Are You Smarter Than an Ass or Box of Rocks?

 Today is Sunday but it's not Palm Sunday.  However, the children's church lesson for the day was on the Triumphal Entry of Jesus.

I had a plan on where I was going with the story and the video from The Biggest Story was good (I'd recommend it simply based on the colors and Michael Reeves' narration).  However, God changed my plans.  The adult helper, Darrell the Balloon Man Anderson, is superb with children and he made an interjection.  He told a brief story about how he used to get a unridden horse as a kid and how difficult it was to break in a new horse.  That story changed how I would end the Bible story and understand this story from Luke.

If you remember the story as told in Luke 19 you'll remember that Jesus rode a colt that had never been sat upon.  You'll also remember that the people shouted out, "Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!"  And finally, you'll remember that the Pharisees disliked the whole thing that was going on and asked Jesus to tell His followers to shut up, to which Jesus replied: 

"I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out."

This story is many things and one of those things is a rebuke upon the Pharisees.  

The Pharisees were supposed to be learned.  They were supposed to be pious.  They were supposed to be ones who worshipped the Lord and followed Him to the max.  In this story they are the only ones not doing it.

Luke is telling us, in part, that the Pharisees were dumber than an ass.  The donkey understood Jesus' lordship and did what unbroken donkeys don't do.  This donkey, like Balaam's donkey, had a better understanding of who Jesus is than the experts of the Talmud.  This ass knew his Creator when he saw him, the Pharisees didn't.  Who was the real dumb ass?

This passages also tell us, in part, that the Pharisees were dumber than a box of rocks. The people praised Jesus as the coming King.  They shouted out royal praise to the King of kings.  The Pharisees missed Jesus' Kingship.  Jesus told them that if the crowd didn't shout the stones would cry out in praise.  The rocks knew their King when they saw Him, but the Pharisees who were steeped in Old Testament prophesy about the Davidic Messiah King didn't.  Who was dumber than a box of rocks?

Before your superiority complex comes raging in, we need to see what Luke is really saying.

Unless God opens our eyes to our Creator-King we are like the Pharisees.  We can have all the information and none of the understanding.  We can have all the words and not truly know the Word.  We, in our sinful nature, are all dumber than an ass and a box of rocks.

However, God can and will open the eyes of the blind to see.  God will let us see our King and Lord and Creator and shout: 

"Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord!"

You aren't the reason you believe.  You and I would be stuck as stubborn asses who have less sense than a box of rocks if left to our own devices.  We needed saving more than we realized.  No, if you believe, you are one that God has removed blinders from so that you see what the donkey and stones saw and love it today.

A Kingdom Built a Heart at a Time

 One of, if not, the greatest penitential psalm is Psalm 51. This is the famous song King David wrote after Nathan the prophet had confronted him about his sin regarding Bathsheba.  This sin involved at least adultery and murder and I'd argue rape and murder, and the murder of a trusted and close friend.

This psalm has many famous lines about begging for forgiveness, admitting sin against God, about original sin and the inability to live a righteous life without God, request for cleansing and restoration and God's love of a broken and contrite spirit over the desire for burnt offerings.

Read Psalm 51 if you haven't for awhile.  This psalm is dripping with applicable goodness.  This song is soaked with lines worth memorizing.  However its ending is one that surprises the modern reader.  At first glance, to me, it looks out of place with the rest of this intensely personal psalm.

"Do good to Zion in your good pleasure;
build up the walls of Jerusalem;
then will you delight in right sacrifices,
in burnt offerings and whole burnt offerings;
then bulls will be offered on your altar." Psalm 51:18-19

Why is this the ending to this psalm?  Why does King David all the sudden intercede for the city of Zion?  Why this here?

I believe the reason King David does this is simply this: Our personal reconciliation and personal confession is always also about the fullness of the Church both local and universal.

We often pray for and seek large scale revival.  We hope for revivals in a college campus, a city, a country and the whole world.  But the Kingdom of Heaven is like a mustard seed.  It is like yeast in dough.  The Kingdom though large is also in individual hearts and souls.

When individuals collectively live Psalm 51-type repentance the Church is blessed and the Bride is beautified.

"Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her, that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the Word, so that He might present the church to Himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish." Ephesians 5:25-27

So, we in our own homes and in our own local churches and in our own personal reading of the Bible let it read us.  We read it so that we, on occasion and probably most occasions, have the same "YOU ARE THE MAN" experience that David got from the prophet Nathan when he was confronted with his sin.  We read our Bibles and let it read us so we can face our sin and become penitent and in so doing be washed thoroughly from iniquity and be made whiter than snow.  And when we individually do this the Church does this, too.

