Whirling Why's

Do you ever find yourself drowning in a personal sea of "why's"?

• Why...?
• Why are my friends unable to have children?  
• Why did God allow me to get pregnant, only to then allow a miscarriage?  THREE times...and on that third time, taking away half of my fertility; then, a year later, steals away the other half, rendering me completely unable to have another child?  
• Why did she have to die, leaving behind 4 little kids?
• Why does my friend have cancer?  
• Why? Why? Why?

If anyone had the right to ask the tough why questions, it was Job.  The man lost every single, solitary thing to his name.  Every possession.  ALL of his children. And, to top it all off, God gave Satan permission to torment him with the physical pain of boils covering his entire body.  WHY?

Wish I had an answer to all of these tough questions.  Yet, I've come to realize God is so much greater than I could ever come close to understanding.  There are things that are just going to have to wait until heaven...and perhaps when the time comes, the questions will no longer matter.  For now, when the storms of life swirl around me; when the "whys" come, I must stand on the foundation of God's word.  The truth that God loves me.  The truth of Romans 8:28 (NLT), that God "causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to His purpose for them."  I must be able to collapse into these foundational, undergirding truths when things around me seem to be falling apart, outside of my control, beyond my understanding.  I must be able to fall back onto what I do understand.  And I understand this:  God LOVES me!  I may not understand the why and how of it all...but I know it is true.  I also know that what I can see of things is very small in comparison with the eternal perspective God possesses.  He can see the end and the beginning of all things, all at the same time.  He knows all and sees all...including my little life and all that's happening in it.  My life rests securely in the palm of His hand.  And, I am perfectly content to stay right there!

Through Thick & Thin

Friendship...what a blessed gift.  My life is peppered with many, many such gifts and I thank God for each one.

As I continue on in the book of Job and read what his friends have to say about Job's intense response to his horrific circumstances, I've come face-to-face with a trouble spot in my life.  I must admit, I struggle with being a "through thick and thin" kind of friend.  It's easy to be someone's friend when everything is all as it should be.  But what about the true majority of time - when things aren't all rosy and wonderful?  How does one approach a friend in turmoil and speak truth to them, without hurting feelings or injuring them on a heart level?  I absolutely despise conflict in any form.  I shrink from it.  I avoid it all cost.  But, what am I to do when my friend's in trouble and I see something in their life that needs to change...perhaps a blind spot that needs to be brought to light?  How can I avoid being fickle?  How can I be the very opposite of Job's description of his friends at the end of chapter six?

Job 6:14-30 (The Message)

"When desperate people give up on God Almighty, their friends, at least, should stick with them. But my brothers are fickle as a gulch in the desert--one day they're gushing with water from melting ice and snow cascading out of the mountains, but by midsummer they're dry, gullies baked dry in the sun.  Travelers who spot them and go out of their way for a drink end up in a waterless gulch and die of thirst.  Merchant caravans from Tema see them and expect water, tourists from Sheba hope for a cool drink.  They arrive so confident—but what a disappointment!  They get there, and their faces fall! And you, my so-called friends, are no better—there's nothing to you! One look at a hard scene and you shrink in fear.  It's not as though I asked you for anything—I didn't ask you for one red cent—nor did I beg you to go out on a limb for me.  So why all this dodging and shuffling? Confront me with the truth and I'll shut up, show me where I've gone off the track.  Honest words never hurt anyone, but what's the point of all this pious bluster?  You pretend to tell me what's wrong with my life, but treat my words of anguish as so much hot air.  Are people mere things to you? Are friends just items of profit and loss? Look me in the eyes!  Do you think I'd lie to your face?  Think it over—no double-talk! Think carefully—my integrity is on the line! Can you detect anything false in what I say? Don't you trust me to discern good from evil?"

I desire to be a source of life for my friends...a haven of rest...a place where honest, truthful, Biblical feedback is spoken in love.  Lord, I pray that you will make this true of me.

Grace To Stand

I subscribed to BlueLetterBible.org's daily Bible reading (chronological order).  Made it through the flood and met Abram - now we're in Job.  Cool to think that Abraham and Job were contemporaries.  Makes me feel really silly to admit...but not until about 3 years ago did I realize the Bible is not written in chronological order from Genesis to Revelation!

Enough about my naivety!  Back to the book of Job. The absolute devastation the enemy was allowed to rain down on Job makes me shiver.  The enemy wants nothing more than to bring down the faithful followers of the one true God.  So thankful for Job's faith...and his transparency.

