Listening (to Taylor Swift)

Taylor Swift, if you don’t know, is a billionaire singer/songwriter. She has a boyfriend who plays football or something. She also released a new album last week, and it’s already smashing records.

Since her album hit, there’s a viral post on social media warning Christians about her songs that I’ve seen on Facebook a few times. It sounds the alarm that many of these new songs “make fun of Christians and straight up blaspheme God.” Here are some of the lyrics that are specifically mentioned, from a song called “But Daddy I Love Him”:

I just learned these people only raise you

To cage you

Sarahs an Hannahs in their Sunday best

Clutchin’ their pearls, sighing, “What a mess”

I just learned these people try and save you

‘Cause they hate you

“Is this the music you want your kids listening to?” the post asks.

This kind of reaction to Taylor’s album seems pretty ironic to me, for two reasons. One, because I imagine this sort of post is exactly the kind of behavior that led her to write those lyrics in the first place. A young woman says she feels hated by pearl-clutching Christians, and a Christian with a large public platform immediately responds by accusing her of making fun of believers and of blasphemy. Case in point?

But it's also ironic, to me, when Christians will talk so much about someone while discouraging other believers from listening to that person. That’s the exact opposite of the posture James challenges us to take: “Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry.” (1:19)

(We usually do this backwards in America today, don’t we? We’re slow to listen, quick to speak, and very quick to get angry.)

But why would I want to listen to this woman bashing Christians?

Well, because Proverbs says that “An understanding heart seeks knowledge” (15:14), and “the ears of the wise seek it out.” (18:15) Taylor Swift is sharing about her experiences with Christians in our society. Our ears ought to be seeking out that kind of knowledge. Only a fool takes no pleasure in understanding (Prov 18:2)—a wise Christian should be glad for the chance to understand this young American’s perception of the Church.

Especially since, as one reviewer puts it, in this album Taylor has “captured the mood of a generation”—a generation churches have been so keen on reaching: Millennials. This album, Teresa Mull writes, sounds

a whole lot like the generation that has a higher rate of anxiety and depression than any other, a generation that’s extremely lonely and avoiding the traditions of marriage, family and church.

Sure, you could write off this music in the name of “guarding your heart” (Prov 4:23) from profanity or irreverence. (And, parents, certainly don’t let your children consume content that you believe is negatively affecting their hearts or minds.) But I think the American church would do well to hear out people like Taylor Swift. When someone wants to open up to you about their experiences and disappointments with Christianity, your job is not to criticize. It’s to be slow to speak and quick to listen. Check your annoyance and defensiveness at the door, and bring your curiosity and empathy instead. You just might hear something that the church needs to know.

Impact > Intentions

If you read Paul’s letters in the New Testament, you’ll notice that a lot of ink is spilled over whether or not Christians ought to eat meat that was involved in ceremonies in pagan temples. (That was a major source of meat in their society. You couldn’t just pick up a couple pounds of ground beef at Walmart, but the temples where all of these animals were slaughtered always had plenty.) Followers of Jesus weren’t sure if they ought to eat food that came from those religious rituals, so Paul addresses the topic at length in Romans and in 1 Corinthians.

You probably don’t wrestle with this question the way Paul’s audience did. I actually have been offered food that was involved in a religious ritual like that once (on a visit to a Hindu temple), but I bet that’s one more time than you have. If these passages have ever seemed odd to you, it’s probably because we just aren’t faced with the same dilemmas that the original readers were.

That doesn’t mean we can’t learn anything from these passages, though.

In fact, in these discussions that are so foreign to our experiences, Paul illustrates a critical and universal principle for Christian living.

Look at Romans. The apostle believed that these foods were, in fact, clean and permissible for Christians to eat (14:14, 20). The problem was, some believers held a different conviction and were confused and unsettled by the sight of their fellow Christians eating this meat. This led Paul to write,

“If your brother or sister is being injured by what you eat, you are no longer walking in love. Do not let what you eat cause the ruin of one for whom Christ died… Let us then pursue what makes for peace and for mutual upbuilding.” (14:15, 19)

Their actions weren’t wrong. Their intentions were good. Yet, Paul warned them, “you are no longer walking in love” if your behavior harms someone else’s faith.

In situations like that, many of us would probably write Paul back and say, But I wasn’t trying to cause any harm! I can’t control how someone else reacts to what I do! And that’s all true. Yet, Paul still warns them and instructs them to make a change.

Why? Why should the believers eating this meat—which is totally permissible!—why should they have to change anything?

Here’s the critical and universal principle that I hear in these verses: you need to be more concerned with the impact of your words and actions than with the intentions behind them.

In the words of Andy Stanley, “Intent is mostly irrelevant, because there’s no correlation between intention and outcome.” It’s very easy to do damage unintentionally. There’s a story about an unintended accident behind every dent in my car—but the dents are still there. The damage was still done, intentionally or not. Good intentions can still lead to negative outcomes.

And the Christians in Rome were unintentionally doing damage to their brothers’ and sisters’ faith. There were negative outcomes, despite their good intentions. So, though their actions weren’t wrong, Paul tells them to change.

Because Christians need to be more concerned with the impact of our words and actions than with the intentions behind them. 

More concerned, in other words, with our neighbors than with ourselves.

Don't Be Like Samson

There’s a famous scene in Judges chapter 16 where a prisoner who’s lost both of his eyes is standing between two pillars. 

