THOUGH THE MOUNTAINS FALL INTO THE SEA
Psalm 46 not only inspired Be Still My Soul, but, amazingly, Martin Luther’s A Mighty Fortress is Our God, a song all about spiritual warfare. Martin Luther would often say to his melancholy and frightened friend, Philip Melanchthon, “Come Philip, let us sing the forty-sixth.” They certainly faced a frightening battle, but because of their trust in God, were used by Him to lead the Reformation. Thank God.
Shortly after Steve’s diagnosis, our daughter Sally told him she wanted to sing a hymn for him in church that Sunday. He requested A Mighty Fortress, for God had told him to fight. (We didn’t understand what our true battle was yet, but we did know we were in a battle.)
What happened that Sunday I will never forget. This is from The God of All Comfort.
Sunday, August 17th
Two weeks after Steve’s diagnosis
Sally sang “A Mighty Fortress” in church this morning. Annie and Beth on one side of Steve, pressed into him, and me on the other, John in the pew behind him with his hand on Steve’s shoulder. Sally sang it as a fighting song — I’d never heard it sung that way — I don’t think I’d really understood it before. I’ve heard it sung majestically, but never with righteous anger. Yet, it seemed so right. It is a call to battle against Satan and all the spiritual workers of darkness. Sally kept shaking her fist at Satan, at “the prince of darkness grim,” at the one “armed with cruel hate,” at the one who must not “this battle win.” Each verse grew stronger, and our hearts found courage for the fight ahead.
But when Sally got to the phrase “let goods and kindred go, this mortal life also,” she looked at Steve and faltered. It was too much for her, and she stopped, paralyzed with grief. Suddenly — and I will never in all my life forget this — Judy (the pianist) began to sing, then the congregation rose — standing in the gap for us, finishing Sally’s song for her. They are with us.
THE QUESTIONS (Take one or two a day or all at once.)
1. Take Psalm 46 slowly:
A. What do you learn about life and about God from verses 1-3?
B. What is “the city of our Lord?” Who is she, and what do you learn about her from verses 4-6?
C. (Challenge question!) Why do you think that in this context God is called “The God of Jacob?” What lie does this title defeat?
2. Comment on the above story in this post from The God of All Comfort? What application do you see for your life?
3. Do some research on Luther, the battle he had, his friend Philip, the writing of A Mighty Fortress and share what you learn.
4. Tell us about your favorite renditions of this song.
5. Memorize the first verse of A Mighty Fortress and as you do, what do you learn about our enemy? About our God?
6. Memorize the second verse of A Mighty Fortress and as you do, what do you learn about yourself? What does “Lord Sabboath” mean?
7. How does this meet you where you are right now?
You can find more help for these questions in the studyguide The God of All Comfort, but you can also find answers in other ways. We have an amazing group. We are in a battle against the enemy, but we are definitely in it together. Let us pray for one another as we begin this part of the study, for we need one another’s prayers.
Lord, I thank You for the women you have called to this study, and who are diligently pressing into You. I see You transforming their lives and their lives rippling out to transform others. Protect us, put a shield around us, and remind us continually of your great love, for the enemy wants us to believe you do not love us. I ask this in Jesus name.
The Miraculous Aslan Painting
When we are in the midst of trials and suffering, it is vital we speak the truth to our souls. On Thursday, March 4th, 2010, I’m on Midday Connection (you can listen live or to “past programs” beginning March 5th using the link on my homepage talking about this. This program includes an interview about heaven with Sara Groves, and we listen to great songs, including Be Still My Soul. I memorized this great hymn and sang it to my soul every night for a year or so after I had let go of the lie that Steve wasn’t coming back. We’re going to divide the truths of this song into three parts, having to do with God’s heart, God’s history, and God’s heaven. We’ll begin on this post with God’s heart.
How do we know that God is for us when we are facing enormous pain? In The God of All Comfort, and on Midday, I tell how the Lord spoke to us through my daughter Sally’s miraculous Aslan painting. There is a famous scene in The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe when the children discover that Aslan (a Christ figure) is not a man, but a lion. They ask,
“But if he’s a lion — can he be quite safe?”
Mr. Beaver says, “Safe! Whoever said anything about Aslan being safe? Don’t you know who he is? He is the son of the emperor beyond the sea — he’s the great lion. Of course he’s not safe. But he’s good.”
Watch the video on this post and Sally will tell you how God spoke to her that even though many times God allows suffering in our lives, we can still know, that his heart is for us.
I am so blessed to have the original of this painting — it is five feet tall and four feet wide — and hangs in my living room, bringing me comfort. Sally completed it just days before Steve was diagnosed with cancer.
Here are questions to ponder:
1. Comment on the video and what happened.
2. Meditate on the passage Sally quoted in Revelation 5:5-6. What does this passage say? What symbolism do you see in each animal described as far as knowing the character of God?
3. Write out and memorize the first verse of Be Still My Soul. What do you learn about God’s heart for you? Can you find scriptural parallels to the truth in these verses?
4. Do a little homework on the history of Be Still My Soul. It also is a hymn that became linked with Eric Liddell, who’s story was made famous by Chariots of Fire. He became a missionary after that and died of a brain tumor in a concentration camp. See if you can find out some ways Be Still My Soul was linked with him.
5. How does the music compliment the lyrics in Be Still My Soul? As you listen to it, learn it, sing it to yourself — what impact does it have on you in your present circumstances?
6. Why do you think the enemy wants us to believe that God is not for us? Has the enemy gotten to you?
7. Listen to Midday. What stood out to you?
Lord, I pray for those listening to Midday, for those doing this study, for your children in pain, that You will show them Your heart, that You will defeat the enemy’s lie that You do not love them. Help us press into You and experience You. I ask this in Your name.
LETTING GO OF THE LIES
They say the 2nd year for the widow is the hardest because the denial is gone. I wouldn’t be surprised if that was true with other catastrophic losses. I didn’t think I was in denial — in fact, when Dr. Dobson interviewed me about a year after Steve died, I even said I hadn’t experienced denial. (I was in denial about denial.)
I didn’t realize I was in denial until I finally went for counseling. I told Sheila about a dream I had had before each of my daughter’s weddings (they all married within three years after Steve’s death). I dreamt that I drove up to the church, alone, and Steve pulled up right next to me. I said, “You aren’t dead!”
He said, “No! I just thought you were really mad and I was giving you some space. But I’m back and I’m going to walk her down the aisle and I’ll never go away again.”
Sheila said: “Dee, you have to accept that though one day you will go to Steve, he will never come back here to you.”