As I was reading through one of Charles Spurgeon's commentaries on the first chapters of Job, this quote practically leaped out of my screen:  "Oh may God grant us grace, as a Church, to stand against the wiles of Satan and his attacks, that having done his worst he may gain no advantage over us, and after having considered, and considered again, and counted well our towers and bulwarks, he may be compelled to retire because his battering rams cannot jar so much as a stone from our ramparts, and his slings cannot slay one single soldier on the walls."

Rainbows, Promises, and Faith

When Noah was 601 years old, 10.5 months after the flood began, Noah lifted back the cover of the boat to look. Two more months went by and at last the earth was dry!  Noah and his family were in the boat for an entire year!


Ten generations into the life of the earth, God was so frustrated with the people that He flooded the entire planet, wiping out every living thing except Noah, his wife, their three sons, and their sons' wives.  How frustrated, how angry, would God be with us, had He not sent Jesus Christ to pay the penalty price for our sins?  God promises in Genesis 8:21-22:  "I will never again curse the earth, destroying all living things, even though people's thoughts and actions are bent toward evil from childhood.  As long as the earth remains, there will be springtime and harvest, cold and heat, winter and summer, day and night." We can trust God's promises! He's kept this one for thousands of years!

In chapter 9:13-16, God makes this covenant with Noah (and all of Noah's descendants), "I am giving you a sign as evidence of my eternal covenant with you and all living creatures. I have placed my rainbow in the clouds. It is the sign of my permanent promise to you and to all the earth. When I send clouds over the earth, the rainbow will be seen in the clouds, and I will remember my covenant with you and with everything that lives. Never again will there be a flood that will destroy all life. When I see the rainbow in the clouds, I will remember the eternal covenant between God and every living creature on earth."


From Noah's three sons, Shem, Ham & Japheth, come all humans on earth today.  Shem's branch of the family tree includes Abram.  Abram (later known as Abraham) is shown to have immense faith.  I look forward to reading again the story of his life.  David Guzik, in his commentary on Genesis 11 says this: "If you despair in knowing you do not have Abram’s faith, take comfort in knowing you have Abram’s God. He can build in you the faith of Abram, because He built it in Abram himself."  What a blessed thought!

I Want Nothing More

Random observations from Genesis 4, 5, 6, and 7

I'd never really thought of this before...Adam & Eve lost both of their sons in one day.  After their eldest son, Cain, killed his only brother, Abel (thus taking one son), God sent him away...to restlessly wander all his days.  Adam and Eve quickly felt the sting of that first sin.  I find it interesting that God curses Cain to be driven from the ground that he had worked, to wander the earth the remainder of his days. Yet, in Genesis 4:17, we see Cain building a city.  It's as if he's defying the curse of God, thumbing his nose at God like a snotty-nosed brat saying, "I'll show you..."

Cain's descendants were quite the entrepreneurs.  Within 8 generations (Adam - Lamech), we have amazing craftsmanship/business/invention.  Serious proof that flies in the face of the theory of evolution.  To think that so quickly after the first man arrives on the face of the planet, we already have musical instruments and iron tools.  Gen 4:19-22 show us a listing of their accomplishments:

• Jabal:  the father of those who live in tents and raise livestock 
• Jubal: the father of all who play the harp and flute
• Tubal-Cain: who forged all kinds of tools out of bronze and iron

I know God could have allowed these things to happen in a nomadic culture...but I find myself wondering if, because Cain settled and built a city if these inventions were quicker to arrive on the scene.  Of particular interest to me, though, is the complete absence of any mention of God or their worship of Him.  It appears that Cain and his family completely turned their backs on the Lord and focus instead on the accomplishments of their hands.

Random observations from Adam's Family Tree

I love genealogy...God's word is chock-full of them.  In his online commentary, Chuck Smith points out that the genealogy in Genesis 5 shows that Noah's father and Adam were alive at the same time.  I just had to check it out for myself.  So, I took pen and paper and sketched out Adam's family tree to Noah.  Sure enough, Noah's dad very likely sat at Adam's feet and listened to first-hand accounts about life in the garden of Eden and the fall of man - directly from the mouth of the man who'd been there...the man who took the fruit from his wife and ate.  Since writing had likely not been developed at this time, it was very important to have first-hand accounts being passed from one generation to the next.  Adam had the privilege of telling these same stories to his sons, grandsons, great-grandsons, great-great-grandsons, and his great-great-great-great-great-great-grandsons.  What would we know of our own families if we'd been granted the same privilege to sit at the feet of our ancestors and listen to their stories?  We have the gift of the written word...may we use it for the benefit of those who come after us.

Enoch & Noah
Enoch was Noah's great-grandfather.  It is said of Enoch (in Gen. 5:24), "He enjoyed a close relationship with God throughout his life. Then suddenly, he disappeared because God took him."  In Gen. 6:9, similar words are written about Noah:  "...Noah was a righteous man, the only blameless man living on earth at the time.  He consistently followed God's will and enjoyed a close relationship with Him."  I pray these same words will be true of me, that my children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren would be able to say "she consistently followed God's will and enjoyed a close relationship with Him."  I want nothing more.

