Know Thyself

The presence of the Holy Spirit brings light to dark places.  Darkness can mean sin, ignorance, or folly, or despair, or probably other things.  When we say "search me" God, I think we are also saying "reveal myself to me," because the Bible says that we don't even know ourselves: "the heart is deceitful above all things, and beyond cure.  Who can understand it?" (Jeremiah 17:9).  It goes on to say that only God can in verse 10.

Read those familiar verses from Psalm 139, and then ask yourself the following questions.  Be prepared to take some time to let the Holy Spirit commune with you, and ask Him beforehand to do so...

"Search me, O God, and know my heart;
test me and know my anxious thoughts.
See if there is any offensive way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting."
--Psalm 139:23-24

1. What is on my heart, deep within, God?  (Are these things others focused, or self-focused?)

2. What anxious thoughts do I have, God?  (Are these thoughts stemming from faith and trust in You?)

3. Am I in some way on a path that is displeasing to You?  (What can I do to correct this?)

4. God, in spite of all this, how have You used me to glorify Yourself, even in small ways?  Thank you for always being faithful to me, patient with me, gracious to me, and using me to do Your work!

Chin Up, Hands Up

"Woman, why are you crying?"  This woman thought that the ultimate love and hope in her life was extinguished.  But it was alive in Jesus Christ.  Why are you crying?  There is a Savior and Lord who loves you more than you can imagine, and knows you better than you know yourself.  Through him, we have the forgiveness of sins and a hope for the future.  Thanks be to God!
Do not grieve for your past sins, but lament, repent, embrace God's lavish mercy and grace, and live in the joy of his forgiveness and righteousness!

God of Purpose, Justice, and Holiness

I didn't write about small group last week, so I'm going to briefly talk about what we discussed these past two weeks:

Last Monday, the Hale small group discussed Luke 5:1-11, the story of Jesus calling Simon Peter and some other fishermen to leave everything and follow him.  We noted Peter had several opportunities to deny Jesus, and could easily have been tempted to do so after the very long, rough, frustrating night of working so hard and catching nothing.  Peter could have not let him in the boat, not put out into the water two different times, not worshiped Jesus, or not followed him when he called, but something drew him to Jesus.  If you are reading this, you've probably experienced this too.  Will you follow him and obey him, or not?  You may seem like an unlikely person to have God call you to his great purposes, but so were Peter and Andrew--uneducated, unclean, social outcasts with personality flaws.  Yet they ended up playing huge roles in God's plan for humanity's salvation.

Tonight, we talked about John 2:12-25, the story of Jesus driving the merchants from the Temple.  On the surface, it seems as though Jesus simply objects to the buying and selling of animals in the Temple, yet this is not the case.  There was extreme injustice taking place here, as these people were required to come from far off to Jerusalem for the Passover, and by the Temple rules had to buy their sacrificial animals here.  What should have been the choicest animals were instead pitiful things, sold for much more than they were worth.  Even the doves, the sacrifices of the poorest Jews, were meager and overpriced.  Those in charge of the Temple and its rituals were making it an extreme burden on the people--especially the poor--to come and worship God as they were instructed to do!  This injustice and greed at least as much as the use of the Temple courts for buying and selling (after all, this buying and selling was mandated by the law) is what drove Jesus to his extreme righteous anger.

The passage says that Jesus was consumed by zeal for the Temple.  Do you realize that anyone who has been washed by Jesus blood has the Holy Spirit dwelling within him or her, and is now a Temple to the living God? What passion would your life ignite in Jesus?  What unjust, unholy, unloving practices are attitudes reside in you that Jesus would want to drive out?  These things affect our ability to properly worship our God.  Ask God to bring these things to your mind, and if He does, confess of your sin, repent, and give thanks that God is merciful and just and forgives and cleanses us from our sins.  Thanks be to God!  Amen.