I thought, “Am I really so crazy that I thought he might?” I realized, somehow, I did. I thought if I got through enough hard nights and days then he would come back to me. I felt like a madwoman.
When a loss is so great, denial is a way of protecting you. But in time, you must let go of the lies, or you will never be able to speak the truth to your soul.
We may be in denial about loss, about our sin, about the false idols of our hearts. We’re holding on because letting go seems so hard. But unless we let go, we can never grab the rope that will, indeed, hold us.
1. Looking back in your life, when have you been in denial about the truth, and how did holding onto that frayed rope hurt you?
2. We’re going to look at David as a model. How was he in denial about his sin with Bathsheba? 2 Samuel 11-12:1-7
3. How did Nathan’s word picture turn the light on for him? Why do you think word pictures can be effective where reasoning fails? (This is one of the reasons the psalms are so effective.)
4. Psalm 51 is David’s psalm of letting go of the lies and coming in true repentance. Read it. Sing it if you know a song to go with it (or share one with us). Share your reflections particularly on verse 4 and any other verses that stand out to you.
5. Pray through Psalm 51, making it your own.
6. What hard consequences were given to David because of his sin? 2 Samuel 12:7-15?
7. Look carefully at how David responded in 2 Samuel 12:16-24. What did he do that surprised the servants? How does this show he was grabbing onto the truth? What do you think verse 23 means?
8. To what lies are you clinging?
Lord, I pray for each woman or man reading this, pondering your truth. Search us, O Lord, and see what lies are in our hearts — the ways we are resisting Your truth, because it seems hard. Show us who the real liar is, who deceives us so we are not in fellowship with You. Be with each of us, precious Jesus.
All Your Waves and Breakers Have Washed Over Me
This video may make you feel a bit seasick, but there’s nothing like a visual to tap into the right brain. How I want you to see what the Lord has for you in this. The first water images were of an absence of water — a thirsty deer who has come to a dry riverbed — the psalmist saying his only water is his tears, day and night. (Isn’t that a picture of depression?)
But now, we have waves and breakers and a waterfall.
Meditate on Psalm 42:7-8. Write it out. This is one worthy of memorization, for it is so deep.
1. Several of you have caught that the mood if both positive and negative, there is water now, yet still the psalmist is talking to his downcast soul. How can “waves and billows” both drown you yet also save you? (Think of the story of Noah)
2. How may the very thing that you think is pulling you down, actually be an instrument of salvation? (If you can’t see it in your present circumstance, then look back to something you lost, something you thought you had to have, and now you see how God knew exactly what He was doing for your soul? Hope to hear some concise beautiful testimonies.)
3. Waves and breakers keep coming — what thought parallels this in verse 8?
4. Google Annie Johnson Flint’s poem “His Billows” — what insight does this give you?
5. Listen to the positive water images in Deep Deep Love of Jesus — share what you hear
6. My favorite phrase of all: “Deep calls to deep” — what do you think it means? I’ll share some favorite quotes, but want to hear from you first.
WHEN YOU CAN’T SENSE THE PRESENCE OF GOD
It’s Ash Wednesday — a perfect time to begin in earnest to seek God, especially in the desert times.
We’re going to look at a psalm that I know can really help those of you in pain, those of you who are not sensing the presence of God, or those of you who long to be a comfort to others. It’s Psalm 42 and there are four vivid water pictures in it that can soothe and heal. The first is really a picture of no water — it’s a picture of the psalmist who identifies with a thirsty deer who has come all the way down the mountain, absolutely panting for water, but the river bed is dry!
He longs to sense the presence of God like that dying deer longs for water, but WHERE IS GOD???? Isn’t it comforting that God knows we will feel like this at times and gives us this picture? The psalmist says, in effect, “My only water is my tears, day and night.” (verse 3) That’s where some of you are, right now. God sees you, He understands, and He cares.
My prayer is that you will not give up. When I was preparing to write this chapter, “Deep Calls to Deep” I had an experience that was one of those rare moments when I absolutely knew the God who made the universe was speaking to me, and to you, my friends. Here it is, from The God of All Comfort:
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I was at my cabin in Wisconsin, almost three years after Steve’s death. Here, I do not pull my shades at night for I love seeing the sun sink into the waves of Green Bay as I go to sleep. Sometimes I wake just before the dawn—and a very few blessed times I have opened my eyes to see the vague shapes of a doe and her fawn drinking deep draughts from the bay. They come silently, before the world awakens, hoping they are safe.
In the dawn’s dim light, I have tried, unsuccessfully, to photograph them. Even my best photo is simply shadowy shapes, which my dad claimed were just stumps in the water that my fertile imagination desired to be deer.
I have never seen them brave the open water when the sun is up.
Until the day I began researching the word pictures of Psalm 42—beginning with the image of the deer panting for living water. Though I am often suspicious of people who have constant God sightings, I must admit, this was a God sighting.
Sunday, July 22
Two years and nine months after Steve’s death
Thank You, Lord. I am amazed at what You just did for me, for the readers of the book I am planning to write. I want to record it now, lest I forget.
When I saw what a beautiful morning it was, with the lake like rose-colored glass, I decided to have my time with You on the dock. I was immersing myself in Psalm 42. I sang “As the Deer” and “All Who Are Thirsty.” I began reading various translations of verses 1-2 of the psalm, turning the phrases over in my mind, asking You to “quicken” me and help me see, when suddenly, I was startled by a large shape moving on my right, below me, on the beach.
The timing was so uncanny I thought at first I was imagining it. But no. There she was. A graceful doe, and right behind her, her fawn. Gentle steps clicking softly over the rocks, beside the dock, and into the water. Then they stood like statues, except I was so close I could see them breathing.
The doe was alert, her nose quivering. I feared she would smell me, prayed she wouldn’t. All was still, and I was frozen in my deck chair, holding my breath.
I was so aware that this was a gift from You. The overwhelming thought of Your mindfulness of me. Of this book and its readers. I knew there was something You wanted me to see—so I was as alert as the doe. I knew better than to try to get my camera. I stayed motionless, praying I would see, really see—through the living picture to the meaning.
She walked gently, her fawn followed—just barely into the water, ready, if necessary, to bolt. Then—the picture that will forever linger in my memory: she spread her long legs so as to reach the water, her long neck reaching down. Her fawn did the same. They drank and drank. Deep draughts.
A seagull cried and her head came up, ears taut. Then, soft head down again.
I shifted just a bit to see them better. My book, Derek Kidner’s commentary on the psalms, open to Psalm 42, fell from my deck chair. Her head came swiftly up and she bolted, her fawn scrambling after mother over the rocks.
