The Good Portion

I think movies, in many ways, have done us a disservice. Seeing life on the big screen, larger than life, we lose sight of both the majesty and the miniscule-ness of life as it really is. We (or is it just me?) see Jesus as a giant figure, a massive close-up, a star on a screen, forgetting that He was a man. He was as invisible as we are from the distance of a mile. He was the same size as we are, more or less, from the distance of a hug. He was a man who could easily fit through the nearest doorway. On the other side of the world thousands of years ago, invisible to us both in space and time, tiny and barely noticeable, almighty God, vaster than all the universes, took on flesh. There and then He lived. There and then He loved, and taught, and served. And there and then He died, a being so small history should have forgotten Him. So why have we not forgotten? And why would the Infinite God create a finite planet, a pale blue dot (to quote Carl Sagan), for tiny men to live as ...

It's almost two years since my church began its trek through Hebrews, and we have covered a lot ground! We've learned that the Bible is one story, and that the prophets, priests, and kings of the Old Testament are to Christ what the shadow of an approaching man is to the man himself. Christ, we’ve seen, is superior to angels, a better mediator than Moses, a greater high priest than Aaron, and a better sacrifice than bulls and goats. Through his blood, we have entered a better covenant than Sinai’s, a better Jerusalem, and a better kingdom, one that will never be shaken. Now we have arrived at Hebrews’ benediction, and the writer sneaks in one final Old Testament archetype: the Great Shepherd. “Now may the God of peace who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant, equip you with everything good that you may do his will, working in us that which is pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to wh...

We bore easily. I’d blame it on modern technologies but Israel of old seemed to have the same problem. They witnessed the Egyptian plagues. They walked through the parted Red Sea. They lived day and night with the fiery pillar of the presence of almighty God. They received miraculous food six days a week. And they grew bored. Their daily bread grew commonplace, and they complained, “we loathe this worthless food” (Num. 21.5). “Jesus Christ is the same   yesterday and today and forever.”   Heb. 13:5 He never changes, nor does His word. We, too, can begin to lose sight of the wonder of it all. His un-changing word seems ho-hum. We crave more. The shift in our thinking can be subtle. Here are a few signs of boredom to look for. I admit to having done them all. We don’t read the Bible, or we read it very little. We would rather spend an hour reading or watching things about the Bible than reading the Bible itself. When we read books about the Bible we rac...

The Bible is an intimidating book. It’s big; it can be difficult; and it says many things that can make us deeply uncomfortable. Knowing and understanding it requires thirsty desire, desperate effort, and a heart humbled enough by God’s power and grace to be willing to obey it. Within the book itself, we find that the God of the Bible is intimidating as well, and not just to us who are reading it thousands of years after the facts. The Israelites themselves, though they were rescued by God from slavery, witnessed miracles beyond our imagination, and walked with the visible presence of God leading and protecting them, were terrified by his word when he spoke to them from Mt. Sinai. “For they could not endure the order that was given, ‘If even a beast touches the mountain, it shall be stoned.’ Indeed, so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, “I tremble with fear” (Heb. 12:20-21). Israel’s response to the commands of this awesome God was refusal. They crafted for themselves a ne...

I’m individualistic by nature. Even now, as a Christian, the word “submission” can make my hair stand on end. I don’t like being under authority. I want to do what I want to do. Don’t tread on me. In part, I’m a product of my culture. Let’s face it, submission is not what made us a nation. Though we have “authorities,” we don’t really feel beholden to obey them. After all, we elect them. They answer to us, which we take to mean that we are the authorities. This mindset permeates every area of our lives, even as Christians. We like to think we choose God, when in fact it is He who chooses us (Jn 15:16, Eph. 1:4). We are very good at deluding ourselves into thinking we are submitting to Christ by re-imagining Him as someone who supports our interests, a God who backs our agenda. Or maybe that’s just me. But perhaps it’s not a distinctly American trait, and perhaps it’s not just me. Peter had big plans for Jesus, big political plans. He expected Jesus to overthrow the rule of the ...

Is it just me, or does social media seem like the land of bucket lists? We all know that we are going to die, but for people my age the reality gets realer with every glance in the mirror. The pressure is on to fulfill our life’s dreams before our bodies run out of steam and our minds run out of marbles. I can, and sometimes do, scroll for hours watching middle-aged people like me checking off one-by-one all the things they’ve always wanted to do and fighting to hang on to things they can never keep. Do you have a bucket list? I’ll admit, I’m not immune from wanting to be beautiful, fit, highly educated, well-dressed, well-respected, and well-traveled. I want to own a horse, ride English, and take ballet. Yes, ballet. I want to speak three languages, hike foreign trails, and visit Florence. I want a well-decorated house and remarkably talented offspring who adore me. I want to be a great artist. I want to be healthy and vigorous into old age and be remembered with admiration long...

