Before You Walk Away

But he did not answer her a word . . . (Matt. 15:23).

My crisis of faith, if you can call it that, was a quiet one. An inward and well-behaved rebellion.

I am the son of a Baptist preacher. Better said, I am the son of a Baptist preacher-evangelist. He began preaching early in his life, learning his craft in tent revivals. Even as a pastor in carpeted sanctuaries the evangelist was present. He preached to call people to decision, to bring people to Jesus.

I heard such sermons of his from the first weeks of my life. Early in my eighth year, the call to

decision came to me in a direct and compelling kind of way. Not long after, my Dad placed one strong hand on my back and gently held a handkerchief over my face as he lowered me into the waters of baptism. “Buried with him in his death . . . raised to walk in newness of life.”

My crisis of faith had to do with that newness of life part. About ten years or so after my baptism, that newness of life didn’t feel so new. I wasn’t sure if such a thing had ever been true of me at all.

A Nagging Suspicion

A nagging suspicion was growing in the shadowed corners of my heart and mind. I knew the story of Jesus like I knew the freckles on my arms. I knew the church world just as well. And as I grew a bit bored with all of these familiarities it occurred to me that the only reason any of it meant anything to me at all was simply an accident of birth.

My first birth, landing me in a Baptist parsonage, had shaped my life far more than the new birth and the newness of life that I stepped into when I walked out of the baptistery. That’s what I thought. I had real questions as to whether I was or ever had been a Christian at all. Such was the quiet crisis of faith.

There’s no space to tell about what came after that. That was more than 30 years ago. I’m still hanging around the church, teaching, writing stuff like this, being a pastor. I love it. Let’s just say that by the grace of God I muddled through.

But I’m convinced that there’s nothing special or unique about my story. I’m equally convinced that there are plenty of others who don’t muddle through.

Hold Your Ground

Plenty of people grow up in a church with devout parents. They go to Sunday school and VBS. They do the youth group thing complete with summer camps and spiritual mountain top moments. And then something happens.

Maybe they just go to college. Maybe they take a class in Bible from someone with a Ph.D in religion but little regard for faith. Or maybe it’s more serious than that. They get into the world. They lose a job or can’t find one to begin with. Their marriage ends badly. They get sick. Still worse, their child gets sick.                        

Whatever it is, the Sunday school faith of cute songs and crayons proves inadequate. The faith of their childhood looks childish. They may not despise it, but they drop it. They walk away.

A woman came to Jesus with a sick daughter. She came pleading for mercy, pleading for her child. And Jesus was silent. He didn’t answer. He didn’t act. He did nothing to encourage her. In fact, he made things difficult. And she stayed. She held her ground. She pressed her case.

The silence of Jesus is often an invitation, an invitation to discover more of who he is and what he is like, an invitation to more grace or possibly a miracle. Why not trade your childhood faith for a mature resolve to follow Jesus?

Stay put. Press your case. Hold your ground. Don’t walk away.

Prayer:

For the very first gift of your grace that drew us close to you, O God, we give you thanks. For those through whom it came to us, we praise you. Now grant us grace to persevere, to grow to maturity, to hold our ground in your silences trusting that you will our good. We ask this in Jesus’s name. Amen. 

Found and Known

After this there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem (John 5:1).

When I was a child Easter meant something other than ‘new life.’ Easter meant ‘new clothes.’

For whatever reason, the week or days before Easter was a time for my mom to take us shopping for clothes, church clothes to be precise. The shopping expedition for school clothes came at the end of summer. Easter was the season for worship-wear, stiff and scratchy fabrics and sometimes hard-soled boring shoes.

I guess this was one way I knew that Easter was a big deal. “He is risen . . . and I have a new suit.”

What a Depressing Place

Easter Sunday may the closest thing we have to what John calls “a feast of the Jews.” On Easter Sunday the crowds swell, the parking lot is full, the music is big, there’s a special offering, and after the worship there is feasting with family.

So it was with feast days in Jerusalem. The population of the city exploded with pilgrims who had come for worship and celebration. Special offerings and sacrifices were made. And there was food. Food and family.

In John 5 we are told that Jesus had gone up to Jerusalem for a feast of the Jews. What is missing here is any mention of exactly which feast it was. Leviticus 23 designates the feasts which Israel was to observe, but John shows no interest in telling us which of these was being celebrated in Jerusalem when Jesus went to the pool of Bethesda. From the time of the Church Fathers opinions have ranged from Pentecost to Purim to Passover. Calvin explores the options in his commentary on John and then concludes “I will not dispute the matter.” I’ll go with Calvin on this one.

What John is very clear about is the pool: it is located near the sheep gate; in Aramaic it is called ‘Bethesda.’ John provides architectural detail in mentioning the five roofed colonnades. And he tells us about the people who gathered there. This was where ‘a multitude of invalids’ congregated – blind, lame, paralyzed. What a depressing and disgusting place.

