Of Tears and Scripture

Below is a blog I posted long ago on MySpace, but was reminded of it recently, as it seems to be extremely appropriate considering the last few days in my life, and some of its truth speaks to me out of the past even now as I re-read it.

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God pulled me into a journey this week, and I have to admit it was not one of those times where I was excited about what He was doing. It was challenging, it was hard, and it drained me more than I realized. But then He brought me to this passage:

Psalm 126:5-6 - "May those who sow in tears reap with shouts of joy! He that goes forth weeping, bearing the seed for sowing, shall come home with shouts of joy, bringing his sheaves with him."

What does this mean? I had read this passage before and honestly didn't absorb it too much. But now the light is shed upon it, like a door with sunlight behind it opened on a dark and dusty shack, revealing some forgotten treasure hidden within.
That treasure is hope. It is hard for us to do His will when life is not going so well. When we are challenged every day to the point of wanting to fall over (and sometimes giving in). It is a hard thing that the wounded are still commanded to fight. But God is not cruel, He simply sees everything, whereas we do not. God sees the other end of this thing, even beyond the particular hard time we are going through, and He tells us it is good. He looks beyond the storm in which you are casting seeds in the mud, and He tells you that one day you will leap with joy through these same fields when they are overripe with abundance.
So what does this mean to those of us who can't farm? People. People are watching you. They are watching to see how you handle the good times and the bad. I submit to you that hard times allow for better planting in them, like the storm that softens the soil. The bad times require more reliance on God, and that is the visible thing that God can use to save souls. Thus we will rejoice one day, though we do not see it now, when the fruit of our labors are revealed to enjoy.
And so it is with this hope in mind that I say this:

Well, O My Tears, if you will not leave me, then you will water the seeds.

A Short Word on Invisible Fruit

1 Corinthians 15:58 - "Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain."

Galatians 6:9 - "And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up."

Many, and I would venture to say all of you who read this will at some point in your life encounter a time where you feel as though your work bears no spiritual fruit. You make real effort to evangelize, only to face indifference. You toil in youth ministry only to see kids become more bored. You preach every day, begging a flock to see how God is better than what they are living for, yet they only check their watches. This is a very hard time.

But be not discouraged, brothers and sisters. For God has ordained that some be sowers and others be harvesters, and all of us both at different times. You could spend your entire life sacrificing everything to evangelism, and yet not see a single soul come to know Christ, and your work would not be in vain. You are sowing. When you do see someone come to know Him, you are often harvesting that which others have sown in the past and saw no fruit.

And so we might draw some bit of encouragement from the fact that our work is not in vain. Though we may see no fruit in something we are lead to do, God will not hold back His reward from you, for only He is able to see the full measure of effect which our obedience has on the world.

To Love My Enemy

A little while ago the New York Giants, who were the lowest rated team in the playoffs, having barely made a wild-card spot, faced and beat the New England Patriots, who were speculated by some to be the best team in NFL history. The Giants won in a upset of epic proportions.
I was in attendance at our church's youth Super Bowl Party to witness this spectacular event, and at half-time one of my best friends, Jared, gave a message about doing all to the glory of God. He mentioned a 60 Minutes interview with Tom Brady in which he stated that in spite of his astounding success, he did not feel satisfied.
Now the Patriots had, throughout the season, cheated, played dirty, taunted other teams, and generally conducted themselves in rather arrogant manners. Even ESPN called their coach, Bill Belichick, the "evil" coach in their coverage of the Colts/Patriots game (which they called good vs. evil). As a result of their attitudes, I despised them as a team. I made many jokes about them, referring to Brady and Belichick as Darth Vader and Emperor Palpatine. When the Colts defeated the Patriots last year, I said to the crowd I was with: "And when the game is over, Manning will throw the ring into Mount Doom and Belichick will be destroyed!"

Everyone laughed. Everyone agreed.