Jesus died and gave us His righteousness and completely justified us.  Yet He saved us and is saving us in our daily sanctification.  As Martin Luther famously wrote, "All of life is repentance."  So, read, repentant and watch the Kingdom of Heaven come in as the Church is built up and Her worship becomes even more delightful to God today.

Comfort in the Crisis

 Below is the manuscript for a sermon on Psalm 46 I was able to give on July 13, 2025 at my home church.  You can watch/listen to it in this link here. (sermon starts at 37:30 mark if it hasn't been edited yet.)

Are you going through something right now? Are you in the midst of

a crisis? What is stealing your sleep? What is robbing your joy?

Is the earth underneath you shaking? Do you feel like you can’t find any normalcy or steadiness?

Maybe it’s political stress or a health crisis. Perhaps economic stress is weighing you down and causing you worry. It could be a strained relationship. Or worse yet, maybe your kid or grand-kid is going through something and you can’t fix it.

What’s the thing that is gobbling up your head-space and robbing you of peace? What very real threat is aimed at you?

If the world is all as it should be today’s psalm may not be for you. But let me tell you something: We’re all either going through something tough, coming out of something rough or we’re going to. Think of the families that sent their little girls to Camp Mystic, just like I recently sent Joshua and Anna and some of you sent your kids. Think of how they went to bed smiling about all the fun their girls would have at camp only to wake up and learn their daughter was swept away to her death in the middle of the night.

What on earth are the pastors in Kerr County, Texas saying to their flock today?

YouTube can be a time sucker, but it can also be wonderful. I recently watched an old interview with Corrie Ten Boom. If you’re not familiar with her I highly encourage you to read the book The Hiding Place or watch the movie. Both are available at the Waverly Public Library.

Her story, in a nutshell, was that she and her family were devoted Christians in Holland. They hid Jews in their home in a sophisticated hiding place during the Holocaust. Eventually they were ratted out and were all arrested. Corrie spent time in a prison and in solitary confinement and then eventually in a concentration camp called Ravensbrück. She watched her sister die after experiencing beatings and malnourishment at the hands of the Nazis. She was tortured herself and faced unbelievable suffering with unbelievable joy and faith. Through her many of the other prisoners came to have faith in Jesus. She eventually was released from the concentration camp due to a clerical error by the Nazis.

In the interview on the 700 Club Pat Robertson asked what kept her sweet in the Lord, what kept her from despairing, what kept her buoyed. She said, “Not what… who?!”

Or take the life of Martin Luther.

Luther, as you likely know, spoke out against the corruption and anti-gospel teachings of the 16^th century church. He wrote about how we are saved by faith alone in Christ alone and the Catholic Church wouldn’t have it.

At the Diet of Worms, he refused to recant his writings and was declared an outlaw and a heretic. This meant he could be killed without legal consequence. The church officials were pressuring him to recant and a man named Frederick the Wise staged a kidnapping to take Luther, who was on his way back to Wittenberg, to Eisenach and the Wartburg Castle for protection.

It was in the Wartburg that Luther was shut up in a room and translated the New Testament into German. It was also there that Luther fell in love with Psalm 46. To the Lutherans today Psalm 46 is known as Luther’s Psalm and it was this very psalm that inspired him, while in a literal castle, to write the beloved hymn “Ein feste burg ist Unser Gott” or “A Mighty Fortress is Our God”

So, let me ask you: Would you like more peace? Peace like Corrie Ten Boom had in the middle of a concentration camp. Peace like Martin Luther had while he was a man wanted dead and not alive. Peace like Paul and Silas singing in the jail cell. Do you want this kind of peace that comes IN the chaos?

Psalm 46 is a psalm that shows us how to have this kind of peace.

Now, this psalm is familiar. Google AI tells me that it is a top-10 most favorite. But I implore you to hear this and see this famous song with fresh eyes as we look intently at it today.

Read Psalm 46

Before we further analyze this psalm let’s look at its structure. When reading a psalm, the structure of it goes a long way in helping us comprehend it.

The psalm is divided like this, to put it in modern musical language.

