Notes of Faith May 22, 2022

Article by Tom Steller
Tom Steller is serving through Training Leaders International as the Director of Theological Education in Cameroon.

In 1987, a sequence of thought from one of the shortest books of the Bible grabbed hold of me and never let me go. Bethlehem Baptist Church was in its fourth year of missions renewal when a veteran missionary serving in Mexico said to me in passing, “There is a big difference between a church that has missionaries and a church that sends missionaries.” As a young missions pastor, I drank this comment in, wanting to know more. A short time later, I read in my New American Standard Bible,

You will do well to send them on their way in a manner worthy of God. For they went out for the sake of the Name, accepting nothing from the Gentiles. Therefore we ought to support such men, that we may be fellow workers with the truth. (3 John 6–8 NASB)

On my fortieth anniversary as a pastor at Bethlehem, on August 1, 2020, Pastor John Piper prayed the commissioning prayer as my wife, Julie, and I joined the ranks of the “goers.” After helping to send some of the dearest people I know to some of the most remote places on earth, I am now one of the church’s “sent ones,” training current and future pastors in Cameroon to be both goers and senders in the greatest cause of the universe. I have been a happy sender, and now am a happy goer, backed up by a church who has sent me in a manner worthy of God.

The main point of the passage in 3 John relates to this ministry of sending. You can see it in verse 6: “You will do well to send them on their way in a manner worthy of God.” I see three important aspects of sending in this passage: (1) the value of sending, (2) the mandate of sending, and (3) the manner of sending.

Value of Sending

Sending missionaries must be valuable, because look at how happy it makes the apostle John. Some missionaries from John’s church, it seems, had visited Gaius’s church and told him of their work (3 John 7). The missionaries then returned to John’s church and testified in front of the whole congregation of Gaius’s love for them (vv. 3, 5). When John hears this testimony, a big smile fills his old-crinkled apostolic face, and he writes to Gaius. Listen to the joy and warmth of the first four verses of this neglected letter:

The elder to the beloved Gaius, whom I love in truth. Beloved, I pray that in all respects you may prosper and be in good health, just as your soul prospers. For I was very glad when brethren came and bore witness to your truth, that is, how you are walking in truth. I have no greater joy than this, to hear of my children walking in the truth. (3 John 1–4 NASB)

According to verse 2, perhaps Gaius was not doing well health-wise, and perhaps his business was struggling — and so John feels the need to pray for these matters. But Gaius’s love for the missionaries assures John that his soul was prospering. The prospering soul is the soul that is walking in the truth (v. 3) or working together with the truth (v. 8). In other words, he’s not living a fantasy; he’s not living “the American Dream.” He is living in a way that fits with ultimate reality, where God is at the center.

The value of sending can also be seen in the phrase “you will do well to send them” (v. 6). The word for well carries with it the sense of beauty. It is beautiful to wash the feet of those who go out for the sake of the Name. If the feet of those who carry the gospel are considered lovely by God (Isaiah 52:7), it should be no surprise that God views the people who wash those lovely feet as doing something beautiful.

“It is beautiful to wash the feet of those who go out for the sake of the Name.”

Finally, notice in verse 8 that in God’s eyes there is no hierarchy of value, with the missionary on top and those who send playing second fiddle. In verse 8, we read that both the goers and the senders are “fellow workers with the truth.” Both are equally valuable before God, the lives of both equally significant in God’s opinion — which is the only opinion that matters. The most important thing is to let our lives be consumed with seeking the kingdom first. Whether we seek his kingdom in Cameroon or Myanmar, or where we currently live, is a secondary issue. But if God does lead you to stay where you are, your soul will prosper as it ought only if you are involved in sending others to the mission field.

Mandate of Sending

God commands us to be senders, to be actively engaged in helping missionaries get to the field and stay on the field. It is not optional. We can see this in verse 8: “Therefore we ought to support such men.” Since they go out for the sake of the Name, and since they don’t sell the gospel for money, therefore we ought to support them.

Sending missionaries is one of the oughts and shoulds of the Bible. Our all-knowing and all-loving Christ knows that our souls will prosper as they should only as we look beyond our own immediate interests and lift up our eyes to God’s global purpose.

“The most exhilarating experience in life is to be a fellow worker with God in making his name known.”

One of the most exhilarating experiences in life is to be a fellow worker with God in making his name known, both in our own neighborhoods and among the unreached people groups of the world. God commands only what is good for us, so it’s no wonder he commands us to be senders.

Manner of Sending

Now, what does it mean to send a missionary? How is it done? I want to get practical here, but first I want us to look at the logic and the content of verses 6–8.

You will do well to send them on their way in a manner worthy of God. For they went out for the sake of the Name, accepting nothing from the Gentiles. Therefore we ought to support such men, that we may be fellow workers with the truth.

John exalts the importance of how we send as high as can be imagined. We are to send “in a manner worthy of God.” And why should we send missionaries in a manner worthy of God? Notice the logic: “For they went out for the sake of the Name. . . . Therefore we ought to support such men.” Verse 7 is the best definition of missionary that I am aware of in the Bible. A missionary is not someone who goes out for merely humanitarian concerns, as important as those are. A biblical missionary is driven by a zeal to exalt the name of God, to declare his glory among the nations, to make known the beauty of the character and work of Jesus Christ. These are the only missionaries God commands us to support.

And since they go out for the sake of the Name, we must support them in a manner worthy of God. When it comes to sending, no verse in the Bible has gripped me more than this one. To send a missionary in a manner worthy of God means a lot more than having missionary names on the church’s website, or adding a line item in the budget, or signing a check here or there. So, what does it mean to send a missionary?

This particular word for send occurs nine times in the New Testament, always in the context of helping Christian workers get to where they need to go to do the work of the kingdom. In Titus 3:13, Paul uses the same word, writing, “Diligently help Zenas the lawyer and Apollos on their way so that nothing is lacking for them” (NASB). To send is to offer very practical help. It includes finances, but it goes way beyond finances. Notice in 3 John 5: “You are acting faithfully in whatever you accomplish for the brethren.” That word whatever shows the breadth of what is included in sending.

It takes only a little thought to imagine the upheaval that a call to missions would bring to your life. Imagine that God called you to change all your career plans, to prepare to go to the mission field, and then to serve him there for years to come — all of which would be compounded if you were married and had children. Now imagine what might be a blessing to you in your preparation stage and in your time on the field and when you returned for a season of home assignment. None of us can do everything our imaginations could put on such a list, but no one is being asked to do it all. So let’s each search our own hearts as to what our particular role may be in helping to send our missionaries in a manner worthy of God.

Fellow Workers with the Truth

The ministry of sending is both joyful and dangerous. While serving as a sender, God may surprise you and lead you to become a goer, a “sent one.” And goers may return home for a variety of reasons and become some of the best senders. While senders devote themselves creatively to do “whatever” on behalf of the goers, they will be especially motivated to being a goer to their immigrant neighbor, or international students at a nearby university, or a green-card worker in the next cubicle over.

But remember, senders and goers are fellow workers with the truth — equally valuable in God’s choreography of accomplishing the great purpose of winning worshipers from every tribe and tongue and nation. Both are called to be passionately God-centered, whether they go out for the sake of the Name, or remain in their home culture helping to send others in a manner worthy of God. A prospering Christ-filled soul is vital to the task of both.

Our church has been working on sending missionaries well for many years.  Today it is one of our greatest ministries.  May we continue to send missionaries well!

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith May 21, 2022

Notes of Faith May 21, 2022

Depression, Anxiety, and Other Things We Don't Want to Talk About

by Ryan Casey Waller

So, what is the purpose of suffering?

