frolic like calves

Malachi 4:1-2: “‘Surely the day is coming; it will burn like a furnace. All the arrogant and every evildoer will be stubble, and the day that is coming will set them on fire,’ says the Lord Almighty. ‘Not a root or a branch will be left to them. But for you who revere my name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its rays. And you will go out and frolic like well-fed calves.’”

What a day that will be! What do you suppose the sun of righteousness will look like? Or better yet, feel like? Those rays will heal anything that ails any Christ-follower. We’ll be all done with arthritis and paralysis and chronic back pain or headaches. No more depression or anxiety. Just glorious, blessed sunshine.

And we’ll go out and frolic like calves in a sunny meadow. Imagine, all of us dour Dutch Calvinists, jumping and kicking up our heels, and rolling the grass. We’ll be so happy, we can’t contain it. We’ll feel so healthy, we can’t help but run.

What a day! What an eternity, lived with God! What a promise!

wearying words

As I read in Malachi this morning, I wonder if God is going to run out of patience with America.

I’m thinking of the place in Malachi 2:17 where it says, “You have wearied the Lord with your words.

‘How have we wearied him?’ you ask.
By saying, ‘All who do evil are good in the eyes of the Lord, and he is pleased with them” or “Where is the God of justice?’”

There’s a lot of that going on these days. Neo-Nazis marching in Charlottesville were “a lot of very good people.” “We can’t help who we love,” say people who want to excuse affairs or any kind of marriage, or no marriage at all. “You can choose your own gender,” claim the ones who want to deny God’s sovereignty over our lives. And in my denomination and my town there are more and more neighbors and friends, many of them Christians, who want us to be tolerant and inclusive of people whose lives repudiate scripture. Universalism, this idea that everyone will go to heaven, is proclaimed by evangelical leaders and embraced by hundreds of thousands.

And whenever another hurricane comes ashore or evil strikes at the hands of demented men and women, we hear again a growing denial of God. How could a God of love allow this? If he exists, people say, then I want no part of him. A famous actor, an atheist, when asked what he would say if God turned out to be real, answered, “I’d look him in the eye and say, ‘Childhood cancer? Really? What kind of God are you?’”

Those words that wearied God in Malachi’s day, “All who do evil are good in the eyes of the Lord,” and “Where is the God of Justice?” are heard a lot these days. How long will God be patient?

The good news is that his response to the Jews of Malachi’s time was love and forgiveness, and a call to revival. May revival come to America, and come soon.

remember

Nehemiah did a lot for God’s people, things that cost him money and took up his time. He lived in Spartan circumstances away from his home. And every time, he had the same prayer. Here’s an example, from Nehemiah 13:22b:

“Remember me for this also, my God, and show mercy to me according to your great love.”

I find a couple of things interesting about this prayer. One is that Nehemiah believes that doing these good things will do him some good. He wants God to remember them. This goes beyond the initial glory given to God, and the strengthening of the relationship; Nehemiah wants God not to forget the things he’s done.

Yet Nehemiah still puts his hope on God, not himself. Remember, he says, and show mercy. Mercy not according to Nehemiah’s deeds, but according to God’s great love. This seems to me to be a good balance of works and grace. 

nobles

Nehemiah 7:4-5: “Now the city was large and spacious, but there were few people in it, and the houses had not yet been rebuilt. So my God put it into my heart to assemble the nobles, the officials and the common people for registration by families.”

When the Israelites finally entered the Promised Land, each tribe and family got an allotment of property defined by God himself. God told Joshua where the boundaries should be. At that time there was no king. Joshua led the people with the aid of the judges, the ones selected to help the people upon the advice of Jethro. There was the Levitical priesthood. Other than that, the family and clan structure was the government.

How far things had drifted by Nehemiah’s day! The word that caught me in the above passage, part of the ongoing narrative of the rebuilding of Jerusalem, was “noble.” When did the Jews get nobles? Isn’t the very idea of a privileged elite class at odds with God’s vision for his people?

I suppose it may have gotten started when Israel demanded a king. A king will have relatives who will seem more blue-blooded because of that relationship. And a king will want to bestow favors on those who support him, and titles and lands are the most common of those favors.

It probably didn’t help when the conquering Assyrians and Babylonians came in. Their governments likely were full of nobles, and their method of governing conquered territories probably included setting up a local nobility that owed their prominence to the new king.

