soaring on wings like eagles

Isaiah 40:21-31
For Sunday, February 8, 2009
Fifth Sunday After Epiphany

How often do we get so caught up in our own circumstances that we forget that the presence and power of God changes everything? This is the question raised by Isaiah 40:21-31.

Verse 21 asks, "Do you not know who God is?" He is the one sitting enthroned above the circle of the earth (v. 22). He is the one who reduces the rulers of the world to nothing (v. 23). He is the one who has no equal, who created every star in the heaven, who has a name for each of them, and holds them all in place (v. 26).

A skeptic might respond, "Well.. that's a pre-scientific understanding. What holds the stars in place is gravity." Granted, but where does gravity come from? And how is it that given the force of gravity stars aren't constantly getting sucked into one another?

This God, continues Isaiah the prophet, is the one who is our source of strength when our own strength fails. Isaiah closes with the beautiful simile of believers soaring on wings like eagles (v. 31). One of the remarkable capabilities of eagles is the ability to soar over a roiling storm. Eagles sense when a storm is coming, they soar to a high point in the sky, and then when the storm winds come, they use the storm's wind to soar even higher, over the top of the storm itself. What a powerful metaphor for coping with loss, distress, and conflict in our lives. Don't get caught up in the storms of life. Set your wings and let the winds of turmoil cause your soul to soar.

Even youths grow tired and weary,
and young men stumble and fall;
but those who hope in the Lord
will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles;
They will run and not grow weary,
They will walk and not be faint.
Isaiah 40:30-31

I find this to be of tremendous personal encouragement. A few years ago I suffered a devastating loss that was at once personal, professional, and vocational. I felt like someone had held a shotgun up to my gut and pulled the trigger, leaving me with a hole in my gut covered only by a piece of skin flapping in the wind. Shortly thereafter, a dear friend shared this passage with me, and shared the insight about eagles soaring over the storm. I've done my share of trying to fly around, under and through the storm. It just doesn't work. Yet I am learning that all I need do is spread my wings and let the wind of the Spirit propel me forward and upward. This is a lesson for which I am eternally grateful.

unrelenting grumblers

Food and Water are provided by God to the Israelites during the Exodus .
Bouts, Dieric (1410-1475)

Exodus 16:2-15
For Sunday, September 21, 2008
Proper 20

As sinful human beings we tend to be unrelenting grumblers. This is what is on display in Exodus chapter 16. Just a month and a half previous the Israelites were delivered from slavery in Egypt under miraculous circumstances. Yet now "the whole community grumbled against Moses and Aaron . . . If only we had died by the Lord's hand in Egypt! There we sat around pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted, but you have brought us into this desert to starve this entire assembly to death" (vv. 2-3).

Sounds like my 12 year-old. Israel just couldn't grasp why God had brought them into the desert. He brought them there in order to get them to the Promised Land. He brought them there to shape them for living redeemed lives. He brought them there to teach them that He really was capable of providing everything they needed. He brought them there for them to learn to trust and obey.

What are we grumbling about? Job? Marriage? Finances? Our church? Our pastor? If you want to keep grumbling, you can: just as God answered the Israelites in the midst of their grumbling so will he answer you. Yet a better response might be this: God, how do you want to bless me where I am now?

Your Heavenly Father loves you more than you could possibly know. He knows the plans he has for you, for welfare and not for calamity, to give you a future and a hope (Jer. 29:11). He sacrificed his own son so that you could be freed from the slavery of sin and begin a journey toward a life filled with promise. Let's together commit to stop grumbling, and instead start remembering, trusting, and moving forward.

peace with God

Savrasov, "The Rainbow"

Romans 5:1-11
For Sunday, February 24, 2008
Third Sunday in Lent

One of my mentors, Stuart Briscoe, Pastor Emeritus of my home church Elmbrook, likes to say: "Whenever you see a 'therefore' you ought to ask yourself what is the 'therefore' there for?" Here 'therefore' connects what Paul is about to say with what he has just said. Okay... so what did he just say?

At the beginning of chapter 4 Paul asked, "What then shall we say that Abraham discovered in this matter?" What matter was that? Well.. jumping back to 3:21 we read "But now a righteousness from God has been revealed. . . " But this is still the middle of a conversation. Jumping back further to 3:9 - "What shall we conclude then?" Looks like we'll have to go back even further. 3:1 - "What advantage then is there in being a Jew?" Still not at the beginning of the train of thought.

2:17 - "Now you, if you call yourself a Jew: if you rely on the law and brag about your relationship to God." Now we're getting somewhere. Moving forward, here is the immediate point (2:29): "A man is a Jew if he is one inwardly." Okay... how does that happen? Simply, as Abraham discovered and did, by "believing God" (4:3).

Bringing this forward then to 5:1, the point is this: because we have been justified through faith (which is another word for belief), we have peace with God. This peace is not based on living as perfect Christians today. Rather, it is based on believing God is capable of dealing with the wretchedness of which we are all too aware is within us.

Well... doesn't that just give us license to live as we please? No, because out of thankfulness for the grace we have received, we will strive daily to live out what is already infused within. We'll start to rejoice in our troubles; this rejoicing will lead to perseverance; perseverance will lead to character; and character to hope. And this hope will not disappoint, because it will find confirmation in the love of the Holy Spirit who now dwells in our hearts.

Wow... what a different approach to life than either pursuing comfort or becoming a victim. Facing troubles today? Rejoice, because here is your open door to journey toward hope confirmed by love. This is peace with God indeed.