The Rising Sun

The path of the righteous is like the first gleam of dawn,

  shining ever brighter till the full light of day,

But the way of the wicked is like deep darkness;

  they do not know what makes them stumble. (Proverbs 4:18-19)

First thing. Note that it is the path of the righteous, not the path of the self-righteous. It is unfortunate that righteousness has such a bad name nowadays. Really the thing that is so unsavory is self-righteousness. Being in the right is not necessarily a bad thing, but most people do not handle it very well.

Recently my wife had a sprained ankle. It is a re-injury. Parts of her ankle and foot have become weak over time. The bones in her leg have shifted. She is having to learn how to walk rightly again with the right support and exercise. This is what righteousness is like. Training. Recovery. The joy of such training is walking rightly. Less pain. Greater freedom and strength.

In this case the freedom is expressed as the coming dawn. I like this quote from Dallas Willard: "As you grow older, the soul beings to function like a storehouse." For most of us, it is easy to store up anxiety and regret and dark thoughts. But I am happy to have even just a little glory being stored up in my life. Sometimes it is something good I was a part of, someone really good that I met, or something wonderful I've seen. I know when I'm on the right path when smaller and smaller things bring greater and greater praise and thanksgiving from my heart and mouth.

Wickedness is like a steamroller over the innocent. We always have such good reasons for it too. In the end it is constant instability and anxiety and frustration. It is not only stumbling, but running into horrible things you never quite expected. It's like bleeding in the middle of a frenzy of sharks. The language of the wicked is complaining and arguing and accusing. It takes less and less to make me more and more frustrated when I'm headed into darkness.

In the end, we will follow our teachers. Into light or into darkness we follow them. It reminds me of a prayer my family says during Advent season: "O Rising Sun, come to us from heaven and shine on those living in darkness and in the shadow of death, and guide our feet into the path of peace." 

Don't Worry, Relax in God

petvetcity.com

Relax.

Relax and worry will leave you.

The value of your life is so much greater than the food you eat or the happiness you get.  The beauty of your body is so much more than the clothes you wear or whatever you accomplish.

Soar like an eagle on the breeze.  With ease and confidence.  God will carry you like the wind carries that bird.  God will feed you like he feeds each bird.

When you work, do not work for mere food.  God will take care of that.

Remember, worry cannot add anything to your life.  It only takes away.

Turn your face to the sun like the flowers.  They do not need to work for its warmth and energy.  God will shine on you like the sun.  His light will reveal the beauty and accomplishments of what you do.

When you work, do not work for mere outward appearances.  God will take care of that.

Remember, worry does not show your care, but your faithlessness.

First things first.  Worry gets it all mixed up.

First, make it your business to know God's business.  Nothing escapes his notice.  He cares for birds and flowers.  He cares even more for your life and your body.  His business is to watch over you.  Let yourself be watched and known to him.  We do not owe him.  This is just what he does.

Align yourself with his watch-care.  Let your life be his to care for.  Know that his care extends to everyone.  Everyone needs to let themselves be known and cared for by this God.

care2.com

When we are cared for, we can relax.  Relax with God.  Relax with each other.

When we are cared for, our life and our bodies are provided for.  We all can find sustenance and happiness.  We all can find protection and significance.

Relax and tomorrow will not be scary.  Be cared for and today's challenges will not be overwhelming.

Relax and worry will leave you.

Relax in God's care.

(Meditation on Matthew 6:25-34)

The Goodness that Makes Life Worth Living Is Obtained by Trusting God and His Ways

Romans 1:  The Problem Is Shame in What God Has Supplied as the Way to Life

When we ask again: ‘How is it that when he enjoined us in this book of yours not to do anything or receive anything without witnesses, you did not ask him: “First do you show us by witnesses that you are a prophet and that you have come from God, and show us just what Scriptures there are that testify about you”’—they are ashamed and remain silent. [Then we continue:] ‘Although you may not marry a wife without witnesses, or buy, or acquire property; although you neither receive an ass nor possess a beast of burden unwitnessed; and although you do possess both wives and property and asses and so on through witnesses, yet it is only your faith and your scriptures that you hold unsubstantiated by witnesses. For he who handed this down to you has no warranty from any source, nor is there anyone known who testified about him before he came. On the contrary, he received it while he was asleep.’ (John of Damascus, Fount of Knowledge, Heresies, concerning Islam)  

Take note of verse 2.   The prophets testify about Jesus and lead up to him.  This is important to Paul in his writing about the gospel.  It is new.  It is unique.  It is also foretold and anticipated.

Paul received grace and his calling to apostleship for this gospel which in verse 5 he explains as "obedience that comes through faith."  We do not believe the gospel so that obedience is optional or unnecessary.  We believe the gospel so that we might complete our obedience to God.  The law and the gospel go to the same place and describe the destination the same, but only the gospel can get me there.  The law taken rightly is more descriptive than prescriptive.

His visit is for mutual encouragement, the heart of spiritual gifts (v.11).  Spiritual gifts, then, are about a connection between believers and not merely possessed in one's own life.  Without mutual edification, spiritual gifts are not really spiritual gifts.

