Conflict in This Present Age

 How often have I failed to find faithfulness, where I thought I possessed it. How many times I have found it where I least expected.

Who is the man who is able to keep himself so warily and circumspectly as not sometimes to come into some snare of perplexity? But he who trusteth in Thee, O Lord, and seeketh Thee with an unfeigned heart, doth not so easily slip. And if he fall into any tribulation, howsoever he may be entangled, yet very quickly he shall be delivered through Thee, or by Thee shall be comforted, because Thou wilt not forsake him that trusteth in Thee unto the end.

Oh, how good and peacemaking a thing it is to be silent concerning others, and not carelessly to believe all reports, nor to hand them on further; how good also to lay one's self open to few, to seek ever to have Thee as the beholder of the heart.  (Thomas a Kempis, The Imitation of Christ, Chapter 55)

In dealing with conflict, I am encouraged to know that failing to find faithfulness in other people is not just a current thing, since Thomas a Kempis was writing about it in the 12th century.  Also, I am encouraged to know that faithfulness does come up in a number of places where I least expect it.  This shows me that such faithfulness is not a consistent practice in people's lives, but a common one built into the creation.  It explains why I can trust God to show me faithfulness and kindness, often through unexpected persons, while not being able to rely on any one person in particular for complete faithfulness.



Peace and rest cannot be expected to last a long time anywhere in this current age.  This goes doubly in relationships.  I often run into some "snare of perplexity," not matter how hard I may try to avoid it.  This is why a Kempis recommends not seeking peace and rest as much as trust in God and his comfort.  Trying to find peace in this world leads to anger and depression.  Rather, I find hope in knowing that God will quickly save or quickly comfort me in the face of all trials.

Silence leads to much peace with other people.  Often I am tempted to "share" and "talk things out" when silence would serve best.  In communication, no one mode answers every need, but silence is seldom used for anything but resentment ("the silent treatment").  Silence so often protects me from hurting other people through harsh or slanderous words.  Silence also protects me from exercising pride and bitterness which hurt myself.  The helplessness of silence can move me to pray and trust in God more when I am concerned for the good of God, others, and myself.  Often true: "Much dreaming and many words are meaningless; therefore stand in awe of God."  (Ecclesiastes 5:7)

Father, conflict is a regular part of this present age.  I spend time fuming about it and trying so hard to avoid it.  Let me instead walk hand in hand with you, knowing you alone can deliver me from trouble and only you can truly comfort my aching heart.  Lead me to a few who I can trust and let me lead others to the only one they can truly trust.  Amen.

Into the Arms of Jesus

From a Spiritual Exercise in the Renovare Institute:


Ask yourself, What breaks my heart that breaks the heart of God? Consider passages of Scripture that talk about what breaks God’s heart. Then consider, What disadvantaged, overlooked person or group of people’s condition do you find heartbreaking?

This morning my heart goes out to children and youth.  For all the attention that both groups seem to receive, I ache when I see how little they learn about God's love.  "Let the little children come to me" are the words of this God.  Childhood and youth are the places where innate trust or distrust of God are formed.

For all the lessons and classes and "education" that our children receive, they ache to see adults who are living as God's children themselves.  I look around and look back on my own childhood experiences and have to agree with Rich Mullins when he sings, "I heard so much of the dribble, it's a wonder I can think."  I was immersed in a world hiding from God.  I see children and youth caught in the same world where the greatest injustice is that they are not taken to the Lord's loving arms.  Actually, they are even prevented from finding him.

For this Jesus said one of his strongest statements.  "If anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a large millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea."  I do not think he was only talking about children and youth, but I think that they were certainly included and even highlighted in the statement.  It is one reason that, even with my own children, I remind them at times not to look to me always, but remember that "God alone is good."  I pray for mercy for where I fail them and for grace for them to find the Lord in their own lives.

So I ache for children and their parents and teachers.  I long for them to know just how serious the responsibility is for letting the children come to Jesus.  If all things were equal, if this world were not what it is, children and youth might "find their way" on their own.  But since the world is a trap, Satan is alive and well, and hearing God and trusting him is not instinctual but sought, acquired, and learned, our children and youth need to hear the words "Let the little children come to me" and they need to see adults running to him as well.  Besides, one of the greatest joys in life is leading little ones into the arms of Jesus.  It reminds me that my place is there as well.