The prisoner’s name is Samson. 

Samson calls out to the Lord, saying, “Lord God, remember me and strengthen me only this once, O God, so that with this one act of revenge I may pay back the Philistines for my two eyes.” (16:28) Then he reaches a hand out to each of those pillars, strains with all of his might, topples them, and brings down the building they supported. Three thousand Philistines died in all the destruction, as well as Samson.

Some people see this moment as Samson’s great act of deliverance for Israel from their Philistine oppressors. Yet, unlike with judges like Deborah, Gideon, and Jephthah, there’s no mention here that the land was at peace or that their enemies were subdued after Samson’s time. I don’t think of this as a great victory for Israel and the Lord. I tend to take the blind judge at his word here. Read his prayer again—this was purely an act of revenge, bloody payback for the people who gouged out his eyes.

There’s another scene, set over 1,000 years later, in Acts chapter 7, that maybe you’ve heard or read about before. A Christian man has been brought to his knees as rocks rain down on him, thrown by a frenzied mob. 

This Christian’s name is Stephen. 

And Stephen calls out to the Lord with one final prayer, too. He cries: “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.” (7:60) Then Stephen, like Samson, dies under a pile of stone.

Because other people exist, you probably find yourself in situations everyday where you can either respond to someone Samson-style, or with the grace of a Stephen. It may be in a fleeting spat, or it could be weeks, months, or years of conflict finally coming to a head. I think we all know that the goal is to be Stephen. But, in the heat of the moment, how are you supposed to overcome the big feelings and impulses inside that are ready to bring the building down on everyone’s heads?

I’m not so sure that Samson’s and Stephen’s last prayers were determined by the heat of the moment. I suspect that Samson’s and Stephen’s last prayers were really determined by the kinds of lives they lived up to that point.

Judges 16:28 was preceded by three chapters of self-indulgence, indifference to others, and casual violence. Samson burns down fields, beats people to death, abandons his wife, eats unclean honey, sleeps around, and does whatever else he wants. It’s no wonder he dies ruthlessly avenging himself.

Acts 7:60, on the other hand, was preceded by two chapters of feeding the hungry, caring for the overlooked, and pointing people to Jesus. Stephen’s life was centered on others, and so I’m not too surprised that his death was, as well. Who we strive to be, day-in, day-out, shapes who we’ll be in the heat of the moment. Stephen lived a life that was forming him into the kind of person who uses his last breath to pray for his murderers.

What kind of person are your routines, schedule, priorities, and lifestyle forming you into?

Do your everyday activities fuel your faith, hope, and love? Do your habits invite the Holy Spirit into your day? Do your goals treat others as more important than yourself?

Or do they reinforce attitudes and inclinations that, in the moment, can hinder your love for God and for your neighbors?

Don't just assume that you can live like Samson and turn out like Stephen. Most of following Jesus happens in the small moments and choices that make up a day. So take a closer look at those moments and choices. Be more deliberate with them. Because they'll decide what kind of person you're becoming.

You can listen to this devotional here:

His Resurrection, and Yours

Over the years, a lot of people have asked me about what eternity will be like. They want to know what their spouse, parent, or child is experiencing, now that they’re gone. They want to know if we’ll really see the people we loved in this life, if we’ll really recognize each other.

I don't know the first thing about life after death, but I do know some things about the Bible.

In some ways, scripture paints a really vivid, detailed picture of eternal life with God—golden streets, gates of pearl, jasper, emerald, amethyst! But, in other ways, the picture in the Bible is vague and incomplete. If you want to know what your relationships with others will be like after this life is over, there isn’t a lot to go on: people are no longer married (Mark 12:25); we’ll be together, and with Jesus (1 Thess 4:17); no one will need weapons anymore (Isa 2:4). Beyond that, you have to start speculating.

And not much is said about what we will be like then. In 1 Corinthians, Paul contrasts “heavenly bodies” and “earthly bodies” (15:40) before going on to say that, when Jesus comes again, “we shall be changed… this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality.” (15:52-53) I think I get his point, but, again, this is pretty fuzzy on the details.

But Paul does say one other thing that, I think, unlocks this mystery for us, at least a bit. It’s in Romans 6:5. Talking about baptism, he writes: “if we have been united with him [Christ] in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.”

Followers of Jesus can expect a resurrection like his one day.

That’s all Paul gives us there, but that’s alright, because the gospels give us a lot more. What does a “resurrection like his” look like? Well, think about the Easter stories:

• Mary Magdalene doesn't recognize Jesus when she first meets him, but when he says her name, she knows his voice. (John 20:14-16)
• Jesus is somehow no longer impeded by locked doors. (20:26)
• But Jesus has a body that's physical enough to show Thomas the scars on his hands and his side. (20:27)
• He can have a long conversation with two disciples without them ever recognizing him, but at dinner they immediately know who he is again. (Luke 24:15-31)
• Jesus can vanish. (24:31)
• Jesus can also eat a piece of fish, which he does to prove he has "flesh and bones" and isn't a ghost. (24:38-43)

In these scenes, Jesus is different and strange, and yet he’s also the same man they’ve always known. He has a body, but it’s not quite like the bodies we have now. These descriptions don’t always mesh neatly—I guess meeting a resurrected person is a tricky thing to describe—but they still give us the fullest picture we have of the kind of life in store for God’s children. 