And yet, in the midst of this city, pulsating with crowds and the sounds and rhythms of worship and celebration, this is where Jesus went.

Will We Do the Same?

In our church we have no special seating section for the broken among us. There’s no pew, no balcony, marked ‘invalids.’ But every week, in each and every gathering, they are among us.

Indeed, there really are no entirely whole and put-together people in any worship gathering. We all bring something that’s injured, something that isn’t working right, something that hurts.

But in our gatherings – at Easter and Christmas and any ordinary Sunday – we do a good job of concealing those wounds. We do it with clothes and smiles. We do it with quiet anonymity in a large crowd of worshipers.

What we conceal, Jesus sees. In the midst of the ‘feast,’ the throng of people and the sounds of worship and celebration, Jesus finds his way to the ones who aren’t celebrating.

The question is whether we will do the same. That might be hard, not unlike playing “Where’s Waldo,’ looking for someone who wants to be made well. And it also means that we ourselves have experienced the grace that Jesus gives.

Walking with Jesus will take us to the pool where broken multitudes spend their days. For those who have been found and known and made well, there’s just no getting around it.

Prayer:

In our worst moments, O God, you find us. You know who we are and you seek us out, offering us grace and wholeness. Grant that we would walk with you this day in the same way, seeking those whom you are seeking through Christ our Lord. Amen.

What Will Make Us Well?

“Sir, I have no one to put me in the pool when the water is stirred up . . .” (John 5:7).

When my kids were small they couldn’t get enough of the pool.

We were there all the time. I would get home from work and the begging would begin and off we’d go. Weather was irrelevant. What felt to me like cloudy and cool in late spring was still good pool weather as far as my kids were concerned. They didn’t think twice about plunging in even if the frigid water made their teeth chatter.

No more. My kids enjoy the pool often enough these days, but now it’s a social thing. It’s all about who’s going to be there. No friends, no pool. And showing up with Dad is not cool. I spend far less time pool-side these days.

But like the man by the pool of Bethesda, I know what it is to sit by the pool waiting on something to happen that will make me well. 

The Not-Valid Ones

This week we’ll walk with Jesus to Jerusalem, to the pool of Bethesda. In John’s story the pool was a gathering place for all kinds of afflicted people. The ESV Bible says that the place was occupied by a “multitude of invalids.”

That particular English word suggests something more than ‘sick’ or ‘crippled.’ They were the not-valid ones – and this is a widespread illness, even now. Far too many people live with a sense of being ‘not valid,’ and they are waiting for something to validate them – something that will say they matter, they are worthy.    

John tells us that when the waters of the pool were stirred or agitated, the first person to get into the pool would be healed. There is a tradition that says an angel would come and stir the waters. Some scholars have suggested that underground springs caused the bubbling effect. Either way, people believed that healing was in the pool. The afflicted who gathered there waited and hoped, yearning for the wholeness that could come from those waters.

Nothing Else Needed

In this sense, we all know what it is to sit by the pool. Some of us have been there longer than others. The pool is whatever we’re waiting on that will validate us. The pool is whatever we are looking to for a sense of wholeness. The pool, we believe, will make everything OK.

That pool might be a new job or a new house. It might be a promotion or a deal that closes. Sometimes the pool is a husband or wife . . .  or perhaps a different husband or wife. For many the pool is a big break or a sought after breakthrough, a final payment or the last treatment.

In John’s story Jesus shows up and basically says, “Forget about the pool.” He ignores it – the bubbling water and the race to get there first – all of it. Wholeness is found in Jesus. He doesn’t come to help anyone get to the pool. He brings healing directly to us and he does it by speaking. The presence of Jesus is powerful and he grants healing by his word. Jesus doesn’t show to give us some help in getting to what will make us well. He is sufficient for our healing, nothing else needed.        

But first, a question: “Do you want to be well?” That question sits silently behind all of our reflections this week. Today let’s focus on this: Where is your ‘pool?’ And how long will you sit there?

Prayer:

We have spent far too much time, O God, sitting by ‘pools’ that we believed would make us well. Find us in those places, we pray, and make us whole by the power of your word and the gift of your presence in our lives. Call our attention away from what cannot heal. Turn our eyes toward your Son, in whose name we pray. Amen.

Our Heavy Steps

That very day two of them were going to a village named Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem . . . Jesus himself drew near and went with them (Luke 24:13-15).

 

No one knows for sure where Emmaus is.

You could catch a plane this afternoon and fly to Tel-Aviv, rent a car and make the short drive to Jerusalem, but that’s about as close as you’d get to Emmaus. Luke tells us that this village was about seven miles from Jerusalem, but he didn’t see fit to provide us with anything we could search for on a GPS. Scholars have offered some possibilities in their studied attempts to identify Emmaus. But guesses are the best we can do.