Proximity

We just read Luke 2:41-52 as a small group in my dorm--the first real Bible study we've done this semester, and I felt like throwing down a few main points that we covered about the story of Jesus in Jerusalem as a boy.  Before you read any further, I encourage you to read the passage for yourself and see what you can glean from God's word:

We thought it was really cool how Jesus seemed to just yearn for the presence of His Father.  He'd already been in Jerusalem 8 days (the duration of the Passover celebration), and yet He seemed perfectly content to stay there (for three days or longer), questioning and answering the learned men, even after His parents had left.  Talk about devotion to God and His call on Jesus' life!  It reminds me of the passage in John where Jesus says that His "food is to do the will of the one who sent him" or something to that effect.

One question that was asked was this: "How could Jesus' parents have possibly lost him for so long?  What kind of parents were they?"  Notice though that the passage says they were traveling with friends and family, and culturally, they probably would have been traveling with men and women separate.  So it's easy to understand how they (Mary and Joseph) could each have assumed that Jesus was with the other.

When they come back to Jerusalem then, frantic to find Him, they see Him discussing deep things with the scholars, amazing them with His understanding.  This shows that He truly was extraordinary--like no Jewish boy who came before Him.  But also that He was limited in his knowledge like any other human.  He was learning and growing from the teachers of Israel.  This is key to understanding how Jesus could be both man and God.  Though He was God, He appears to have chosen to limit Himself to the point of being human, so that He could sympathize with us in our struggles and temptations and sufferings.  What a wonderful, sympathetic God!

We noted as well that Jesus demonstrates great humility and obedience, both in coming with His parents, in respecting the teachers and His parents, and in returning to Nazareth with them when they left.  Because Christians are called to become more Christ-like, seeing Jesus demonstrate humility and obedience should set off in us a desire to be more obedient and humble, like Him.

Another passage that we related this to is Acts 17:24-28, which talks about the God of the universe, Lord of heaven and earth, who ordains our days and gives us our life and breath; it says that He is very near to us, just waiting in eager anticipation for us to draw near to Him.  This is the call that Jesus seems to have been responding to in the passage in Luke.  Think for yourself for a moment--what is your proximity to God the Father?  Is He pleading with you to spend your best time with Him?  Is He pleading with you to share your life and plans with Him?  Your heart and soul?  The passage in Acts goes on to tell us about what God did to restore us to Himself: He came to earth and died in our places of His own pleasure and will, and then rose again to give us life through His victory over the grave.  How will you respond to this radical call on your life?

A Psalm of Peter

I wrote this either last semester (spring of my junior year) or fall of my sophomore year.  Thankfully, even though I was feeling lost, without God at this moment, He was still right there the whole time, guiding me, protecting me, and growing me.

O LORD,
The weight of this life,
like a great anvil,
presses on my shoulders,
                 my heart,
                 my soul.

My fears take form around me
like a host of fiends.
They multiply in an instant;
they spring upon me unawares;
they cling to me and refuse to loosen their grip.
I sink under their weight,
and discontent, anger, and unforgiveness pile on.

LORD, how quickly I have fallen, and how far!
They block You from my sight
and I cannot stand or draw breath.
I lie down on a bed of rocks and despair.

But You, O LORD, are faithful.
You, O LORD, are steadfast.
You have showered me with blessings though I cannot see;
You have made me the envy of both friend and foe, though I forget.
Strike down the host around me.
Raise me up to stand and praise You.
Give me faith that You will remain.
Show me the peace of a mountain stream,
the strength of a towering tree,
the freedom of a flowering meadow.

Deliver me, LORD,
out of this darkness and into light,
because you are good, and you are great.

When God is Silent

Many people believe that God does not exist because He does not perform many supernatural works of power and good to demonstrate His existence.  Others question His goodness or love because He fails to work to set things right in a world that is so infested with wrong.  Still others doubt His presence now.  He performed mighty works of salvation in the past--in the times of Moses, King David, and Jesus--but now He is aloof, tired of dealing with pathetic, rebellious people and saying so loud and clear by His silence.