It will be different. So different that you may be unrecognizable at first. But that never lasts. The reunion might be a little clumsy, but the resurrection promise that Easter holds out to us is the promise of a new life with Jesus and with all of his people, together, forever. 

What we celebrate this holiday isn’t just Jesus’s empty tomb. It’s the hope of empty tombs and open graves for all of Christ’s people one day. It’s his resurrection, and yours. 

A resurrection like his.

Happy Easter! You can listen to this week's devotional right here:

Christ Also Suffered

Photo by Wyron A on Unsplash

“For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God.” – 1 Peter 3:18

I’m a very empathetic person. That’s probably why the promises about the new heaven and new earth in Revelation 21 are so central to how I understand the gospel. I need to know that God cares about the hurts and needs of the world. For me, that’s also why it’s so important to know that Jesus suffered in his life. God is not withdrawn and ignorant of our struggles and pain—he lived among us and endured it all himself. Jesus doesn’t only sympathize with our weaknesses, like Hebrews 4:15 says, but he also empathizes with our suffering.

Recently I listened to the audiobook of Joni Eareckson Tada’s memoir, Joni. If you aren’t familiar with her story, Joni had a diving accident when she was 17-years-old that left her paralyzed from the shoulders down. The memoir chronicles the early years of her life after the accident: the emotional and medical rollercoaster, her struggles with faith, the fame brought on by her artwork. Joni has experienced tremendous suffering—pain, loneliness, disappointment, doubt, depression—and yet, she’s managed to find a calling and make an impact in the world in the midst of all that suffering.

As I listened to some of the descriptions of her experiences and struggles early in the book, I found myself thinking, This is so awful—what Jesus went through could never compare to this. He was on the cross for 6 hours, but she’s enduring this every waking moment, for years! How could God ever understand the suffering of someone like her?

But then, I came to this passage, which has helped me understand the cross in a new way. Reflecting on Psalm 41:3, “The Lord will sustain him upon his sickbed,” Joni writes,

I discovered that the Lord Jesus Christ could indeed empathize with my situation. On the cross for those agonizing, horrible hours, waiting for death, He was immobilized, helpless, paralyzed.

Jesus did know what it was like not to be able to move—not to be able to scratch your nose, shift your weight, wipe your eyes. He was paralyzed on the cross. He could not move His arms or legs. Christ knew exactly how I felt!

I still don’t think Jesus’s experience is anything like a lifetime of paralysis, but I had thought Christ could never understand someone like Joni’s experiences – yet, she didn’t see it that way at all. Jesus may not have endured the length of suffering that many do, but, on the cross, he did endure dimensions of helplessness and indignity that a quadriplegic would know all too well. I never would’ve recognized that myself. It took someone like Joni to show me.

This Friday, I hope you find a way to remember and commemorate Jesus’s suffering and dying “to bring you to God.” And I hope that all of us take time to more fully appreciate just what all Christ endured for us.

“This is love: it is not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son as the sacrifice that deals with our sins.” (1 John 4:10)

You can listen to this week's devotional here:

Keep Them within Your Heart

“My child, be attentive to my words;
    incline your ear to my sayings.
Do not let them escape from your sight;
    keep them within your heart.” – Proverbs 4:20-21

In Proverbs chapter 4, a father is passing on the advice that his father gave him, and one of the things he's concerned about is what his child’s heart is holding onto (4:4), what they’re keeping within their heart. (As a parent, this sure resonates with me! I worry all the time about what I’m teaching my girls to keep in their hearts, whether it’s habits, feelings, or priorities.) The speaker’s hope—like his father’s before him—is that his child’s heart will absorb and hold fast to words of wisdom, insight, and instruction. In other words, the kinds of words packed into every line in Proverbs.

There are a few proverbs that you may know by heart. “Pride goes before a fall” comes from Proverbs 16:18. “Spare the rod, spoil the child” (whatever you think about that) is based on Proverbs 13:24. For the most part, though, I imagine that most of the book’s wisdom hasn’t quite reached the heart-level yet for a lot of us.

What has? What sorts of things do you know by heart?

The Pledge of Allegiance. The alphabet. The Kit Kat bar song. The Lord’s Prayer.

How did these things get embedded so deeply in your heart and your memory? Sometimes rhythms and tunes play a role, but anything that you absorb on the heart-level also involves repetition. It takes regular, sustained exposure for something to take root down in the deepest parts of you.

Here’s what I want us to think about today: What things am I regularly exposing my heart to? What am I ‘keeping within my heart’ in my usual routines and pastimes?

Have you been filling up each day on the talking points that your favorite political pundits like to repeat?

Do you pack your free moments with a steady diet of sports news and clips?

Are you slowly, steadily memorizing every line from nine seasons of Seinfeld? (Not that there’s anything wrong with that!)

Are you intentionally spending time studying, absorbing, and holding on to words from scripture? Can you say, like the psalmist, “I have hidden your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you”? (119:11)

You can’t keep something in your heart if you never put it there. And, whether you like them or not, some of the things you keep giving your time and attention to will absolutely take up residence in your heart.

So be deliberate with your heart today. Give it what it needs. Fill it with the things that you hope will shape the person you’re becoming. And pay attention to the other things you may be stuffing it with—the things that won’t help you love God and love your neighbors, won’t cultivate the fruit of the Spirit in your life, and won’t make you look more like Jesus. What kind of change do you need to make?

Take note of how you spend your time. Consider what you regularly consume. Be deliberate with your heart today.

