Monday Morning Music Ministry

1-9-23

You probably have heard this acronym, a good prescription for getting through life and advising others. The fact that we seldom observe it does not diminish its wisdom.

Events in the news this week will live on, and on, as yet another political football: the election of a new Speaker of the House of Representatives. Reactions in chat rooms, on cable news and, because I frequently write (and draw editorial cartoons) about politics, outreach from friends who vented, asked questions of me, and unpacked angry comments of their own. There has been widespread frustration with the machinations on Capitol Hill.

It was confusing; it was messy; it was of interminable length. Rivalries were exposed; partisan divisions were highlighted; ambitions were on display. Why could not a simple winner-take-all vote prevail? Why the florid speeches and name-by-name roll calls? Why the horse trading and pledges?

… the answer to all this is: That’s the way it is supposed to work. The Framers of the Constitution (as in so many other ways, thank God) knew what they were doing. Such arrangements in the House of Representatives – designed differently than the Senate – is the closest the American government gets to democracy… which is in its purest forms, by the way, a system the Framers despised and distrusted. They designed a Federal Republic, at most a modified republican democracy.

They did not want to “keep it simple” in this case. Virtually automatic accession of leaders – which recently has prevailed in the House’s power-structure – were envisioned as exceptions, not routine. Changing rules… challenges to those in authority… factions… the input of lobbies (how that has been perverted!)… compromises… frequent elections (two-year terms instead of the Senate’s six)… apportioned seats on committees… and, yes, “deals”… were all meant to keep the House close to the pulse of the public. NOT simple; just the opposite.

So. We saw this week what is called “sausage-making”: when politics seemingly gets messy. Folks like me (and I believe the shades of the Framers) loved the aroma of a country breakfast – “sausage making” in the House’s Speaker contest. A great show. And was the House’s “business” on hold for four whole days? Folks like me sometime wish that parts of government could be on gridlock for four months.

Anyway, I regret that so many people are ignorant of our government’s structure – its original architectural design, really – and were further seduced by Svengalis of the media. (For instance, instead of “simply” and properly reporting events, TV hosts colored the process. The 20-or-so holdouts were characterized as insurgents, egoists, and even terrorists; but I think if they had been liberals they would have been called Profiles in Courage and brave souls with integrity…) A lone congressman traditionally was allowed to challenge a leader’s status, until a Pelosi-decade ago; but its restoration is likened to a lynch mob’s fervor. Horrors! Chaos!! A raucous caucus!!!

The holdouts were upset with decades of broken promises about balanced budgets, transparent writing of laws, term limits, earmarks, “regular order” (through committees instead of puppet-strings of the handful of leaders). Upset that 5,000-page bills are devised in secret and presented for voting immediately upon arrival. Upset that too many laws are written, really, by donors and lobbyists. Left-or-right IDs aside, elaborate complaints ought to have outlets for pushing back.

So, some things are not supposed to be simple. But – Spoiler alert: I will share how “Keep it simple, stupid” does pertain to one of life’s more important matters.

Throughout humanity’s history this matter invariably has been distorted to seem complicated. It has been festooned with uncountable conditions. The matter has been subject to additions and subtractions. Innocent people have been deluded by rules and exceptions and mumbo-jumbo and, too often, have been intimidated.

That matter is Salvation.

Religion – that is: humankind’s systems of translating and explaining and operating what should be the simple province of your soul and your God – has sent more people to hell than have demons. Religion is, at best, reaching up to Heaven. Christianity simply is God reaching down to humankind.

God did not want it to be anything but Simple: He sent His Son to be the substitution for the punishment we deserve as sinners. Simple.

Jesus did not add to laws and commandments and rules: Rather, He fulfilled the Law. Simple.

The Holy Spirit was sent to be God’s method of guiding believers – to comfort, inspire, and direct us. Simple.

The Gospel, explained many ways and many times, is the opposite of complicated:

God created us with free will. But as humans, we choose to sin and offend Him.

A just God, being Holy, cannot have those whom He loves continue our sinful ways, or approach the Throne and live in Heaven, unless sinless.

This Holy God provides a loving means for us to be forgiven, and to be reconciled with Him.

He sent His Son to take our sins upon Himself.

All that is required is that we accept in our hearts that Jesus is the Son of God; that we confess with our mouths that He died to be our Savior; and believe that God raised Him from the dead.

That’s all? That’s all.

Keep.

It.

Simple.

That’s not stupid.