However it happened, by the time of Nehemiah there were at least three classes in Jewish society: the nobility, the government officials, and the common folk. The fact that Nehemiah had to register them all by families suggests that national identity by tribe and family had degraded over time.

It doesn’t seem like this class society was helping the Jews. In fact, earlier in the book of Nehemiah he addresses the social injustices of the nobles and officials taking advantage of the commoners.

I don’t like the word “common” to describe people, and I think God might not either. How can anyone made in his image be considered common? It’s a word we use to say there’s nothing important or special about someone, but aren’t we to consider everyone as important to God and special in his eyes?

I’m going to pay attention to those times when I want to think someone else is inferior to me. The ones we call rednecks and Walmart people and trailer trash – they aren’t common either, but I tend to look down my nose at them. That’s thinking like a noble, and God’s Plan A didn’t include nobles. 

not in vain

Sometimes I’m tempted by the race up the career ladder. I think the first-class travel, limousine rides, nice suits and deferential aides would look good on me. All the years plugging away in Sioux County, raising a family and investing in a small community, can seem like they haven’t gotten me very far.

But then I’m reminded of the truth so succinctly stated by the Psalmist in Psalm 127:1-2:

“Unless the Lord builds the house,

the builders labor in vain.
Unless the Lord watches over the city,
the guards stand watch in vain.
In vain you rise early
and stay up late,
toiling for food to eat—
for he grants sleep to those he loves.”

Whatever gifts I have weren’t given to me so I could be an important somebody. They’re for the good of God’s people. If I try to use them to construct a self-centered career, I’m on my own. God is trying to build something different than that, and wants me to be too.

Probably that’s why I’ve been as blessed as I have. In my efforts to honor my wife and children and mom and dad, and to do ministry in my local church, I’ve for the most part made unselfish choices. And I’ve often marveled at what opportunity has come my way in this place that can look so much like a backwater. Like flyover country.

The biggest possible success and the more sure thing are the same thing: to join God in building his house, and in watching over his people.

and

Sometimes there is a lot of wisdom packed into a few words. That’s what Nehemiah 4:9 looks like to me. That verse relates the response of Nehemiah and all the Jews rebuilding the wall of Jerusalem, when they heard that Sanballat was going to attack them to stop there work. This is what it says:

“But we prayed to our God and posted a guard day and night to meet this threat.”

The first thing I noticed was the “and.” In addition to praying, they did what they could. Or, depending on how you tend to handle things, you might say in addition to doing what they could, they prayed. I think this is a good model of how discipleship works. I’ve heard it said this way: Pray like it’s all up to God, but work like it’s all up to you.

It’s easy, I think, to do one or the other. Most typically, we probably try to handle things ourselves and then pray when that doesn’t seem to be working.

Which brings us to the second thing I see in this verse. Nehemiah prayed first. To him it was the best answer, Plan A, the thing most likely to work. Then, trusting that God would handle it, he posted guards in case God chose to handle it that way.

Pray first, but act also – that seems to be the lesson of this verse. Actually, I think James and John Calvin would say pray first, then act but pray while you act, and then pray afterward in thanksgiving. But I think as we progress through Nehemiah we’ll find that he did exactly that.

no share

Sometimes I have to choose between pleasing God and pleasing people. Much more rarely, we might have to choose between pleasing God and pleasing our president, or boss. For all those times, Nehemiah gives a good answer.

This is what happened, in Nehemiah 2:19-20: “But when Sanballat the Horonite, Tobiah the Ammonite official and Geshem the Arab heard about it, they mocked and ridiculed us. ‘What is this you are doing?’ they asked. ‘Are you rebelling against the king?’

“I answered them by saying, ‘The God of heaven will give us success. We his servants will start rebuilding, but as for you, you have no share in Jerusalem or any claim or historic right to it.’”

That’s what I have to remember. There are a lot of voices in this world that will try to stop me from doing God’s will. They might mock and ridicule, like Sanballat and Tobiah. They might try to coerce, maybe by hinting they might tell “the king,” whoever it is we might fear. They might even threaten. It doesn’t matter.

If I’m doing God’s will, it’s going to work, and it’s all going to work out. And all the naysayers are simply talking themselves out of any share in God’s good work. Keep it up long enough and they’ll forfeit their share in heaven. I guess that’s the choice: try to take my shares on earth, or work toward heavenly shares.

Instead of being intimidated or coerced by all those negative voices, I just need to keep my eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of my faith, and trust that he won’t lead me wrong.