You can listen to this week's devotional right here:

Size and Worth

Photo by Manuel Will on Unsplash

One of the foundations of prayer is the idea that God listens to each of us and cares about each of us. If God weren’t listening, or if God didn’t care, why would we pray? We take that for granted every time we turn to God with our worries, our gratitude, or our questions.

And yet, a lot of people struggle with the idea that God pays attention and cares so much about each one of us. Many faithful Christians, even, find themselves asking the same question the psalmist asked:

When I look at the night sky and see the work of your fingers—

the moon and the stars you set in place—

what are mere mortals that you should think about them,

human beings that you should care for them? (Psalm 8:3-4)

Yes, Jesus said that your heavenly Father cares about you so much that he knows how many hairs are on your head. (Matthew 10:29-31) But when you consider how big the universe is and how insignificant we seem in the grand scheme of things, some of us still wonder. And the psalmist couldn’t have realized just how far the night sky stretches. I read the other day that, if you shrank the Earth’s entire path around the sun down to the size of a ring on a girl’s finger, then the next closest star to us would be twenty miles away. I don’t think we can really comprehend just how vast the universe is. The poet Alfred Lord Tennyson once wrote, thinking about all of our griefs, losses, and struggles, “What is it all but a trouble of ants in the gleam of a million million of suns?” It’s not difficult to understand where he was coming from.

But do scope and scale really tell us about God’s concerns and God’s heart?

I love what Harry Emerson Fosdick wrote about all of this in The Meaning of Prayer:

But surely, we ourselves are not accustomed to judge comparative value by size. As children we may have chosen a penny rather than a dime because the penny was larger; but as maturity arrives, that basis of choice is outgrown…A mother’s love for her baby is not a matter of pounds and ounces. When one believes in God at all, the consequence is plain. God must have at least our spiritual insight to perceive the difference between size and worth.

Your size doesn’t determine your worth. The universe is unimaginably vast, and we, in comparison, are miniscule, short-lived things. But, just like we delight in the flash of a lightning bug or the touch of a kiss, God delights in things that are small and fleeting—like you and me. The Lord values us, the dust of the earth, like we value the tiniest pieces of diamond dug out of the ground.

That’s why, in another psalm, the writer can ask, “Does he who fashioned the ear not hear? Does he who formed the eye not see?” (94:9) And he knows the answer. He assumes we know the answer.

Yes, he hears me.

Yes, he sees me.

Yes, he loves me.

So we can pray, affirming all kinds of things at once.

I am small.

I am brief.

I am valuable.

I am his delight.

You can listen to this week's devotional here:

Without Ceasing

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"Pray without ceasing." - 1 Thessalonians 5:17

Over the years, I’ve heard a lot of people wrestle with that seemingly simple command.

How am I supposed to do that?

Does he mean literally non-stop?

What kind of prayer is that? You can’t spend the whole day kneeling with your eyes shut…

I’ve tried to, but I just get so distracted!

A few people have shared about their success and the kind of ongoing conversation they have with the Lord throughout the day. Most people, though, try, fail, get discouraged, and decide “praying without ceasing” is unrealistic, impractical, and out of reach.

One morning recently, I dropped Noah off at daycare, and two things happened the instant I stepped out of the building. They happened so unintentionally and so quickly that I might have missed them, but for whatever reason I noticed. First, the fingers on my right hand twitched, preparing to stretch out to grab something. Then, in the same split-second, they froze and relaxed again, as my body alerted my brain: The thing you’re reaching for isn’t there. Your phone isn’t in your back pocket.

I knew that I pulled my phone out sometimes after I dropped her off. I didn’t know, until that moment, just how reflexively and involuntarily I do it. I was acting on pure auto-pilot. My body knew just what to do. I’ve trained it well, and now that’s become a deeply ingrained part of my daily life.

That morning, when I noticed just how attuned my body was to my iPhone—without any conscious thought involved at all!—I realized that we know how to pray “without ceasing.” We know what that looks like, and we’re capable of it. We do it all the time. We bow our heads to our screens and give our attention and engagement to distractions, entertainment, and shopping without ceasing. We’ve trained our hands to reach for the phone at the first opportunity. Our bodies are keeping track of the thing, alerting us when its out of reach. It is a constant in our lives.

What would it take to make prayer as constant, as deeply ingrained a part of your daily life? How can you train yourself to pray reflexively, at the first opportunity? Maybe you won't suddenly be praying without ceasing, but you might start praying more often.

That’s my hope with a lot of my prayer habits, that they would train me to pray more. That’s the reason for the alarms on my phone telling me to stop and pray, the purple wristband I’m wearing in Lent reminding me to “invite the Spirit,” for stretching out my handwashing with the Lord’s Prayer. (I know that one’s doing something, because now I’ll catch myself praying it when I brush my teeth. I’m like Pavlov’s dogs, drooling every time the bell rings, only I start muttering “Our Father…” every time I hear a sink running.)

Training your body to reach for the phone (and your fingers to unlock it and open an app) takes time and repetition. Training yourself to pray more is no different. It will take a little while for you to get into a new rhythm. And forming new habits always takes intentionality and effort on the front end. Praying “without ceasing” will be that way, too. It won’t happen by accident, and it will take some doing to get this plane off the ground.

But what can you start doing today, to begin training your heart and your mind and begin inserting a new time of prayer, a new way of connecting with God, into your life?