Verse 1

Rest

Verse 2

Chorus/Refrain

Rest

Verse 3

Chorus/Refrain

Rest

Psalm 46 is a song celebrating Zion as the special city that God had decided to especially dwell in and to bless the whole world from. This is one of several psalms that celebrate Zion. Some of the original readers sang this while in Jerusalem itself. Most believe this psalm was written to be sung before a battle or in the night by the people while siege works were surrounding them. Some of the original readers sang this while in the Babylonian exile.

See, this song is to be sung in the battle. It is to be sung in the chaos, not after it.

How are Christians living in 2025 supposed to read it?

I believe we can see this psalm of Zion as a psalm of the Kingdom. Zion was never simply an earthly community and a mere locality on earth in the Middle East. Zion was always a pointer to the New Testament’s vision of the New Heaven and New Earth Kingdom. Psalm 46 helps us understand how to live with the peace that only King Jesus can give while in the here but not yet Kingdom. By “here but not yet” I mean that the Kingdom of God or of Heaven is at hand, as Jesus said. It is here. The Church is part of the Kingdom here and now. But not yet. We know that this isn’t the New Heaven and the New Earth. We know that the New Jerusalem, the New Zion has not yet come. So, this psalm helps us live exactly where God has placed us in time and in space.

To put what we find in this psalm in a sentence I think we just need to go to the chorus in verses 7 and 11:

The LORD of host in with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress; therefore, God’s people can have restful peace in the chaos of life.

Why is this true? Who is this God of angel armies, this God of Jacob that He could possibly give us restful peace in the battles of life.

I believe we can see how God does this and why we Christians can have this unique, extreme peace in what I call the three verses and, in the refrain, or the chorus.

1. God Our Emmanuel in Natural Troubles v. 1-3

Let’s read verses 1-3

First, we see that God is our refuge and strength. God Himself is our refuge and strength. This is a psalm of Zion and the original readers of this text may have been tempted to think that Jerusalem’s walls were the refuge and strength. The walls of a city in that day were important. They were so important that there is an entire Old Testament book about the rebuilding of those walls. But the walls were never their refuge and strength; God was and is.

Martin Luther wrote “A Mighty Fortress is Our God” while hiding in a literal mighty fortress. Yet while reading this very psalm he realized and loved that God Himself was his mighty fortress. God Himself was the refuge and strength.

Is God your refuge and strength?

But the Sons of Korah, who wrote this psalm, don’t stop there. They say that God is a very present help in trouble.

Sometimes it’s a good thing to read multiple translations of a passage. The ESV says God is “a very present help in trouble.” The NASB says “A very ready help”. The NIV says “ever present help”

Put these together and we learn that God isn’t just there for us in trouble but He’s VERY there, VERY ready and, in fact, He was always there before we even shouted for help.

Let’s have a little Christmas in July. Jesus is called what? Emmanuel which means God with us. If you are a believer in Jesus, you always have Jesus present.

Remember when Jesus was going away from His disciples that He told them it was better that He leave. Why? In John 15 Jesus says that the Helper, the Holy Spirit, will come. If you are a believer, you always have Christ living in you and the Holy Spirit living in you as a very present help in trouble.

My children get great comfort in a dark room from holding my hand. How much more would they get if I was not me but I was omnipotent and all-sovereign?

And because God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble we can be fearless.

Look at verses 2-3.

The earth gives way. Have you ever seen the aftermath of an earthquake or a mudslide? The mountains are thrown into the middle of the sea. The oceans roar and foam and the mountains tremble.

Nature goes haywire.

Have you been there? We recently saw the devastation of the rapid flooding of the Guadalupe River in Texas where scores of people died, including girls at a camp who were sleeping in their cabins one moment and the next were washed away. I’m sure it looked like the circumstances of this psalm hit them directly. I think Parkersburg in 2008 looked like a little like this. I know Cedar Rapids in 2008 did.

Maybe you’re there now. Perhaps you’re waiting on the results of a test to see if your life will be changed. Maybe you’re facing an autoimmune disease and wondering why your body went haywire.

Does it feel like the earth is shaking under your feet? Does it feel like chaos surrounds you and you can’t shake free?

Brothers and sisters, hear this: Anyone that is selling you a problem free life as a Christian is selling you. Let me say it again: Anyone that is selling you a problem free life as a Christian is selling you.

We don’t get a problem free life now. We get an ever-present Savior now!

Sickness will happen. Storms will pop into our life. Problems will come, but our God will always be with us as our refuge and strength.