The first time I heard it was at a Word of Faith church when I was only a teen. The pastor said words to this effect about the Christian life: “Even if none of this were true, I would still live this way, because it works.” It makes sense that a promoter of the prosperity “gospel” would think this way. After all, the whole focus is on living the good life, with all its material blessings, now. But I heard it again a few years ago from an evangelical friend: “Even if I die and there is no God, I will be so thankful for the joy of having believed and for having enjoyed ‘Him’. . . I will not regret having believed even if I find out I was wrong.” This statement so disturbed me that I am still thinking about it four years later. Yes, there is the logical problem of thinking there will be any thinking at all, let alone any opportunity for evaluation and gratitude, after death if there is no God. But there’s a deeper problem. My friend’s statement suggests that knowing Christ and some...

When I was a kid, life was like the first pages of a new book. All excitement, all magic, all potential, so much to look forward to. The end of the story was so far away. Now, in my fifties, after so many chapters - after the death of two marriages, of several friendships, my mother, the Town of Paradise, and, most recently, a close friend - every turn of the page takes me closer to the end. Instead of excitement, I feel sadness. The story is nearly over. It’s not the story I was hoping for, but I also love it. It’s my story, and it’s the only one I’ve got. The suddenness and totality of the destruction of the Camp Fire on November 8 showed me that this life can destroy everything I care about at any given moment in time. Ever since then, I can’t find the kind of excitement over things that I used to have, because I know how quickly they can disappear. I’ve always “known” that, but mostly in theory. My greatest losses came when I still saw more chapters ahead than I had left behind....

Many years ago, when I was a 17-year-old Southern California girl, a young man I met at the mall invited me to church. I agreed, and thus began my relationship with the Word of Faith movement. The church we attended was very different from my Lutheran church. The worship services were charismatic, something I’d never experienced before. And the people were devoted to the Scriptures in a way I’d never seen before. Those folks really knew their Bibles! They could rattle off quote after quote. And that’s because they believed that “faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ,” which it does (Rom. 10.17). By repeating these quotes, they believed they could build their faith and speak their desires into existence. Only later did I realize that they really knew only certain parts of their Bibles, the parts that included the promises they wanted to claim and the list of sins that might keep them from gaining them. It was all about living your best life now (though th...

It had been three new moons since the people of Israel ducked out of their bloodied doorways and fled the plagued and wailing Egypt. They had walked through the Red Sea on dry land with water stacked in mounds to their left and right. They had turned back to see the Egyptian army drown. Even their food and drink had been provided by miracle. Through it all, in spite of their grumbling and complaining, God proved his good intentions. Through it all, despite His provision, they complained. Now they stood at the base of Mt. Sinai, careful not to step beyond the makeshift barriers erected to protect them from the holiness of the God who had made it all happen. They witnessed His glory. They heard the thunder of His voice as He gave them the law “out of the midst of the fire, of the cloud, and the thick darkness” (Deut. 5.22) They agreed to obey His every word. Moses sprinkled them with sacrificial blood, and they entered into covenant with Him. But the blood of bulls and goats was not...

The only real peace and joy I have ever known have come from knowing Jesus Christ. When my trust in Him wanes, so does my hope for the future. As I slide into despair my usual distractions can no longer drown out the pain. In desperation I remember Christ and cry out for rescue. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world. - C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain I hate anxiety and depression, but I’m also thankful that God won't let me be happy when I lose my way. He uses my pain to lead me back to His word, back to his faithfulness, back to his plan. Through these things he restores my perspective, my faith in his goodness, and my hope in Christ. I’m learning to be sensitive to the first wispy clouds of fear and doubt, to recognize trouble is brewing, and to run quickly to him for help instead of groping for ways to take the edge off my feelings. His is the only help that gets to the heart of...

The first forty years of my relationship with Christ remind me of the felt-boards my childhood Sunday School teachers used to illustrate Bible stories. They would put up a cloth Jesus and a disciple or two, and as the story changed, they would peel off the felt disciples to make room for new characters. Like a felt disciple, I, too, would sometimes join the Jesus story. When I felt powerless, when I needed something from God, up on the board I would go. But once my need was met I would pull away. I wanted the freedom to live my own story on my own terms. I did this time and again, as did a lot of the other "disciples" I knew. Now and then I wondered about the disciples who never left the story, who never came down from the board. How could they live like that, always a part of the same story? I liked my freedom. But my life turned upside down when I was forty, and I realized that what I thought was freedom was not freedom at all. I was a slave to the constant tug and p...