I stood to watch them go—white tails disappearing into the woods. Gone. As if it never happened. Yet it did, and the picture lingers in my memory, this gift from You.
What did I see that I believe God meant for you and for me? I saw a deer so thirsty that she braved the danger of daylight and humans to come. I saw a deer in a position of prostrate piety—the same position that God is pleased to see in us in body, but certainly in heart, as we show how earnest we are to hear from Him.
Suffering is like salt, increasing our thirstiness. In grief, we can recognize that our thirst is for God and press harder into Him, still believing that He is sovereign, caring, and our only hope. Or we can look to quench our thirst through drugs, constant sleep, destructive relationships, or work. We can abuse our bodies through cutting, or overeating or undereating—hoping to make atonement or to gain control of lives out of control. But those “sources of water” are mirages that can neither quench our thirst nor soothe grieving souls.
Only God can do that. And God longs for us to thirst for Him as the deer thirsts for streams of water. The word pictures in the psalms ultimately point us, in a kaleidoscope of ways, to Jesus. But we will not see Him unless we come in prostrate piety, earnestly desiring the Spirit to open our eyes.
Come, like a thirsty deer.
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Here’s your homework. I promise you this will minister to you if you come like a thirsty deer.
1. Read Psalm 42 in its entirety as an overview
A. What question does the psalmist keep asking of his soul? What does he tell his soul to do?
B. Find the four water pictures in the psalm. We’ll be looking at them in depth, for each is filled with meaning, but for now, simply find them and identify the verses they are in.
2. I’m hoping that many of you will download and listen to Tim Keller’s sermon on Psalm 42. It’s 2.50 so I realize some of you won’t be able to do it. But it is 2.50 well spent. Paste this into your browser and listen to it and give us your comments.
http://sermons.redeemer.com/store/index.cfm?fuseaction=product.display&product_ID=18063&ParentCat=6
3. Some of the songs that might minister to you with this are:
As The Deer (but does this post shed new light on that) (Any fresh renditions you know of?)
All Who Are Thirsty (Kutlas and other groups do this beautifully)
Why Are You Downcast? (a group from India: Abney, Swapna… does it with wonderful water sounds)
The Deep Deep Love of Jesus (Many groups, and Amy Shreve’s is beautiful)
Give us your recommendations and thoughts.
4. If you are one who simply is not sensing the presence of God — tell us and we’ll pray for you.
5. If a verse pops out at you from Psalm 42, comment on it.
6. We talked about this psalm yesterday on Midday Connection — and also had a great interview with Elisa Stanford, on her feelings when her first child was born with Down’s Syndrome. If any of you listened and have a comment on that or anything in the interview, would love to hear it. (You can listen to past programs online.)
Praying for each of you!
I was a hymn snob.
My original plan for The God of All Comfort was to base it solely on hymns. A good friend of mine heard me pontificating on why. “The best music is complex music. The 7/11 songs (seven words sung eleven times) bore me.”
Ann wrote me a dear and gracious letter which convicted me to the core. (The letter is in The God of All Comfort.) One sentence I particularly remember was “Dee: I know you would never criticize someone for praying simply. Why do you criticize the simple worship songs that stir peoples’ hearts?”
The next Sunday, my pastor, Mike Lano, preached on Ephesians 5:15-21, a passage we will look at thoughtfully for the next several days. He explained that the main point in this passage is:
I. Be filled with the Spirit (Ephesians 5:18) Then under that are the following evidences of being filled with the Spirit.
A. Speak to one another with psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. (v. 19)
B. Submit to one another. (v. 21)
Pastor Lano explained that we need all three kinds of music in a worship service, for each has its unique value. While the older people tend to prefer the hymns, they should submit to the younger people, and sing those spiritual songs with their hearts. While the younger people tend to prefer the spiritual songs, they should submit to the older people and sing the hymns with their minds.
I was convicted and converted from being a hymn snob. Truly, I have come to see the great value in beautiful simple worship songs — that the repetition can be a contemplative exercise, bringing us into the arms of God.
This group has been wonderful in suggesting all three kinds of music to one another, referring us to u-tube, writing out lyrics, and sharing how specific songs have touched their hearts. You have also listened well to each other’s musical suggestions.
Before you look at the questions, I want you to know you are ministering to some women who are in “high-tide grief.” Their grief is so fresh and deep, they are not ready to participate, but they are writing to me, and they are thanking me for you. Please pray for them and continue to keep them in mind. Many of you have been comforted by The God of All Comfort and are able to therefore comfort others going through any kind of trouble.
1. Meditate on Ephesians 5:15-21. Take it slowly, praying through it, asking the Lord to help you see it anew. Share what you are seeing.
2. For those of you who have The God of All Comfort, you can read about this more carefully in the close of the chapter Songs in the Night. Share anything that stands out to you.
3. Think about songs of lament and share your favorite psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs of lament. This will minister to all of us, but especially to those in high tide grief.
4. What do you think this Ephesians passage says to churches that have a traditional service that is primarily hymns and a contemporary service that is primarily spiritual songs?
5. Why do you think music can be such a consolation? Why do you think singing is an evidence of being filled with the Spirit?
6. How do you need to be in submission to others in regard to music?
Teach Me Some Melodious Sonnet
The first phrase in “Come Thou Fount” shows us three reasons that there is such tremendous power in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. “Teach me some melodious sonnet, sung by flaming tongues above.” There is the power of:
Music (Melodious)
Poetry (Sonnet)
The Holy Spirit (Flaming tongues)
Here is your assignment, outstanding class, for the next week, for it is long. Take a question or two a day.
1. Learn the first and second verse of “Come Thou Fount.” Listen to Amy or suggest other renditions. Savor the lyrics and share your meditations on them.
2. Look at the power of music: How was music present at creation (Job 38:4-7)? What happened to music at the fall? (Romans 8:19-22) How did music appear again at the birth of Christ? And who will sing when Christ comes back? (Isaiah 55:12-13)
3. I want you to consciously sing more psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs throughout the day. Tell us what you are singing — how it is impacting you.
4. What did you learn in The God of All Comfort about the power of music?
5. Poetry differs from prose in that it is meant to penetrate the heart, to tap into the right brain, and bring the love of God alive. You must read as a lover reads. Meditate on the word pictures in Jeremiah 2:13, which is the scriptural basis for the phrase “Come Thou Fount” Draw it, memorize it, linger over it. Tell us how it penetrates your heart and how to apply it.
