Bowling Green Covenant Church

The Traveler’s Advisory Friday

30 June 2006

“Give thanks to the LORD for He is good. His love endures forever. “Give thanks to the God of gods. His love endures forever. “Give thanks to the LORD of lords. His love endures forever.”—Psalm 136.1-3 [ESV]

I am a baseball fan. My favorite pastimes when I watch America’s pastime is keeping score. For this I use a scorecard. The scorecard identifies the players of both teams. From the first pitch to the last out, the scorecard helps me keep track of the game. Keeping score helps me stay involved with the flow of the game. When the game is over, I have a record of the game’s progress and outcome. I know more than who won and who lost. I know how the game was won or lost. During the game the scorecard helps me follow the action. After the game it becomes a reference to help me remember what took place.

I cannot prove it, but were the person who composed Psalm 136 alive today, he would be a baseball fan. And he would love using a scorecard. This man knew the something about recording history and noting how it fit into the context of God’s dealings with Israel. Scholars believe Psalm 136 was likely written after the Babylonian Exile—a period of 70 years in which most of the Jews had been relocated from Israel to Babylon. Therefore, nearly two generations had grown up outside the Promised Land with no temple and no landmarks (ballparks?) in which to get a sense of the history of God’s dealings with His people.

Psalm 136 is a psalm of thanksgiving. It teaches that there is a parallel between Israel’s return to the Promised Land from Babylon and their ancestors’ journey from slavery in Egypt to freedom in the Promised Land.

The psalm is a series of statements about who God is and what He has done. Each statement is a reason why we should give thanks to God. Punctuating each statement is the refrain “His love endures forever.” This refrain is woven into the Psalm to remind Israel of the LORD’s hesed.

The exact meaning of the Hebrew word hesed is difficult to capture in English. Words and phrases such as lovingkindness, steadfast love, mercy, and covenant faithfulness come close, but the exact meaning is elusive. However we translate it the word, the psalmist uses it to remind us God keeps His promises because He is loyal, faithful, full of mercy and lovingkindness. Life will challenge our trust in God’s hesed. Knowing this may be the reason the psalmist punctuates every reminder of God’s actions in Psalm 136 with the refrain, “His hesed endures forever.”

When life spins out of control it is important to remember God is in control and that His love endures forever. There will be times when circumstances beyond our control will give us the sense that our lives are totally without order. Chaos reigns and we wonder how we will cope or whether we will survive. Worse yet is the feeling that God has abandoned us. The temptation is to wrest control. We must do something, but what?

The psalmist would say, “Stop what you are doing and give thanks to God. Remember what He has done. He is good. And His love endures forever.” Is this easier said than done? You bet, but consider the alternative: panic, anxiety, doubt, fear, anger, ulcers and headaches.

Psalm 136 celebrates the truth that God delivers His people from dire and desperate circumstances. He rescues them from their enemies. He feeds them when they are hungry. He brings them safely into the land He has promised (He makes sure to get us safely “home”). He created the universe and everything in it—including us. And He is faithful to keep His promise. And for that we must be thankful. Sometimes, however, it helps to have a scorecard to remind us the ways in which His love endures forever.

You think about that.

MM

The Traveler’s Advisory

Friday 23 June 2006

“Say not, ‘Why were the former days better than these? For it is not from wisdom that you ask this.”—Ecclesiastes 7.10 [ESV]

“Don’t long for ‘the good old days,’ for you don’t know whether they were any better than today.”—Ecclesiastes 7.10 [NLT]

Ecclesiastes, or the Preacher, warns us that it is unwise to pine with nostalgia for “the good old days.” The New Living Translation [NLT] captures the essence of his warning—“you don’t know whether they were any better than today.”
My parents grew up during the Great Depression (c. 1929-1939). Whenever I asked my dad if he missed “the good old days” his answer was always the same. “No. The only ‘good’ thing about ‘the good old days’ is that they’re gone. Between the good old days and the future, I’ll take the future.”

My father’s comment reminds me of the saying that it is all right to remember the past, but it is not wise to live there. For some people, however, it is likely that the former days were better than the present days. Our bodies have broken down; memories fail. Relationships have come apart. Careers have stalled out. Hopes for brighter days are now overshadowed by the gloominess of a present reality. The Preacher knows life is hard. Yet he warns that it is unwise to be homesick for the good old days. He is not being cruel just realistic.

When it comes to aging there is a difference between getting old and growing old. Everyone will get old, but few people learn the art of growing old—an art learned by practicing the wisdom of God’s word. The past can give us perspective. And that seems to be the Preacher’s point. When we find ourselves trying to escape the unpleasant present by retreating into the dreamy sweetness of the good old days we need to rouse ourselves and look to God for help. The right use of memory will provoke to seek the wisdom of God’s counsel through reading His word, praying for His direction, and asking for the help of other believers. Rather than ask, “What have I done?” the wise person asks, “What must I do?”