The last word of this verse of the song is “Selah” which most scholars think means rest or pause or some sort of musical interlude. So, at this point in the psalm we rest to meditate on this truth: God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble and therefore we can be fearless.

2. God Our Refuge from Enemies v. 4-6

Let’s read these verses

To understand this portion of the psalm we have to understand ancient warfare. In this era of warfare sieges were common. The attacking nation would surround a city and prevent goods and food from coming into it. The idea was to starve out the citizens either before attacking it directly or until they simply gave up.

This form of war was brutal. All war is brutal, but this tactic is more brutal to me. In the book of Lamentations, we read of a siege in which women decided to cook and eat their own children. Can you imagine the horror of this!

Of course, you can live without food for a lot longer than you can without water. If your city was to survive a siege for any length of time a river would be essential.

Look at verse 4: “There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God…”

But here’s the deal: Jerusalem doesn’t have a river. Jerusalem had the brook of Kidron but that was a seasonal stream. How long could you last with that. The Gihon spring that went to the pool of Siloam was nice in peace, but it’s not a river.

The original readers of Psalm 46 would be quick to realize that God is the river.

In Genesis 2:10 we read that a river flowed out of Eden to water the garden. The psalmist is saying that God is the river and He makes Zion into a paradise. This river of paradise is beautifully contrasted to the roaring waters of chaos in the previous verse.

And there’s more.

In Ezekiel 47 it is prophesized of a river flowing from the temple that went deep and deeper and deeper. The river even turned the salt water into fresh water. The salt water of the sea represented chaos and the fresh water represented life. The river of Zion creates an anti-chaos for the Kingdom.

And there’s more.

In Revelation 22 John sees the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city (New Zion).

And there’s more

In John 7:37-38 Jesus says, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.”

Are you besieged by the enemy? Is the Church under attack? There is a river whose streams make us glad.

But we get more than help to outlast a siege. Look at verses 5 and 6.

God is in Zion and fights for her. God is in the Here but not yet Kingdom and fights for her.

The phrase “when morning dawns” tells us this is a fight. Most ancient fighting was done in the daylight. Night attacks were rare. In the midst of a siege, you woke up every dawn wondering if you were going to be attacked. Would this be the morning I die? Would this be the morning my city would crumble?

But God is our help when morning dawns. Are you in the night wondering what will come next and how on earth you’ll stand up in the morning’s battle? He will defend us. He will fight for us.

In Exodus 14 the morning dawned and the children of Israel found themselves hemmed in by the Red Sea. They cried out in fear and God fought for them. He parted the sea for them and crushed the Egyptians that same day with that same sea.

In 2 Kings 19 the city of Jerusalem is surrounded by the Assyrians, who are much stronger. The leader of the Assyrian armies mocks God and threaten the people and so King Hezekiah is freaked out and prays to God. The prophet Isaiah came and told Hezekiah that God was going to defeat the massive army at the city gates by Himself.

Listen to 2 Kings 19:35 “And that night the angel of the LORD went out and struck down 185,000 in the camp of the Assyrians. And when people arose early in the morning, behold, these were all dead bodies.”

Church, this same God is here for us now. When morning comes, when the fight of your life is raging you must know that God is in our midst and the Church will not be moved.

“The nations rage, the kingdoms totter;

He utters His voice, the earth melts.”

Our God wins wars with His voice. One angel defeats 185,000 soldiers without effort.

The break of dawn was seen as a time of battle. A time of fear. Our break of dawn is the moment of victory! When did they find the tomb empty? The break of dawn!

3. God’s Future Total Victory Over the Whole Waring World v. 8-10

Let’s look at these verses.

The Sons of Korah ask the reader/singer to come behold the works of God. They are not asking us to look at creation, but look at God’s victory over war.

We could modernize it and say that He makes all wars and violent conflicts stop. He breaks the gun, shatters the battleships and burns the Abrams tank.

Come, behold this. Are you beholding this now? I’m not. What are we to do with this passage? What are we to do as thinking people when we’re asked to behold something that is impossible to behold unless you live under a rock.

Iran and Israel are launching rockets at each other. Drones are bombing Ukraine and Russia. The Sudanese keep killing each other. Myanmar is stuck in a civil war since 1948. The Democratic Republic of Congo has rebels attacking. Haiti is in chaos and ruled by warring gangs. Beyond wars we’ve seen wicked violence with massacres even in elementary schools. At the end of June, a wicked man set fires to ambush and kill firefighters.