Because I long for the children to come, I find myself teaching them and trying to remind and encourage their parents to do the same.  I long to share not because I have the answers, but because I know how much help children and parents and teachers need to face the obstacles in this present evil age.  We must not lose our focus on the sufficiency of Christ nor the hope that our children can live in that sufficiency.  In comparison to this hope and faith, nothing else matters!  Without it our children are lost as much as we are ourselves.

I say all this to express my concern for those I consider "overlooked."  It is ironic that so much attention can be given to youth and children and yet somehow what is most important be left out.  This speaks about our own hearts more than anything else.  For myself, it speaks to how I raise my family, but also to how I lead or take other children and youth either into Jesus' arms or away from them.  The children are his - consecrated and set apart - I am merely a steward set to watch over them for a short while. 

Satisfied with God Alone

Be still and know that I am God. (Psalm 46:10)

I will be satisfied as with the richest of foods,
  with singing lips, my mouth will praise you. (Psalm 63:5)

I have told you this that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. (John 15:11)

One summer a number of years ago, I came home from college to spend time with my family.  I loved to be at "home" with my parents.  I was enjoying a few days without work before the new semester began, I think.  I enjoyed eating there, sleeping there, playing games with my family, and also taking walks next to White Rock Canyon.

Somehow there was peace for me in the vastness of that canyon, especially in the morning.  The smell of the sagebrush and juniper (I've never been allergic to it) and the morning light has always brought a rest for me that I could never find elsewhere.  I was going to miss that place going back to the city for school, so I intended on taking in all of the space and quiet I could from the canyon that morning.

Instead, I found myself restless.  I missed Dawn, who at that time was my girlfriend.  Although I had been disturbed at missing girlfriends before, I had never really had them intrude on this time and place of sanctuary at the canyon's edge.  I had never quite had that sense of dissatisfaction that I had in being apart from her.  She was going to be going to a different university this semester and I was not going to see her when I returned to school.

This dissatisfaction took me by surprise.  I was alarmed by it.  I even wondered if it was a bad sign to have the longing for her ruin what had always been so precious and peaceful to me.  I was not aware of it then, but God spoke to me plainly.  He told me that without her, I could not enjoy the things I used to enjoy.  I think this was the moment I realized I would marry Dawn.  It wasn't so much that I couldn't live without her, but that I knew that my life was for sharing with her and giving to her as long as I was able to do so.

This morning I was drawn back into that moment by realizing that dissatisfaction was the reason for much of my restlessness in life.  I was made to share my life with someone else and give my life to another.  Dawn is part of that ache, but it goes deeper.  I have moments in which I am overcome with such satisfaction.  After a job well done, when I see my children laughing together, when I go to bed and hold Dawn close on a cold night, when I smell the rain in the trees when I go outside in the morning, I have moments of peace and contentedness.  But like that morning, the moments are, at best, just moments and fade quickly in the light of a deeper dissatisfaction.

I find that I am restless.  I go from moment to moment of rest and joy only to find them slipping from my fingers.  The moments not only fade with time, they fade with use.  The law of diminishing returns seems to play out with most experiences.  There is a desire for something new and often something more.   Contrary to my natural expectations and usual experience, though, the way of peace and joy is not primarily made up of what is new and more, but the enjoyment of what is common and less.

The newness and abundance must come from somewhere other than the experiences themselves.  They come from finding that true desire, that place where I can give and share.  Other people provide an example of how such giving and sharing is found in relationship, but there is a profound dissatisfaction at the depth and ability of other people to be a part of this in my life.  I have had to learn that their own incompleteness keeps them from being that place, that person that I need.  I see that incompleteness in myself as well as I live with and love my wife and family.  I cannot be their joy and peace any more than any other person or experience they may have.

I think I am tempted like most people to live with this as a matter of fact and try to get all of the moments I can as I go through life.  This has led me into problems of using people as things to get those moments as well as seeking experiences that are more and more.  Paul talks about this sort of life when he writes

So I say to you and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do in the futility of their thinking.  They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God by the ignorance that is in them.  Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity with a continual lust for more. (Ephesians 4:17-19)

It seems kind of rough, but I have found myself in this cycle many times.  I have found myself with "futile thinking" seeking after God in the wrong way and in the wrong places.

