torah

If you and I were to sit down and talk, get to know each other for just a bit, it wouldn’t be too long before you learned that I love the Old Testament. More specifically I love the Pentateuch. Those first five books of the Bible, and Deuteronomy in particular, they have my heart. I had the opportunity to take an intensive class on Deuteronomy this year, and in that short week I fell more in love with Torah. Here is a small glimpse into why I love Torah.

Imagine all of Israel encamped on the eastern side of the Jordan River.

Moses stands before them, his arms spread wide, as he recounts for them their parents’ exodus from Egypt and subsequent rebellion when they were first invited into the Promised Land.

The story is familiar, but each Israelite listens intently as Moses reminds them of the punishment they and their parents endured at the hand of Adonai. And Moses reminds them that throughout the entire journey, a journey which should have taken eleven days but instead took forty years, God was with them, providing for their every need each and every step of the way.

I'm writing over at Deeper Church today. Head over there to read the rest of this post.

the shape of hope

We talk of many things. Serious things. Funny things. Sad things. Joyful things. Empty things. Hope-filled things.

Some times when we talk we talk about house things. Not appliances or DIY projects for the living room or yard, but whole houses.

Sometimes it is the old house in New England with the wrap around porch, a porch swing in the front and two hammocks in the back. There are chickens and a vegetable garden and dogs. We live in this house, the two of us, no longer as young as we were when we first met. Her hair is still as crazy as it was, but there are streaks of silver mixed in with the auburn and chestnut, and mine is still as stick straight as ever, but amidst the gold there is now white. In the absence of families birthed of our own bodies we have chosen to create family together here. We wile away evenings warming hands with mugs of tea, and begin mornings with coffee on the back porch with the dogs at our feet. We sit sipping tea on an evening in May, and our eyes and smiles meet, because somehow this day has become real.

While my dear friend Lore is taking a hiatus from her blog for the month of May, she's asked several of us to post in her place. This week I am writing about our friendship and about the shape of hope. You can read the rest of the blog over at her website.

Israel Cries Out To The Lord

This is the fourth post in a five part series. It is inspired by the Book of Judges and my studies of that book. Posts will appear here and on A Deeper Church.

Read the first post.

Read the second post.

Read the third post.

“But the Israelites said to the Lord, ‘We have sinned. Do with us whatever you think best, but please rescue us now.’”

Can you hear them, the cries of Israel, can you hear them?

Crying out in the clefts and caves of the mountains in which they have taken refuge from their oppressors.

Sobbing prayers of longing for the days their ancestors wandered in the desert, homeless, but with God.

Muttering words of the Lord’s slow anger and abounding love in hopes that He might show Himself to be those things as they find themselves enslaved in a land that was supposed to be theirs.

How long before these cries and prayers and muttered words passed through Hebrew lips did these same Hebrews realize their distance from the One who called them to be set apart?

Days? Weeks? Months? Years?

Decades?

Were the compromises big from the beginning? Was their turning from Him one giant step at a time? Or did they start small?

Does it matter how big or small the compromises were?

Does it matter how far away from Him they turned?

Does it matter how big or small our compromises are?

Does it matter how far away from Him we turn?

To do anything but directly face God is to face something else entirely.

And the more we turn away, the longer it takes for us to realize we are no longer looking directly at Him.

A glimpse of Him in our periphery is not a life focused on the Lord.

And then suddenly, like Israel, we cry out. We realize He has passed outside of our field of vision. Unsure of which way to turn, for Him who is to guide us is no longer visible, and so we cry out.

We cry out in hopes that He will be faithful to answer even though we have been unfaithful in our turning away.

We cry out in hopes that we will be rescued, as Israel was, again from our sin, again from our turning, again from our idolatry.

We cry out.

Does it matter how big or small our steps away from God are?

same teams

I am talking with friends about the Church, about the divisions in the Body, about the way the fighting and yelling causes me to mourn.

I begin to marvel at the fact that, even with all this fighting, somehow the Spirit still calls out to itself in each one of us, pulling us back to each other.

It is like dodgeball.

We’ve been divided into teams, and we are pressed against the back walls on opposite sides of the gym.

A members from each team stand closer to the middle, rubber balls in hand, waiting for someone to run forward, look away for a second, throw their ball and leave themselves momentarily defenseless.

Meanwhile those already out stand on the sideline cheering, waiting for a ball to be thrown, waiting for the impossible catch which sends the thrower out of the game.

Here, on the internet, we stand, divided into our different teams. A few well known names, and well known posts position themselves closer to the middle, ready to defend the rest of the team.