In short the wise person lives in the present but looks to the future and puts his or her hope in God. The past is the past. My family will tell you I am a sentimental old goat. I can wax nostalgic just from seeing the rooster on a box of Kellogg’s Corn flakes. But experience has taught me that I have selective memory when it comes to the past. All too often I dress the good old days in better clothing than it wore at the time. The honest truth is when I look back at the past I see it through a soft-focus lens. How about you?

Several years ago a good friend shared the following quote with me from the Pensées written by French philosopher Blaise Pascal. “We never keep to the present. We recall the past; we anticipate the future as if we found it too slow in coming and were trying to hurry it up, or we recall the past as if to stay its too rapid flight. We are so unwise that we wander about in times that do not belong to us, and do not think of the only one that does; so vain that we dream of times that are not and blindly flee the only one that is. The fact is that the present usually hurts. We thrust it out of sight because it distresses us, and if we find it enjoyable, we are sorry to see it slip away. We try to give it the support of the future, and think how we are going to arrange things over which we have no control for a time we can never be sure of reaching. “Let each of us examine his thoughts; he will find them wholly concerned with the past or the future. We almost never think of the present, and if we do think of it, it is only to see what light it throws on our plans for the future. The present is never our end. The past and the present are our means, the future alone our end. Thus we never actually live, but hope to live, and since we are always planning how to be happy, it is inevitable that we should never be so.”

You think about that.

MM

The Traveler’s Advisory

Friday 16 June 2006

“For everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose matter under heaven.”—Ecclesiastes 3.1 [ESV]

Before my wedding day my father offered me some sage advice. “Mike,” he said trying to hide a grin, “never buy Jill a household appliance for her birthday, your wedding anniversary or Christmas.” What my father’s counsel lacked in eloquence it made up for with folksy charm. Still it was no “For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven.”

The first time I heard these words from Ecclesiastes was not in church. They crackled from a beat-up AM radio my brother brought to the beach. A folk-rock group called “The Byrds” released a single titled “Turn, Turn, Turn,” (If you don’t know what an AM radio is or what a single is, ask anyone born in the 1950s—they’ll know.) “Turn, Turn, Turn,” used the words of Ecclesiastes 3.1-8 to score a Top 40 hit.

Ecclesiastes is more than a good source for folk wisdom and folk music. Even so, that does not tell us what Ecclesiastes, or the Preacher as he is also known, meant by them. While the answer should be obvious, sometimes the obvious is like buying your wife a blender for her birthday, or a microwave for her anniversary—useful but not necessarily appropriate.

Ecclesiastes words tell us there is an inevitability to life, to time. This inevitability came home to me when I lived in North Dakota where I heard a man say this to a widow at her husband’s funeral: “Floyd was a good man. But you know, we’re born, we live…and then we die. And that’s the way it goes.” That man read Ecclesiastes. What he said lacked tact, yet tactless as it was his statement was still true. His words would have met with solemn agreement from the Preacher.

Scholars tell us Ecclesiastes contains the reflections of an old man. Many believe this man to be King Solomon, the wisest man who ever lived. To read Ecclesiastes is to see life through the tear-filled, aging eyes of a once wise man who has realized too late that life is short, that we are born, we live and then we die. Ecclesiastes is written by a man who now regrets not appreciating the fact that for everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven.

Ecclesiastes contains the journal of a man who knows what matters is not how long a person lives, but how well one lived during their lifetime. As the songwriter says, life is not about the dates on your tombstone, but the dash in between. During his lifetime the Preacher squeezed in as much as he could into the dash in between.

He availed himself of the best life had to offer—wealth, women, philanthropy, pleasure, and knowledge. At the end of his life, he called it all vanity, emptiness, a meaningless exercise, futility. He lived a full life, yet his soul was empty. It is a curious thing that in his list of things for which there is a time, there is no mention of a time to act and a time to reflect. The closest he comes is when he says there is “a time to keep silence and a time to speak.” The truth is we are born, we live and someday we all will die. That is the way it goes. But is that really the way it goes, or did the Preacher finally learn how to keep his life from being meaningless?

Maybe.

His last words are these—“Fear God and keep His commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. For God will bring every deed into judgment, with every secret thing, whether good or bad,” (Ecclesiastes 12.13, 14).

You think about that.

MM

The Traveler’s Advisory

Friday 9 June 2006

“If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word, and My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.” —John 14.23

In John 14, Jesus begins His farewell discourse—His last will and testament given to the apostles before His arrest and crucifixion. He speaks with an urgency as poignant as it is purposeful. Every sentence, every phrase, every word is chosen with loving care because when He is gone, all the apostles will have left will be His words.