This morning I was not so much filled with dissatisfaction as with joy in knowing that I do not have to live quite so restlessly.  I can live with God, giving to him and sharing with him.  Such a relationship has enabled all things in my life - even the bad things - to become new and more than they are in themselves.  Joy - a pervading sense of well-being according to Dallas Willard - can come in the morning and follow me throughout my day as I give my days to God and share them with him.  Through this relationship, God shows  me that what I need is not so much more experiences in number or intensity, but more of certain experiences in depth and enjoyment.  Only in remaining with him can I escape the law of diminishing returns, because only he is infinite and eternal in his being.  He has made me eternal so I can enjoy his infinitude.

I see this as the only way to navigate this life because as my body gives out and as I go through more experiences in life, I must either become more and more dissatisfied with life because I cannot get as much out of it, or I must find a way to enjoy less and less more and more deeply.  Only through the Spirit with my spirit can such a life be possible. May God save me from "futile thinking" that seeks to live without him.  I want to start and end my day seeking my satisfaction in him alone and letting the experiences and people in my life color and fill in that contentment.  I pray with Thomas a Kempis:

Grant me, most sweet and loving Jesus, to rest in Thee above every creature, above all health and beauty, above all glory and honour, above all power and dignity, above all knowledge and skilfulness, above all riches and arts, above all joy and exultation, above all fame and praise, above all sweetness and consolation, above all hope and promise, above all merit and desire, above all gifts and rewards which Thou canst give and pour forth, above all joy and jubilation which the mind is able to receive and feel. (The Imitation of Christ, Chapter 21)

Rock of Ages and Communion

Rock of Ages, cleft for me,
let me hide myself in thee;
let the water and the blood,
from thy wounded side which flowed,
be of sin the double cure;
save from wrath and make me pure.

Not the labors of my hands
can fulfill thy law's commands;
could my zeal no respite know,
could my tears forever flow,
all for sin could not atone;
thou must save, and thou alone.

Nothing in my hand I bring,
simply to the cross I cling;
naked, come to thee for dress;
helpless, look to thee for grace;
foul, I to the fountain fly;
wash me, Savior, or I die.

While I draw this fleeting breath,
when mine eyes shall close in death,
when I soar to worlds unknown,
see thee on thy judgment throne,
Rock of Ages, cleft for me,
let me hide myself in thee.

I was deeply moved by this hymn this last Sunday during communion.  I am hoping to commit it to memory.  In one of the complines my family does at night, God is referred to as a "crag" in which I hide and take shelter.  The image sticks with me when I think of my Rock of Ages.

I had someone ask me what "cleft" means.  I told them it was "split" or "divided."   The very place of God's brokenness, where he was "split" on the cross, is my hiding place and my place of security.  It is where his love shows best, where his utter humility led him, the only safe place for us to meet.  It is where he placed himself below me as a servant so that I might lay myself out beside him as a living sacrifice.

I never used to like this hymn because of of how it says I am saved from "wrath."  It used to bring pictures of God needing to punish someone, "Someone has to get a beating."  After I read the chapter "God Is Holy" in The Good and Beautiful God by James Bryhan Smith, I realized what wrath is.  It is not a quality of God nor is it a fuming, raging anger.  It is God's continual opposition to sin, which hurts and destroys people.  The cross is place where I am safe from God's opposition to sin because it is where I learn how to be crucified with Christ to sin in my own life.  I cannot start or finish such work, but I can labor with God by surrendering to his work in and on my life that will save me from this present evil age.

At a memorial service at the graveside of a friend of our family, I was asked to share a short devotion.  I was drawn to Revelation 5:9-10:

And they sang a new song:
“You are worthy to take the scroll
  and to open its seals,
because you were slain,
  and with your blood you purchased men for God
  from every tribe and language and people and nation.
You have made them to be a kingdom and priests to serve our God,
  and they will reign on the earth.”

She was a marvelous musician, so I thought of this "new song".  The Israelites sang new songs to celebrate each new work and wonder of God.  Of the many things this song says, one thing that hit me most was that Jesus is our Judge - "worthy to take the scroll and open the seals" - but he is also our Savior - "you were slain and with your blood you purchased men for God."  That is why in the last verse when I see him on the judgement throne I will be able to hide in him, the one I know as Savior.

What a great song for Communion.