6. Meditate on the word pictures in Psalm 91:1-10. How can they comfort you in your pain right now? Read as a lover reads.
7. What did you learn from The God of All Comfort about the power of poetry?
8. Write down some of the phrases from the first two verses of “Come Thou Fount” and meditate on them. Find their scriptural basis if you can. If one leaps out at you, slow down — because those flaming tongues are quickening you — He’s talking to you. What do you see?
CAN’T WAIT TO HEAR FROM THIS WONDERFUL GROUP!
I’m off to Atlanta to speak and covet your prayers.
SONGS IN THE NIGHT
Samantha Crain
It’s February 1st. I always see the 1st of each month as a fresh start! This month we will have Valentine’s Day — and for those of you who have lost your husband, a bittersweet day. We will also, just a couple of days later, have Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent — a day when we identify with the sacrifice that Christ made for us, identify with His suffering, and prepare our hearts for the great celebration of His love and resurrection.
Many of you who are participating on this blog have lost someone you love dearly, perhaps even a spouse — and Valentine’s Day is a kind of night. Yet the promise of spring and the resurrection is surely a song in the night.
Years before my husband’s fatal diagnosis, he became a huge Charles Spurgeon fan. Here was one of Steve’s favorite quotes from Spurgeon:
“The world has its night…man too, like the great world in which he lives, must have his night…nights of all kind which press upon our spirits and terrify our souls. But blessed be God, the Christian can say, ‘God gives me songs in the night.”
Here are your questions for the week. Many are telling me they are amazed at the depth of the answers on this blog. I want to encourage you that you are not only speaking the truth to your own soul, but encouraging many others who at this point may either be hurting too much to write, or are the introverts who often sit silently in a Bible study.
Start listening and singing “Come Thou Fount.” We’ll dig into it on the next post.
1. If you have a copy of The God of All Comfort, did anything stand out to you in pages 51 to the top of 53?
2. Meditate on Psalm 77:4-6. Describe the lament, then the resolve.
3. What do you think the phrase “songs in the night” means? Explain your answer.
4. Give an example from your own life, a recent one, if possible, of God giving you a song in the midst of your night. Make this concise and clear — for your song may be a song that floats into another’s night and gives them hope.
(On pages 41-43 of The God of All Comfort, I give examples of songs that came in my night.)
5. The phrase “songs in the night” also occurs in Job. Find it. Comment on it.
6. Are you dreading Valentine’s Day? Sometimes we can be proactive about hard days. How might you, if you are dreading it, be proactive? Pray and see if God gives you a plan. If so, share it.
7. Let’s each send a valentine with a note to someone who might be dreading it and be accountable to each other! Get it ready to mail by the end of this week! (I personally much prefer the real tangible kinds to the internet!) Or better yet, if you can afford it, send a book or flowers!
Rejoicing Comes in the Morning
We’re continuing with question 6 from the last post, which is to pray through Psalm 30, but I’d like to give you some guidelines.
There really is power in praying the psalms, in praising, even when we don’t feel like it. Eugene Peterson says this kind of prayer interrupts our preoccupation with ourselves. We are not alone in our prayers — First, as Renee so beautifully quoted from Narnia, Aslan can help us if we don’t ask, but “he sort of likes to be asked.” Begin by asking Him to help you slow down, meditate, and really see Psalm 30. Ask Him to kiss you. If a verse pops out, realize His Spirit is answering, and SLOW DOWN. Truly, I believe we are going to see some joy coming, hear about kisses received, about mourning turned into dancing. I’m praying for you to really do this, and for His Spirit to come and quicken you. I have a sense of expectancy.
Next, T. M. Moore has some helpful books on praying the psalms and he divides Psalm 30 into three parts — so let’s take it in these three parts and hear your reflections. It’s helpful if you mark them A, B, and C
A. Psalm 30:1-3 PRAISE GOD FOR HIS HEALING GRACE
When has God lifted you ouf of the depths? Healed you? Brought you up from the grave? Spared you from going down to the pit. Write your contemplations and praises.
B. Psalm 30:4-10 PRAISE THE LORD THAT HIS CHASTENING LEADS TO RENEWAL
When have you felt His chastening and responded so that renewal came? What promises give you hope here? What warning do you need to heed? What perspective do we have, on this side of the cross, that David did not?
C. Psalm 30:10-12 GIVE PRAISE AND THANKS TO GOD FOR HIS RENEWING GRACE
Word pictures are meant to be savored. Read as a lover reads. What do you see?
It is winter now, but spring will come
Please read the following, and then answer the questions at the bottom over the next four days.
Thursday, December 16
Two months after Steve’s death
Annie feels like her life is “over”—and sometimes I do too. I understand those widows in pagan places who climb up on the funeral pyre and are burned with their husbands’ bodies. When I told Steve I wanted to go with him, he shook his head, “No, no—you must go on—the children, the people you touch. Go on because I can’t.”
I know, deep in my soul, that our lives are not our own. You have left us here for a reason. Yet I look out at the frozen ground, covered with snow, and think, “That’s how I feel.”
I told Liz Curtis Higgs (an author and friend) that’s how I felt. She e-mailed back: “Good, Beloved. He will slowly melt your ‘frozenness.’ And it is, after all, winter now. Beneath the frozen ground, new life is preparing to burst forth come spring. I feel certain that’s what will happen with you as well.”
In Narnia, the land that C. S. Lewis created, it was always winter and never Christmas—that is, until Aslan appeared. Then the ice began to thaw, yellow crocuses began to poke their heads up through the snow, and the snow began to fall in great clumps from the trees and melt into the ground. Aslan’s enemy, the White Witch, who traveled by sleigh, was stopped in her tracks.
“This is no thaw,” said the dwarf, suddenly stopping. “This is Spring. What are we to do? Your winter has been destroyed, I tell you! This is Aslan’s doing.”
How can we get through the frozen tundra of grief to spring?
Only one way. Aslan—Jesus—must come.
And He will. He hears the groaning of His people and His heart is moved. He cares, more than a mother cares for her fretful baby, and He has the truth to calm our fretful souls.
QUESTIONS:
1. Comments or reflections on the above reading?
2. Find evidence in Scripture, either from historical incidents, or from the psalms, that God hears the cries of His people and cares. (You can do a word hunt by going to Biblegateway.com and typing in words like cries, groanings, sorrows — and see what you find.) Write down the phrases that touch your heart.
3. Often when you are in the midst of a spiritual winter, as many of you are, you cannot imagine that spring will come — that Aslan will come. What I want you to do is look back to a different winter, when spring did come, when Jesus did come, and write down what you remember.