Occasionally someone darts forward to grab a stray ball, to lob it over to the other side. But mostly we just let those in the middle fire back and forth assuming they are the ones who will win it for us anyway.

What I notice is the way we keep running forward.

The ways we cheer and jeer from the sidelines.

We cheer from the sidelines because we want to be right. We want to win. We want our voice heard last and loudest.

We jeer because we are afraid. We are afraid of being wrong. We are afraid of losing.

But winning or losing is not the point.

And this is where the metaphor breaks down. Because we don’t just run forward to win, to get someone from the other side out.

Sometimes we do. Sometimes we run forward because they ran forward, and we hope in running, in lobbing a ball on their side, it will take them out of the game.

But sometimes we run forward because the Spirit says to run.

Because the Spirit that pulls you forward is the same Spirit that pulls me forward.

Because that Spirit is the same in me as it is in you. It may speak and make itself known differently in me than it does in you, but it cries out to itself from me to you in a way that draws us to one another.

If we stopped for just a minute we would notice that we are all dressed in the same jerseys. We are all playing for the same team.

We all have different roles on this team.

But we are on the same team.

Our shouts should be shouts of victory.

Because this win we are all fighting for? We’ve already got the “W.”

God has already won this battle.

He won it all those years ago on the cross, and when He did He called us together, to this one team, to this one Body, by this one Spirit.

I am on your team. I want to be on your team.

God Disciplined Israel for their Disobedience

“…and for seven years he gave them into the hands of the Midianites. Because the power of Midian was so oppressive the Israelites prepared shelters for themselves in mountain clefts, caves and strongholds. Whenever the Israelites planted their crops, the Midianites, Amalekites and other eastern peoples invaded the country. They camped on the land and ruined the crops all the way to Gaza and did not spare a living thing for Israel, neither sheep nor cattle nor donkeys. They came up with their livestock and their tents like swarms of locusts. It was impossible to count the men and their camels; they invaded the land to ravage it.”

Consequences.

Discipline.

Israel did not like the discipline of the Lord. They ran from it, hid from it in mountain clefts, caves, and strongholds.

The rest of the post appears on A Deeper Church. Head over there to read the post in its entirety.

Israel Did Evil in the Eyes of the Lord

This is the second post in a five part series. It is inspired by the Book of Judges and my studies of that book. Posts will appear here and on A Deeper Church. You can read the first post here.

“The Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord; they forgot the Lord their God and served the Baals and the Asheras.”

The Book of Judges reads like a downward spiral, with each revolution marked by some variation of the phrase, “again the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord.”

Each time it gets worse.

Each time the person leading the people of Israel gets worse.

Each time it is worse because they have turned more fully away from the Lord.

What was their evil?

It was a violation of covenant. A violation of an agreement with the Most Holy God. The One who brought them out of Egypt, out of slavery. The One who removed them from under the hand of their oppressors. The One who drove out those who would oppress Israel so that they might receive the land of their inheritance.

It was a violation to love the Lord their God and serve Him only. It was bowing down to other gods, to idols made, sometimes from their own hands, instead of the One True God.

It was prostitution of self for the purpose of self-indulgence at the cost of true identity, at the cost of the relationship that mattered most.

I do not have idols of metal, wood, or stone.

But that does not mean I do not have idols.

I do not prostitute myself to Baal.

But that does not mean I do not attempt to sell myself off to the lowest bidder, to the cheapest thrill or hope of love, forsaking the greatest love readily available and freely given in the hope of something that feels a little easier.

Our idols are not the idols of Israel during the time of the Judges. But that does not mean we do not serve idols of our own making, idols of this time, today.

The evil we do in the eyes of the Lord may look different on the surface than the evil of Israel, but the cost is the same. Each choice we make to choose ourselves over Him is a step away from Him and toward the worship of self; the worship of what each one of us sees fit to do.

What calls you from your worship of the Lord?

What tries to promise an easier love than the love available to you in Christ?

low light & loud music

One sits at the kitchen table, computer open, listening, watching, homeworking.

Another lays face down on the floor, listening.

And the last sits on the couch, legs stretched out, alternating between singing along with the music and completing an assignment.

The lights are low and the music is loud.

"I love this," one says.

The other two nod in assent.

"I needed this," another one says.

The other two murmur agreement.

"I love you both," the other one says.

"I love you both, too," the other two reply from their respective places on floor and couch.

Each exactly where she is this evening, physically, mentally, spiritually.

Safe.

Home.