On Waiting for the Next Assignment

I retired from Dunwoody Baptist Church in April.  I have been busy with projects, some travel, and much introspection. And waiting. Waiting on cancer treatment to be done. Waiting on parts to come in for my 68 Camaro. Waiting on doctor appointments and test results. Waiting on the next assignment. I love DBC and will be involved as a church member. But I am waiting on the next right step (thank you Mack Hannah) in ministry service.

One of my (current) favorite things to do with my grandson is to build LEGO projects. He is incredible at it. The kits come with instruction booklets that guide you step by step, but Reid prefers to follow along on instructions on the LEGO app on his ipad. They are identical to the booklet and Papa still prefers the printed directions. MORE ON THAT IN A MINUTE...  

One of my other current favorite things in retirement is the time I get to spend in the Scriptures. Because I no longer have as many morning meetings, sometimes the time just goes away and I go into "study" mode as if I was preparing to preach or teach or write--but the delight in devotional study and prayer and contemplation is part of the healing that come in waiting. My Bible reading plan is coming up on completion of the Old Testament, which means I have read pages and pages about the exile, the mass deportation of the Israelite people by the Assyria and then Babylon.

I have become convinced that the exile is the major story in the Old Testament that allows us to better understand God's redemptive plan, but I will talk about that in another blog. I count at least fourteen OT books that either describe or prophesy before, during and after the exile. This time through those books, I kept being drawn to the waiting. We often quote Jeremiah 29:11: “For I know the plans that I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans for prosperity and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.” But if we lok at the verse in isolation, we miss the waiting. The verse before says, “For this is what the Lord says: ‘When seventy years have been completed for Babylon, I will visit you and fulfill My good word to you, to bring you back to this place.” Seventy years of waiting. Even after the return of the exiles, there was more waiting, which is what Ezra is about. 

Waiting. Waiting for the promise that God articulates in the verse after the promise: “Then you will call upon Me and come and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. And you will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart. I will let Myself be found by you,’ declares the Lord, ‘and I will restore your fortunes and gather you from all the nations and all the places where I have driven you,’ declares the Lord, ‘and I will bring you back to the place from where I sent you into exile.”

As I wait, I feel like I am reading the LEGO instruction booklet. First this. Then this. Build a piece that doesn’t look like it will go anywhere. Open another packet of parts. Put the thing you just built to the side. Only after you run (mostly) out of parts does the project look like the picture on the box. 

So what do LEGO builds, the exile, and my waiting have in common? The value is in the presence. No matter how confused this grandpa gets trying to put tiny bricks together, every moment spent with it is time with Reid. Every lesson learned in the exile was about God’s desire for hearts and about His promise to be there. I wrote in my Bible time and again, “the Promise is His Presence.” And that is what I have learned in waiting. He meets me in my study each morning as I try to unravel the strange prophetic words in Ezekiel. He meets me when I say, “what’s next, Lord?” He meets me when I don’t read anything, say anything or sing anything at all. 

The promise in waiting is His presence. 

Yet those who wait for the Lord will gain new strength; They will mount up with wings like eagles. They will run and not get tired, They will walk and not become weary. Isaiah 40:31

On Lament and Repent

 

Our nation has been rocked by violence of a particular kind. In the past year or so, there have been  assassination attempts (some successful), against the nation’s president Donald Trump, lawmakers from Minnesota and their spouses, a healthcare CEO and now a political activist. It is a dark time for our nation, when (mostly) lone-wolf actors–usually radicalized young men—decide that a way to express their rage is through taking a life. 

Perhaps a mirror is appropriate. As a culture, we have moved away from a belief that God has laid out right and wrong, based on a reverence for Him and a respect for fellow humans (as well as God’s created order). We have gone so far from such reverence, that our culture has been described as “post-truth,” suggesting that truth is nonexistent and that only narratives which support our point of view are valid. If someone disagrees with us, we write them off, direct hate towards them, and even resort to violence. 

In the time of the prophet Joel, depending on how one dates the book, the nation of Israel was in a mess. The land was devastated by poverty, injustice, and indifference towards God. Joel is a prophet who looks at past, present and future and his words rang in my ears over and over:

Gird yourselves with sackcloth And lament, O priests; Wail, O ministers of the altar! Come, spend the night in sackcloth O ministers of my God, for the grain offering and the drink offering are withheld from the house of your God. Consecrate a fast, Proclaim a solemn assembly; Gather the elders and all the inhabitants of the land to the house of the Lord your God, and cry out to the Lord. (Joel 1:13-14)

Lament is a deep sorrow or pain due to circumstances which indicates lack of attention to God and lack of attention from God. His presence is not apparent. Lament is the biblical response to pain, grief, broken hearts, helplessness or fear. We don’t know how we got to this point, but we know it isn’t right. Lament is the biblical response to our own realization that our own choices, attitudes, and posturing are part of the problem. Our sin calls for lament. 

Lament for the victims of our nation’s political violence. Lament for the partisan disdain for other humans that got us here. Lament for the lack of attention to God and the lack of recognition that God calls all of us to Himself. Lament for our hearts that are no longer broken for the things that break the heart of God. May we collectively feel a deep sorrow, turn to God in repentance for words or attitudes that contribute to the climate of distrust and reach out even to people who do not share our point of view with a message of hope and healing from Almighty God.

On Lessons from the Minor Prophets

My morning reading is taking me through the minor prophets and Jeremiah and Ezekiel have gotten my attention this time around more than other times. My 40,000 foot view of their prophecy:

Idolatry is Adultery

Lordship is Leadership.

Kindness is Godliness.

Arrogance is Ignorance.

Humility is Stability.

Hubris is not Justice.

They also place a high value on shepherds who lead the flock with righteousness and integrity. In their prophecies–and in our experience, pastors can be distracted, disappointed, disrespected, and dismayed. Pastors can be crass, callous, and cruel. The spiritual leaders of Israel were thoroughly selfish, self-seeking greedy, proud and corrupt. 

Pastors can be called to do something that in human terms is unimaginable, unbearable, and unreasonable. Ezekiel was told he could not mourn his wife. 

But God says that if we won’t lead with spiritual integrity, He will provide for His sheep another way. In His hands, the sheep are 

led, fed, and put to bed

sought, brought, and bought.

And He will bring the dry bones to life. In Chris Tomlin’s song, “Awake My Soul” I have always been inspired by the interlude and outro that features hip hop artist Lecrae (close your eyes and hear him or find it online...)  

Interlude

Then He said to me

Prophesy to these bones and say to them

Dry bones, hear the word of the Lord!

This is what the Sovereign Lord says to these bones

I will make breath enter you

And you will come to life

So I prophesied as I was commanded

As I was prophesying, there was a noise, a rattling sound

And the bones came together, bone to bone

And I looked, and tendons and flesh appeared on them

And skin covered them, but there was no breath in them

Then He said to me

Prophesy to the breath

Prophesy, son of man, and say to it

Conjure the four winds of breath and breathe

Outro:

Yeah, I’m not alone, I realize

You breathe out, I come alive

Your word gives life to my dry bones

Your breath tells death it can ride on

Awake me, make me a living stone

A testament to your throne, I

I’m nothing without You, I’m on my own

The only one who satisfies my soul

Key thought in Ezekiel 36: “I am not doing this for your sake,” declares the Lord. One of Ezekiel’s repeated prophecies is “then they [and you] will know that I am the Lord.” (58 times in Ezekiel).

Let us as shepherds not need to be reminded that He is the Lord. Let us lead the flock well.