We don’t know where Emmaus is, and yet we’ve been there. Emmaus is the direction our lives take when we live our days disappointed and let down. Emmaus is where we go when hope is fragile or abandoned altogether.

The Emmaus road is marked by footprints pressed deep in the dirt. It is the way of the heavy step.

 

A Familiar and Forlorn Way

You may be walking the Emmaus road today. Obviously, that’s not meant as a geographical statement. The roads you’ll be on today may be the same roads that you’re on every day – getting to work or to the grocery store or to the carpool line. You’ve know those roads well.

But today you traverse those roads with a heavy step. You’re carrying with you the weight of disappointment. Hopes and expectations that just days ago were on the threshold of becoming reality have vanished, for whatever reason. In their place are confusion, questions, despondency. And so you travel familiar roads that now seem strange.

That’s what Luke describes for us when he tells about Cleopas and another unnamed follower of Jesus making their way back to Emmaus soon after the crucifixion of Jesus. They had gone to Jerusalem to celebrate the story of God’s deliverance. They had gone their anticipating that a new deliverance was in the works and that Jesus would be the one to accomplish it.

None of that happened. The celebrations went south. Jesus was executed. “We had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel” (24:21). Those hopes were now trashed. Time to go back to Emmaus. They walked a well-known road, this time with a heavy step and forlorn faces.

And then Jesus drew near and walked with them.         

 

What Might Have Been

Our disappointments have a way of clouding our vision. The more frequent they are, thickening like a cataract on the soul, the harder it is for us to see that Jesus is walking with us.

This seems especially so when our hopes are closely connected to what we believe about God and God’s ways with us. Maybe there’s something you’ve prayed about for a long time. Maybe there’s someone you’ve prayed for year after year. And maybe, for some reason, you’re hope is gone. Your prayers now seem wasted, even foolish.       

In Mark 5 a man named Jairus begged Jesus to come and heal his little girl. Jesus agreed to go with him – but on the way there two servants intercepted them and broke the news to Jairus. Your daughter is dead. And then they added this line: “Why bother the teacher any further?” (Mk. 5:35)

But Jesus invited Jairus to finish the walk. To stay with him. No doubt, Jairus walked with a heavy step – but at the end of that walk he saw a miracle. On the Emmaus road two disciples walked with heavy steps, not knowing who walked with them. At the end of that walk their eyes were opened.

And you - when your way is weighed-down, heavy with regrets or hurts over what might have been, you do not walk alone. Jesus draws near and walks with you.

Don’t let your disappointments define your journey today. 

 

Prayer:

Give your grace, O God, to all who walk in a fog of despondency today. Sustain them in the heaviness of their walk. And give them eyes to see again the reality of resurrection, we ask in Jesus’s name. Amen.

Mind the Gap

But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves (James 1:22).

 

If you’ve ever been to London you know what this means: Mind the Gap.

The phrase strikes me as uniquely British, probably because that’s the only place I’ve ever seen or heard it. Our closest equivalent may be the far less interesting ‘watch your step.’ Brits may be just as bored or unfazed by ‘mind the gap.’ But there’s something about the way British people speak. It’s more than the accent; it’s the distinctive turn of phrase that to someone like me is perfectly intelligible yet entirely unfamiliar and strange.    

My family recently spent a few days in London. The underground rail system or ‘tube’ is where you are most likely to be told to mind the gap. A voice announces it over a public address system. The words are painted on the concrete platform. The ‘gap’ is the space between the train and the platform. To ‘mind’ it simply means to pay attention.

To ignore the gap can be dangerous. And what’s true of London’s underground is true of your life.

 

The Big Idea

The central message, or ‘big idea,’ of the book of James could perhaps be summarized with the words ‘mind the gap.’ James sees how easily a gaps emerge between things that are claimed and professed and things that are actually lived and done. James has a pastoral heart, but he isn’t shy about being direct and confrontational as he writes.

James tells us to mind the gap between the way we treat those who are wealthy and well dressed, and those who look shabby, smell bad, and own nothing (2:1-4).

James tells us to mind the gap between the way we can use words to pray and praise God on Sunday, and then curse in traffic on Monday (3:9-12).        

James tells us to mind the gap between the way we attend classes and listen to teachers without ever allowing what we hear to change our lives (1:22-25). 

James tells us to mind the gap between our grand plans for the future and the tentative reality of our lives. We don’t know what will happen tomorrow (4:13-15).

 

Find the Gap

Our lives are full of gaps. There are things that don’t line up, places where there’s a disconnect between who we are or who we want to be, and the way we actually live from day to day. Some of these things are obvious and glaring. Others are quite subtle. Before we can mind the gap we might need to take a good look at our lives and find the gap.