4. Memorize the first verse of Be Still My Soul and share your reflections on it.
It’s in the back of The God of All Comfort or you can google it.
5. For Narnia fans, share a comforting word picture of Aslan.
6. Meditate on Psalm 30. Taste it. Savor it. When a verse leaps out at you, The Spirit is speaking. Go slower. Savor. Memorize. Then (and only then) tell us what you see.
LIKE A WEANED CHILD WITH ITS MOTHER
If you didn’t have a chance to listen to Midday on Jan 14th, please click on my homepage and go to past programs because I begin the program with this story, and then Amy Shreve sings Psalm 131.
Because this was a pivotal moment in my grief journey, I’m going to share this excerpt from The God of All Comfort.
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On what would have been our fortieth anniversary, I sobbed a good part of the day. I was packing up the house to move from a home of sweet memories that I did not want to leave. The littlest things, like finding Steve’s white surgery coat with his initials, SGB, on the pocket could cause me to crumble.
When I went to bed that night, I was fretful. When you are suffering deeply, you think the regular frustrations of life might call a truce for a while, but, of course, they don’t. The toilet still overflows, the bills still pour in, and people—yes, even Christians!—can be difficult. Though I tried to sleep, anxieties multiplied, leaping over my pillow like bleating sheep.
I turned over on my side, looking at the vacant place where Steve used to be. Oh, my darling—how could this have happened to us?
Steve and I used to call each other “co-dependent insomniacs.” If one of us awoke in the night, he (or she) would whisper to the other: “Are you awake?” When it was me, I knew that even if Steve was asleep, he would rouse to keep me company. If I was worried about something, he would listen to me pour out my heart, stroking my back, empathizing with his deep masculine voice, his calming ways.
Sometimes he would help me laugh about a trouble. Other times, when he knew there was no humor in a situation, he’d simply pray over me and hold me. If sleep still eluded me, he’d start quoting our favorite nursery rhyme:
Winkin’, Blinkin’, and Nod, one night sailed off in a wooden shoe;
sailed off on a river of crystal light into a sea of dew…
Safe in Steve’s arms, our bed became a wooden shoe sailing off into a sea of dew—and I was lulled to sleep.
But Steve was not there. His side of the bed was achingly empty.
All of us have times of feeling alone, misunderstood, or betrayed. So often David felt that way and cried out: “How long, O Lord, how long?…All night long I flood my bed with weeping and drench my couch with tears.”
My cry that sleepless night was not nearly as eloquent as David’s. I simply sobbed: Help me, help me, help me, God! I knew I needed God to be my Comforter, my Counselor, and my Husband—but that understanding exploded into a question: “But how do I connect with Someone who is not flesh and blood?” When I couldn’t immediately sense God’s presence, I curled up in the middle of our king-sized bed and wept.
Without even realizing it, I had prayed a prayer of lamentation. While I was sobbing, curled in a fetal position, a scene from my past came to my mind: I was twenty-one, trying to calm our firstborn in the middle of the night. He would awaken, hungry and howling. Though I would run to him and lift him from his crib, unbuttoning my nightgown as we settled in the rocker, he was too fretful to latch onto my breast. He would root about, but if he didn’t find me in two seconds, he would rear back, his little face red and contorted, his fists flailing. If I stroked his cheek, like the nurse in the hospital had told me to do, trying to coax him to turn toward me, he would erupt in anger, bursting into a horrific wail, one that I knew carried through our thin apartment walls. A mother’s breasts respond to her baby’s cry and my milk let down, ready for my baby—but his fretful state kept him from connecting with me. I kept thinking, I’m right here, I’m right here! A very long ten minutes later, he’d finally find me and nurse greedily. His perspiring little face would relax, his eyes closing at half-mast in contentment. I would think, “Oh my, Pumpkin—what was all that about? I was right here.”
Suddenly, I identified. I was that baby, concentrating more on my distress than on the One who was right there. I sensed the Lord saying: Dee, I am right here. I am right here.
I stopped my fretting and fussing and was still. The chorus from an old hymn came to me, one I’d been listening to in a contemporary version, and I began to sing it softly, over and over again. In essence, it is the repeated cry of the psalms of lamentation:
I need Thee, O I need Thee…
Every hour I need Thee,
O bless me now, My Savior, I come to Thee.
Gradually, my soul began to calm, my body began to relax, and my eyes went to half-mast…
When I woke the next morning, much more rested, I opened my Bible to pray through a psalm, as was, thank God, already my habit. My psalm that morning “happened” to be Psalm 131. When I read it I knew that God was “kissing me.” (“A kiss from the King” according to Rabbinic tradition, is a living word from God.) God’s living word was confirming to me exactly what I had experienced from His Spirit the night before.
I have stilled and quieted my soul;
Like a weaned child with its mother,
Like a weaned child is my soul within me.
Psalm 131:2
Psalm 131 is one I already knew by heart from listening to it as a song. It was so very clear by this point that God was entering into dialogue with me, that I slowed down to meditate on the words I’d already memorized.
Now I’m going to ask you, my contemplative sisters, to meditate and reflect on this psalm. I’m not going to have a lot of internet access in the next week, but will check in when I can. I’m going to suggest a question a day for the next week. This psalm is crucial. It’s only three verses long and would be so good for you to memorize.
This weekend:
1. After reading my story, comment: How does praying the psalms allow God to enter into dialogue with you, instead of having just a one way conversation? How did this happen with me? Has it yet for you?
Monday
2. This can happen for you too — and the key is in meditating on, praying through, and memorizing the psalm (perhaps with the help of music.) Read the psalm slowly, meditatively. If you have Amy’s version of it, begin to memorize it (you can hear it on that Midday Connection program by listening online– it’s in the first 15 minutes of January 14th’s program) Write down any phrases that strike you, for the Spirit may be speaking to you.
Tuesday:
3. Meditate on verse 1. With the help of His Spirit, other translations, and cross references — why do you think the psalmist says, “My heart is not proud?” “I will not concern myself with great matters nor with things too profound for me.” (NKJV)
Wednesday
4. What difficulties are you going through right now that are hard to understand? What do you learn from the above? Write down your resolve, rephrasing verse 1.
Thursday
5. A weaned child was actually an older child weaned from the breast to a cup (something that happened when children were three or older in biblical times — and was very traumatic to them - but one day they were content without the breast) — but we may better be able to relate to a fretful baby who finally calms. What do you learn from this metaphor — from comparing your anxious soul to a fretful baby? Memorize verse 2.