Listen to this week's devotional right here:

"My God"

Lately I’ve been reading Henry Emerson Fosdick’s book The Meaning of Prayer. There are a lot of great insights in the book, but I want to share something he said about Psalm 63.

Fosdick suggests that “the practice of prayer is necessary to make God not merely an idea held in the mind but a Presence recognized in the life.” In other words, until you start seeking and engaging God on a personal level through prayer, God will only be a belief, a theoretical thing, way off in some invisible heaven. Prayer makes God a real Presence in your life—a person you talk to, not just an idea you believe in.

Then he points to Psalm 63:1: “O God, thou art my God; early will I seek thee: my soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh longeth for thee in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is.” (KJV) Fosdick’s focus is on the opening line, “O God, thou art my God.” He writes: 

“O God,” is easy, but it is an inward and searching matter to say, “O God, thou art my God.”

The two phrases sound so much alike, but he sees a world of difference between them.

“Oh God,” he says, is a theological statement, but “my God” is personal religion.

“Oh God” is an opinion about the universe. “My God” is a vital experience.

“Oh God” is something you think about. “My God” is someone you pray to.

“Oh God” is far off, removed from us. “My God” is a real presence in your life.

Fosdick’s concern here is that so many professing Christians seem content to stop at “Oh God” and never journey on to the real destination: “my God.” We say “Oh God” when we come to church, recite the creed, sing a hymn, or write a check, but we never allow this God to invade our hearts and lives with a love that re-evaluates and reorders everything.

This Lent, I want to challenge you to move from “Oh God” to “my God.”

Maybe you believe God’s out there, but you don’t talk to God. Or your prayers are a list of wants and needs, but never make room for God to speak, never assume Jesus has anything to say to you.

Maybe you attend church dutifully, but you don’t set aside time to connect with God and foster that relationship during the rest of the week.

Maybe you read and hear interesting messages from scripture, but you don’t apply them to your life—you don’t let them impact how you treat others, what you’ll say to someone, the way you spend money, whether you’ll offer forgiveness.

Is there some way you’re keeping the Lord at arm’s length? Then what is one step you can take to make God a more regular presence in your life? How could you begin prioritizing a personal relationship with God, instead of abstractly acknowledging a deity? How do you need to rearrange your schedule or change your spiritual habits to start acting like God is “my God”?

Listen to this week's devotional below:

Donkeys and Discernment

I just wouldn’t feel right moving on from Numbers without talking about Balaam.

You know: the guy with the talking donkey. (Balaam’s “ass” in the King James Bible, much to the delight of church youth groups everywhere.) We first meet Balaam in Numbers chapter 22. The King of Moab is afraid of the Israelites, and so he sends a message to Balaam:

Please come and curse these people for me because they are too powerful for me. Then perhaps I will be able to conquer them and drive them from the land. I know that blessings fall on any people you bless, and curses fall on people you curse. (22:6)

As it turns out, Balaam has so much success with blessings and curses because it’s the Lord who works through this foreign prophet. Of course, when the Lord hears Moab’s request, God tells Balaam not to curse Israel, “for they have been blessed!” (22:12) Eventually, the prophet does return to Moab with the king’s messengers, though, which leads to the donkey incident. (If you want the full story and Balaam’s conversation with his donkey, check out Numbers 22.)

The King of Moab tries three times to get Balaam to curse Israel. The first time (23:1-12) and the second time (23:13-26), seven altars are constructed and seven bulls and seven rams are offered to God, then the Lord gives Balaam the words to speak.

The third time (23:27-24:13), things go a little differently. The altars are built, and the sacrifices are made. But then, it says, “Balaam saw that it pleased the Lord to bless the Israelites, so he didn’t go as the other times to seek omens.” (24:1) Apparently, before he had been looking for signs of God’s will, like someone reading palms or tea leaves. But he didn’t have to check for all that anymore. Balaam could already see what God’s desire was. And that’s when

 the Spirit of God came on him and he spoke his message:

“The prophecy of Balaam son of Beor,
    the prophecy of one whose eye sees clearly…” (24:2-3)

Balaam’s gift for prophecy has transformed from a matter of asking to a way of seeing. He is so familiar with God’s will, from regularly asking and listening, that he doesn’t even have to ask now. He has become a man “whose eye sees clearly"—and that has to do with his connection to God’s Holy Spirit (24:2). Because of that connection, he sees the world differently.

I think Balaam here gives us a great picture of discernment. Discernment is the ability to recognize God’s will, the best course of action in a situation. When you are discerning, you see the world differently. And this’s rooted in love, knowledge, and insight (Col 1:9) and in transformation and renewal (Rom 12:2).

I don’t think Balaam is special. Frequently asking and listening, and staying open to the Holy Spirit, will make any of us more discerning people. But that connection with God and that clear-sightedness shouldn’t be taken for granted. When we first met Balaam, he can't see as well as a donkey, and the next time we hear about him, in Numbers 31, he’s killed after plotting to lead the Israelites away from the Lord (see 31:7-16). Every day we have to recommit ourselves to seeking the Holy Spirit if we want to see the world differently, see the world from Christ's point of view.

So, what you are doing to listen for God’s voice and to open yourself up to God’s Spirit today?