We know the Christian message is good news, but we rarely share it. We cherish our families but we’re too often angry and irritable when we’re at home. We know God can do more than we can ask or imagine, but we never pray. We believe everything we have is a gift, but we cling to it as if we deserved or earned it. We claim that God is in control, but still we lay awake at night with worry.

Gaps abound. But so does grace.

There’s a difference between minding the gap and mending the gap. Minding the gap is what you do. Mending the gap is what God does by the power of his Spirit graciously given to you. Maybe you mind the gap by finding the gap, and then asking God to help you with it.

What gaps do you need to mind today?

Prayer:

Only you, O God, can truly make us whole and mend the broken places in our life. Make us mindful of the ways in which our living and believing don’t line up. By your grace, help us to live with integrity, doing what we hear, acting on the truths we know. We ask this in Jesus’s name. Amen.

Where the Storm Leads You

“The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord” (Job 1:21). 

 

You won’t find the phrase ‘spiritual warfare’ in the book of Job. But you see it in every chapter, start to finish.

 

The accuser, Satan, unleashed a quiver full of flaming arrows at Job. With one crushing loss after another Satan reduced Job to heap of grief and anguish. In English you’ll likely notice three verbs of lament as Job absorbs the reality of what has happened to him and his family: He tore his robes, he shaved head, he fell on the ground (1:20). He looks to us like a defeated man.

 

And then in the lowest moment of his life Job worshiped God. He blessed the name of the Lord.

 

How Is This Possible?

To bless the Lord’s name means to praise, to honor, to hold up as worthy. It has been said that God’s ‘name’ is his ‘fame’ and when we bless the name we extol God’s reputation. We affirm that God is good. That’s what Job did in his storm, in his loss and grief and confusion. He blessed the name of the Lord.     

 

This is stunning. How is it possible for anyone to really do that? How is it possible for you to do that?

 

The clue is in Job’s conviction that all of life – absolutely everything – comes by grace. The Lord gives as he wills and he gives freely. He is right and just in taking the same way. Something in us resists this. We may even resent it. That’s why we find it hard to bless the name.

 

If we trade grace for a life built on what we earn or what we deserve we’ll rarely bless the name. Every good thing that comes our way will be because we worked hard or did right. We earned it or deserve it. Hard working well-behaved people rarely bless the name. Too much self gets in the way.

 

But when we live by grace, life is different. It’s all a gift. We bless the name when we receive (thanksgiving) and we can bless the name when we lose the same (trust). 

 

When it’s All Said and Done

Of course Job had other things to say. He had questions and he voiced them. He was hurting and he cursed the day of his birth. He had friends who said things to him that he couldn’t accept and he pushed back. He wrangled with God in the storm. You can do that and still bless the name.

 

But when it was all said and done, Job worshiped God. The book of Job ends in worship. After all Job’s questions God has a few questions for Job. Those questions leave Job repentant, silent before God and the mystery of God’s ways. There is a sense in which the book of Job ends where it began. Job worships God.

 

As you reflect on the struggles and storms you’ve lived through, maybe you can cling to this basic truth: Storms come to us to lead us to worship.

 

Such a journey may not happen quickly or follow a straight line. We may have to wait a long time to see the connection between whatever storm we’ve lived through and the goodness of God in it. But if we’ll deal with God – in doubts and questions and cries for help – eventually we’ll come to a place of worship. Eugene Peterson is right in saying that “all prayer pursued far enough, becomes praise.”

 

“The Lord gives.” How has this been true in your life? Give God thanks for his gifts.

 

“And the Lord takes away.” Trust him with your storm.

 

“Blessed be the name of the Lord.” Every anguished prayer eventually becomes praise; the storm can lead you to worship. How will you bless His name today?

 

Prayer:

“Blessed Be Your Name

In the land that is plentiful

Where Your streams of abundance flow

Blessed be Your name

 

Blessed Be Your name

When I'm found in the desert place

Though I walk through the wilderness

Blessed Be Your name

 

Every blessing You pour out

I'll turn back to praise

When the darkness closes in, Lord

Still I will say

 

Blessed be the name of the Lord.” Amen

(Matt Redman, “Blessed be the Name”)

Uncle Screwtape

Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil (Ephesians 6:11).

 

In a letter to his brother dated 20 July 1940, C. S. Lewis shared the spark of an idea for a future book.

 

According to Lewis biographer Allister McGrath, the occasion for Lewis’s brainstorming was a dull sermon at Holy Trinity Church. Lewis explained the moment like this:    

Before the service was over—one could wish these things came more seasonably—I was struck by an idea for a book which I think might be both useful and entertaining. It would be called As One Devil to Another, and would consist of letters from an elderly retired devil to a young devil who has just started work on his first “patient.”