I once worked with a man who started limping around the office one day. He had tripped during a recent half-marathon and thought his ankle was just taking longer than usual to recover. But then he started to trip when walking down the hallway and couldn’t keep his balance when leaning over the fountain for a drink of water. One time he walked into my office to deliver a letter and fell for- ward as if he’d been shoved hard from behind. He was flustered and embarrassed, and I felt awful for him. Within months he had his diagnosis.

ALS.

For the next nine months he trekked into work while the disease went about its nasty work inside his body. It wasn’t long before he needed a walker to get a drink from the water fountain. In less than one year’s time, he went from running half marathons to moving as slowly and robotically as any person I’ve ever seen. It was devastating to watch. What must it have been like to live through?

Soon thereafter, at barely forty years old, he was forced to retire. The week he left the office for the last time, one of my colleagues observed that this man was now “going home to face his cross.” Everyone in the room gave solemn nods of agreement. I just stood there thinking, This is so unfair.

And it was.

And it is.

He died a short time later.

I hand-fed him a meal a few weeks before his death, and I have never seen a more ravaging disease in my life. The kind of physical suffering this man endured was beyond my comprehension. I wouldn’t wish this form of death on my worst enemy.

You know other stories like this one. Perhaps you’ve even lived one or are living one right now. On average, twenty-five thousand people die of starvation each day.1 Are you kidding me? A client of mine is currently facing charges of aggravated assault. If she receives time in prison, she’s decided she’d rather die by suicide than face imprisonment. Please, no.

There is no darkness into which Jesus will not give chase

Why is this the world we live in?

The best answer I can find is the one revealed in the first pages of Genesis when

God created humans and made them distinct from other creatures in a very particular manner: He gave us freedom.

God told Adam and Eve that they could have their run of the garden of Eden. They had total dominion over the land and could do as they saw fit with only one exception: They were not to eat the fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. But you know the story. They did just that, demonstrating in that moment what has been and remains true for all of humanity: we have the freedom to choose what we do in this life.

God, apparently, loves freedom.

And since God created humanity in His own image, it must necessarily be the case that we, too, are free and designed to love and explore our freedom. Unlike the beasts of the earth who operate by instinct, we humans can choose to resist our instincts and make decisions by using more complex moral constructs, like right and wrong, to make decisions. If we were unable to veer away from good, we would not be truly free.

Could God have set this whole affair up differently? Of course. God is God, and God can do whatever God wants to do. But this is what God has done. This is the world we live in, and this is the world we must learn to make sense of if we are to find some semblance of peace within the suffering.

But what about mental illness when there is no choice involved? I can understand that God did not will Hitler to murder millions of Jewish people but rather that Hitler and others like him were the cause of that immeasurable suffering.

But what about brain abnormalities that cause perfectly kind people to believe the trees in the park are trying to eat them?

And what about mothers who give birth to their children and want nothing more than to hold and care for them but are stricken so hard by postpartum depression they must be readmitted to the hospital and kept away from the babies they just carried for nine months?

How does God’s love for freedom help us to make sense of this kind of suffering?

Again, I wish I had a better answer for you, but the best I can find also comes from Genesis.

From the moment Adam and Eve made the decision to stray away from God’s intentional plans for life on earth, nothing has been the same. And this includes our bodies and the illnesses that plague them. I want to be careful here. I am not suggesting that illnesses are God’s way of punishing humans but that they are simply another reality of our living in a fallen world. Mental illness is not the fault of any one individual but rather a disappointing reality for what it means to live life on this earth. Should I say it again, just in case?

Mental illness is not a punishment. It is just one of the gnarly waves of suffering we humans ride in this thing called life.

To accept this mindset requires a certain deference and humility toward God, for it could be easy to stamp our feet and demand that it ought not to be so. We want to say, God should have done this! God should have done that! God should have done better! But then, where would that get us? As Job learned, we are not God. And we cannot undo what God has already done. This brand of humility is exemplified quite beautifully in the words from a survivor of Auschwitz:

It never occurred to me to question God’s doing or lack of doings while I was an inmate at Auschwitz, although of course, I understand others did... I was no less or no more religious because of what the Nazis did to us; and I believe my faith in God was not undermined in the least. It just never occurred to me to associate the calamity we were experiencing with God, to blame Him, or to believe in Him less or to cease believing in Him at all because He didn’t come to our aid.

God doesn’t owe us that. Or anything. We owe our lives to Him. If someone believes God is responsible for the death of six million because He didn’t somehow do something to save them, he’s got his thinking reversed. We owe God our lives for the few or many years we live, and we have the duty to worship Him and do all that He commands us. That’s what we’re here on this earth for, to be in God’s service, to do God’s bidding.2

There is something to this. It is hard to swallow, for sure, but there is a deep truth in these words. If our purpose in life is to journey back to God and become fully human along the way, then, yes, we must oppose suffering at every opportunity; but to find ourselves stuck in an existential crisis over the nature of this existence is to miss the boat entirely. The point, as a Christian, is not to eradicate all suffering or even overcome suffering but to endure it faithfully and ease it in people and places when we are able to do so, as Jesus did. All of this makes it a little easier for me to swallow the reality of mental illness.

I think.

I hope.

What helps the most, however, is the image of Jesus Christ on the cross. The truth is that I’m not sure I could worship a God who hadn’t tasted the bitterness of the kind of suffering we humans experience on a daily basis, especially those of us who suffer in the mind.

But when I look at the cross, I see a God so intent on loving and living with his people that He was willing to crawl into the deepest pit of suffering known to humanity so all of humanity might know

There is no darkness into which He will not give chase.

John Holmes, “Losing 25,000 to Hunger Every Day,” UN Chronicle 45, no. 2 & 3 (April 2008).

Reeve Robert Brenner, The Faith and Doubt of Holocaust Survivors (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 2014), 102.

Elie Wiesel, Night (New York: Hill and Wang, 2012).

Excerpted from Depression, Anxiety, and Other Things We Don't Want to Talk About by Ryan Casey Waller, copyright Ryan Casey Waller.

Many struggle with earthly issues that we may or may not know.  If we are going to love our neighbor, we should help those suffering with illness and disease endure to the end with faith, hope and love.

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith May 20, 2022

Notes of Faith May 20, 2022

Wives, submit to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. Husbands, love your wives, and do not be harsh with them. Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord. Fathers, do not provoke your children [or embitter your children], lest they become discouraged. (Colossians 3:18–21)

Dad’s Peculiar Responsibility

Now, the reason I give that much context for verse 21, which says, “Fathers, do not provoke your children, lest they become discouraged,” is that I want fathers, I want Matt, to feel the amazing responsibility that God gives in a special way to fathers. And the reason I say special way is because verse 20 says that children are to be obedient to their parents, not just their fathers: “Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord.” But when it gets to verse 23 and the peculiar responsibility for the children’s encouragement, he does not say, “Parents, do not provoke your children.” He says, “Fathers, do not provoke your children.”

And of course, mothers shouldn’t provoke their children and discourage them either, but he gives the fathers this peculiar responsibility in a special way. So, dad is the head of the family. And the reason I say that is because, in verse 18, it says, “Wives, submit to your own husbands.” So, if children are to be obedient to mom, and mom is to submit to dad, then there’s a peculiar burden, a responsibility, that God places on dad to lead the family. And he is to lead it in a way that is, first, not harsh with his wife and, second, not discouraging to his children.

“There’s a peculiar burden, a responsibility, that God places on dad to lead the family.”

So dad’s call not to discourage his children is part of a larger fabric of his peculiar husbandly, fatherly responsibility. And I emphasize the word responsibility rather than rights, because that’s the tone of the passage. That’s the tone of reality. God gives to husbands and fathers a burden of responsibility. This isn’t a place for the blustering of a man’s rights as head. This is a place for bearing the peculiar burden of responsibility as husbands and fathers.