This is an understandable attitude to have.  I've cried out to God many times, wondering why He won't come to my aid, or more often, the aid of someone else whom I love.  Why are you making us wait, God?  You tell us to pray anything in Your name and it will be given!  And still He does not act.  If only the Bible was more clear on this issue of prayer; or had a chapter of prophecy explaining a new age when God wouldn't be quite as "vocal", or something that would be of help...

Actually, though the Bible does not have such a chapter, it has something even better--examples of times when God's people were sure He had abandoned them, or did not exist.  These were times when things seemed darkest, but then God's power shone forth like lightning.  The story of Moses is an example.  For 400 years, the Hebrews were enslaved in Egypt, staggering under the heavy yoke of Pharaoh and sure that they were on their own.  But what does God say in Exodus 3:7-8?  "I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt.  I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering.  So I have come down to rescue them..."  Well why didn't He come down sooner?!  He doesn't say, but He is God--I'm sure He had His reasons.  Perhaps He was waiting until Moses came along, or perhaps His reasons are so intricate or lofty that they are beyond our understanding.

Again, in Judges 6, years after the LORD had taken the Hebrews into the promised land, they found Him to be absent.  Notice why though--"I said to you, 'I am the LORD your God; do not worship the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you live.'  But you have not listened to me."  Next time you think to yourself, "Well gee, if God would only show me a miracle, then I would believe and obey!" think again.  That wasn't the case for Israel, time and again.  Gideon wonders the same thing so many wonder, in Judges 6:13:  "But sir, if the LORD is with us, why has all this happened to us?  Where are all his wonders that our fathers told us about when they said, 'Did not the LORD bring us out of Egypt?'  But now the LORD has abandoned us and put us into the hand of Midian."  Gideon wonders this aloud to God's angel in chapter 6, and chapters 7 recounts Gideon's defeat of the Midianites.

At the dawn of the A.D. era, Israel found itself again in a situation in which God seemed to be on extended leave.  They were disgraced as God's chosen people, allowed to practice Temple sacrifice and worship, but only by permission of their Roman oppressors.  I wonder how often many Jews at this time cried out to God, "Why won't you answer us???"  For years they had said this, and God seemed to be unhearing, unfeeling, or powerless to intervene.  In reality, He was preparing something beyond anything the Jews could have hoped for.  Not from earthly rulers and their cruelty would He deliver His people, but from the spiritual oppressors of sin, death, and hell, by the life, death, and resurrection of His Son, Jesus Christ.  This was not the deliverance the Jews expected (and that Jews still expect), but it was God's answer nonetheless, and the Jews and Gentiles alike have been blessed for centuries by God's resounding answer: "I hear your cry!  I care!  I love you!  Come to me and be healed!"

So, why hasn't God answered you yet?  Maybe, like the stories of Moses, Gideon, and Jesus Himself, God is simply working things out according to His heavenly wisdom, rather than our earthly wisdom.  Perhaps you can't see quite as clearly as you think, and God has a better plan, or His own reasons, or His own timing.  The Prophet Habakkuk understood this.  He began his oracle crying out against God for the injustice He was allowing, but then interrupts his complaining with this from God: "[My] revelation awaits an appointed time; it speaks of the end and will not prove false.  Though it linger, wait for it; it will certainly come and will not delay." (Hab. 2:2, 3)  "It won't delay" doesn't mean you will not have to wait--it means that God's plan will proceed exactly according to His timing, neither coming too soon nor waiting longer than He intends.

Be of good courage, friend--the Lord God, mighty to save, Whose works are proclaimed in that good book, the Bible, hears you and has compassion for you.  He also has a plan for you, and just like with the Israelites, He knows the best plan possible for you, and if you seek Him and His will, then that plan will come and will not delay!

Woohoo!

I have a follower on my blog!  Go Elizabeth!  I have self worth now!  Except now I feel obligated to follow your blog too.  This is a conundrum, isn't it?

Deer and Sex

I went canoeing last week, and saw a bunch of herons and only a single deer.  I'd gone in hoping to see deer in abundance, but I came out glad I only had seen one.  Why?  The herons were exciting to see at first, but after a while the excitement and value began to wear off.  "Another heron..."  Looking back on the day, there's no one heron that I saw that I can remember fondly.  No powerful moment to recall.