You can listen to this week's devotional here:

Blind to the Wonder

Then the people of Israel set out from Mount Hor, taking the road to the Red Sea to go around the land of Edom. But the people grew impatient with the long journey, and they began to speak against God and Moses. “Why have you brought us out of Egypt to die here in the wilderness?” they complained. “There is nothing to eat here and nothing to drink. And we hate this horrible manna!” – Numbers 21:4-5

Complaints in the wilderness are nothing new. The Israelites have been grumbling about their provisions from the moment they crossed the Red Sea (see Exodus 16 and 17). What struck me as I read Numbers 21 recently wasn’t that the people were complaining. It was what they said: “There’s nothing to eat here and nothing to drink. And we hate this horrible manna!”

Nothing to eat? What about the manna, the miraculous, daily sustenance from God that you’re griping about?

Nothing to drink? There was water gushing out a rock just the chapter before, enough water “to satisfy the whole community and their livestock.” (20:8)

How on earth could these people miss the incredible work of God that had been sustaining them in this desert?

But as I was scratching my head over this, it occurred to me: some of these Israelites have been eating manna their entire lives. This is the very end of the 40-year hike through the wilderness. Few of these people would even remember Egypt. Most had never lived anywhere but this desert. All they knew was this wonder, survival by God’s mighty hand and outstretched arm. Their senses were dulled to the incredible. That was just the water they swam in, day-by-monotonous-day. The miracles were all white noise by now. The people had become blind to the wonder of it all.

It's easy to find fault with the Israelites in Numbers, but what if I turned to the person in the mirror? If familiarity can obscure the wonder of something as extraordinary as manna, imagine how easy it must be to overlook the wonder of God’s very ordinary gifts in our lives today.

“Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights,” James says (1:17)—and if I tried to catalogue all the good and perfect gifts in my life, we’d be here all day. But how often do I shut a crammed refrigerator and complain, “There’s nothing to eat”? Or groan when my daughter wants her tired Daddy’s attention? (Emily and I once thought we couldn’t have children.) Abundance and blessing are the water I swim in, day-by-day, and yet I can be so blind to the wonder of it all.

And I bet I’m not the only one.

I want you to stop what you’re doing, and name one incredible gift of God in your life. Try to name something that you know you always take for granted.

A friend.

A job.

A vehicle.

A breath of air filling your lungs.

Now, since God’s so used to hearing our grumbles, tell God how good that gift is and what it means to you. Don’t skimp on the praise—heap on the superlatives. Let God have it with gratitude.

If you and I got in the habit of doing that more often, I wouldn’t be surprised if our eyes became more attuned to the everyday wonders of God’s love and care.

Listen to today's devotional right here:

A Blossom in the Wilderness

This is hardly my first time reading the book of Numbers, but something was impressed upon me this time that I don’t remember feeling so strongly before: this is a really ugly book. For me, this read through, the ugliness was oppressive and relentless:

• The Lord strikes Israel with a deadly plague after the people crave some meat, like they ate in Egypt. (11:33-34)
• God condemns all the Israelites over twenty to die in the wilderness because of their rebellion. (14:29-30)
• When a man’s found gathering wood on the Sabbath, God commands Moses to have him killed. (15:32-36)
• Three men lead a revolt against Moses and Aaron, so the Lord has them and their families destroyed, then wipes out over 14,000 more Israelites before Moses and Aaron intervene. (Numbers 16)

That kind of stuff unnerves me, if I'm being honest. I don't always know what to do with it—except to acknowledge that it's scripture, God-breathed and useful (2 Tim 3:16), even if I can't understand how.

But then I arrived at chapter 17. Aaron’s leadership was called into question, so the Lord devised a plan. God said to Moses,

Tell the people of Israel to bring you twelve wooden staffs, one from each leader of Israel’s ancestral tribes… Place these staffs in the Tabernacle in front of the Ark… Buds will sprout on the staff belonging to the man I choose. (17:2, 4-5)

So, staffs are gathered, labeled, and left in front of the Ark. We don’t see what happens next, but I can just imagine the skinny white shoot peeking out of Aaron’s staff and stretching out its first, pale green leaves. Then, years pass in hours. The shoot reaches higher. The leaves, darker now, spread everywhere. The first white blossoms bloom. A bee buzzes through the Tabernacle. Petals fall, kernels grow, and the hulls split to reveal an almond shell within.

When Moses entered the Tabernacle again in the morning, “he found that Aaron’s staff… had sprouted, budded, blossomed, and produced ripe almonds!” (17:8) Aaron was God’s man—just look at the garland of life and beauty crowning his walking stick.

As I was reading Numbers, this scene was a refuge for me, a brief glimpse of beauty in an ugly book. It gave new meaning to Isaiah’s promise that

The desert and the parched land will be glad;

the wilderness will rejoice and blossom.

Like the crocus, it will burst into bloom;

it will rejoice greatly and shout for joy. (35:1-2)

Aaron’s staff is a literal blossom in the wilderness. For a moment, this desolate, oppressive, relentless place bursts into bloom. By the time I reached chapter 17, I needed that. This trek through the desert was leaving me spiritually dehydrated, and Aaron’s staff was an oasis. Here, I recognized the God of Genesis 1 and of Revelation 21 and 22.