Authority Without Provocation

You can see it is a daunting — and I would say even impossible, in one sense — responsibility to so deal with our children that they don’t become dispirited or discouraged or lifeless. This involves a work of God, not just man. The translations include “don’t exasperate your children,” “don’t provoke them to anger,” “don’t embitter them.” Those are all the translations that you see in versions that are out there.

But the general idea is this: since verse 20 says that children should obey the fathers and mothers, the father should not back away from requiring obedience just because a child tries to use pouting to coerce dad not to make him go to bed when it’s time to go to bed. Verse 21, “don’t discourage your children,” can’t be used to nullify verse 20, which calls us to require obedience from our children.

So, children can’t blackmail their parents into canceling out verse 20 because they say, “Look, Dad, you’re not supposed to discourage me. I’m feeling discouraged, and so you can’t require that of me.” You can’t do that with the Bible. So, verse 21 must be saying there is a wrong or a counterproductive way to require obedience of your children, which only discourages, and there’s a helpful way to require obedience of your children. The command to dads not to provoke our children to discouragement can’t be used to make the dad passive or lazy or indifferent to the children’s misbehavior.

How Not to Require Obedience

“What does it look like when you are requiring obedience like verse 20 says you should, but doing it badly so that you’re knocking the spirit out of your child?” So let me direct Matt and the rest of us to these eight ways that I would describe for how not to require obedience of your children. How do ways of fathering knock the life out of a child, discourage a child, dispirit a child? I’ve got eight of them. I’ll just name them briefly.

1. Nagging

Don’t try to get obedience by nagging. The word nagging was invented because there is such a thing as repetitive demands or repetitive requirements that are really annoying and exasperating because they are demeaning. You feel like, “I’ve heard you say that three times now. I’m going to do it in the time frame you gave me. You don’t need to keep telling me to do this.” That’s what the child might be feeling, even if he’s not saying it. So, don’t require obedience by nagging.

2. Demanding

Don’t try to get obedience by being the dad that only demands. Demand, demand, demand, demand — and he never has a conversation with the child. He never gives a compliment to this child. He never celebrates anything with the child. He never explains anything to the child. All the child ever hears is do, do, do, do, do, demand, demand, demand, demand. So, make your requirements part of the fabric of a much richer communication with your child, so he knows you are more than a demander.

3. Getting Angry

Don’t try to get obedience by setting the tone where every requirement sounds angry. “Dad’s always angry. He doesn’t know how to give any cheerful requirements. He thinks that in order to get anything done, he has to sound harsh and mad.” Well, Dad, you don’t. That’s counterproductive. That’s discouraging.

4. Always Resorting to the Rod

Don’t try to get obedience by always using blows. There’s a world of difference between a thoughtfully and firmly and lovingly applied discipline of spanking after defiance, and a slap-happy dad who always seems to be swatting at his children. Don’t accompany your requirements of obedience with hitting the child.

Spankings are fitting and hopefully, carefully, soberly, patiently, and lovingly applied so that the child himself knows that the reason he’s being disciplined is clear. He knows what he’s done, and he deserves this measure of discipline, but don’t make slapping or swatting or blows a normal accompaniment of your requirement of obedience.

5. Embarrassing

Don’t try to get obedience by embarrassing the child — perhaps by asking him to do something in front of people that is so obvious, he’s going to do it anyway. Seek ways to make your commands respectful, showing that you expect intelligent obedience.

6. Belittling

Don’t require obedience by belittling your child. For example, don’t call him names. Don’t speak in a way that he feels contempt coming from his father. Don’t ask him to do something the way you would ask a 3-year-old if he’s a 9-year-old.

7. Requiring the Impossible

Don’t demand things that are impossible for the child to do at his age. Don’t set him up for automatic failure. Don’t say, “I want you back here in thirty seconds,” when you know that’s not even possible. You’re asking the child to fail, which is discouraging.

8. Withholding Forgiveness

Perhaps most important — they’re all important, I think, but this is probably most important — don’t try to get obedience without creating an atmosphere of gospel forgiveness. So many dads and moms fail to teach a child early that Jesus has provided a way to get relief for their guilt after doing bad things — a way to be forgiven.

“Don’t try to get obedience without creating an atmosphere of gospel forgiveness.”

Without this, the child doesn’t know what to do with his own sins, which he knows he commits. Every kid knows he does bad things. So every command starts to feel like a potential digging of a deeper hole of guilt. Without a pattern of confession and forgiveness, the child will probably become secretive and deceitful. So, Dad, you must speak the gospel, teach the gospel, so that the child understands how the blood of Jesus gives forgiveness and life and relief. And you must embody the gospel in your own confession of sin and your own offer of forgiveness.

You have a heavenly Father that has modeled all of this for you and toward you. And there is hope, therefore, that you can be a father with children who are both obedient and encouraged.

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith May 19, 2022

A Hot Cup of Coffee with a Friend

And they sat with him on the ground seven days and seven nights, and no one spoke a word to him, for they saw that his suffering was very great. — Job 2:13 ESV

When someone is hurting or struggling, it’s natural to want to lend a hand.

Church folks are great at organizing help in all sorts of ways. Are you having a baby? Is someone in your family ill? Just let the ladies in your church know, and within no time they will have a lasagna and some lemon bars delivered to your door. People will mow your lawn, bring you groceries, and watch your children. We are a society of doers, which can be a good thing. However, there are times when even the most sincere offering cannot make the situation better.

Lord, help me learn the ministry of simply being present

Oftentimes nothing can be done, and the best way to help is to just be present. For all that Job’s friends may have done wrong, they got this part right. When they heard of all the tragedies Job had endured, they decided to show up. They couldn’t fix anything, and they didn’t presume to know how he felt. They simply sat with him in silence.

Sometimes hurting people just need your presence, to sit and drink a cup of coffee with no words spoken.

Sometimes all people need is a moment when they’re not obligated to share all the details and you’re not pressured to offer advice. When there’s nothing to be said, don’t say a thing. A chance to breathe and a friend’s presence can be two of the most healing things.

Lord, help me learn the ministry of simply being present in someone’s pain. Teach me to put aside my own discomfort or need to fix things and simply offer silence and coffee.

Excerpted from Devotions from the Front Porch, copyright Thomas Nelson

Just being there for someone is very hard to do.  You want to say something, but you don’t know what to say.  If you do speak, you will stumble and stammer all to often and not say anything that is truly helpful.  It is better to just be there for those we love and give them our presence as a gift of healing.

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith May 18, 2022

Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come near to God and He will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and He will lift you up. — James 4:7–10

Wisdom from the horse farm

The Holy Spirit replaces pride with kindness.

It was a raw, rare “oh-crud” moment for Philip. One second, the camp director was riding confidently atop Spur, a handsome mustang who stood fifteen hands high. The experienced horseman was demonstrating basic riding techniques to a group of enthusiastic junior high horse lovers. The crowd’s oohs and aahs felt pretty good. They’re lovin’ this, Philip thought to himself, and I’m totally on my game today!

But without warning, a series of loud, startling sounds — smack! thud! crunch! — sent Spur into crazy-horse meltdown... and ended up launching Philip high into the air. Nearby ranch hands had dropped a crate they were unloading from a truck, and that had spooked the horse.

With his arms flailing and his body rocketing above the arena, everything seemed to slow down, at least for a split second. Just below him Philip could make out the wide eyes of his slightly amused, slightly traumatized kids... the mouthing of unrepeatable words from his staff... the violent bucking of his crazed mustang. And then came the inevitable: a loud thud as his body made contact with the ground.

“Ouch,” he whimpered.