The deer on the other hand, I will remember for a long time.  I was floating downriver in advance of the canoe (my dad was in it, and don't worry--I had my life jacket on), and I looked up and saw the deer standing above me on the bank staring at me.  As I floated downstream, I stopped paddling (aside from trying and failing to maneuver over to a log so I could look at the deer longer) and simply stared at the deer as it stared back at me.  It was a very neat moment, and because there was only that one deer, it was unique and extra special to me.

I realized as I thought about that that I am also thankful that God has only one woman planned for me "to have and to hold, to love and to cherish" as long as I live.  This is just another example of how God knows best and man is good at messing stuff up, because the attitude that is prevalent today (and one that I've been tempted to succumb to) is that marriage is not expected to be life long or to be waited for, that spiritual matters are unnecessary for commitment and love, and that sex is only good for physical pleasure and entertainment.

Instead, I know that God intends for me to find one woman whom He fitted me to match with emotionally, spiritually, and physically, to commit myself to her alone for life, and to grow our relationship spiritually, emotionally, and physically as time goes on.  When I view a sexual relationship as a powerful bond designed by God to connect two people into one, and not to be cheapened or possibly damaged by sharing it with many people for quick pleasure, I realize God's wisdom and blessing.

I also have faith that God has good plans for me, and that if I enter into a loving marriage ordained by God, He will bless us--so there's no need to test the waters to make sure my future wife and I are "sexually compatible."  Where love and emotional (and especially spiritual) intimacy are present, then sexual compatibility is sure to follow.  Thank You, God, for knowing us better than we know ourselves, and informing us of the wonderful designs you have for us!

The Purpose of Bunches of Atoms

The “evangelistic” atheist Richard Dawkins, author of The God Delusion (a book I’m still hoping to read this summer), is quoted in the book I’m reading now, Education for Human Flourishing: A Christian Perspective:

What has theology ever said that is of the smallest use to anybody?  What has theology ever said that is demonstrably true and is not obvious?  I have listened to theologians, read them, debated against them.  I have never heard any of them ever say anything of the smallest use, anything that is not either platitudinously obvious or downright false.

There is a great deal wrong even with this short bit of Dawkins’ “wisdom,” but before I jump into it, let me say briefly Dawkins’ purpose in life, from what I’ve gleaned from the first four or five chapters of his book.  Dawkins holds a strictly naturalist view of life, meaning that he is anti-supernaturalist.  Only the things in this universe that are within the grasp of empirical, scientific investigation actually exist, which means that a supernatural Creator of any kind is out of the question.

You might think that it would be enough for him to believe this for himself and live his life, but instead he has made it his mission in life to encourage atheists in their unbelief and discourage religious and spiritual people of any background from their beliefs.  When religious people try to change others’ beliefs, words like “exclusive,” “narrow-minded,” “arrogant,” and “judgmental” usually come up.  Yet Dawkins considers himself a hero, because he insists that religion is not only pointless and without benefit, but a plague upon humanity. 

It is understandable that a person might come to believe this, having few or no positive religious experiences and learning from history books and the evening news all the tragedy and cruelty that man’s religious has wrought on the earth: human sacrifices, crusades, the Inquisition, terrorism, and hypocrisy. 

But to witness a destructive tornado and promptly say that wind is evil, or to see a gruesome chainsaw massacre and immediately say that chainsaws are evil is a touch irrational.  This could only be unequivocally said if nothing good ever came from wind or chainsaws.

The same goes for religion.  The other day, I had a conversation with a girl who is earnestly trying to seek out God, and she told me of a time recently when atheistic reasoning had taken such a grip on her that her mind was convinced of the truth of their arguments.  Did she immediately find joy in the fact that her existence had been reduced to two, possibly three digits’ worth of revolutions around the sun before she dies and the basic particles of which she is composed return to a state of entropy and she ceases to be? 