I’ve never shied away from acknowledged the ugly parts of scripture. I think Christians need to be aware of and honest about a lot of things in Numbers. But, at the same time, I’m not going to be preoccupied with this. Not because it’s unimportant, but because it would do my soul and my neighbor no good. Instead, I’m going to follow Paul’s instructions in Philippians:

From now on, brothers and sisters, if anything is excellent and if anything is admirable, focus your thoughts on these things: all that is true, all that is holy, all that is just, all that is pure, all that is lovely, and all that is worthy of praise. (4:8)

I’m going to remember the ugliness, but I’m going to dwell on the beauty. An old, gnarled staff that’s sprouting, budding, blossoming, and producing—I’m going to focus my thought on these things, the things that nourish my heart. My heart needs more beauty, not more ugliness. Especially if I want to go out and bring some more beauty to the ugliness in our world.

You can listen to this week's devotional right here:

Tassels

Something caught my eye recently, as I was reading Numbers chapter 15. The Lord tells Moses,

Give the following instructions to the people of Israel: Throughout the generations to come you must make tassels for the hems of your clothing and attach them with a blue cord. When you see the tassels, you will remember and obey all the commands of the Lord instead of following your own desires and defiling yourselves, as you are prone to do. The tassels will help you remember that you must obey all my commands and be holy to your God. (15:38-40)

Now, I immediately tune out most of the Old Testament commands that have to do with clothing. If you want to lose Nance, just start talking about every little detail of a priest’s garments (Ex 28), what to do when a skin disease shows up on your clothes (Lev 13:47), or prohibitions of wearing blended fabrics (Lev 19:19).

But this time was different. It wasn’t the tassels themselves or the blue thread that stuck out to me, though. It was the reasoning behind all that: “When you see the tassels, you will remember and obey all the commands of the Lord… The tassels will help you remember that you must… be holy to your God.” (15: 39, 40) Everywhere they went, those tassels were a visible reminder to all of Israel of their call to obedience and holiness. The tassels kept the people aware, throughout the day, of who they were and whose they were. (Many modern Jews still use these – they’re called tzitzit. You can see some in the image above.)

I think the Lord commanded Israel to don those tassels because God knows that we need continual reminders. We serve an invisible King (1 Tim 1:17) who lives in a place you can’t find on a map. We’re up to our ears in busyness and distractions. Not to mention, we’re constantly tempted to reject obedience and holiness. And so, the Lord came up with tassels, to redirect the people’s attention and remind them of their covenant commitments.

Do you have any “tassels” of your own? Something that serves to remind you of who you are and whose you are?

Years ago, for a lot of Christians, a W.W.J.D. bracelet was that tassel. Those white letters reminded you, throughout the day, to give thought to your choices and to recall Christ’s example.

But a tassel doesn’t have to be worn. It’s anything that nudges you to live, this moment, into the person God’s created you to be. An alarm on your phone encouraging you to pray. A sticky note on your mirror where you jotted down a challenging verse from scripture. A Bible you sat on top of your smart phone before bed, to start your morning off on the right foot. A cross tattooed on your wrist.   

I think there’s a lot of wisdom in sewing some tassels onto our days, and if you don’t have any regular reminders that can interrupt and redirect you towards Christ, I hope you’ll find some that work for you. Don’t let the busyness, distractions, and temptations carry you off, away from God’s presence. Stick some holy roadblocks in your life, that force you to stop and remember, that call you to obedience and holiness.

You can listen to this week's devotional here!

Find Your Hobab

In Numbers chapter 10, we meet a fellow by the name of Hobab. 

If you’re anything like me, you don’t remember reading about Hobab before. He’s only mentioned twice in the Bible. He is, we’re told, Moses’s brother-in-law, the son of Reuel (which is apparently another name for Moses’s father-in-law Jethro – see Exodus 18). In Numbers 10, as the Israelites are about to embark on what will turn into a 40-year journey through the wilderness, Moses turns to his wife’s family for help.

One day Moses said to his brother-in-law, Hobab son of Reuel the Midianite, “We are on our way to the place the Lord promised us, for he said, ‘I will give it to you.’ Come with us and we will treat you well, for the Lord has promised wonderful blessings for Israel!”

But Hobab replied, “No, I will not go. I must return to my own land and family.”

“Please don’t leave us,” Moses pleaded. “You know the places in the wilderness where we should camp. Come, be our guide. If you do, we’ll share with you all the blessings the Lord gives us.” (10:29-32)

The Israelites were entering a desolate, unknown territory. But Hobab hadn’t lived all his life in Egypt like the Israelites. He knew the lay of the land before them, and he could guide Moses and the people on their journey.

In life we find ourselves walking so many roads that we have never travelled before, but others have. As you parent, at work, going through a divorce, caring for aging parents, following Jesus—most of the challenges we face have been faced and overcome (or at least survived) by someone before us. Others have journeyed through that wilderness and come out with experience and wisdom that can guide us on our journeys.

They are our Hobabs.

Moses understood how critical this kind of guide is. That’s why he wouldn’t take “No” for an answer. When Hobab balked at Moses’s first offer, he pleaded—‘Please! You know where we ought to camp out here. Come and be our guide’. (10:31) Moses knew that “Plans fail for lack of counsel, but with many advisers they succeed.” (Prov 15:22) Hobab’s counsel was essential for Israel’s success.

And wise, experienced guides are essential for our journeys, as well. Moses was never shy about accepting help from others—Aaron, Jethro, Hobab—and we shouldn’t be either. The Lord created people to do life together, and Jesus called twelve disciples to follow him together, because we’re stronger and more faithful when we have strong and faithful supporters in our lives. “Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.” (Ecc 4:12)

So don’t try to cross this wilderness alone. Don’t enroll in the school of hard knocks when you know plenty of graduates who’re ready to share what they learned. Seek counsel for the challenges ahead. Enlist a guide for the journey.