On that night, the apostle Judas (not Iscariot) asked Jesus, “… Lord, why do You intend to show Yourself to us and not to the world.” Jesus’ answer is puzzling, “If anyone loves Me, He will obey My teaching.” What does our obedience to what Jesus teaches have to do with His showing Himself to the apostles and not to the world? The answer is found by remembering the fundamentals of what Jesus taught. Once He was gone, the only thing that would fortify the apostles’ faith would His teaching—His words.

So what did Jesus teach? What words did Jesus leave behind for us to obey? And how would our obedience prove our love for Him? The words He left behind is the Gospel. In John 14.23, Jesus clearly states there is a direct relationship between our obedience to His words and our love for Him. If we love Jesus we will practice the words He taught us through His Gospel. We will only obey Jesus to the extent that we love Him.

Conversely, we will only love Jesus to the extent that we obey Him. Jesus says the reward for our obedience will be to have the Father and the Son make their home in us. How this happens is a mystery, perhaps the mystery of our faith. Why this happens is clear: it is as we obey the words of Jesus that He and the Father make their home in us. It is not that we become gods, but that God the Father and God the Son choose to make their home in us.

The imagery of Jesus’ words comes from the Old Testament—specifically to the time of the Exodus when God dwelt in the midst of the people of Israel in the tabernacle—a kind of movable worship center. Under the New Testament, God chooses to dwell in His people by means of His Holy Spirit as we obey the words of the Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.

As followers of Jesus we are under divine obligation to live in obedience to the words of Jesus. And that’s the question isn’t it? Do we live like natives of the kingdom of God, or do we live like permanent residents of that same kingdom? Permanent residents have the option of returning to their country of origin. Natives have no other country to go to; unless they reject their citizenship to become citizens of another kingdom.

If you and I are born-again followers of Jesus then we have become citizens of the kingdom of God. That is a privilege granted to us by God’s grace. It is also a great responsibility for now we must live in obedience to Jesus’ teaching. No matter how difficult His words are to obey they must be kept.

And to the extent that His people obey His words, Jesus will show Himself to the world. More than that He will find other men and women in Him He and the Father can make their home until the day He will come back and bring us all to our eternal home.

You think about that.

MM

The Traveler’s Advisory

Friday 2 June 2006

“Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; but his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on His law he meditates day and night.”—Psalm 1.1

What does it take to make you happy? We live in a culture is obsessed with the pursuit of happiness. In fact, the preamble of the Declaration of Independence, states that “all men have been endowed by God with certain inalienable rights and that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.”

Pick up any newspaper, scan any magazine cover, watch TV, listen to the radio, surf the Web and you will soon discover that the pursuit of happiness is big business. People will pay anything, do anything, and try anything that promises to make them happy. So I ask again: What does it take to make you happy?

Before you answer, I must warn you that my question is flawed. It makes a false assumption. The assumption is that happiness is an emotional state of mind that can only be attained when certain conditions are met. For instance, complete the following statement: “I will be happy when…” (e.g., I graduate, get a job, live on my own, get married, get out of debt, lose weight, buy a new car, my kids move out of the house, am no longer in pain, etc.,). We live in a culture that believes in the pursuit of happiness. We believe happiness to be our primary purpose in life.

Happiness, we are told, is when things go our way, when we get what we want. According the Bible, that definition of happiness is a lie. Happiness is not having things go our way. Happiness is not dependent on our circumstances. Happiness is not always getting what we want, or when all our circumstances fall into perfect alignment. Never has been, never will be. The truth is, happiness is defined by having a relationship with the eternal God initiated by His grace. I am talking here of lasting, enduring, permanent happiness. People cannot offer us this kind of happiness. Things will not bring us this kind of happiness. Even good circumstances cannot bring us lasting happiness. Enduring happiness is the result of pursuing an enduring relationship with the eternal God initiated by His grace. Lifelong happiness is the result of a lifelong obedience to the eternal God and His word.

When the psalmist writes “Blessed is the man…” it is his declaration of independence from the cultural belief that happiness is when things go our way. The Hebrew word translated blessed can also be translated happy. This elevates happiness above dependence on people, possessions and perfect circumstances. No matter what happens to me, no matter who disappoints me, or how little or how much I have, nothing can separate me from the happiness of having a faith relationship with the eternal God initiated by His grace. Happiness is more permanent than our circumstances. It is more reliable than people. It is more enduring than possessions. Happiness is the pursuit of an enduring relationship with the eternal God initiated by His grace.

In Romans 8.31-39, the apostle Paul declares that no matter how unhappy our circumstances are nothing can separate us from the happiness that comes from the eternal God through faith in Jesus Christ. The pursuit of happiness is the pursuit of an enduring relationship grounded in the unchanging character of the eternal God, not the shifting and slippery sands of time and space.

You think about that.

MM