 

Fame and Scorn

The letters began to appear in a weekly church magazine called “The Guardian” in May

1941. They attracted the interest of a publisher and came out as The Screwtape Letters in February 1942.

 

Lewis said he “had never written anything more easily” and yet he also remarked later on that he was “never very fond” of the book – a statement that caused some consternation for his friend and colleague J.R.R. Tolkien, to whom the book was dedicated.

 

Most of us associate Lewis with Mere Christianity, a work that was not published until 1952. A decade earlier it was Screwtape that launched Lewis to fame in the United States - “a popularity for which he was ill prepared,” according to McGrath.

 

In 1943 Oliver Chase Quick (Regius Professor of  Divinity, Oxford) wrote a letter to William Temple, Archbishop of Canterbury, urging that Lewis be recognized by being awarded an Oxford Doctorate of Divinity. At the same time, oddly enough, Screwtape was earning Lewis scorn among the academic fraternity at Oxford. They regarded Screwtape as a lightweight piece of Christian writing identified openly with a teaching fellow of Magdalen College.

 

In some ways this grievous sin, repeated with other popular writings that followed, stained Lewis’s entire tenure at Oxford. What was held in derision by the elites at Oxford remains a treasure among so many Christians. It is noteworthy that today we cannot name a single one of Lewis’s detractors, and the book they despised is still in print.  

 

True Then, True Now

Maybe one of the reasons Screwtape has endured is simply that it tells something we know to be true about our lives but usually fail to see. Blogger Andy Naselli took every chapter of the book and summarized the devil’s ‘scheme’ in one sentence. Here’s a sampling of Uncle Screwtape’s strategies:

• Make him disillusioned with the church by highlighting people he self-righteously thinks are strange or hypocritical.
• Don’t underestimate the power of ‘very small sins’ because the safest road to hell is a gradual one.
• Make him live in the future rather than the present.
• Keep him from any serious intent to pray.
• Annoy him with daily ‘pin-pricks’ from his mother.
• Encourage him to be a church-hopper.
• Defeat his courage and make him a coward.

Things haven’t changed much. What Lewis saw and imaginatively described in 1942 remains true of us today. Maybe one of the most interesting pieces of counsel is Screwrtape’s advice that Wormwood carefully guard the life of his patient so that he lives long and grows old. The Reason? “Because real worldliness takes time,” writes Screwtape.

 

This is a sobering insight. As long as we live we are engaged in spiritual warfare. Our adversary is relentless. So pay close attention to your life. How might Screwtape coach Wormwood if you were the ‘patient?’   

  

Prayer:

Merciful God, we are in continual need of your grace, making us aware of the schemes of our adversary. Since the enemy is relentless, give us your power that we might not grow weary or lazy in the struggles that erode our faith. Open our eyes to his ways and our hearts to your strength, we ask in Jesus’s name. Amen.

Schemes

Put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil (Eph. 6:11).

 

“Rommel . . . I read your book.”

 

So said George C. Scott playing the role of General George Patton in the 1970 academy award winning film Patton.  The historicity of the statement has been challenged and it may be that Francis Ford Coppola took some liberties with his script. However, in 1937 German Field Marshall Erwin Rommel did publish a work titled Infantry Attacks. A planned sequel on tank tactics was never completed.

 

In the movie, Patton’s units are engaged with Rommel’s forces. Patton stands viewing the battle through field-glasses. Out-maneuvering his opponent, Patton utters the movie’s oft-quoted line: “Rommel . . . I read your book.” The actual line is somewhat more colorful than that, but you get the idea.

 

Victory belongs not only to the well-equipped, but also to the well-studied.

 

The ‘Wiles’ of the Devil

In Ephesians 6:11 Paul states plainly his reason for urging his readers (us) to put on the whole armor of God. We are to equip ourselves for battle so that we “may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil.”

 

The word ‘schemes’ is a rendering of the Greek word methodia from which we obviously derive the English ‘method.’ The King James Version translates Ephesians 6:11 with the more devious word ‘wiles.’ The basic thought behind all of these words is craft and cunning. The devil works with deceit and trickery. A strong defense requires more than the right gear and the right weapons. We must understand with our minds how the enemy works.

 

To speak of the devils ‘wiles’ or ‘schemes’ assumes that our adversary works deliberately and with intent. We are inclined to think of evil as an abstraction. We treat it as a large and vague ‘force’ of some kind, drawing us or luring us away from what is good and right and true. This isn’t entirely wrong – but there’s more going on. Our adversary’s schemes are tailor-made. His attacks are not abstract, they are personal.

 

Maybe we need to know our own weaknesses if we want to stand against the devil’s wiles

 

Study Up

The details of how the devil’s schemes work on us will vary from person to person. But there are some common maneuvers that our enemy is fond of using, and they work effectively on most of us, even if in different ways. Paul urges us to stay alert (6:18). Here are a couple of things to watch for.