The point of Paul's letter to the Roman church is addressing the shame that some people place on the gospel.  People prefer other "ways" to God and tend to leave the gospel because of its apparent weakness and unpopularity.  In contrast, Paul says that the gospel is God's power revealed as a righteousness by faith from "first to last."  (vv.16-17)

Shame in the gospel is nothing new.  It's unapologetic dependence on God as well as its unmitigated promise for real goodness in the lives of those who embrace and exercise it make it unpopular at all times.  People prefer to rely on their own resources.  They also prefer to have a goodness that appeals to people around them rather than a goodness that really changes them.  We all wish the world could be a better place, but we are largely unwilling to cling to the goodness that God gives because it requires real change to our lives.

Of course, righteousness by faith will be fleshed out in this letter, but at the outset, I find it helpful to understand this righteousness that Paul preaches answers the important life questions "What is real?" The power and ability of God.  "Who is well-off?"  Those who are being delivered from this evil age.  "What is good?"  What God has revealed in the gospel.  "How does one become a good person?"  By trusting in God's work through the gospel.  Faith is trust and always implied is trust in God and his ways.

Lord, may I shed my shame and embrace this faith that places your good news at the center of my life as the one thing I can count on and the one thing that will bring goodness and well-being to myself and others.  Amen.

Guidance as the Righteousness of God

Like a horse in open country,

they did not stumble;

like cattle that go down to the plain,

they were given rest by the Spirit of the Lord.

This is how you guided your people

to make for yourself a glorious name. (Is. 63:13)

I love this image of guidance. When God guides, we are like a horse galloping across the prairie and like a contented cow grazing in a green field of grace. God's guidance leads to freedom and rest. The freedom is a freedom from stumbling and falling. The rest is provision and peace. The result shows how good and amazing God is.

Interestingly, this passage in Isaiah refers to the Israelites looking back to their wilderness wanderings with longing. The passage refers to them as they followed God. It could be said that Isaiah is merely being nostalgic, forgetting the complaining and doubting that happened during those days. I think, however, he is pointing not to the "good ole days," but rather to our good God.

The problem with God's guidance was not with his guidance, but with the reception of it from the people. Even with their gripes and slips, they found their way. The main point being that the first step to following God's guidance is understanding that God is not trying to be obscure and cryptic as he guides us, but plain and clear. What gets in my way is my worry and doubt.

Faith is what opens up God's guidance to me. Simple trust in his desire to guide and care for me. This simple trust led Abraham into the "right way" with God (Rom. 4:3). Perhaps righteousness is mostly a matter of guidance. By trust and confidence in God, maybe I can, like Abraham, walk in the right ways because God will guide me. The opposite would be trusting more in something other than my relationship with God as my guiding light.

I find it easy to depart from following God because sometimes he doesn't seem to be going where I want or maybe he is going too slow. I whip out the map of my reason or my feeling or my common sense, pass God, and try to find the right way on my own. Everyone knows what that's like, but everyone still tries it.

Walking alongside the Lord is like galloping over an open field. He shows me things that I would never be able to figure out on my own. Also, walking with God is like being that contented cow. He provides what I need and more as I journey with him. Keeping in step with him also brings me to worship and praise him as he performs amazing deeds in, around, and through me. By contrast, passing God up only yields personal accomplishments that dry up and blow away, frantic busyness that drains me, and recognition for myself that does not help other people (or myself really) on bit.

So righteousness can be seen as being guided rightly. What am I guided by today? What is my source of righteousness, right living, right guidance?

Oaks of Righteousness

The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me,

because the Lord has anointed me

to preach good news to the poor. . . .

To bestow on them a crown of beauty

instead of ashes,

the oil of gladness

instead of mourning,

and a garment of praise

instead of a spirit of despair.

They will be oaks of righteousness

a planting of the Lord

for the display of his splendor. (Is. 61:1, 3)

How I long to walk into that forest! How I long to be in a place where righteousness towers around me in the people I meet and worship with! To be in a forest populated with good lives all around would be such a sign of peace and comfort. Even in the midst of disaster such oaks would stand.

How I long to be in a wood where righteousness is characterized by beauty, gladness, and praise rather than ashes, mourning, and despair! Such lives would be crowned with a beauty that would shine out of their faces and work out of their hands. Such lives would be painted with laughter and gladness because of the joy that comes from them. Such lives would be clothed in praise and worship, their very movements speaking of the goodness and power of God. They would be right and good as God is right and good, not a mere caricature.

The seed of these "oaks of righteousness" is the good news, the year of the Lord's favor. The soil where the seeds are planted is even among the broken-hearted, the captives, the prisoners, and those who mourn. What causes them to grow is beauty, gladness, and praise in our God. Only then will the oaks be a "planting of the Lord for the display of his splendor."

My efforts at righteousness are often full of the ashes, mourning, and despair of pleasing and impressing others. Nothing grows here. It is a field sowed with bitter salt. Such "righteousness" has only scattered the seed, hardened the soil, and deprived any nourishment to what might grow. As Jesus says, such righteousness gets taken away by the devil, withers away under pressure, and is choked out by wealth and pleasures before it can become even a sapling. It is momentary, merely a tourist in the "planting of the Lord."

Lord, today let my efforts be to accept the crown of beauty that the good news brings, to be anointed with the oil of gladness found in God's favor, and to wear a garment of praise for all his comfort he has given me. Maybe I might someday become a resident, a true pilgrim in the "planting of the Lord." Amen.