No, she did not.  She told me that a great sadness came over her.  “Depression,” I think is a word she even used.  Why is that?  She did not go into any detail, but I assume there were several reasons: her existence had been reduced to nothing; her self, a bit of the periodic table of the elements; her purpose, snuffed out; any hope she had for anything that would last, obliterated.  This is because religion is the only source of any real hope, and the Triune God of Christianity is the only object of faith That can actually offer results.  I do not mean a hope that I will get a promotion at work next week.  That is not a hope worth considering, because in another forty years I will be unemployed, retired, or perhaps deceased.  What then?  What good did my dream job really do me? 

I mean a real, reasonable hope that there is something to look forward to after leaving this world.  A hope that the small things I do in this life can actually have a purpose, and make a difference.  A hope that the love I feel in my heart and mind and soul is not simply a chemical reaction developed over millions of years so that I can reproduce most effectively.  A hope in Christ.

What motivation do I have to do good if I know that all of my efforts will only be a drop in the ocean against the hurt this world is seeing currently, and that I only have another forty or fifty or sixty years to live?  What motivation do I have to better myself, aside from greed, or desperation, or pride? 

On the other hand, if my motivation is to gratefully do my very best for a Rescuer Who loved me deeply enough to bear otherwise unbearable torment in my stead, and has given me a true purpose in life—that seems like a true motivator.  One that Dawkins’ atheism has not produced and will never produce. 

What good things has Christianity offered us?  Among many others (including reasonable answers to the fundamental questions of human existence—ones that science must necessarily ignore because they lie outside the empirical realm of investigation), hope, purpose, and love.

As far as Dawkins’ gripe about theologians’ “supposed” truths being false, or not demonstrably true, consider this: theologians, by the very nature of their field, deal with questions of heavenly, supernatural things.  Of course the Triune nature of God is not demonstrably true, using the scientific method!  What a scathing indictment of religion by Mr. Richard Dawkins.

Faith in a Little White Line

Sorry this is so long: 3 pages in Microsoft Word, but hopefully worth it?

Introduction

I recently went on a trip to Joplin, MO to help with the recovery efforts there.  I was only there for two days, but it was a great experience helping in a very small way to build up what that tornado tore down.  Actually, I wasn’t doing any literal building, but was working in the food distribution center—sorting donations, stacking, restacking, and moving pallets, and helping one family load up a crib for another family that lost everything.

But that’s not actually the purpose of this little blurb.  My purpose in writing is to talk about some thoughts I had on the drive home.  I’ve grown to love road trips with family, friends, and loved ones over the years, and some of my best memories revolve around them, but I’ve also come to appreciate the solitude of long car drives by myself, because they provide great opportunities for reflection, worship, and prayer (no, not with my eyes closed!).  This was also the case with the five hour drives to and from Joplin, but I want to focus on something I thought about on the drive home…

I drove through the damage path on the way to the interstate, and I’ve never seen anything like it.  It was complete destruction, with piles of rubble in place of houses as far as the eye could see.  This storm was a terrible one, and the devastating effect it had on the physical town of Joplin could only have been surpassed by the harm it inflicted on those people directly or indirectly affected—there are people in mourning as I type this, grieving for the 151 dead (that was the number the first morning I was there), wondering how they will pick their lives back up to move on, and questioning whether their faith really has any power or meaning, given their recent experiences.  Times like these are known figuratively as storms in people’s lives.

Everyone goes through storms, real and figurative, and inevitably, we begin to question what we believe—and even know—to be true in our lives.  I know I have, and I know people right now who seem to be caught in the perfect storms, beating them down to the point where they cannot see the God who is right next to them. 