Philip slowly sat up and ran through a quick, mental self-triage: No blood. Everything is still attached. No harm done! (Just a seriously bruised ego.)

“My horse freaked, which is completely out of character,” Philip later explained to his campers. “He bucked me off for the first time ever.”

And since Spur is big and strong, Philip said the buck felt like a bomb had gone off under his backside. It was a sharp vertical acceleration — like nothing he had ever experienced before. But when he came back to his senses, the words of James 4:10 raced through his brain:

Humble yourselves before the Lord, and He will lift you up.

The greatness of God should humble us. Yet for most people being humble brings to mind a form of weakness.

As believers we must walk in the footsteps of our Lord and place ourselves under His loving guidance. As we walk in humility, we enjoy the day-to-day release from stress, as God intended. Not so with pride.

The Bible has some tough words about pride:

Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall. — Proverbs 16:18

We all need to be bucked off our high horses from time to time so we can fall on our knees before Jesus.

Sure, I’ve been bucked off my horse more times than I care to remember, but I’ll never forget how it stings when I’ve been bucked off my high horse.

These have been moments when my cringeworthy comeuppance has been put on display for all to see. Around six years ago I had the wild idea that I wanted to homeschool my kids, yet because — as I have been reminded on numerous occasions — I’m not exactly qualified, and I’ve got my hands full looking after farm critters, I decided to take a different approach. I got together with some other parents with the same desire, and we found a way to pool our resources. What’s more, we hired two teachers who actually knew what they were doing.

Our modernized one-room schoolhouse was born, we were an official homeschool “group,” and it was good. Well, at least for a while.

Kids were everywhere on my farm, reading to God’s creation outside, catching frogs for science, and taking regular trips to the fishing hole. We were living my homeschool dream. It was Little House on the Prairie but with internet.

Then some real drama unfolded in our community, and it wasn’t the lighthearted, Walnut Grove kind that you’d expect from Harriet Oleson. One of our teachers was having a hard time keeping up with the number of kids in our group. The differing ages and abilities seemed to overwhelm her. And by giving 100 percent of herself to each individual student, she was quickly burning out. On top of that, I will admit, I was not giving her my full support. You see, I was unwilling to do the job myself, but willing to spout off about how easy it was to do.

“Just put some papers in front of them and let them get to work,” I’d tell her. “This isn’t that difficult.”

You see why I need Jesus?

The short version of this is, thankfully, this teacher humbly stuck it out despite my behavior. But teacher number two did not.

And this is where I had to eat a heaping portion of humble pie.

Wow! You teachers! I praise you, because for the rest of our school year, my friend Tracy and I filled in the gaps that teacher two left behind. We were exhausted by the end of it all. We saw — and experienced — what the other teacher was trying to tell us the whole time.

Teaching is difficult; I know that now.

Humility means we put others above ourselves, and it’s painful when the Holy Spirit lets us know when we are being cocky and proud because usually it ends with us being put to the ground. In this case He fed me dirt.

Jesus values humility.

Lord, the Bible tells me that striving to be humble is serious business to You, so I want it to be serious business in my life too. I want to submit myself to You and Your will. Give me the strength to resist the devil, and draw me into a closer walk with You. Clean me up, purify my heart, and help me to be humble before You. Amen.

Excerpted from Country Soul by Cara Whitney, copyright Cara Whitney.

Prov 29:23

23 A man's pride will bring him low,

But a humble spirit will obtain honor.

NASU

Isa 66:2

"But to this one I will look,

To him who is humble and contrite of spirit, and who trembles at My word.

NASU

James 4:6-7

"GOD IS OPPOSED TO THE PROUD,  BUT GIVES GRACE TO THE HUMBLE."

NASU

James 4:10

10 Humble yourselves in the presence of the Lord, and He will exalt you.

NASU

1 Peter 5:5-6

GOD IS OPPOSED TO THE PROUD,  BUT GIVES GRACE TO THE HUMBLE.

6 Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you at the proper time.

NASU

Job 22:29

the humble person He will save.

NASU

Luke 1:52

52 "He has brought down rulers from their thrones,

And has exalted those who were humble.

NASU

2 Chron 7:14

If My people who are called by My name humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, will forgive their sin and will heal their land.

NASU

Matt 11:28-30

28 "Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.  29 "Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and YOU WILL FIND REST FOR YOUR SOULS.  30 "For My yoke is easy and My burden is light."

NASU

May we learn the joy and exaltation of humility before the Lord and receive the salvation that only He provides!

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith May 17, 2022

Give justice to the weak and the orphan; maintain the right of the lowly and the destitute. — Psalm 82:3

“Cursed be anyone who deprives the alien, the orphan, and the widow of justice.” All the people shall say, “Amen!” — Deuteronomy 27:19

Injustices in the world

On October 2, 2006, a dairy-truck driver entered a one-room schoolhouse in the Old Order Amish community of Nickel Mines in Pennsylvania. The driver, Charles C. Roberts IV, first demanded that all the boys leave the room; he then ordered the eleven girls to line up facing the chalkboard.

The girls had a clear sense of the danger they faced, seeing all the instruments of violence before them: the stun gun, the nails, the bolts, the wrenches, the rope, the plastic ties to bind their feet, and the chains and clamps for restraint. Shortly before Roberts opened fire, two sisters requested they be shot first so that the others might be spared. He ignored their request. Instead he killed five girls and wounded seven before killing himself. One of the sisters was wounded; the other was killed.

The names of the girls who were killed were Naomi Rose Ebersole, seven; Marian Fisher, thirteen (one of the sisters who did not survive); sisters Mary Liz Miller, eight, and Lina Miller, seven; and Anna Mae Stoltzfus, twelve.

Janice Ballenger, the deputy coroner in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, shaken up by the event, said afterward, “There was not one desk, not one chair, in the whole schoolroom that was not splattered with either blood or glass.”1

On June 7, 1998, three known white supremacists murdered a forty-nine-year-old father of three in Jasper, Texas. The father, a black man, had accepted an early morning ride home with the three men. After attacking him, they dragged him to his death behind their truck, later dumping the man’s mutilated remains in the town’s segregated African American cemetery. Afterward they went to a barbecue. The name of the man who was killed was James Byrd Jr.2

To date, more than 250,000 people have been displaced from northeast Nigeria on account of the violence caused by the Islamist extremist group Boko Haram.3

In early January 2019, two men and nine teenage boys were rescued from bonded-labor slavery at an urban factory near Chennai, India.4

On January 31, 2019, the Roman Catholic Church in Texas released the names of almost three hundred priests who it said had been credibly accused of child sex abuse over nearly eight decades.5

During the late 2018 trial of Joaquín Guzmán Loera, the Mexican drug kingpin known as El Chapo, nearly every level of Mexican government was implicated in bribes, including the presidency.6

In 2017, the CDC found the first genetic link from Legionnaires’ disease to the lead-contaminated water supply in Flint, Michigan; such lead exposure in children included the possibility of impaired cognition, behavioral disorders, hearing problems, and delayed puberty.7

By the time Hurricane Harvey left the Gulf of Mexico in August 2017, an estimated thirty thousand people had been displaced from their homes. Nearly a trillion gallons of water had fallen over the city of Houston, and the poor were hit the hardest.8

Faithfulness will spring up from the ground

No true faith without justice

The fact that injustices occur every day is obvious to anyone who reads the daily news. Injustices happen to individuals, people groups, and entire countries; they mar systems and institutions. Injustices take place in our own homes and in nature as a whole. The book of Psalms understands this. The psalmist says this about the wicked in Psalm 10:

In arrogance the wicked persecute the poor...

those greedy for gain curse and renounce the Lord.

they lurk that they may seize the poor;

they seize the poor and drag them off in their net.