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Click: God On the Mountain

11-9-15

One of the unique attributes of our God, one of the astonishing ways He relates to us, is communication. He could be what pagan religions imagined, a stone statue or a golden idol. Or He could have revealed Himself through a wise man, now dead; or a prophet, instead of becoming an incarnate human to whom we can relate, who confirmed His divinity by overcoming death.

He is a Holy God – not a cool next-door neighbor – so there are attributes that are also remote and mysterious, an appropriate dichotomy for the Creator of the Universe. But the most mysterious communication He ordains is also the simplest: prayer.

And now about prayer. … When you pray, go away by yourself, all alone, and shut the door behind you and pray to your Father secretly, and your Father, who knows your secrets, will reward you. Don’t recite the same prayer over and over as the heathen do, who think prayers are answered only by repeating them again and again. Remember, your Father knows exactly what you need even before you ask him! (Matthew 6:5-8)

He knows our needs before we pray… yet we are commanded to pray… He hears us… He promises to answer prayer. Even Jesus set an example for us by frequently going aside, seeking solitude, praying alone before trials and important challenges.
God can already read our minds, know our thoughts, so why does He desire that we pray? Knowing our innermost desires or requests is not communication. How wonderful that He has established prayer as a way for us to focus: to order our priorities, to approach Him with proper attitudes; to put into “groaning,” as sometimes happens, the anguish of our souls.

In the same way the Spirit also helps our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. (Romans 8:26)

So we have a spiritual situation – truly, a gift – where we do not approach a stone idol or open the sayings of a dead teacher. We can approach, and boldly, the Throne of Grace. Answers? We know from Bible accounts, and testimonies of uncountable believers through history and in our midst, and from our own experiences, how answered payer comes.

God works through circumstances. Let the skeptics laugh, but Christians “know that we know that we know.” My wife, several times in her life, heard audible words from God. My daughter Heather has a remarkable manner in which she sometimes prays – walking, driving, moving about, having a conversation with Jesus. He is our best friend, after all.

Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 4: 6,7)

There are many people who might not be skeptics, exactly, but yet be skeptical, or still seeking about this thing called prayer. What about prayers that are not answered? (If asked sincerely, we must know that God still answers – sometimes in His timing; sometimes in His wisdom; we are to wait.) What about prayers that go against our desires? (We must test our prayers – making demands upon God are not prayers, any more than a threat is not a conversation.) What about heartfelt pleas for things we deeply want? (God will lead us to know the difference between our needs and our desires.) What about answers to prayer that are disappointing? (God, who loves us, and knows what is best for us, should be trusted when He sometimes answers “no.”)

Despite these guideposts, troubled people can still have problems finding answers in, or through, prayer. I realize that; this sometimes describes myself.

Let us create a hypothetical. A couple has desired to adopt children, and prayed fervently over the commitments and practicalities. They feel in their hearts a “leading” to go forward. They faithfully proceed through the long and tortured process. Every step of vetting and screening is bathed in prayer. They are “matched” with children, eventually take them into their home, praise God for answered prayer, and rear them with the same love as for their biological children.

Continuing the hypothetical, the adoptees – from a very troubled background – manifest behavior that indisputably make the adoption untenable. Despite the application of prayer, and the best efforts of family, the agencies, police, doctors, and the parents’ hopeful hearts, circumstances make necessary the reversal of the adoption.

In these or similar situations (hypothetical or very real), what are people to say of prayer, which guided believers at every step? “The fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much,” the Bible assures us. What “much”? Obedience can never be regretted. Seeds are planted, lessons learned, and there are answers we do not see. Or see right away. Or ever see. But God works His ways.

Souls that grieve, especially after prayerful decisions seemingly gone wrong, benefit from a certain type of prayer. Above is the verse that speaks of “groanings” we do not verbalize but are carried to God by the Holy Spirit. Praying in the Spirit is as old as Pentecost after Christ’s Ascension; the invitation for us to communicate with God by praying in tongues, the Bible’s “prayer language.”

But however communicated, the prayer line that was valid during your hope-filled crisis is just as valid afterward. The peace you sought is still waiting for you. God has the same “ears” to listen, and you have the same heart to receive. He is whispering this to you.
When the righteous cry for help, the Lord hears and delivers them out of all their troubles. (Psalm 34:17)

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Through prayer, and in prayer, because of prayer, we realize that the God of the mountain is still God in the valley. At a recent Isaacs Family concert at the First Baptist Church of Kearney, Missouri, they spotted Lynda Randle (sister of Michael Tait of dc talk and Newsboys) in the audience. She was persuaded to sing her signature song.