 

First, beware your own fatigue. When we are weary and worn out we are easily annoyed with other people. We have no patience. We are not disposed to grace. Also, in our fatigue we turn to other comforts, anything we lightly name a guilty pleasure. Some of these may be harmless, but many are not. And besides, we find our comfort in something other than God. The ‘wiley’ one wins.  

 

Also, stay on top of your own busyness and distraction. Busyness and distraction keep us from prayer and dull our interest in God’s word. Paul names the word and prayer as our primary weapons, so to be busy and distracted means to be defenseless. The adversary will gladly tolerate a regular church-attender who lives a prayer-less life the other six days of the week.

 

Unlike Patton, we do not read the enemy’s book. We read God’s book to understand ourselves and the devil’s schemes. But there is a book by an imaginative Christian thinker that focused on the wiles of the devil. Tomorrow we’ll take a look at the Screwtape Letters.

 

For today, stay alert. How have you detected the adversary’s schemes in your life?

 

Prayer:

So often, Lord God, we dismiss the ‘wiles of the devil’ as silliness. Wake us up to the reality of our enemy and the malicious intent of his schemes. Make us wise, always alert to whatever pulls us from you. And give us strength to stand firm in the power of Christ, through whom we pray. Amen.

Equipped but Not Ready

Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day . . . (Eph. 6:13).

 

Being equipped and being ready are not the same thing.

How many sets of golf clubs are tucked away in the corner of a closet, acquired with enthusiasm and the best of intentions, now neglected because there’s just never enough time? How many tents and backpacks are up in the attic or shelved in the garage, still waiting for the hike of a lifetime that just never quite came together.

 

Buying clubs is one thing. Becoming a golfer is quite another. Being outfitted for the trail is one thing. Becoming an outdoorsman is quite another. And yet, how can we ever become what we aspire to be unless we are equipped?

 

The Drum Kit

For me it was a set of drums. I was in the eighth grade. A couple of years earlier I had decided to give band a try, having never really found my place in the world of sports. My instrument of choice: a snare drum. As it happened, I enjoyed hitting a drum. I decided I would probably enjoy hitting an entire assemblage of drums.

 

This was the era of Paul McCartney and Wings, and Bachman-Turner Overdrive. Those drummers sounded very cool. Of course, to play like that would require a drum kit. The solitary snare just wouldn’t do. And so, for my birthday my parents presented me with my first set of drums. I was equipped. But I was no drummer, at least not yet.

 

I had no idea what to do with multiple drums. I was awkward and stiff. What’s more, I had no context for actually using a drum set. I put the drums in my room, listened to the radio and tried to mimic what I heard. Years would pass before I played with enough competence to accompany other musicians.

 

Desert Road

The difference between being equipped and being ready shows up in the Bible in the book of Exodus. After ten plagues that display God’s power, Pharaoh relents and allows Moses to lead the people of Israel out of Egypt. Exodus 13 tells the story this way.

 

When Pharaoh let the people go, God did not lead them on the road through the Philistine country, though that was shorter. For God said, "If they face war, they might change their minds and return to Egypt." ¹⁸ So God led the people around by the desert road toward the Red Sea. The Israelites went up out of Egypt armed for battle. (Ex. 13:17-18)

 

There was a well-traveled trade route that would have taken the Israelites to their intended destination. It was the shortest, most obvious way to get from point ‘a’ to point ‘b’. But it traversed some dangerous territory. While the road seemed best, the way fraught with obstacles.

 

God did not lead the people in that direction. They would too soon face war and in the fight they would become fearful and discouraged and decide it was best to go back to Egypt. And yet we are told that “the Israelites went up out of Egypt armed for battle.”

 

They were armed, but not yet ready for the fight. It would take some time in the wilderness to get ready for what was ahead.

 

Test the Armor

The whole armor of God is available to you today, every piece of it. You are equipped. But there may be some battles for which you are not yet ready. God may have you in a difficult place, a wilderness place, but his purposes there are to train you for what Paul calls “the evil day.”

 

Spiritual Warfare sounds large, ominous and cataclysmic. And it can be. But there are small ways today that God may be getting you ready, preparing you for things you cannot see and may not expect.

 

Not every day is an “evil day” – but Paul tells us that such days will come. And when they come, God will give you what you need to stand firm.

 

So test the armor of God in the place where you are right now. Test it in seemingly small ways, knowing that God goes before you and behind you, always at work in barren and hard places to get you ready for what lies ahead.        

 

Prayer:

Merciful God, use whatever this day brings to build our faith, to teach us to trust, to move us to prayer. And in all things prepare us for the time when we will need to stand firm in struggles we do not yet see. We will follow you faithfully as you lead us, through Jesus our Lord, in whose name we pray. Amen.

