, because the Bible instructs us “in EVERYTHING by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God” (Philippians 4:6).

A propos of nothing, except Marti’s Attitudinal Ministry, and some news stories about drug and alcohol statistics, I got to thinking this week about people struggling with addictions. The “larger” factors on the radar screen are that God can deliver, and we can lead cleansed lives. But the “common” aspects of addiction include struggle, backsliding, and temptation. It is tragic when people, even believers, think that these so-called minor issues are not important; that, having experienced deliverance, they cannot admit to the presence of echoes; that knowing the answers does not keep the questions from their minds. AA has it right; alcoholics remain alcoholics – some people just stop drinking.

None of these thoughts are technicalities: I believe they represent basic life principles. I believe it is a mistake when Christians say, as we often do, “OK, I get it, God; I’ll take it from here,” and we wipe the dust from our hands. In fact the proper response after answered prayer is to stay on our knees, and confess to our continuing need for Him – continued reliance – not some sort of liberation from Him.

Sometimes a proper prayer is to confess our inability apart from God, and to plead that old temptations simply be removed. In that regard, it is a sign of strength (even though we can beat ourselves up, thinking it is otherwise) because that is showing faith in Him and what He can do, instead of pride in our selves. “Lead us not to temptation”; “deliver us from evil.”

A great musical exposition of this principle is the song by T Graham Brown, “Help Me Turn the Wine Back Into Water.” The miracle at Feast of Cana is the reference, of course; but these lyrics acknowledge that another miracle of God could be deliverance from addiction… and yet another, from the same miracle-working God, could be that He just run interference in the middle of situations.

“I’ve tried to fight this battle by myself,
But it’s a war that I can’t win without Your help….
I shook my fist at heaven for all the hell that I’ve been through;
Now I’m begging for forgiveness and a miracle from You….
And now, on my knees, I’m turning to You, Father –
Could You help me turn the wine back into water?”

In truth, the “large” and “small” battles are the same: they are all battles, and in the wars of life we cannot win any of them without God’s help, His continuous help.

Be “praying for the small battles of life.”

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Here is T Graham Brown’s powerful lament – another reminder to Christians of God’s irony that only our complete surrender leads to our victories.

Click: “Help Me Turn the Wine Back Into Water”