Friday
6. What instruction can you glean from verse 2 for you in your situation — or for you when you will go through future storms? Can you do this now?
Saturday
7. This may not seem like a classic lament, but it is, because actually Psalm 130 and Psalm 131 should go together. Looking at these together, find:
A. The cry of lament (Psalm 130:1-2)
B. The questions, the dialogue, the remembering of God’s mercies (Psalm 130:3-6)
C. The resolve (Psalm 131)
Praying for you as you contemplate!
Finish memorizing Psalm 131 by memorizing verse 3
FINALLY — LET’S HEAR SOME WAYS GOD MINISTERED TO YOU THROUGH THIS — WOULD LOVE TO HEAR SOME SENTENCES FROM OUR SILENT SISTERS TOO!
8. How did God speak to you through this exercise? Would love to hear from silent sisters!
LEARNING HOW TO PRAY A PSALM OF LAMENT
We’re going to learn together how to pray a psalm of lament. In the next few days we’ll learn the basics, and then go deeper. We’ll start with the first Psalm of Lament, which is Psalm 3. This is an individual rather than a community lament. In a classic lament there are three parts:
1. The lament — the honest complaint or cry of your sorrowing fearful heart
2. Remembering God’s goodness in the past. The Spirit brings to the psalmists remembrance God’s faithfulness to Israel or to him as an individual. He also brings to his remembrance God’s character. The Spirit does not explain the why of the circumstances, but the heart of God.
3. The prayer, based now on faith in God, or the resolve, based on faith in God.
Here are the questions:
1. Find these three parts in Psalm 3. Which verses are for each?
2. My prayer journal entries in the close of chapter 1 of The God of All Comfort basically shows just Part I of the lament. Find a few examples.
3. Now — you do Part I. Pour out your sorrowing or fearful heart. Do it for God — if writing here won’t change your cry, then write it here. If you are not in a time of pain, pray for those who are. Right now, you could pray for earthquake victims in Haiti.
4. Now, and this is crucial: Warm your heart at the fire of God’s love by meditating on Part II, the part where the psalmist remembers things about God. If one of the verses sparks something in you, then God has spoken to you — and stay there, meditating, warming yourself, letting your heart catch fire.
I’m expecting to see God move among you! For some of you He will be silent, as He is in some Psalms of lament, but usually He gives you enough you can resolve, at least, to hold on.
5. Write your request, or resolve, if you can, as in Part III.
I’m counting on some of you to do this very clearly as a model for all of us. Don’t hurry. Meditation takes time. Your heart may not be quickened at all, or it may not be quickened until the end of the week — but keep meditating, asking God to dialogue with You. You see prayer is, in part, pouring out your heart — but the psalms allow it to be a two way conversation — a dialogue.
When bad things happen to good people
Do you remember Rabbi Kushner’s bestselling “When Bad Things Happen To Good People?” His thesis was that we must forgive God for losing control.
How different from the dialogue at the close of the book of Job.
So if God knows what He is doing, if He has not lost control, why do bad things happen to good people? Why does a godly man like Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who had the courage to take a stand against Hitler, die naked by hanging when victory is just about to be announced? He was but thirty-nine. Why are there martyrs at all?
Here are the questions for your next quiet times.
1. According to Job 38, what are some of the reasons we should respect that God knows what He is doing?
2. Sometimes God does deliver — and sometimes He does not. What do you learn from Hebrews 11:30-40?
3. What are the flaws in Rabbi Kushner’s argument?
4. What do you learn from other materials about the life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer? If any of you have read his books, watched documentaries on his life, or have something encouraging about him to share — please do!
5. Bonhoeffer certainly left a legacy. His book, The Cost of Discipleship, has transformed so many lives. Certainly his model as well. His book on the Psalms is amazing, and has impacted me. Here is a quote from Bonhoeffer that I’d like you to meditate and comment on, because the next things we are going to do, in three days, in learn how to start praying the psalms.
It is a dangerous error, certainly very widespread among Christians, to think that the heart can pray by itself. …Prayer does not mean simply to pour out one’s heart. It means rather to find the way to God and to speak with him, whether the heart is full or empty.
…If we wish to pray with confidence and gladness, then the words of Holy Scripture will have to be the solid basis of our prayer. For here we know that Jesus Christ, the Word of God, teaches us to pray. The words which come from God become, then, the steps on which we find our way to God.
Now there is in the Holy Scriptures a book which is distinguished from all books of the Bible by the fact that is contains only prayers. The book is the Psalms.
[i] Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Psalms: The Prayer Book of the Bible (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1970), pp. 9-13.
WHEN SORROWS LIKE SEA BILLOWS ROLL
This is a drawing of an historic tragedy at sea. On board the Villa de Havre, which sunk after being struck by an iron ship, was Horatio Spafford’s wife and his four young daughters: Annie, Maggie, Bessie, and Tanita. All of his daughters drowned. His wife was rescued from a plank of wood and taken to Europe where she telegraphed her husband with these famous words:
Saved alone. What shall I do?
He came on the next ship, but asked the captain to stop at the place his four little girls drowned. After looking into those deep dark waters, he went back to his stateroom and penned: It is Well With My Soul.
Spafford has been called a contemporary Job, and he was. Most of us know this story — but there is more. He was a wealthy Chicagoan who loved the Lord deeply — he was extremely active, at risk to himself in the anti-slavery movement. He was a great friend and supporter of D. L. Moody. Like Job, his first tragedy was loss of property, for Spafford lost tremendous wealth in the great Chicago fire. After the fire, the family decided to go to a Moody crusade in Europe, but Spafford was detained and sent his family ahead. It was then, like Job, that he lost all of his children. Spafford, like Job, trusted God and clung to Him.
After this tragedy, Spafford and his wife were blessed with a son — a son who died at the age of four. (If you happen to be a Netflix member, I heartily recommend renting the documentary on five songs called “Amazing Grace” — not the movie about William Wilberforce, though it has the same title — but a documentary on five songs, including It Is Well With My Soul.)
Please memorize all of It Is Well With My Soul, quieting yourself in the presence of God with it each morning, before you study.
Here are your questions to ponder for January 7, 8, and 9:
1. Looking at the first chapter of Job, what parallels do you see between Job and Horatio?
2. Ponder verse 1 of It Is Well With My Soul. What new thoughts do you have, knowing the Spafford story?
3. According to the first chapter of Job, what was the reason that Job suffered? What thoughts or questions do you have about this?
4. Why did Satan think Job served God? What does loss reveal about our hearts?
5. Ponder the second verse of It Is Well With My Soul. Do you think Satan may have also been behind Horatio’s tragedies? Why or why not?