On the Mat

For we wrestle not against flesh and blood . . . (Eph. 6:12)

 

Throughout middle school and early High School I watched and cheered as my son participated in a sport that I didn’t understand. At all.

 

Wrestling is not for the faint of heart, neither the student competitors nor their parents. For one thing a wrestler steps onto a mat alone. Yes, there’s a team, guys wearing the same colors from the same school. But when it’s really time to play there is no team. Just a wrestler and his opponent. When one of those happens to be your kid you can feel something happening inside your skin. Your stomach knots up and maybe your temples throb. This could go on for minutes. It could be over in seconds.

 

Another factor that makes wrestling tough on the average parent spectator who never donned a singlet is simply the scoring. Crossing a goal line or throwing a ball through a basket are easily grasped ways of winning. With wrestling, things are not quite as clear. Beyond basics such as a ‘take-down,’ ‘reversal,’ and ‘pin’ I never really understood what was going on. The competitors looked like a tangled writhing mess. Over time I came to understand that there was much more going on than my untrained eye could sort out.          

 

Done right, every move on the mat is designed to seize an advantage and exploit a weakness.

 

Mixing Metaphors

Paul’s coaching in Ephesians 6 is designed to encourage us to fight spiritual battles. Paul wants us to understand that these battles are real and the opponent we face is deliberate in his tactics. His every move is calculated to seize an advantage over you and exploit your weaknesses.

 

In the course of his admonition Paul mixes his metaphors. Most of his language is militaristic. He tells us to put on armor. He speaks of shields and breastplates and swords and helmets. We might say that he spends most of his time talking to us about our gear and our weapons.

 

But at verse 12 Paul switches to a different word picture, mixing his metaphors to make sure we know what we’re getting into. The NIV Bible gives a rather weak translation with “our struggle is not against flesh and blood.” A better rendering is found in the ESV’s “we wrestle not against flesh and blood.”

 

Paul uses a Greek word from the world of athletics. He wants us to know that we are wrestling, grappling with our adversary in close combat. John Calvin’s commentary on Ephesians 6:12 includes a footnote that cites Plutarch’s explanation that

Wrestling was the most artful and subtle of the ancient games, and the name of it was derived from a word which means to throw a man down by deceit and craft. And it is certain that persons who understand this exercise have many fetches, and turns, and changes of posture which they make use of . . .  to trip up their adversary.  

 

In Your Face

As strange as wrestling may seem to the uninitiated spectator, a suit of Roman armor is even more alien to us. Thankfully Paul blended a picture from sport with his guiding image of a soldier. If nothing else, the truth that “we wrestle not against flesh and blood” tells us that this fight is close and that the opponent is deliberate in his moves.   

  

Don’t miss the implications of this. You are wrestling today, not flying a drone.

 

The fight is close up, even in your face. Spiritual battles are neither abstract nor distant. They don’t happen to someone else while you stand afar. And your adversary is working with the details of your life to get a hold of you, to immobilize you, to throw you down.

 

By God’s grace every move has a counter-move. You are not defenseless. Maybe you’ve never set foot on a mat. But you are a wrestler.

 

Where are the vulnerable places in your life? What will you do to engage the adversary?

 

Prayer:

Grant us wisdom, O God, to see and to know how our opponent moves against us. And make us ready to engage the fight, staying on our feet and standing firm by the gift of your mighty strength, through Jesus our Lord. Amen.

Things Unseen

For our struggle is not against flesh and blood . . . (Eph. 6:12)

 

Spiritual warfare. If we’re honest we might admit that there’s something about the phrase that we don’t like.

 

Maybe it’s the word ‘warfare.’ These days anything that blends religion with war talk offends our sensibilities. That’s no surprise. We’re living in a day when the ravages of militant religion are regularly displayed on social media and cable news channels. People who mix faith and fighting are dangerous people. We want nothing to do it.

 

For generations they hymn Onward Christian Soldiers was sung with gusto in American churches. In recent years that hymn has fallen from favor, the militarism prompting its removal from a number of hymnals. The hymn was written in 1864 specifically for use as a processional for a children’s Sunday school program in Yorkshire, England. But marching children conjured pictures of Hitler Youth. We have little interest now in teaching children to march. Farewell beloved hymn.

 

Know Your Enemy

We’ll have plenty of opportunity to talk about ‘warfare’ in the days ahead. For today, instead of jumping straight to the noun ‘warfare,’ we’re going to linger with the adjective ‘spiritual.’ We are thinking these days about a particular kind of conflict. If we don’t understand this, if we fail to grasp the nature of the fight, then there won’t be a fight at all. We’ve lost right from the start.

 

In his letter to the Ephesians Paul is very clear as to the nature of what we’re up against.

For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms (Eph. 6:12).

