Mystery

Ecclesiastes 11:4 in several different versions.

As you do not know the way the spirit comes to the bones in the womb of a woman with child, so you do not know the work of God who makes everything.

As you do not know what is the way of the wind, Or how the bones grow in the womb of her who is with child, So you do not know the works of God who makes everything.

Just as you do not know the path of the wind and how bones are formed in the womb of the pregnant woman, so you do not know the activity of God who makes all things.

But I like the interpretive version from the New Living Translation,

God's ways are as hard to discern as the pathways of the wind, and as mysterious as a tiny baby being formed in a mother's womb.

This is a truth we must come firmly to grips with. He is great and we are small, and we won't always know or understand what He is doing.

Thats where faith comes in.

Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding... Proverbs 3

shaken expectations

This is an unusual post for me. I have two different tracks running in my walk with Jesus lately. On the one hand, I feel Him calling me to a diligent pursuit of deeper intimacy with Him. The Song of Solomon. "Let Him kiss me with the kisses of His lips."

(The kisses of His lips are the revelations of His love, particularly in His word. That explanation is for those who would get nervous with the kissing language, me being a guy and all.)

On the other hand, I have felt lead to spend a lot of time in the prophets lately. Ezekiel, Amos, Hosea, and Zephaniah most recently. I am freshly aware of the general unhealthiness of the western church.

(I am part of that... not the judge sitting up on my high horse.)

The worldliness and compromise so common in the western church today is seen as normal, and to be expected. The prophets called it spiritual adultery. They were generally sent to the people of God with a warning of divine judgment aimed at bringing the people to repentance. The purpose was to bring restored relationship with the Lord. The promise of blessing following the word of judgment is always rich and beautiful. As it says in Hebrews 12, He disciplines those He loves.

Well, this morning I was reading in Zephaniah, and the Holy Spirit told me to go take a nap, because He wanted to speak to me in a dream. Odd. Especially for me. He doesn't often speak to me that way. I can count on one hand the number of spiritual dreams I have had in thirty years. So, I went and laid down, and sure enough, had a dream. I won't go into the details, but at the end of the dream I was picturing a situation in my mind, and how I thought the Lord was going to handle that situation, and suddenly He took that image and shook it. It broke into hundreds of little pieces, and I clearly heard the phrase, "Shaken expectations."

And then I woke up. I believe this could be, and probably is, a word for me, but I feel like it is also a word for the church. (That sounds so pretentious, but I just can't escape it.) We think He is going to do things a certain way. We have promises from His word upon which we base our expectations. And we begin to formulate a vision in our mind of what that is going to look like. That's where we make our mistake. And that is where we set ourselves up for disappointment and offense toward God. Offense toward God is extremely dangerous. We must guard our hearts carefully against it. We must put our hope in His goodness and faithfulness, and not our vision of what that looks like when it is manifested. He is good. He is faithful. He will do what is best according to His perfect wisdom. Those are the truths that we put our trust in.

Lord, help us keep our eyes on You.

He is faithful

Paul to the Thessalonians:

Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

He who calls you is faithful; he will surely do it.

Amen.

the tongue

Proverbs 18

Death and life are in the power of the tongue…

Matthew 12

You brood of vipers! How can you speak good, when you are evil? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. The good person out of his good treasure brings forth good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure brings forth evil. I tell you, on the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak, for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned."

Ephesians 4

Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear.

James 3

And the tongue is a fire, a world of unrighteousness. The tongue is set among our members, staining the whole body, setting on fire the entire course of life, and set on fire by hell. For every kind of beast and bird, of reptile and sea creature, can be tamed and has been tamed by mankind, but no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers, these things ought not to be so.

I don't think I have much more to say today...

Help Lord.

Come Lord Jesus

Psa 119:123 My eyes long for your salvation and for the fulfillment of your righteous promise.

Amen.