But then God began moving in me, and here is what He showed me.
Tom Brady has spent his entire life pursuing and acquiring the things of this world that will not last, realizing somewhere that these things do not fulfill but being at a loss as to what does, and is well on his way to suffering Hell and eternal wrath, and instead of my heart utterly breaking for him, I instead make a joke out of his wickedness.

I have laughed at his depravity. And I am greatly ashamed. Now my heart breaks.

Of course he is a jerk! Of course he is arrogant! Of course he can be dishonest! He does not have Christ, and that is the only difference between me and this man I have despised. I have been rescued and he is still drowning, and I stand on the shore and mock him as he takes his last breaths. Of course he is my enemy and God's, and I am not loving my enemy.

Now if your child were to contract cancer, you would not rejoice. They are your child, and you love them dearly. Indeed, would you not cry out to God with many tears that He heal them? This is why Proverbs 24:17-18 says that we should not rejoice when our enemy falls, and that God will turn His wrath on us if we do. Loving does not simply mean abstaining from the celebration of their downfall, but actively and passionately praying and interceding on their behalf against God's vengeance on them... and we must pray this with much the same fervor, brokenness, and determination as a parent would against a cancerous disease in their child. That is loving your enemy.



Matthew 5:44, Proverbs 2:17-18, Romans 12:19-21

The Unpleasant Things That Money Reveals

Psalm 112:1,7 - "...Blessed is the man who fears the Lord... He is not afraid of bad news; his heart is firm, trusting in the Lord."

I often desire a better financial situation. God does not currently have my wife and I in a very fiscally prominent place, and that has often been a fact that has frustrated me and at times even scared me. It has been like this for the past year and a half, and it has taken several miraculous events in order for us to simply pay our bills. Just to get by. Paycheck to paycheck. Examining virtually every dollar we spend. Constantly wishing we did not have this burden.

But I am afraid my frustration has betrayed an unpleasant fact. I still put my trust in money. The very fact that I am often frustrated reveals discontent with God's will for us. The fact that I am occasionally scared because of money problems reveals that my peace is not in Him. If I trusted Him, my heart would be firm.

So I am forced to ask myself a question: If I were indeed given a better financial situation, would I continue to grow in my trust in Him? At the moment, I am forced by circumstances to appeal to Him, to chase after Him, to learn to trust Him alone. If we lost a car, we could not afford to replace it. However if I made six-digits a year, it would be easy to replace a car, and therefore I would not find myself on my knees before God, trusting Him for the solution. I am not saying that the rich cannot trust God as much as the poor (though the Bible implies this is the case most of the time); I am only saying I am not yet strong enough to trust solely in God when there is something else that provides the illusion of safety (aka money). So the incredibly difficult question I must ask myself is this: Given the choice between a much better financial situation and being poor but closer to God for it, could I have the strength or desire to choose to be poor? Do I trust in Him enough to find my safety in Him no matter what my financial situation looks like? If I am honest enough with myself, I'm afraid the answer reveals much.

This leads me to ask another hard question: what is money to me anyway, and what is my heart regarding it? I will confess to you all that it is too often a means to my own selfish desires: to buy things I want, to eat out whenever I want, to buy more expensive clothing, software, instruments, to provide safety for me and my family (safety regarding bills and debt... hence the frustration and stress when money is low: I do not feel safe). And thus I come to the problem I must face: that I find my safety in money and not in Him. Not only that, but whatever is left over on top of this illusion of safety, I tend to use toward selfish means. My perspective on money is far from healthy. I must learn to view my money as this and only this: as a means to glorify God. Perhaps I do not have more money than I do not because I would not use it for His glory.

But this is why the heart of the righteous can be firm and trust in Him: because when we realize that money is solely for His glory, then we realize that He blesses us with exactly the amount of money we need to glorify Him in His plan for us... not a penny more, not a penny less. We may not always have money, but we will always have what we need to glorify Him.

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