"And God said,..."

I've decided to blog about my observations as God takes me on this adventure of reading through His entire Word in one year.  It's easier for me to put fingers to keyboard than it is pen to paper...and much faster (not to mention spell-checked).  So...the thoughts are likely to be random...but I often find the thing that jumps out at me from the text I read for the day is often the very thing that speaks to my life or causes me to think deeper about my own spiritual journey.

"And God said,..."

That's all...  "And God said..."  With those three words, all of creation came into being.  What a marvelous, awe-inspiring, creative, masterful, audacious God we serve.  All things were created by the words He spoke and crafted by His hands.  You and I were created by the same God who spoke all of creation into existence.  We can rest securely in the palm of His hand, trusting in His divine plan for our lives.  To think...the creator of all things, has written an important part for you and I to play within His-Story.  Wow!

"...and God saw that it was good."  Upon the closing of each day, God looked over the day's work and noted that it was good.  Then, we come to the final day of creation, and God looks at everything He had made (that includes mankind) and said, "It was very good."  That means you and me.  God created us to be "very good."  That thought comforts me and reminds me that He still sees me as "very good" through the sacrificial death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

The Radical Experiment

I'm in the final chapter of the book, "Radical - Taking Back Your Faith From The American Dream" by David Platt.  To say I've been challenged doesn't even come close to describing the whirlwind of thoughts, emotions and at-the-core unsettledness this book has stirred up within me.  God has used Platt's book to strip away the rose-colored glasses, the American-dream-filter through which I view the world.  I no longer see myself as I did a few weeks ago. I have come face-to-face with my severe lack of radical compassion for the poor, the lonely and the lost of the world, and I don't like what I see.  Pair all of this with the sermon series we're in at Faith E-Free right now on the book of Galatians and I'm a confused ball of questions.  

Platt calls into question the "true Christianity" of those who don't reflect a radical desire to reach the lost with the gospel and irradicate poverty around the world. On page 111 of his book, Platt says this:  "More pointedly, if our lives do not reflect radical compassion for the poor, there is reason to wonder if Christ is really in us at all."

I know that I am saved by grace through faith.  Yet, this comment shook me to the core.  Is it an inroad for the enemy to whisper his lies?  Or is it the not-so-gentle-nudge of the Spirit calling me to move out in faith into a life of radical compassion I have yet to experience.

In Galatians 1:9, Paul writes:  "As we have already said, I say again:  If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let him be eternally condemned!"  Is Platt adding to the gospel?  Or, is our response to the gospel supposed to be one of radical compassion?  I'm leaning toward the latter...but where do I go with all of this?  Sell everything we have and move to the poorest, most unreached part of the world? What is God calling me to do?  We have so much...yet at times, it seems so difficult to be content with what God has lavished on us.  And, then I read a quote like this:  "Today more than a billion people in the world live and die in desperate poverty.  The attempt to survive on less than a dollar per day.  Close to two billion others live on less than two dollars per day.  That's nearly half the world struggling today to find food, water, and shelter with the same amount of money I spend on french fries for lunch."  (Radical, p. 108)

Platt goes on to say, "Suddenly I began to realize that if I  have been commanded to make disciples of all nations, and if poverty is rampant in the world to which God has called me, then I cannot ignore these realities.  Anyone wanting to proclaim the glory of Christ to the ends of the earth must consider not only how to declare the Gospel verbally but also how to demonstrate the Gospel visibly in a world where so many are urgently hungry.  If I am going to address urgent spiritual need by sharing the Gospel of Christ or building up the body of Christ around the world, then I cannot overlook the dire physical need in the process."  (Radical, p. 109)

So, that's where I am today, standing totally convicted, completely confident that the Gospel is compelling me to do something more.  I am staring the blind spots in my life straight in the face and daring to allow the Spirit to shine the light of God's truth into the voids created by the ideology of the American Dream.

I feel called to take the first "dares" set out by Platt in the final chapter of Radical.
1.  Pray for the entire world in one year.
2.  Read through the entire Word in one year.

These are safe...within my control...but because they are within my control, I also know the weakness of my flesh.  I cannot do this alone!  Father, Son and Holy Spirit,  I pray that you will keep me on track.  I also ask that You protect me from the "ritualistic" rules these could become.  Use this "dare" for good in my life and the lives of those around me.

The next dare is to "Sacrifice your money for a specific purpose."  Hmm...I get to that in my reading tomorrow.  I'll let you know how it goes!