As I was driving back east on I-44, watching the sun set in my rearview mirror, and seeing the beautiful radiance of the sunset reflected on the clouds in front of me, I also saw ahead of me the breathtaking, awesome, ominous sight of a powerful storm ahead of me.  I knew I would eventually catch up to the rain that was surely falling, and to the lightning that I could see illuminating the dark clouds even as I drove in the sunlight.  And I marveled at the beauty of the sunset and wondered if God was not painting an extra-poignant vision for me and others, knowing that soon the sun would be blotted out by the storm.  (I won’t get into this now, but is it possible that God designed sunsets to be extra beautiful, knowing that they were the last glimpse of light before the night?  Ephesians 5 tells us to avoid deeds of darkness, and Jesus in Gethsemane noted that the soldiers came in the hour of night, “when darkness reigns” (Ephesians 5:11 and Luke 22:53).)  Next time you see a sunset, let it be a reminder that darkness can open up spiritual doors that should remain shut, but also remember that God is light, but that He is with us even in the darkness, because “darkness is as light to [Him]” (Psalm 139:12).

Anyway, I had a good time listening to and taking notes (while I was driving!) on some sermons on Bott Radio Network and watching the storm build on the horizon, and got to call the cops to report a cow going the wrong direction on I-44 East, but eventually I caught up to the storm, and then things changed.  The clouds darkened the sky dramatically, the lightning was spectacular, and the rain pounded increasingly heavily on my windshield.  I was most certainly driving into the heart of a powerful storm. 

As the rain intensified and the sky darkened, I came to stretches of the road where I could not see where I was going for the rain, in spite of my RainEx and the windshield wipers.  The primary and best way for me to navigate was by fixing my eyes and that little, usually insignificant white strip of paint on the far right of the interstate.  This exercise brought back to my mind something I’ve thought about before: the idea of putting one’s faith in a little white line.

Faith and the Christian journey

People sometimes struggle with understanding what exactly faith is.  In Romans 3:26, “he did it to demonstrate his justice at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus” or 2 Corinthians 5:7, “for we walk by faith, not by sight,” what does that word, faith, mean?  While faith is a mysterious word, trust is something that people understand.  Do you trust your wife?  Your son?  Your employee?  We may say we trust them to…fill in the blank: not cheat, not steal, not do drugs, but do we really?  Do we act like it?  The same goes for trust in Jesus.  We can say we trust Him to make us right before God the Father, and to get us through thick and thin here in this life, but do we live like we know that He’s watching out for us, and will work for our good (Romans 8:28) even if we don’t see how it’s possible?

Let me come back to that little white line.  When I (or anyone else) was driving through that storm, unable to see anything except the next twenty-or-so feet of that little white line, we were trusting that white line to get us along the next hundred yards of interstate.  Why did we trust that white line?  Well, because we trust our government (which was in charge of putting that white line there for our safety) to know what it’s doing and have our best interests at heart.  We trust them not to give us the white line and then lead us right into the guard rail with it!  When I was in the middle of that downpour, unable to see where I was going, I had to trust in that little white line, and you can bet I didn’t once wonder if it was trustworthy or not.

This is getting rather long, so I’ll try to be less long-winded: why is it that we trust our government, which has proven to be inept and corrupt, and yet we so often rush out wildly on our own strength when things get rough, not trusting in the God of the universe to get us through the storm?  Why do we so often claim that we do trust, yet live our lives as a walking testament to the contrary?  God’s special revelation of Himself to us—the Bible—tells us that “in all things, God works for the good of those who love him and have been called according to his purpose” (Romans 8:28).  Rather than try to see through the uncertainty of life, with our frail, human perspective, why can we not simply trust that God will carry us who love Him through whatever might come our way, empowering us to fulfill His purposes along the way?

A few other thoughts: in good weather, that little white line is still there on the interstate, but we hardly ever pay attention to it.  Is that how we treat God too?  Ignoring Him until we are in dire straits?  For those of us who are angry with God, or question why He is allowing you to go through some storm right now, let me ask you if this storm is causing you to draw closer to Him?  Could there be a higher purpose in that—one that transcends your temporary suffering?

That little white line actually was not always there, by my side.  When I came to an exit on the interstate, it disappeared for a few tense seconds.  Thankfully God is not like this.  He is always within us as Christians, whether we can see Him or have fellowship with Him or not, and He is always a moment away from any non-Christian who humbly seeks Him out. 