Are we missing something? What are we supposed to be beholding, God? Did ancient Zion not also see wars and destruction and desolation?

Remember the Kingdom of Heaven is here but not yet. The previous two sections or verses of this psalm spoke to God’s work in the Here Kingdom but this section is the Not Yet Kingdom.

Only with the eyes of faith can we see this future reality. God will do this. God will put all conflict to an end.

Isaiah 2:4 prophesizes this when it says that swords will be beaten into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks and nations will not war anymore.

Isaiah 9 tells us that Jesus will be the one who ends all war. It tells us that His birth ushers in a government of peace and an everlasting Kingdom.

So, what’s with verse 10?

This is one of the most famous verses in the Bible. You may have it framed in a picture or on a coffee cup. It may be your life-verse. My son Joshua has a friend whose mom has this reference tattooed on her neck.

Unfortunately, I believe, and almost every scholar I read agrees, that most of us have been reading this verse wrongly. I want to tread lightly here but I want to make sure we understand it because the text is even better than I thought it was.

I’ll venture that most of us read this in a Tommy Chong-type voice. You know, the voice of every female therapist in the movies and you read it as being spoken to you, the Christian.

“Be still, and know that I am God.”

First, let me tell you that if you read it this way you are not being unbiblical. It is Biblical and a good thing to be still and to know with all our heart that God is God. It is a wise and wonderful practice to calm our nerves, our anxieties and our thoughts and focus on God’s being God and not all the chaos. If that is what you have done with this verse you are not unbiblical. You aren’t.

If you read the verse and take a breath and soak in this truth you will draw nearer to God. I don’t doubt that. I think it’s a wonderful practice and don’t let me stop it.

However, that understanding while not unbiblical is un-Psalm 46.

All the commentaries I read were in agreement. Jim, too. This verse is not directed to the faithful in the ancient Zion and it is not directed to the faithful in the New Zion. God speaks this verse to the enemies of the Church.

“BE STILL, AND KNOW THAT I AM GOD. I WILL BE EXALTED AMONG THE NATIONS; I WILL BE EXALTED IN THE EARTH!”

God the mighty warrior and King of the Universe is saying to the warring world: “Stop now. Still down and shut up. Enough is enough. Put your weapons down and know that I am the boss. I will be top dog in all the world right NOW!

This will not be a long, drawn-out war. This is Jesus standing up in the boat in the middle of the storm and saying “Peace. Be still!”

The warring world will stop on a dime. And what will they do when they stop?

Philippians 2:10 says, “at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in Heaven and on the earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”

The same God who created all that is with the utterance of His voice will speak the final “ENOUGH!” and instantly knees will bow. Those who love Him will do so willingly and lovingly and those who hate him will drop as if their hamstrings had been sliced in an instant.

Are you ready for that? Are you tired of war and violence and suffering? Are you ready for an eternal Sabbath rest? Are you excited for the culmination of the Kingdom? Are you saying “Come Lord Jesus, come quickly”?

Brothers and sister, spend time beholding this. Read and think about the moment the violence stops and the Savior comes and wipes away every tear from every eye and the old, broken way of the world ends and the Kingdom is fully realized for the rest of eternity.

4. The Chorus v 7 & 11

This is the chorus and this is the nugget the Sons of Korah wished, I believe, to get stuck in the singers’ heads. I hope and pray you’ll be singing to your soul this week.

Read verse 11

LORD of host is with us. This title means the LORD our God is the God of an army. Chris Tomlin sings it well when he sings “The God of Angel Armies is always by my side”

Remember the story of Elijah in 2 Kings 6? The king of Syria was angry at the prophet for spoiling his attack plans over and over with his prophesy. The king then sent an entire army to attack Elijah and his one servant. Talk about overkill. Two people verses the army of an ancient superpower. If you remember the story the servant was freaked out, as I would be. Elijah then prayed that God would open the eyes of the servant to see what he saw. When he did the servant saw the fiery angel army that had surrounded the Syrian army.

This is the LORD of host who is with us. It is the God of angel armies that is our fortress. In your mind’s eye we have to see the truth. The circumstances are right in our face but if we understand Psalm 46 we will understand that the God of Angel armies is always by our side and the gates of Hell will not and cannot prevail against the Church. The Kingdom will come on earth as it is in Heaven and it will come by force of the LORD of Hosts not by force of you and I.