They think in their heart, “God has forgotten, He has hidden His face, He will never see it. — Psalm 10: 2-3, Psalm 10:9, Psalm 10:11

The psalmists pray repeatedly for justice because they understand that a world full of broken people, dark forces, and harsh conditions generates injustice everywhere and always. Where there is enemy talk in the psalms, there is also justice talk. Where there is injustice talk, there is also a plea for a Just Judge to make things right or, as philosophers might put it, to give people what they are due.9

Many Christians, unfortunately, do not see this as clearly as the psalmists see it. The psalmists see structural injustice within society, where Christians, perhaps especially evangelicals in the West, may see only personal guilt. The psalmists see wickedness that pervades institutions and cultures, while Christians may see only the need for the forgiveness of individual sins.

The psalmists see powerless people who are oppressed by the powerful, and so they pray for justice (Psalm 37; Psalm 82; Psalm 113); Christians see only Psalm 51 with its plea for mercy.10 Writes C. S. Lewis, “Christians cry to God for mercy instead of justice; they [the psalmists] cried to God for justice instead of injustice”11 (emphasis original).

It isn’t that mercy and justice are opposed in the Psalter; they belong together intimately, integrally. But while many Christians give justice half the attention they give to mercy, the Psalter devotes twice as much space to justice as it does to mercy. This is not because mercy matters less than justice but because a world that violates justice violates God’s fundamental purposes for that world.12

In the psalms there is no true worship without justice, no faithful prayer that leaves out justice, and no genuine faith that takes justice less seriously than God takes it. There is no account of God that makes justice secondary to his nature or an afterthought to his redemptive, restorative work in the world. There is likewise no account of human beings in the psalms that allows justice to remain a concern only of other people, rather than of all humanity.

The psalms of justice

In the psalms there is no generic idea of justice; there is only God’s idea of justice.13 Psalm 89:14 says this:

Righteousness and justice are the foundation of Your throne; steadfast love and faithfulness go before You.

Psalm 111:7–8 adds,

The works of His hands are faithful and just; all His precepts are trustworthy. They are established forever and ever, to be performed with faithfulness and uprightness.

But for the psalmist, it is not simply that God cares about the abstract idea of distributive and retributive justice; it is that God loves justice. Psalm 37:28 declares,

For the Lord loves justice; He will not forsake His faithful ones.

Psalm 99:4 proclaims,

Mighty King, lover of justice, You have established equity; You have executed justice and righteousness in Jacob.

In the psalms the Lord is king. As king, the Lord stands sovereign over all of Creation, sovereign throughout all eternity, sovereign over the nations and over the people of Israel. There is nowhere that God’s justice should remain absent (Psalm 33:5–9; Psalm 96:11–13). It should be manifest at every level of reality — locally, globally, and cosmically (Psalm 97:6). Psalm 85:10–11 articulates this comprehensive vision of justice:

Steadfast love and faithfulness will meet;

righteousness and peace [shalom] will kiss each other.

Faithfulness will spring up from the ground,

and righteousness will look down from the sky.

God wants justice for human beings precisely because He loves human beings. Writes Nicholas Wolterstorff, “God desires that each and every human being shall flourish, that each and every shall experience what the Old Testament writers call shalom”14 (emphasis original). Shalom, or a deep sense of well-being, is God’s original gift to the cosmos and its final goal. It is what God has promised to creation and what Je will fulfill in the new creation.

As the book of Psalms sees it, God isn’t the only One who’s in the business of making justice happen; human beings are entrusted with this work too.

1.     Tamara Jones and Joshua Partlow, “Pa. Killer Had Prepared for ‘Long Siege,’” Washington Post, October 4, 2006, http://www.washingtonpost .com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/04/AR2006100400331.html.

2.     Rick Lyman, “Man Guilty of Murder in Texas Dragging Death,” New York Times, February 24, 1999, https://www.nytimes.com/1999 /02/24/us/man-guilty-of-murder-in-texas-dragging-death.html.

3.     Bukola Adebayo and Sara Mazloumsaki, “30,000 Nigerians Flee Boko Haram Violence in Two Days, UN Says,” CNN, January 29, 2019, https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/29/africa/nigerians-flee-boko-haram -violence-intl/index.html.

4.     As reported by the International Justice Mission: “They had been trapped since June 2018, making fried pani puri snacks popular in north India. These impoverished men and boys were recruited from their village with loans of as little as 10,000 rupees (about $140 USD), which they were meant to pay off with their labor. Instead, the factory owner charged them impossible interest rates and controlled their every movement so they could never repay the debt. He verbally abused them and beat them viciously if they slowed down during the 18-hour work days—ensuring they were always afraid of his power.” International Justice Mission, “Scared and Scarred: 11 Rescued from Fried Snack Factory,” https://www.ijm.org/news/scared-and-scarred-11-rescued-from-fried-snack-factory.

5.     Liam Stack, “Catholic Church in Texas Names Nearly 300 Priests Accused of Sex Abuse,” New York Times, January 31, 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/31/us/priests-abuse-texas.html.

6.     Emily Palmer and Alan Feuer, “El Chapo Trial: The 11 Biggest Revelations from the Case,” New York Times, February 3, 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/03/nyregion/el-chapo-trial.html.

7.     “Flint Water Crisis Fast Facts,” CNN Library, December 6, 2018, https://www.cnn.com/2016/03/04/us/flint-water-crisis-fast-facts/index.html.

8.     Manny Fernandez, “A Year after Hurricane Harvey, Houston’s Poorest Neighborhoods Are Slowest to Recover,” New York Times, September 3, 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/03/us/hurricane-harvey -houston.html.

9.     Nicholas Wolterstorff, “Chapter 7: What Is Justice?” in Justice in Love (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2011).

10. John Mark Hicks, “Preaching Community Laments: Responding to Disillusionment with God and Injustice in the World,” in Performing the Psalms, ed. David Fleer and David Bland (St. Louis: Chalice, 2005), 76.

11. C. S. Lewis, Reflections on the Psalms (New York: HarperOne, 2017), 14.

12. According to Dietrich Bonhoeffer, “It is an evil time when the world lets injustice happen silently, when the oppression of the poor and the wretched cries out to heaven in a loud voice and the judges and rulers of the earth keep silent about it, when the persecuted church calls to God for help in the hour of dire distress and exhorts men to do justice, and yet no mouth on earth is opened to bring justice.” Bonhoeffer, “A Bonhoeffer Sermon,” trans. Donald Bloesch, Theology Today 38, no. 4 (1982): 467.

13. Nancy deClaissé-Walford, Rolf A. Jacobson, and Beth LaNeel Tanner, The Book of Psalms (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2014), 577, 732.

14. Nicholas Wolterstorff, Justice: Rights and Wrongs (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2008), 82.

Excerpted from Open and Unafraid by W. David O. Taylor, copyright W. David O. Taylor.

Those created in the image of God who cannot defend themselves must also be included in our prayers to God for justice.  May we participate in seeking justice for all those who are oppressed and dealt with unjustly.

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith May 16, 2022

You will keep him in perfect peace,

Whose mind is stayed on You,

Because he trusts in You.

—Isaiah 26:3, NKJV

The word peace first caught my attention as a child when I heard the song “It Is Well with My Soul.”

When peace like a river, attendeth my way,

When sorrows like sea billows roll;

Whatever my lot, thou hast taught me to say,

It is well, it is well, with my soul.

From that moment forward, I associated the word peace with a river, a beautiful yet powerful watercourse I had never seen with my own eyes, but it was a place I longed for. Because I struggled to fit in and feel at home in the world around me, the idea of peace drew me in. I was hungry for the green leaves that sheltered the river and thirsty for the water that flowed throughout. When I learned the story behind the song, my association deepened even more.