6. What does Satan hope will happen to the Christian who suffers loss? What truths, according to the 2nd and 3rd verses of It Is Well With My Soul allowed Horatio to overcome Satan?
7. How can you apply this to your storm right now — or to storms in the future?
Finally — I want to issue a personal invitation to anyone in the Chicago area to sign up and come to the live event next Thursday at Moody. I’ll be there and would love to meet any bloggers. Amy Shreve will be there, playing “It is Well With My Soul” on her harp as well as other great songs. I realize most of you cannot, though we covet your prayers, and hope you’ll listen online or on the radio! You can connect to the Midday site through my homepage.
I’m praying for you as you study! Thanks for praying for each other as well. He is with us.
The Psalms reflect that “life is bipolar.”
Yesterday I had such a sweet time with my son and his wife and children — deep soul-satisfying conversations after a wonderful church service.
Then I came home to an e-mail that one of my dearest friends has cancer spread throughout her body.
Author William Brown says, “The psalms capture, better than any other corpus of Scripture, the bi-polar life of faith.”
First, in your quiet times in the next three days, connect with God. Look carefully at the song, the book, and the Scriptures. When you are ready, let’s hear your thoughtful reflections on the first three questions — and then, by Tuesday, let’s see if we are ready to go on to the rest of the questions. Take your time and ask God to help you to see.
Sing the first verse of “It is Well with My Soul” by heart and let it talk to your soul about trusting in sunshine and in storms. Begin memorizing the second verse.
If you have The God of All Comfort, read pages 12 through 14 and answer:
1. What did Philip Yancey have to learn about the psalms before he could use them correctly? (For those of you who don’t have the book, I trust your sisters will articulate this for you!)
2. Finish reading Psalm 18. How did God come to the rescue of the psalmist? What word pictures penetrate your heart?
3. Share a time when God came to your rescue — the sun came out, and you wanted to dance and sing!
4. Now read Psalm 88. How does this psalm end? This is where some of you are right now. The sun has not come out — and you wonder how you are going to make it. What word pictures penetrate your heart from Psalm 88?
5. Can you think of a time when Jesus might have felt like this?
6. What do you think about talking to God as the psalmist did in this psalm?
7. When we honestly express fear or despair to the Lord, is He angry? Base your answer on what you see in Scripture. What guidelines do you see for speaking to the Lord in Scripture? Think about what made Jesus angry repeatedly in the New Testament. (This is a challenging question, so cry out to a holy God for wisdom. (I will share — but want to hear from you first!
8. In The God of All Comfort, on page 14, I share my testimony on what I learned through the psalms. What was it? Have you experienced this?
THE CORDS OF DEATH ENTANGLED ME
The psalmist feels like he's drowning
New Year’s Day 2010 and we’re beginning our study on The God of All Comfort. A few preliminary guidelines:
It is most important you connect with God — and then with us. To help you connect with Him, get a Bible, a notebook (or you may want to journal on a document on your computer) and a quiet place.
Begin by stilling your heart before Him. You may want to sing worship songs. Two that would be good for this weekend are the first verse to It Is Well With My Soul and, if you know it, the praise chorus based on Psalm 18:1-2 (I will Call upon the Lord)
Confess your sins. Pray for yourself and the others doing this study to be “quickened” by the Spirit.
Then begin the study. I’ve provided exercises to take you through the weekend — you may want to take two or three a day. If you don’t have the book The God of All Comfort there will be some questions you may need to skip.
Finally, and this may happen any time during the weekend, but perhaps not until tomorrow or Sunday, connect with us by sharing an insight He gave you, a question you have, or a praise. Read over your sisters’ responses and respond, as you feel led.
1. Meditate on Psalm 18:1-6. What images does the psalmist use in verses 4 and 5 to convey his distress? Can you identify for yourself personally or someone you love?
2. In The God of All Comfort, on the opening two pages, how do my journal entries reflect the feeling of Psalm 18:4-5?
What thoughts do you have about these entries?
3. Behind the psalmist in all the psalms of lament, if you look hard enough, you can see Jesus. How do you see Jesus in Psalm 18:1-6?
4. What does it mean to you that Jesus understands this kind of engulfing fear and pain?
5. I spoke at a retreat right after I learned of my husband’s cancer and Kim Hill led us in “It Is Well With My Soul.” I was crying as I sang it and had the fleeting thought of trying to be a better witness. Why was that a false thought?
6. Memorize the first verse of It Is Well With My Soul and write down any reflections on it.
7. Is there a key insight, question, or reflection you’d like to share with others on the blog? Then please do!
8. Respond to your sisters’ thoughts.
WE’RE GOING TO DO IT — SO PLEASE PLEASE PRAY!
THANKS FOR MAKING IT SO CLEAR THAT GOD IS LEADING US TO DO THIS!
WOW! AN INTERNET STUDY JOINING WOMEN FROM ALL OVER!
PLEASE PLEASE PRAY. I’VE NEVER LED AN INTERNET STUDY BEFORE, AND MANY OF YOU HAVE NEVER DONE ONE.
Would you write your sentence or paragraph prayers here today and tomorrow? For we begin our study of The God of All Comfort on Friday!
Here’s mine:
Lord thank You for leading us this way. Please quicken me, giving me Your wisdom and thoughts. Please prepare each woman’s heart. May she start well and continue on the journey, even when it gets hard. I pray You will not only comfort her, but show her how to comfort others. Be with us, O God of all Comfort!
In Jesus Name I pray!
Would you like to go through The God of All Comfort beginning January 1?
I’ve been praying about where the Lord would have me take this blog next and I’d love your input. We could return to The Song of Songs, or we could do through some of the key concepts in The God of All Comfort, as so many of you are personally facing the pain of betrayal, bereavement, or broken dreams or love someone who is. This would give you time to get the book from either secular or Christian bookstores, or Amazon or Christianbook.com — and you wouldn’t absolutely have to have the book. I’d share a brief excerpt and ask a few questions to reflect on.
I honestly believe it is the best book I’ve done — and would love to do this — but only if there is a desire out there to participate. Could you give me your input? I’d so appreciate it!
Be a detective for the Divine this Christmas Eve and Christmas Day
In Sara Grove’s Christmas song, “To Be With You,” she sings:
I love this time of year, it always draws me near.
Take time alone with Him today and tomorrow and be alert for His kisses, His intervention in your life. He may speak to you in your time with Him, at the Christmas Eve service tonight, in your family interactions, in the silence of this holy night.
Then come and tell your stories as He speaks to you.