Finally, look at the last word of this psalm: Selah. Selah, most scholars I’ve read agree, means something to the like of rest or pause. The pause might have been for a musical interlude or simply to pause and praise in your heart and thoughts.

Charles Spurgeon believed, and I agree with him, that the selahs were important to understanding the psalm. Each division of what I have called the verses ends with a selah. The selah was there to call us to stop and think deeply and pause on what we’d just learned and sung.

I find it so wonderful that this verse ends, and the whole of Psalm 46 ends, with selah.

Earlier I told you that most of us have read “Be still and know that I am God” wrongly in verse 10. Now this selah is where that understanding of the verse is found.

The Sons of Korah give us this beautiful final selah. We are to digest the truths of Psalm 46. We are to delight in and love them. We are to be thrilled that God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. That He is to us a river of life. That He is our victor when the morning comes. We are to be excitedly waiting for the moment He stops all conflict and makes everything right and good again.

And finally, we are to rest in that truth.

Friends, God doesn’t want you losing strength and joy and sleep and peace over the chaos in this world. Jesus is the Prince of Peace. The LORD of host in with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress; therefore, God’s people can have restful peace in the chaos of life.

Rest in that peace, the peace that can rest IN the chaos, not just after the chaos. The peace that can exist only while in the fortress of God’s strong, loving, protective arms. Rest in that peace today.

Blessed on Father's Day

 God is sovereign but much of who I am and what I have are dumb luck from my perspective.  

Have you thought about that?  Have you considered just how much of your blessings are due to things you have little to no control over?  Have you pondered what your life would look like if one decision went the other way or one circumstance had occurred differently?

Today is Father's Day and I write today in a spirit of extreme thankfulness.  I want to look at two verses from Psalm 16.  If you want a fuller look at this wonderful psalm click here to hear what my pastor had to say about it.

"The LORD is my chosen portion and my cup;
you hold my lot.
The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places;
indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance." Psalm 16:5-6

If you read the book of Joshua you will read about the lots cast to determine where everyone would live.  The portion of the land inherited by people was determined by the roll of the dice.  The Israelites trusted that God was sovereignly in control of the roll and the lots cast were not chance but providence.  Don't try this at home.  Only a fool sees this practice as prescription and not description.  Our God is not a god of gambling, but from our perspective much of our lives seems to have been determined by happenstance and chance.

I had no control over who my parents are.  I did not choose them.  I did not ask for Christian parents; it was simply my lot.  I had zero control over when I was born.  I was born in 1987 and not 1087 and I had nothing to do with that.  I was born in a time without world war, famine or pestilence and I did not choose that; it was simply my lot in life.  I did not ask to be born in the United States of America instead of North Korea.  I didn't choose to be born in Iowa.  I did not choose to live in Fairview, Spencer, Pittsville, Marion and Springville, my parents did; it was simply my lot in life.  I tried very hard to have all sorts of good looking girls like me.  I wanted very badly to have a relationship before I met my wife, but I never did.  I didn't choose to meet my wife but she just so happened to; I guess it was my lot.  I didn't choose infertility.  I didn't choose to wait as long as we did to have our first child; it was simply my lot.  I didn't choose which sperm would pair with Christine's egg the first, second, third, fourth or fifth time.  I had no control over who my children are; it was simply my lot.

God holds my lot and the lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance.

On Father's Day I have been reflecting on how good God has been to me.  Of course the best He is for me is Savior and Father, but He's blessed me in so many other good ways.  My lot in life is so good.  My job, my community, my wife, my children, my parents, my neighbors, my nation, my ______, etc is so, so, so good.

Fathers, this world is not yet our final and best home, but today I look at what I have and say I am blessed.  Today I look at my lot and wonder how good it will be when I experience the LORD fully as my portion and my cup.  

Fathers, count your many blessings and expectantly hope and wait for the even better land your Heavenly Father has in preparation for you today.

Blessed Are the Outcasts

 My resolution for this calendar year is to read a psalm a day.  Yesterday I completed my first run through of the 150 psalms.  As I reflected on the many themes, one came to the front of my mind.  This theme is certainly not the foremost theme of all the themes in the entire book, but it is the one that my mind landed on as a theme as I talked with my wife about my finishing my first run through the book.  This theme, though not the main theme of the five books that make up the one book we call Psalms, is a theme that runs throughout the entire Bible.

God is for the down and out and humble and against the oppressor and and proud.