But what about times when we simply lose sight of Him?  How do we find direction in life when it seems that God is not there, or not answering us?  I’ll tell you what I did when I was driving past an exit and couldn’t see that little white line: I looked up to the tail lights of the car in front of me.  I had very good reason to trust that it was safe to follow them, temporarily, not out of choice, but out of necessity.  After all, they were also following the little white line, and had just been where I was, at the exit.  Yes, they may have been spraying up water from the road into my eyes, in some ways making it harder to see (just as we may sometimes butt heads with our most valuable Christian brothers), but those two little red lights provided me a brief support in my own blindness.  I would guess that’s part of why our government commands that cars have them.  In the same way, we can look to other Christians when things seem bleak, and when God seems absent, not in idolatry.  God has given us fellowship with other believers for a reason.  Of course, none is perfect except Christ, but Paul clearly commends the Thessalonians for following his example and Christ’s example (1 Thessalonians 1:6).

Furthermore, Paul commends the Thessalonians for being a model to the other believers in the region (1:7), and Christ Himself commands us to instruct disciples in His commands (Matthew 28:20).  As I was driving along, my taillights probably led other cars along the road (another reason that it was so important for me to stay on it), my brake lights warned other cars that I was slowing, and when things became really treacherous, sometimes my four-way flashers were an added caution.  If I saw someone driving without their headlights on, it would be my duty to flash my headlights at them, warning them of their danger.  It would be a sin to condemn them for driving in such a way, because I sometimes forget them myself, but it would be silly not to warn them of their own danger simply because I did not want to appear judgmental.

Finally, all of this talk of that little white line becomes moot if my own headlights are out.  The point of my headlights is that it illuminates the white line so that it may guide me safely.  The Bible is also our primary means to seeking out God’s will for our lives.  Psalm 119 says that it is “a lamp to my feet and a light for my path” (verse 105).  We may try to see by the streetlights along the interstate, but in a heavy rain, those will only blind us to what we should see.  We may try to look to the headlights of the cars going the other direction, but those will also blind us and lead us astray.  In the end we want to just turn on our headlights, follow that little white line, and trust that we will arrive safely on the other side.  "Do not let your hearts be troubled.  Trust in God; trust also in [Jesus]" (John 14:1).  "And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age" (Matthew 28:20).

My Hiding Place

This is a beautiful poem I read in the book The Grace of God by William MacDonald.  A wonderful book written by a godly man, and one that I recommend to anyone and everyone to read.

MY HIDING PLACE

(Verses found in the pocket of Major Andre after his execution during the Revolutionary War.)

                                            “Hail, sovereign love, which first began

                                            The scheme to rescue fallen man!

                                            Hail, matchless, free, eternal grace,

                                            Which gave my soul a Hiding Place!

                       

                                            “Against the God Who built the sky

                                            I fought with hands uplifted high—

                                            Despised the mention of His grace,

                                            Too proud to seek a Hiding Place.

  

                                           “Enwrapt in thick Egyptian night,

                                            And fond of darkness more than light,

                                            Madly I ran the sinful race,

                                            Secure—without a Hiding Place!

                                           “But thus the eternal counsel ran;

                                            Almighty love, arrest that man!

                                            I felt the arrows of distress,

                                            And found I had no Hiding Place.

                                           “Indignant Justice stood in view;

                                            To Sinai’s fiery mount I flew;

                                            But Justice cried with frowning face,

                                            This mountain is no Hiding Place!

                                            “Ere long a heavenly voice I heard,

                                            And mercy’s angel soon appeared:

                                            He led me, with a beaming face,

                                            To Jesus as a Hiding Place.

                                            “On Him almighty vengeance fell,

                                            Which must have sunk a world to hell!

                                            He bore it for a sinful race,

                                            And thus became their Hiding Place.

                                           “Should sevenfold storms of thunder roll,

                                            And shake this globe from pole to pole,

                                            No thunderbolt shall daunt my face,

                                            For Jesus is my Hiding Place.”