Find your Hobab.

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Without Grumbling

Is there anything worse than having to get out of bed and go back downstairs for something after you’re settled in for the night?

Probably. But in the moment, I couldn’t name one thing. I forgot the monitor, so we can hear Jo wake up. Emily wanted me to bring up a cup of water for her. The cat starts wailing, because—I don’t know, a door is shut (that he doesn’t want to walk through, but he doesn’t want it closed, either)—and it’s time for him to go stay in the guest room. I didn’t make sure the house was locked before I came up. Whatever the reason, it is invalid and intolerable, because I’m already in bed. It is the worst thing imaginable. And I’m going to tell the world about it.

A lot of y’all may not have witnessed this, but in the right setting, I am an expert complainer. I don’t appreciate things upsetting my plans, stealing my precious free time, or requiring me to move when I’m not planning to move, and I know how to express it. After all, most of my job is finding words. I have some experience expressing myself.

I also have some experience with the Bible, and, while I was reflecting recently on the latest grounds for griping, I remembered something in said Bible about all of this. It’s from Philippians 2:

Do everything without grumbling or arguing, so that you may become blameless and pure, “children of God without fault in a warped and crooked generation.” Then you will shine among them like stars in the sky… (2:14-15)

“Do everything without grumbling or arguing.” That line itself is liable to set a grumbler grumbling. At best, by the grace of God, you’ll roll your eyes and say, “Fine!”

But as much as I need to hear those words sometimes, it’s the lines after them that really got me thinking: Do everything without complaining or bickering, so that you may become children of God without fault in a warped, crooked generation. Then, Paul adds, you’ll shine like stars before the watching world.  

In this passage, Paul points to our contentment and our ability to be interrupted and inconvenienced without grumbling as what sets Christians apart from the world around us. If you want to be different, a child of God in a warped generation, you can start by putting a lid on those gripes. But if you complain every time you have to get out of bed and go downstairs, congratulations: you’re acting just like any self-avowed heathen might. You’re not shining with any light from Christ in the world. It’s when you bite your tongue, when you stop demanding your own ease and fishing for sympathy, that you shine.

(Paul also points to arguing as a mark that distinguishes someone as a child of God. I don’t have time to get into that now, but how’s that going for you? How’s that going for any of us?)

The next time your schedule, your expectations, or your comfort get disrupted, and you suck in some air for carrying your gripes out into the world, I hope you remember: you have two options in that moment. You can tell the people around you things they don’t want to hear anyways, or you can shine a light into the dark of discontent and anger that we live in every day.

I hope you—I hope I—will choose the light.

Listen to this devotional right here:

New

I think that "new" is one of the most important words in the Bible. “New” is the name of God’s solution to all the world’s longing, hurt, and brokenness.

The Lord’s people cannot keep up their end of the covenant, so God makes a new covenant. (Jer 31:31; Luke 22:20)

The people don’t have it within themselves to be faithful to the Lord, so the Lord gives them new hearts and a new Spirit. (Eze 36:26-27)

Creation is not as it was meant to be—it’s infected with death, decay, suffering, and scarcity—so God will make a new heaven and a new earth. (Isa 65:17; Rev 21:1-4)

We are not the people we were created to be—we’re infected, with greed, rage, jealousy, lust, and self-absorption—so God makes us new creations in Christ. (2 Cor 5:17)

Isaiah 43:19 sums it all up nicely, when the Lord tells aching and weary people: “See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.” In the wilderness, where you’ve felt so lost and hopeless, I am making a way. In the wasteland, where you feared you’d waste away yourselves, I am pouring out streams. I see your situation, your struggles, and your needs, and I’m doing a new thing for you.

We believe in a God who makes things new (Rev 21:5). God sees the cracks in our lives, sees the jagged edges in this world, sees our frailty and pain and desperation, and, like at creation in Genesis, God takes it in God’s hands, forms it and molds it like the dust of the ground, and breathes new life into it.

At the beginning of January, we’re always thinking about change and fresh starts. “New year, new you,” right? I got an email Monday from a gym offering me a discount on membership, so I can get started on a new lifestyle. There’s not a thing wrong with that – I probably should exercise more – but I hope our horizons this new year, our goals and expectations for transformation, go beyond physical health to include our spiritual wellbeing.

Praying more, or praying better.

Studying and learning scripture more deeply.

Finding new avenues of service.

Beginning the long-avoided work of forgiveness or reconciliation.

Wherever you’re at today, whoever you are right now, God can make you new. God can bring the change you’re longing for—that’s what God does.

What new thing are you hoping to see in your life or in the world around you this year? And how could you be a part of the change you want to see?

This past Sunday I had the rare pleasure of sitting in a church service instead of leading one, and the pastor opened with a New Years prayer that I want to leave you with:

Creative God, you make all things new in heaven and on earth.

We come to you in a new year with new desires and old fears,

        new decisions and old controversies,

        new dreams and old weaknesses.

Because you are a God of hope,

        we know that you create all the possibilities of the future.

Because you are a God of love,

        we know that you accept all the mistakes of the past.

Because you are the God of our faith,

we enter your gates with thanksgiving and praise,

we come into your presence with gladness and a joyful noise,

and we serve and bless you. Amen.

Listen to today's devotional right here!