To take a single example, let's look at Psalm 146 and how it talks about God:

"... who executes justice for the oppressed,
who gives food to the hungry.
The LORD sets the prisoner free;
the LORD opens the eyes of the blind.
The LORD lifts up those who are bowed down;
the LORD loves the righteous.
The LORD watches over the sojourners;
He upholds the widow and the fatherless,
but the way of the wicked He brings to ruin." Psalm 146:7-9

Or look at Psalm 101 as King David writes about those he will avoid:

"A perverse heart shall be far from me;
I will know nothing of evil.
Whoever slanders his neighbor secretly
I will destroy.
Whoever has a haughty look and an arrogant heart
I will not endure." Psalm 101:4-5

And there are plenty more passages like that in the Book of Psalms and the Old Testament and the New Testament.  The Bible is flooded with it from Moses to Jesus to James.

Jesus said in the sermon on the mount in Luke 6:20-26 that the poor, hungry, sad, and persecuted are blessed and then offered woes to the rich, the full, the happy and those thought of well by others.  Jesus said in Matthew 5:3 "Blessed are the poor in spirit..."

So, given this is a theme in the Bible (my brief overview about is grossly inadequate.  Please explore the texts yourself more fully). And given that Psalm 146 in particular talked about the theme, I asked myself a couple of questions in my journal.

1) Do I love and serve like my Father does?

Psalm 146 says that God loves and serves: The oppressed, the hungry, the prisoners, the blind, the bowed down, the righteous, the traveling foreigner, the widow and the fatherless.  Do I?

Do I overlook these people and even exploit them or do I love and serve them?  Is my heart soft for these people?  Do I hear and see the news about these people and feel moved to compassion?  Do I do anything to help them? 

Many of us jump straight into the question of what the government can and should do for these people.  That's not a wrong thing to think about.  In fact, since government in a free society is our collective will, we should think well about this.  But do we, ourselves, do anything to positively affect any one of this list of kinds of people our Father expresses a particular, caring love for? 

A Christian can be measured in maturity by how he or she loves and serve these people.

2) Do I count myself among these?

Jesus in Matthew's account of the Beatitudes says "Blessed are the poor in spirit."  Do I know my own depravity?  Do I know that I am a prisoner and a slave to sin without Jesus redeeming me?  Do I know I am blinded by Satan until God removes my blinders?  Do I know I am a little one in need of heavenly adoption?  Do I ever hunger and thirst for things to be right?  Do I know that every crumb of food comes from God to me?

"Only with difficulty will a rich person enter the Kingdom of Heaven.  Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of Heaven." Matthew 19:23-4

None of us are actually rich. We are all beggars in the cosmic scope.  But many of us trust in our riches and perceive ourselves to have all we need.  This can't be true for a Christ follower.

No haughty and prideful person will be in the Kingdom of Heaven.  Only those who humbly understand their need and cry out for help will be in the Kingdom of Heaven.  This is a theme of the Bible: The proud and wicked are attacked by God.

Ask yourself today these questions.  Do you love and serve the outcasts? Do you count yourself among those who desperately need God's salvation?  Think about those questions today.

The Gospel According to a Mother's Lap

 When I was a young boy laying my head on my mom's lap was comforting.  There was many a Sunday when I was little that I laid down in the pew during service while my mother softly scratched my back.

Now I have kids and when they are needing comfort they run to their own mother to sit on her lap or be held as she stands.  Our fairly recently weaned toddler loves to play in the same room as her mom.  She is especially content when Mom is on the floor near her as she plays.

God is not our mother, but rather He is our Heavenly Father.  Yet, the best of motherhood displays and reflects His goodness.  We are made, male and female, in God's image (Genesis 1:28) and it is in the best of motherhood and fatherhood, the best of masculinity and femininity, that God is most clearly displayed.  

"O LORD, my heart is not lifted up;
my eyes are not raised too high;
I do not occupy myself with things
too great and too marvelous for me.
But I have calmed and quieted my soul,
like a weaned child with its mother;
like a weaned child is my soul within me.

O Israel, hope in the LORD
from this time forth and forevermore." Psalm 131

How many of us get worked up thinking about things that are far beyond our control! 

For example: I am, and we are, in the last many years especially, overly concerned with politics.  I fully believe that being an informed and engaged citizen is imperative for a functioning democratic republic.  I cherish and will help defend the right to speak out and protest and/or vocally support a cause.  That said, too many of us give our peace away when we have very little control over something.  The number of us that lose patience and sleep and nerves sweating every detail in our overly political culture is extremely high.