My Dad used to say: “Be alert to be amazed.” Be alert. Be a detective for the Divine.
And then tell us!
Merry Christmas!
Dee
How will you be “true in relationship” this Christmas?
We’ve been talking about the women in the genealogy of Christ and of how they were “true in relationship.” They chose to bless, to make the sacrifices they thought God would have them make in order to be true. I love the greeting scene when Elizabeth blesses Mary over and over. She was not jealous of Mary but thrilled at her good news. She saw Mary’s faith and encouraged her with a good word.
We have a chance to bless the dear people and the difficult people in our lives this Christmas — a chance to be “true in relationship.”
How will that look for you? How will you depend on the Lord in this?
I’m already asking the Lord to help “no negative word come out of my mouth, but only that which will edify.” I truly want to be a blessing. Pray for me to be as dear and positive as Elizabeth!
How about you? How can we pray for you to be true in relationship?
How did each of the five women in the genealogy of Christ take a risk that resulted in preserving the line to the Messiah?
Another deeper look at the women of the Bible than most books provide is a book by Carolyn Custis Jones entitled “Lost Women of the Bible.” The link that she sees between the five women is that each one took a risk that resulted in the line to Christ being unbroken. How can you see it in:
Tamar (Genesis 38)
Rahab (Joshua 2)
Ruth (Ruth 3)
Bathsheba (1 Kings 1:15-21)*
Mary (Luke 1:38) (Painting to the left is of the annunciation)
*In the genealogy Bathsheba is simply called Uriah’s wife. Tim Keller says that is not a slam at Bathsheba, but at David, since he betrayed his good friend Uriah. He feels the Lord is saying, “Even though there is a King in the genealogy of Christ, it is a King that needed redemption — in other words, Christ’s genealogy continually shows how He brought the outcast in.
But my question for each of the five women above is “How did they each take a risk that preserved the line to Christ?”
How does Ruth complete the puzzle of the women in the genealogy of Christ?
Ruth is the third woman in the genealogy of Christ (we’ll come back to her mother-in-law, Rahab, later.) Here we have a scene in Bethlehem one starry night. Ruth was true in relationship: true to Naomi, who has asked her to take an enormous risk and go to Boaz and ask him to be their “kinsman-redeemer” who would marry her, care for her, and give her a son. She makes a symbolic request, which Boaz understood, when she asks him to “cover her.”
We already know that the genealogy of Christ is full of “outcasts” — He went out to bring them in. And often, when there is preaching on the women in the genealogy of Christ, we are only told this negative side — that they were immoral, or outcasts — yet Christ brought them in.
But there is a tremendously positive side linking Tamar, Rahab, and Ruth — and it can be seen most clearly in Ruth.
Here are some clues to help you answer the above question.
Clue 1: Boaz, like the sons of Judah, was in the position of being a near kinsman of Ruth’s late husband — so he had the power to carry on her (as well as Naomi’s) late husbands name by marrying her and giving her a son. But he had not stepped up to his responsibility yet.
Clue 2: Tamar and Rahab and Ruth all took risks that proved them true in relationships.
Clue 3: Look at the prayer of the elders at the gate in Ruth 4:11-12.
“How does Ruth complete the puzzle of the women in the genealogy of Christ?”
Why did Judah say Tamar was “more righteous” than he was?
Tamar is the first woman listed in Matthew’s genealogy of Christ — be sure you look at the right Tamar. (There are three Tamar’s mentioned in Scripture — but this one’s story is in Genesis 38.) You may find this story surprising — especially that Tamar, who poses as a prostitute and sleeps with her father-in-law, is commended, both by him — and later, indirectly, by the women of Bethlehem (Ruth 4:12), and finally, by being the first woman in the genealogy of Christ.
Is God condoning prostitution? Incest?
No. But as you read the story in Genesis 38, let me give you a little background and also a clue in order to help you find the answer to the above question.
Family was extremely important in biblical days — and when a woman’s husband died and left her with no children, God had a way for that husband’s name to not die out. A brother or a near kinsman was to marry her and raise up the first son in the late husband’s name. Tamar knew that. She loved her late husband. She knew that her father-in-law had an obligation to help her carry on her late husband’s name. Read the story in Genesis 38 with that in mind.
Then, here’s the clue: It’s actually another question — one posed by Jerram Barrs in his book, “Through His Eyes: God’s Perspective on Women in the Bible.” Dr. Barrs is one of the godliest men I know, a leading professor at Covenant Seminary. His book is one of the best I’ve read on women in the Bible. After his chapter on Tamar, he asks: “What is your response that righteousness is not about observing a set of rules, of holding to legality, or even simply about keeping a written code of morality, but that righteousness is, at its heart, a matter of proving oneself true in relationships?”
I also recommend Tim Keller’s excellent sermon, titled, simply, “Tamar.” You can find it at the sermon store at redeemer.com — It’s 2.50 to download an MP3.
Read Genesis 38 carefully — with this background and Jerram Barr’s thought-provoking question in mind. I am looking forward to hearing your thoughts on “Why did Judah say Tamar was “more righteous” than he was?”
Pondering Christ’s Genealogy Will Bring Wonder To Your Soul
Even His genealogy pours forth transforming riches that will bring wonder to your soul. I am going to pose several questions over the next few days on this blog — because I’ve got amazing participants who ponder, who seek God, and who share articulately. How thankful I am for this body of believers on my blog!
To lead you into the first question, Christ’s genealogy is a great reversal. In days past, a person’s genealogy was his resume. Even my own father, who was born in 1913, was asked to turn in his genealogy when he applied for a job as the assistant to the President of the West Bend Company. They wanted to know what kind of people his parents and his grandparents and even his great grandparents were. (And the other amazing thing is that he was told that if he were to accept the job, he had to make a lifetime commitment because he would be groomed to be president. He was offered the job and did make a lifetime commitment!) A person’s genealogy was his resume. Therefore if you descended from moral people, maybe even heroic people — your chances of success were hopeful. Hence came the phrase, “He comes from good stock.”
From whom was Jesus descended? In His list is women (who were not considered equals by people in biblical days). Listing women in your genealogy? Oh my! (But hurrah for you and me!) We’re going to look at the first three women listed in Matthew. First, you will see a negative, that is really a positive for us — but then, a breath-taking characteristic of these three noble women.
We’ll deal with that amazing positive in the next few days. But first, let’s start with the negative. Here is the first three-part question:
A. Who were the first three women listed in Matthew?
B. Why might each be looked at negatively in the culture of that day? (And perhaps today as well!)
C. What significance is there in this for you and me?