Horatio Spafford’s four daughters died in a shipwreck while crossing the Atlantic. When he crossed the same ocean to join his grieving wife, who had survived the wreck, he penned the words to this song.

He had known peace to be like a river in his life, and sorrows to be like the sea. He had known more than one body of water. And for him, they meant different things.

Peace like a river

As a young girl, I too associated the sea with sorrow. I learned of the slave trade that brought my ancestors over the Atlantic. The architectural plans in history books of their bodies lined up below the deck created a lump in my throat. If slaves grew ill or did not comply with the enslaver in some way, they were thrown overboard to their death. My stomach tightened at this knowledge. I still can’t look to the Atlantic Ocean without thinking of them.

In contrast, the river was a symbol of freedom and peace for my soul. I could feel this meaning in the Negro spirituals I sang as a child. All by grace, these songs have survived and traveled down through the generations. Through years of enslavement and relentless oppression, songs like “Deep River” became a part of the tradition:

Deep river, my home is over Jordan...

Oh, don’t you want to go to that gospel feast,

That promised land where all is peace?

The author of this song, and many others like it, remains unknown. I don’t have the privilege of knowing the authors’ individual stories. But I can feel the collective longing for peace beneath my skin, generations later.

As the song suggests, “peace” still exists within the question mark, not on the other side. Questions about justice, safety, healing, hope. Questions that make us wonder, “Will we ever be truly free?”

We’re still desperate to reach that deep river. We’re still desperate for peace.

Peace is a state of mind, heart, body, and soul. It is the freedom to breathe, even in the face of great challenges and chaos. Peace is the river in the desert, not on the other side of it.

Today I am still seeking that river. And not just a river far off somewhere that I must arrive at, but the river that runs wild and free in my inner life. The river that carves its way through my need for understanding and reminds me to slow down and breathe.

My senses strive for the smallest taste of peace in the morning’s dewy air. The steam lifting above poured tea. The way the house settles back into place after a freight train rolls by. Why? Because it is precisely that moment in the day when I return to the present moment. It is there I realize that when the walls shake, the ground is still steady beneath. My body finds the resolve it naturally seeks.

These are small things, yes, but in times lined with uncertainty, they remind me of the bigger things. They remind me that I can be aware of this very moment, no matter my fears of the future and no matter what I am wrestling from the past.

I am free to slow down long enough to reflect on what is true. I don’t know what lies ahead, but I stand on the shoulders of those who came before me. The strength of my great-great-grandfather who was born a slave and died free. My parents, who taught me to sing songs of peace. The painters and poets who created openly and widely, never knowing of me. The teenage girl transformed by what they made — quietly taking in their work as I stood in the narrow gaps between the shelves at the local library. It was in that small space that I found freedom to breathe.

This is what peace means to me.

I have played around with the phrases finding peace and seeking peace and peace beyond understanding in my art and poetry. And not just because they fit nicely. I hope that for whoever is on the other side of that phrase, it reminds them to exhale, right in the middle of the uncertainty. For even when we haven’t yet seen the other side of the issues we’re facing, we are still worthy of breathing deep and knowing peace right here amid them.

I write this way because I am desperate for peace. And I have a feeling you might be too.

Peace Is a Practice is about learning to seek peace in daily life. It’s about realizing we are worthy of peace. And it starts right here: with a deep inhale and a hold-nothing-back exhale as you ground yourself in the grace of the present. You don’t have to arrive at your picture-perfect life before you can know peace. The river is here for you now, wherever you are.

Excerpted from Peace Is a Practice: An Invitation to Breathe Deep and Find a New Rhythm for Life by Morgan Harper Nichols, copyright Morgan Harper Nichols.

Find the only true and perfect peace in Jesus.  Keep pursuing your relationship with Him until it becomes a continual every moment experience.

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith May 15, 2022

What Are My Spiritual Gifts?

It wasn’t too long after creation that the animals got together to form a school. They wanted the best school possible — one that offered their students a well-rounded curriculum of swimming, running, climbing, and flying. In order to graduate, all the animals had to take all the courses.

The duck was excellent at swimming. In fact, he was better than his instructor. But he was only making passing grades at climbing and was getting a very poor grade in running. The duck was so slow in running that he had to stay after school every day to practice. Even with that, there was little improvement. His webbed feet got badly worn from running, and with such worn feet, he was then only able to get an average grade in swimming. Average was quite acceptable to everyone else, so no one worried much about it — except the duck.

The rabbit was at the top of her class in running. But after a while, she developed a twitch in her leg from all the time she spent in the water trying to improve her swimming.

The squirrel was a peak performer in climbing but was constantly frustrated in flying class. His body became so bruised from all the hard landings that he did not do too well in climbing and ended up being pretty poor in running.

The eagle was a continual problem student. She was severely disciplined for being a nonconformist. For example, in climbing class, she would always beat everyone else to the top of the tree but insisted on using her own way to get there.

Each of the animals had a particular area of expertise. When they did what they were designed to do, they excelled. When they tried to operate outside their area of expertise, they were not nearly as effective. Can ducks run? Sure they can. Is that what they do best? Definitely not.

God has given spiritual gifts to His followers

People who excel

Just as each of those animals has an area in which he or she excels, so do God’s people. As a believer, each of us has become “a new creature in Christ” (2 Corinthians 5:17). Part of that new creation is the distribution of what the Bible calls spiritual gifts (1 Corinthians 12). Those gifts enable us to excel, but we will not accomplish much of anything if we aren’t doing the things we were intended to do.

We already know that every Christian has been given a spiritual gift. It also bears repeating that spiritual gifts answer the What should I do? question.

Your gift indicates the role, function, or particular way in which God has intended you to serve.

Do you know what the various spiritual gifts are? Do you know your spiritual gift?

Many studies have been done and many books have been writ- ten on the subject of spiritual gifts. While there is general agreement, most of them vary in their listing of the gifts and the specific descriptions that they give each gift. There is full agreement, however, that

God has given spiritual gifts to His followers, and they are to be used to glorify God and edify others.

What are the spiritual gifts?

There are several passages that mention some of the spiritual gifts (1 Corinthians 12; Romans 12; Ephesians 4; 1 Peter 4). Our list is drawn from these and other passages in order to identify the variety of ways that God has designed the church to serve Him, itself, and the world.

As you read about the gifts, reflect on your own ministry and experience. See which of these seem to be most true of you. Also, note which gifts sound like someone you know. Remember, there is no right or wrong spiritual gift. They are just different.

Now would be a good time for you to see what spiritual gift God may have given you.

Spiritual gifts/descriptions

Administration - The divine enablement to understand what makes an organization function, and the special ability to plan and execute procedures that accomplish the goals of the ministry.

Apostleship - The divine ability to start and oversee the development of new churches or ministry structures.

Craftsmanship - The divine enablement to creatively design and/or construct items to be used for ministry.

Creative Communication - The divine enablement to communicate God’s truth through a variety of art forms.

Discernment - The divine enablement to distinguish between truth and error, to discern the spirits, differentiating between good and evil, right and wrong.

Encouragement - The divine enablement to present truth so as to strengthen, comfort, or urge to action those who are discouraged or wavering in their faith.

Evangelism - The divine enablement to effectively communicate the Gospel to unbelievers so they respond in faith and move toward discipleship.

Faith - The divine enablement to act on God’s promises with confidence and unwavering belief in his ability to fulfill his purposes.

Giving - The divine enablement to contribute money and resources to the work of the Lord with cheerfulness and liberality.

Healing - The divine enablement to be God’s means for restoring people to wholeness.

Helps - The divine enablement to attach spiritual value to the accomplishment of practical and necessary tasks that free up, support, and meet the needs of others.