It's not just politics either.  It's a host of things like health, our kid's athletic performance, the forecast for the upcoming picnic... the list goes on and on.  We occupy ourselves with things that are simply out of our control.

King David said that he won't play that game and he wrote a song to help others avoid it, too.

Instead of arrogantly looking constantly at the big, bad issues all around us we are to calm and quiet our souls.  We are to be like a toddler who is just so calm and content because of the presence of her loving mother.  We are to be like I was with my head on my mom's lap while her fingers gently scratched my back until I fell into a peaceful semi-consciousness.

Your soul isn't made to constantly rue over the affairs of the world.  It isn't able to fixate on all the things out of your control.  Your mental health can't take it.  Our minds and souls are breaking in this day and age of constant alarm bells because we just can't take it.  So, don't.  Rather, hope in the LORD.  Hope in God.

Hope looks like calm.  One who hopes can rest his soul.  In fact, Jesus commands us to trust in the goodness of our Heavenly Father instead of dwelling in nervous anxiety (Matthew 5:25-34).

Our God is good.  Do you believe that?  

He is our good, good Father and He has all the best qualities of our wonderful mothers perfectly.  Therefore we trust Him.  We go on with our business and our playing without fear and anxiety because we know God is in this place and our minds and souls are quieted and calmed.  

Trust in God like a good father or mother today.

Righteous Ripples

 There are few metaphors more cliché than that of pond ripples.  The rock that makes a small splash yet produces wide roaming ripples is a super common analogy.  Yet, it's the analogy that I want to use.

Let me begin by asking what kind of family you were born into.  Would you consider it more Leave it to Beaver or Married... With Children?  Was it like Bluey or the Simpsons?

None of us get to choose the family we were born into.  We're simply born into a family and that family either functions or doesn't function well.  That family is a church-going family or it isn't.  That family is either loving and safe or hostile and cold.  Yet, what a massive impact a family has upon a child.  What a massive impact a childhood has on the adult life.  And all of this is simply good or bad luck from the perspective of we humans.

That brings me to a wisdom psalm, Psalm 112.  In this 10 verse song on wisdom we see an amazing truth about families.

"Praise the LORD!
Blessed is the man who fears the LORD,
who greatly delights in His commandments!
His offspring will be mighty in the land;
the generation of the upright will be blessed." Psalm 112:1-2

We see from this brief passage a wonderful rule of wisdom.  Note this is not a wonderful, stone-cold guarantee of wisdom, but a glorious rule of wisdom:

Righteousness ripples.

The man who fears the Great I Am affects his descendants.  The person that loves the ways of God blesses those downstream of him.  Righteousness ripples.

I have seen this in my own life.  Every other year we do a Ray reunion.  It has struck me every, single time how blessed I am and why I am so blessed.  It occurs to me that many of our righteous habits were inherited, not created.  Part of the reunion at the cabin is a family church service.  We sing, pray and one of us preaches.  We tell of the blessings of God and we pray for each other.  And every single, time that we've done that I am struck by how abnormal the practice is.  Generations gather together bound by common blood and the common blood of Christ.  And much of that is because of who my Grandpa Ray was.  

I love my other side of the family but we don't do this.  There's much divorce and brokenness in the family tree and a peaceful reunion every two years just sadly isn't in the card.  Part of the reason the Rays do what we do is because Thomas W. Ray loved Jesus with all his heart, mind, soul and strength and because he loved Margie A Renschen Ray until the day he died and they raised five children in the fear and admonition of the Lord.  

Righteousness ripples.

So, what do you want to see ripple from you?  On both sides of my family I have a legacy of faith passed down to me. On one side I saw ripples of divorce and on the other ripples of lasting love.  I looked at that and said I want to keep many of the ripples going and I want to start other ripples and I want to stop the ripple of divorce and create the opposite.  

Maybe you're like our son Jamari who had a much tougher past and more destructive ripples headed his way.  He, thank God, I'm proud to say is dedicating his life to make a new splash and give the generations following him a legacy worth passing on.  If that's your story, then I applaud you and encourage you to send out some righteous ripples.

See, our obedience to the Word of God and our passion and love for Jesus and His ways is about so much more than us.  Chaos and calamity send out shock waves of trauma and sin (Exodus 20:5) but righteousness also ripples. 

Live with wisdom and make a splash with your life that sends out righteous ripples for generations and generations to be blessed today.