 

We don’t have time here to sort out all the language of that verse, but don’t miss the opening phrase. We are not fighting flesh and blood. The most formidable enemy of your faith is not a human enemy – neither your boss nor your ex, neither Hollywood nor the media, neither Republicans nor Democrats.

 

John Calvin commented on the text by saying “Let us remember this when the injurious treatment of others provokes us to revenge. Our natural disposition would lead us to direct all our exertions against the men themselves; but . . . the men who annoy us are nothing more than darts thrown by the hand of Satan.” 

 

Game Over

One of the most insidious things about spiritual warfare is that the fight often comes to us in familiar and plain wrapping. We fail to identify the enemy. We live blind to the spiritual nature of the conflicts that eat us alive. We live our days angry about politics, worried about our children or about money, guilt-ridden with past failures.

 

Having failed to see the enemy, we lose the fight. We don’t know joy. We forfeit our peace. We carry shame. Game over. 

 

C. S. Lewis said that one of the devil’s most effective strategies is simply getting us not to believe that he exists at all. American Christians are particularly vulnerable to this strategy. So early on, get honest about this: Do you know the nature of the fight you’re in as you seek to live a life of faith? There are unseen realities around you, what Paul called “spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” Do you believe this?

 

As you look at this day, what are you up against? What do you see – and what might be unseen in the struggles you’re facing?

 

Prayer:

Gracious God, help us to see beyond the obvious in the things that confront us and threaten us today. Keep us from living fearful and angry lives and make us equal to the struggle that threatens our walk with you and out witness in the world, we ask in Jesus’s name. Amen. 

You Have an Adversary

Put on the full armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil (Ephesians 6:11).   

 

Pastor Erwin McManus, in a sermon titled Seizing Your Divine Moment, shares the following story about his son Aaron.

One summer Aaron went to a youth camp. He was just a little guy and I was kind of glad because it was a church camp. I figured he wasn’t going to hear all those ghost stories, because ghost stories can really cause a kid to have nightmares. But unfortunately, since it was a Christian camp and they don’t tell ghost stories . . . they told demon and Satan stories instead. And so when Aaron got home he was terrified.

 “Dad, don’t turn off the light!” he said before going to bed. “Daddy, could you stay here with me? Daddy, I’m afraid. They told all these stories about demons . . . “Daddy, Daddy, would you pray for me that I would be safe?”

I could feel it. I could feel warm-blanket Christianity beginning to wrap around him, a life of safety, safety, safety. I said, “Aaron, I will not pray for you to be safe. I will pray that God will make you dangerous, so dangerous that demons will flee when you enter the room.”

And he goes, “All right. But pray I would be really, really dangerous, Daddy.”

Spiritual ‘Snuggie’

I know too well the lure of “warm-blanket Christianity.” The phrase reminds me of those TV commercials for something called a “Snuggie” – basically a blanket with sleeves so you can literally slip it on and wear it around your house.

 

When we slip on our spiritual “Snuggie” our prayers become a means of increasing our comforts. We want good health for ourselves and those we love; we want adequate income and meaningful friendships; we want to be shielded from what can harm us; we want the American dream and everything that comes with it, and we appeal to God to help us attain it.

 

Such prayers are not intentionally greedy or fearful. After all, a much-loved Psalm tells us that the Lord, our good shepherd, will lead us to green pastures and still waters. His rod and staff will comfort us (Psalm 23:1-4).  

 

Prayers that seek solace are not bad prayers. But neither are they complete. God wants to make us dangerous and not merely safe. God promises to give us courage, not just comfort. God will fill us with his power in addition to his peace.

 

Clever and Relentless

1 Peter 5:8 tells us that we have an enemy. There is a personal presence at work in the world, actively seeking to diminish and ultimately destroy your faith in God and your life as a follower of Jesus. Peter likens this adversary to a lion, prowling and hungry, eager to devour you.

 

For the next three weeks we’re going to be thinking about “spiritual warfare” – what is it, how do we know we’re in it, and how do we engage it rather than hide from it. This topic may be a familiar one to some of you. Others of you may come from traditions that regard such matters as belonging to the pew-jumpers and Bible-thumpers.

 

Regardless of what you call it, this is true of every person who seeks to live a life of faith: you have an adversary. This adversary is clever and relentless. And the point of struggle or conflict that occupies your thoughts today has a spiritual dimension – whether you know it or not.   

 

What will it mean for you to put on the full armor of God and to ready yourself for a fight? How will you seek something more than safety, living dangerously as you follow Jesus through this day?

 

Prayer:

Too often, O God, I ask for what will make me comfortable and keep me safe. Today I’m asking you to make me dangerous – a threat to the presence of evil in this world and the brokenness it brings about. Use me today as means of blessing. Empower me to carry your light into places that are dark. Make me bold to live as one called to engage the adversary, and give me what I need for the fight, I pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.