Hospitality - The divine enablement to care for people by providing fellowship, food, and shelter.

Intercession - The divine enablement to consistently pray on behalf of and for others; thus seeing frequent and specific results.

Interpretation - The divine enablement to make known to the body of Christ the message of one who is speaking in tongues.

Knowledge - The divine enablement to bring truth to the body through a revelation or biblical insight.

Leadership - The divine enablement to cast vision, motivate, and direct people to harmoniously accomplish the purposes of God.

Mercy - The divine enablement to cheerfully and practically help those who are suffering or are in need.

Miracles - The divine enablement to authenticate the ministry and message of God through supernatural interventions that glorify Him.

Prophecy - The divine enablement to reveal truth and proclaim it in a timely and relevant manner for understanding, correction, repentance, or edification.

Shepherding - The divine enablement to nurture, care for, and guide people toward ongoing spiritual maturity and becoming like Christ.

Teaching - The divine enablement to understand, clearly explain, and apply the Word of God, thus causing greater Christlikeness in the lives of listeners.

Tongues - The divine enablement to speak, worship, or pray in a language unknown to the speaker.

Wisdom - The divine enablement to apply spiritual truth effectively to meet a need in a specific situation.

Isn’t it amazing how many different ways we can glorify God and edify others? You may have identified with several of these gifts. Which are your top three gifts and are most descriptive of you?

Gift mixes

While every believer has at least one spiritual gift, many have several gifts, called a gift mix. The combinations of these gifts give them unique abilities to serve in various ways. For example, if you have gifts of mercy, encouragement, and hospitality, your gifts indicate a warm and tender expression of God’s grace. You are able to focus on the lonely, forgotten, and needy with the connecting and belonging desires of hospitality along with the motivating and comforting aspects of encouragement. You value, support, and build the esteem of those around them. That is different from just having the gift of encouragement.

Another example: the mix of administration, leadership, and wisdom indicates a strong ability to identify what needs to be done and to articulate the best way to do it. The systematic approach of administration plus the visionary dimensions of leadership enables you to move people and events forward. Others will sense that much of what you present “makes sense,” and they will cooperate. This mix contributes more than the single gift of administration.

So, as you are seeking how to serve, consider your gift mix. See how your gift(s) are affirmed through your ministry involvements.

Excerpted from What You Do Best by Bruce Bugbee, copyright Bruce Bugbee.

I don’t agree with the specific list that the author gives for spiritual gifting as biblical spiritual gifts, but the point is well made to do what we do best to glorify God and edify others.  These gifts are not to glorify ourselves but to be used in service to God and our neighbor (everyone)!  As a believer, you have special God-given gifting.  Do you know what it/they is/are?  Pray and seek answers from God as to what you do best and use it to serve Him with all your heart.

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith May 14, 2022

I am the Lord your God, who holds your right hand, and I tell you, ‘Don’t be afraid. I will help you.’ — Isaiah 41:13 NCV

When you hear the word lion, you might think of a big, fuzzy mane or super-sharp claws. Then, of course, there’s that whole “king of the jungle” thing. But chances are, the first thing you’ll think of is its roar.

A lion’s roar is big and loud and really scary. Especially if you happen to be a cute little gazelle trotting across the African plains. Just hearing that sound will send a gazelle running as far away from the roar as possible. Which is the worst thing it could do!

Why? Because that roaring lion isn’t where the most danger is. The real hunters are the lionesses, hiding in the tall grass behind the gazelle. You see, the lion’s job is to creep out in front of the gazelle and ROOAARR! — making it turn around and run right into the middle of all those lionesses. Gulp!

As crazy as it sounds, the safest thing for the gazelle is to run toward the roar.

That’s true for you too. When you run from the things that scare you — like trying something new, standing up for what’s right, or telling someone about God — you actually move closer to the danger. That’s because you’re moving closer to what the devil wants you to do and farther away from what God wants you to do.

Facing your fears is the best thing to do.

And guess what! You’re not some cute little gazelle surrounded by lions and lionesses. You’re a child of God, and you’re always surrounded by Him. He’ll help you face your fears. Trust Him. Be brave. And run toward the roar!

God did not give us a spirit that makes us afraid

Get ready to roar!

Is something roaring in your life right now? Something you’re afraid to do? Maybe it’s trying out for the team, singing a solo, or inviting a friend to church. Or maybe it’s standing up to that older kid and telling him to leave the little kids on the bus alone. What’s the first step you could take to run toward the roar? Talk to God about it, and then run.

Dear God, when fear is roaring at me, please give me the courage to run toward the roar. Amen.

Crazy fear

I asked the Lord for help, and He answered me. He saved me from all that I feared. — Psalm 34:4 ICB

Some fears are perfectly logical. For example, if you take a step outside and see a giant, growling grizzly bear charging down the street and headed straight for you, it makes sense to be afraid. You might wonder how this huge, hairy beast happened to be on your street, but being afraid of it would be perfectly reasonable.

Other fears aren’t so logical. Like me and spiders. I hate those guys. In my head, I know I’m like a zillion times bigger than they are. I could squish one with my little toe — covered in a massive steel-toed boot, of course. But when I see a spider, all I can think about are those eight creepy little legs crawling up my arm. I know my fear is crazy, but if I see a spider, I’m outta here. And don’t get me started on snakes!

Maybe you have a crazy fear too. Maybe it’s a fear of numbers — which, by the way, is called arithmophobia. Or maybe it’s just the number eight — octophobia. Maybe you’re afraid of heights or speaking in front of people. Just because your fear seems crazy doesn’t mean you aren’t afraid.

But don’t let fear keep you from experiencing everything God has planned for you. Sure, there may be spiders in that cabin, but I’m not missing that camping trip. Don’t you miss out either — on riding the tallest roller-coaster ride, telling people about Jesus, or even visiting the octopus exhibit at the zoo. Give your fears — crazy or not — to God, and He’ll help you be brave.

Did you know?

Some people aren’t just reasonably scared of bears; they are terrified of all kinds of bears. This fear is called arkoudaphobia.

I have no idea how to pronounce it, but I do know it means a fear of all kinds of bears — whether they’re angry grizzly bears, wandering black bears, or cute and cuddly panda bears. It even describes people who are afraid of teddy bears!

Lord, I don't want my fears — real or crazy — to keep me from all You have planned for me. I will trust You to help me be brave. Amen.

Excerpted from Roar Like a Lion by Levi Lusko, copyright Levi Lusko.

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith May 13, 2022

The sweetest joys and delights I have experienced, have not been those that have arisen from a hope of my own good estate, but in a direct view of the glorious things of the gospel... I felt an ardency of soul to be, what I know not otherwise how to express... to be full of Christ alone; to love Him with a holy and pure love; to trust in Him; to live upon Him; to serve and follow Him.

~ Jonathan Edwards

She comes running through the door for me first, like she’s some prodigal’s father, widely wasteful with lavish love. “Your heart brave, too, Mama? Your heart brave like mine?”

Shiloh’s crawling up in the bed to kiss me, hiking up her t-shirt for me to see the raised scar from her heart surgery that parts her chest like a Red Sea Road, scars always a memory made into skin, a memory you can touch.

“Ah, baby girl, Mama doesn’t have a brave heart or scar like yours.” I’m smiling, but my eyes are searching the face of her papa coming in tentatively behind her. He’s the one who bears all my scars. I want to trace every one of the scars I’ve made, whisper sorry, beg mercy.

“But Mama? You got heart lines though, Mama, see?” Shiloh’s tracing lines and leads from screens to my chest.

“Shiloh? What’s Mama’s heart always tied to?”

