Solid Fear

For some time now I’ve been digesting this verse:

The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom;  A good understanding have all those who do His commandments.  His praise endures forever.  Psalm 111:10

I wrote it on the chalkboard in my kitchen about a month ago.  I like to do that when a verse sticks in my mind.  I put it up on the board and then my understanding starts to grow and the Lord brings things from all corners of my life to show me a little more of who He is and how His word applies to life.  This one little verse is a big one.  There are some people who don’t want to see God in this light.  They only want to focus on the loving and graceful God, not the fearsome God who has the power to cast into hell.    I think by glossing over the command to fear God, we are not acknowledging the truth of who He is or the truth of who we are in relation to Him.  This makes it really easy for us to go on with our lives arm and arm with our imagined BFF and never truly turn from our sin and turn to our holy God in repentance.  This weak, watery message also makes it an easy message to reject when our real human lives speak of something deeper, darker, and much more dangerous.

“We must continually focus and firmly place our faith in Jesus Christ— not a “prayer meeting” Jesus Christ, or a “book” Jesus Christ, but the New Testament Jesus Christ, who is God Incarnate, and who ought to strike us dead at His feet.”  Oswald Chambers, My Utmost For His Highest

This quote from O.C. is more like it.  Fear God?  Yes.  The real, pee your pants, lose your breath, dissolve into dust in the face of His pure light kind of fear!  But not the fear that leads to despair.  It’s the fear of a holy and good God.  The creator of the universe and the one that holds your very existence in His hand.   If we don’t acknowledge with fear our sinfulness and His pure holiness than the gospel has no power for us or for anyone else watching or listening to us.  In the “west” we don’t always understand a lot about the master/servant relationship, but this is the relationship of the believer to Christ.  We don’t come to Christ and decide we are going to be friends.  He extends Himself in friendship to us once we are properly related to Him.  He decides, not us.  He leads, we follow.  He speaks, we listen.  We assume a posture of supplication.  Flat on our faces.  It’s after His right hand reaches down to touch us that we are able to stand up.  If we can truly absorb this into our hearts, it is the beginning of wisdom.  Who could puff themselves up into a prideful, self-righteous state of mind?  Who could advocate for their right to their life the way they want it, if the fear of God is engraved on our hearts?   How can we not be moved to love and serve our fellow humans, who suffer from the same affliction of sin as we do?    If we are rooted down to the earth with fear of our Lord,  it is the firm foundation for every move the body of Christ makes.    

“Take a look at some of the things that cause despair. There is despair which has no delight, no limits whatsoever, and no hope of anything brighter. But the delight of despair comes when “I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells . . .” (Romans 7:18). I delight in knowing that there is something in me which must fall prostrate before God when He reveals Himself to me, and also in knowing that if I am ever to be raised up it must be by the hand of God. God can do nothing for me until I recognize the limits of what is humanly possible, allowing Him to do the impossible.”   Oswald Chambers, My Utmost For His Highest

This past Sunday, our Pastor talked about the summary of Ecclesiastes. 

Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter:
Fear God and keep His commandments, 
For this is man’s all.   Ecclesiastes 12:13

That was Solomon’s summary of all the wisdom and experience he had in his life.  The only thing that wasn’t vanity, fear God and obey Him.  This little book of Ecclesiastes is one of my favorites.  If you’re human and living in this world, this book is chock full of good healthy perspective. 

This message has the power to transform me.  I can see relationships and priorities shifting into more graceful patterns as I carry this verse around in my heart and mind.  When I am conscious of Him in this way, my natural strength goes out of me and the only strength available is from Him.  I can shut Him out and choose to muscle my way through situations and relationships, but I always come up short (ie. stressed, angry, arrogant, empty).   So…that’s what has been on my  mind lately.  I am going to try to lighten things up a bit here ( just a little bit) and post more regularly.  Do you like the pics?  Took them this morning.  The purpose in starting this blog was to document God’s Word as the foundation of my life.  My everyday, wonderful, challenging, grace-filling, imperfect life.   So, I hope to steer things back in that direction.  Hope you enjoy!

Hello dear readers…

I am well aware that I have been neglecting this space.  I am so grateful to those of you who keep checking in on me despite my neglect.  I’ve decided that I need to make this blog a little more personal (as in, sharing more about my whole life…not just my thought life!)  I’m still thinking about what exactly that’s going to look like.  So…bare with me!    More to come soon!

God Has A Color Scheme

 

I decided about a month ago that I needed to read the bible from cover to cover.  This was not a New Years resolution.  It was definitely a conviction.  I had a couple of conversations and then I heard a man talking on the radio about how he had no “system” for reading the bible, but simply opened the front cover and read it through to the end and then when he had finished, he did it again.  I have chosen books at random or done specific bible studies.  But I have yet to read from cover to cover this book I am building my life on.  That’s kind of nutty.  I can’t say exactly where I picked up this lax attitude toward bible reading, but I decided that it was a really hard book to read and that I shouldn’t overwhelm myself by trying to read it all at once.  What?  I read War and Peace when I was like, ten years old.  I like hard books.  I like big books.  I like books you read over and over and they just get better and better.  That is the bible.  Duh.  

So, I’m in Exodus and I’m getting into God giving His specs to Moses regarding the tabernacle.  I’m starting to get that whiny voice in my head complaining about how boring this all is and how I could maybe skip this part.  Then I remembered that guy on the radio and he said that he even was blessed by the genealogies.  So, I asked the Lord to meet me where I was at and we kept at it. 

Well, He turned the whole thing around for me.  Before I knew it, I was totally into it.  Now, give me a little grace here…I told you He met me where I was at.  I know there is deep and meaningful symbolism in every aspect of the tabernacle.  I know the floor plan is the gospel message and I love that my God is so amazingly consistent, even as an architect.  That to one side, I started to see Him as the designer, talking with Moses (face to face, as a man talks with his friend) and explaining His vision for His dwelling place on earth.  He picked out all the materials specifically.  He dictated proportion and scale.  He had a color scheme!  God chose gold, blue, purple, and scarlet as His color scheme.  I can’t explain exactly how this has brought us closer, but it has.   There are moments when the walls of religiosity crumble just a little bit more.  This was one of those moments.  My God has an amazing personality and He has favorite colors.

There were a few other things that stood out to me.  I loved that there were aspects of the design that had to be just a certain way (for His good reasons), but there were parts that He delegated to skilled artisans.  Specific designs He left up to the discretion of people skilled in making beautiful things.  The other thing that I loved was that He didn’t spell out His purpose.  He didn’t spill the beans on what exactly His glorious plan was, even as it was hidden in the very design of the tabernacle. 

He is the master of mystery.

So that is how I’m going to do it…all the way through Leviticus to the very end! 

Exodus 25

 ¹ The LORD said to Moses, ² “Tell the Israelites to bring me an offering. You are to receive the offering for me from everyone whose heart prompts them to give. ³ These are the offerings you are to receive from them: gold, silver and bronze; ⁴ blue, purple and scarlet yarn and fine linen; goat hair; ⁵ ram skins dyed red and another type of durable leather^[a]; acacia wood; ⁶ olive oil for the light; spices for the anointing oil and for the fragrant incense; ⁷ and onyx stones and other gems to be mounted on the ephod and breastpiece.

 ⁸ “Then have them make a sanctuary for me, and I will dwell among them. ⁹ Make this tabernacle and all its furnishings exactly like the pattern I will show you.