Click: God On the Mountain

1-7-13

Giants of faith do not always act like giants – usually they don’t, not showy – and sometimes don’t look like giants. Pete was a guy in a Saturday morning Bible study, a men’s group I belonged to a couple decades ago in suburban Connecticut. There was not one, but two astonishing aspects of faith he quietly manifested, that have stuck with me through the years.

The group was a mixed lot, as such gatherings probably should be. We had a vice president of a major international corporation. We had a “new Christian” who, bless his heart, in spiritual fervor responded to every comment with “Y’see…” believing he had been graced with all answers to all things. Some of us were hungry for the Word; some felt the need to be hungry all over again.

Pete was the quietest of us all. He was not nervous, nor was he shy. He was just quiet. Short guy, kind of a leprechaun beard. But when he did talk, his faith – the logic of his faith – was memorable.

Once we all shared the moment we came to faith – the new faith, or stronger belief, or committed Christianity, that born-again folks experience. With some of us it had been a gradual process, although the season in our lives, or the year, could be specified. With many there was a “road to Damascus” moment: a crisis, the death of a family member, a career predicament, serious illness, that leads people to look toward Heaven for help, answers, ultimately that new relationship with God.

Pete’s conversion came as no other I have ever heard. At an earlier point in his life everything was “going right.” Unexpected promotions in his job, a windfall salary, affirmation of his professional community, family harmony. He said, one day he stopped to wonder about all his good fortune. “It must be God,” he thought, “who the Bible calls the Author of all good things.” And he decided then, in gratitude and with the light of realization, to dedicate himself to a closer walk with Jesus.

This is NOT the usual path of committed Christians. It should be. It is not.

I have another astonishing memory of Pete. During the course of our Bible studies, things “went south” for him. He lost his job, he had family problems, he was in danger of losing his house, and a passel of other distress. Every week would be grimmer reports as we prayed for him. He set up interviews aplenty, and we prayed with him over every one. And even the “sure shots” came back as disappointments. I would say that many of us wept with him… except that Pete never wept.

He was disappointed, yes; but not discouraged. The high-powered commuter’s enclave outside New York City was more of a pressure-cooker than the average area, and his problems seemed magnified. However, after a while, when he received another rejection letter, or was passed over for a job, we would ask him about discouragement.

Time after time he responded: “No, actually, I feel blessed.” Huh? He said that for a few days there, or a week, whatever, while he waited to hear about a job application, he was able “to experience feelings of hope – and that hope was so sweet, just what I needed in those moments.”

Pete savored the hope, he dismissed the disappointment. That seemed to me supernatural. Our natural spirits do not work that way.

Our natural spirits, even after we come to that level of closer fellowship with God, too often persuade us that we have achieved the level where our faith is sufficient in all situations; that we cannot admit to spiritual inadequacies. Faith IS sufficient, but not always OUR faith. If it were not so, the Holy Spirit would not be the agent of “Gifts of Faith” as promised in I Corinthians. Obviously, the Lord knows that sometimes we need those gifts, and extra spiritual supplies – “I believe; help Thou my unbelief.” God knows all. We should, therefore, admit all.

There is a gospel song, a contemporary classic, that paints this very well. It illustrates Pete’s ability to summon a faith few of us do:

You talk of faith when you’re up on the mountain,
But the talk comes so easy when life’s at its best.

It’s down in the valley of trials and temptations,

That’s where faith is really put to the test.

And, forgive me, but the writer in me wants to point out the songwriter Tracy Dartt’s inspired use of prepositions in the chorus of “God On the Mountain”:

For the God on the mountain is still God in the valley!

When things go wrong, He’ll make them right.

And the God of the good times is still God in the bad times,

And the God of the day is still God in the night.

The lesson of the careful wording is this: all of us, even in darkest moments, will acknowledge that God is God of mountaintops and valleys, good times and bad times – I almost want to say, yada yada. God is God. But this song’s words make a distinction that is exceedingly reassuring during crises: He is God ON the mountain, but we need to embrace the truth that he is also God IN the valley. That is, He is with us.

He is God OF the good times. Many churches these days have replaced the creeds and traditional prayers with the mantra: “God is good – all the time! All the time – God is good!” Which is fine, but this song reminds us of the other side of that spiritual coin: He is not only God OF the good times, but IN the bad times.

Faith, among other things, is acting like you know what you know. Have faith. The faith of a mustard seed, even the faith of Pete, might do you just fine.

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Songwriter Tracy Dartt brought us the classic “God On the Mountain.” A little over a year ago, he walked through his own valleys as he needed a kidney transplant, which came in God’s timing and providence. This song – performed here by the great Lynda Randle, whose brother Michael Tait has been a member of both DC Talk and Newsboys – has touched thousands of people .

Click: God On the Mountain