And in one supernova explosion, Shiloh breaks into this dazzling smile, like she’s a morning star rising after a glacial dark. “I knowwwww, Mama, I always know.” And she dances her fingers on her chest and then flings both her hands toward me. And I’m laughing, mirroring her, fingers dancing on chest, then stretching both hands toward her, she and I both saying it in unison, same rhythm, same heartbeat: “My heart is always tied to your heart.”

There is no way God will ever abandon us

She throws back her head and laughs, like she is soft light dancing over a singing brook, and I’m drenched in the loveliness of her. Hearts tied, hers and mine.

Attached, we are free to love.

“Darryl?” I stretch my arm out toward him standing in the doorway... pat the side of the hospital bed. “My heart is tied to yours too... my heart is yours too.”

My heart for yours, my walk with yours,

my life bound to yours,

till my last breath, then always and forever.

He shakes his head slowly, his eyes desperately sad, wounded. Shiloh’s pulling out books and crayons from her backpack, half-singing to herself, her half a heart beating steady between surgeries. My heart is in all kinds of failure. Darryl’s standing here, the way a man can, though his heart’s breaking slow.

“I’m sorry. I am unspeakably sorry.” I can feel it, embodied in me, with the weight of my pneumonia lungs and how hard it is to breathe: “Wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction,” says the Word,1 destruction literally meaning narrowness, while straight is the gate and narrow is the way that leads to the expansive life. The way of sin is wide-open and easy, but it narrows until life becomes crushed. The way of life is narrow, but “it broadens out into the spaciousness of life.”2

The pathway of least resistance leads to the least life. It’s the narrow pathway of great resistance that leads to the great life.

What can I even stammer but this: “I have sinned against heaven and you. I am unspeakably sorry for all the ways I’ve turned my own way, gone my own way, failed in all kinds of heartbreaking ways. Ways that kinda actually broke your heart.”

“Oh, Ann.” He sits down on the edge of the bed. “You’re not alone... every single one of us has wanted our own way, gone our own way, in different ways.”

I drop my head to his chest. And I break, a dam, and everything runs liquid, free.

I’ve been addicted to me.

My addiction is to self. It is an excruciatingly painful thing to cut open your heart and see: My addiction is me.

I have committed idolatry.

I have broken the first commandment:

I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me. — Exodus 20:2–3

Instead of laying myself down on the altar as a living sacrifice before God, I’ve put myself, my needs, my wants, my dreams, before God, before Darryl, before my love-covenant to both. Instead of trusting God to take care of me, I have turned and gone looking for all the lying ways of this hurting old world to comfort me. Instead of entering into the sufferings of Christ, who keeps His covenant to suffer with us, I have kept looking for the way out, any way out, always looking for an exodus out of pain. And where we keep looking for a way out of our heartbreak, we only drag a whole lot of beautiful souls into more heartbreak.

I bear heartbreaking witness to the way of my ways: Nothing destroys a life like idolatry. Nothing destabilizes a life like centering self. Nothing will turn your life into a colossal mess like turning inward. All your incurvatus in se will leave you begging for a cure.

Though the roads will look different for each of us, always: The only way out and through is to enter into the sufferings of Christ. Only the One who keeps His covenant to suffer with you can carry you the whole way through.

Always: The only way out is to turn outward, love reaching out to God and others.

And always, always, always: If you don’t set yourself apart for a SACRED way with God, you set out to tear your own life apart.

I’m wild to go home and tear out that clematis, that was my own wayward, turned-inward heart, that was just about the death of me, and I am desperately ready to die to self to wake to the one SACRED life I always dreamed of.

When I look up, everything is swimming and blurring, and my chest feels like a narrowing vise.

Instead of gazing on the beauty of God Himself, we’ve all kept gazing on a way, a dream of another life without suffering that we’ve made into some kind of god to us. Instead of turning toward God, we all keep returning to the garden to go our own way and eat the damned apple, and then try to convince ourselves and all the world that it tastes divinely sweet, when the truth of it is, we have never chosen to taste and see the eternally satisfying rich goodness of God.

Each of us has curved our own way and away from God, rejecting His ways through suffering, His way of wooing us through heartbreak, His way of taking care of us through everything, when it’s only His way that will make the most fulfilling way.

I brush my cheeks with the back of my hand, look up into Darryl’s eyes, and I can read God. God doesn’t break attachment and abandon those who break His heart in a thousand ways. We break God’s heart, and God calls us beloved; we’ve gone our own way, but God won’t let us go. We run, and God seeks romance.

I loved him…

I took them up by their arms... I led them with cords of kindness,

with the bands of love,

and I became to them as one who eases the yoke

on their jaws,

and I bent down to them and fed them...

How can I give you up, O Ephraim?... My heart recoils within me,

my compassions grows warm and tender. I will not execute my burning anger;

I will not again destroy... for I am God and not a man.

(Hosea 11:1, 3–4, 8–9 ESV)

There is no way God will ever abandon us; there is no way He will ever give up on us.

He can only give us hesed-lovingkindness. The way the WayMaker’s heart beats toward every struggler, and sufferer, and straggler wandering is nothing less than:

My compassion grows warm and tender. — Hosea 11:8 ESV

“God in whose hand are all creatures, is your Father, and is much more tender of you than you are, or can be, of yourself,” assured Puritan John Flavel.3

The clematis may curve and attach this way and that, and our hearts may curve away and grow cold toward God, but God says, “I am God and not a man, the Holy One in your midst, and I will not come in wrath” (11:9 esv). The WayMaker’s ways are not our ways, they are higher, with stratospheric covenantal commitment, meteoric compassion, heaven-high hesed-lovingkindness. It’s not our perfect ways that persuade God’s heart, but it’s our imperfect ways that make His heart passionate for us. The WayMaker works in ways far higher and kinder than ours, and He never stops working to take care of us in ways that are working more good for us than we ever dreamed: “With God on our side like this, how can we lose? If God didn’t hesitate to put everything on the line for us, embracing our condition and exposing himself to the worst by sending his own Son, is there anything else he wouldn’t gladly and freely do for us?” (Romans 8:31–32 msg, emphasis mine).

“I desire steadfast love [hesed] and not sacrifice” is what God says (Hosea 6:6 esv). “For trust did I want, and not sacrifice and knowledge of God more than sacrifice.”* God, who gives us only hesed-lovingkindness, desires faithful, hesed-attachment love from us—that we trust the ways He takes care of us, that we acknowledge how He is more than a good Father, that He is a loving, kind Father, and that we are safe to go His way.

Cheap faith says one has only to believe. But the truth is: Real Christians aren’t merely the believers. Even the demons believe (James 2:19). Real Christians are actually those who turn, faithful followers who keep turning and turning, to be the faithful trusters. Christianity is never only the mental assent of faith in Jesus, without requiring the lived attachment, trusting faithfulness to Jesus. Why in the aching world don’t we give our trusting, hesed-faithfulness back to a God who hesed-loves us like this? Because we don’t intimately yada-know Him. To truly know Him is to truly trust Him. To bear witness to an honest revealing of God’s heart is to only find God’s heart for you appealing. It is a “misapprehension of God [which] is at the root of all hostility to God in the human soul.”4 If we really knew God, how could we ever have a divided heart?

How often do we want God to divide some Red Sea for us, yet we are the ones with a divided heart?

1.Matthew 7:13.

2.G. Campbell Morgan, Hosea: The Heart and Holiness of God (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 1998), 19.

3.John Flavel, Keeping the Heart: How to Maintain Your Love for God (Fearn, Scotland: Christian Heritage, 2012), 57.

4.Robert Alter, The Hebrew Bible: A Translation with Commentary (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2018), Hosea 6:6.

Excerpted from WayMaker by Ann Voskamp, copyright Ann Morton Voskamp.

Pastor Dale