I’m not sure what it is, maybe the time of year or maybe just the time in our lives, but these last couple months have been a bit of a dry season for a lot of people I’m close to. A lot of us have been out in the wilderness when it comes to jobs, our prayer life, our worship time, our family time; everything just seems pretty dry. It’s a time of waiting, a time of internal struggle, and a time of longing.
If you happen to find yourself in a dry season, take heart! You’re not alone, and we are not alone in history either. The Bible is filled with stories of men and women who spent considerable time in the desert before God did great things in their lives. Moses, was in the wilderness tending sheep when God spoke to him through the flaming bush. He went on to lead the Israelites through the desert for 40 years before they reached God’s promised land. David spent plenty of time running around in the wilderness from King Saul before he became king. The New Testament tells us that John the Baptist spent the first part of his life in the wilderness eating locusts and honey before his ministry started. And after John baptized Jesus and the Holy Spirit came upon Jesus, instead of heading strait to ministry, Jesus spent 40 days in the wilderness. I could go on and on with examples, but I think you get the picture.
The wilderness ends up being an important thing for those who serve God and his kingdom. It’s a time when we learn that we can’t just make things happen out of our own strength, a time when we learn to lean heavily on God to sustain us. Often it’s in the wilderness when we first turn to God’s word, looking for some sort of answer to what we face. God uses our time in the wilderness to mold our hearts, to be the great Potter, shaping our lives into his design.
If there’s one place right now that I could say I’m in the wilderness, it’s in my devotional time. I’ve been reading the One Year Bible, and right now we’re in Leviticus. Anybody who’s ever read Leviticus knows exactly what I’m talking about. It’s filled with page after page of tedious instructions on how to prepare offerings. Eat this. Don’t eat that. Wear this. Don’t wear that. There’s a chapter or so that’s devoted to how to prepare a certain kind of incense. It’s incredibly easy to get bogged down in Leviticus.
I’ve been here before, so every time I reach Leviticus, I just roll up my sleeves and try to read through as quickly as I can. This time however, God struck me with something that I had never noticed before. Even as God deals out these detailed, strict, seemingly legalistic instructions, there is a definite thread of grace throughout the passages, for even as the required sacrifice might be a goat, God says, “If you don’t have a goat, bring two pigeons. But if you don’t have two pigeons, bring some grain.” God wasn’t actually hung up on having a goat, he wanted the heart behind it. Ultimately, the poor person’s grain offering and the rich person’s goat offering counted as the same in God’s eyes.
You can find this theme in Jesus’ life as well in the story of the widow who had only two small coins to give in the offering. While the religious, pious people were bringing huge, luxurious offerings, Jesus said that this woman’s offering of her last two coins was greater than all the rest.
I believe that the same principle applies to our spiritual dryness. I don’t think God wants us to feel guilty for not having the same emotional response we may have had in worship last year. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard people say with a disheartened look on their face, “I just don’t feel anything anymore.” That’s okay. God is well aware that we sometimes don’t have the same amount to give that we had before, and what he wants from us is for us to give anyway. He looks at our hearts with so much love and grace. And better yet, as believers, he looks at our hearts and sees the sacrifice his Son Jesus made.
So, if you’re in the wilderness, don’t panic. Press into God and his Word and know that it’s his desire to use this time to shape you into the person he wants you to be. And even when you don’t feel like you have anything important to give God, give him the what little you do have. He delights in your sacrifice.
This past week turned a lot of people’s lives upside down. As I watched the precious people of Haiti digging each other out of collapsed buildings, my hearts was wrenched out of my chest. Earlier in the week, I was scrolling through high-resolution photos of the devastation on the Boston Globe’s website and had the song “Oh You Bring” playing in the background. At first I was comforted by the words:
Oh You bring hope to the hopeless
And light to those in the darkness
And death to life
Now I’m alive
Oh You give peace to the restless
And joy to homes that are broken
I see You now
In You I’m found
And You opened the door for me
And You laid down
Your life to set me free
All that I am will serve You Lord
And You opened my eyes to see
All the wonder and awe of Christ in me
Jesus You’re everything I need
Oh You fill those who are empty
And rescue those in the valley
And through it all You calm my soul
Oh You find me in my weakness
And heal the wounds of my heartache
I worship You in spirit and truth
But then, the song made it around to the bridge:
All honour
All glory
All praise to You
Those words kept repeating over and over again, and I wanted to shut it off. I found myself wrestling with the idea of giving God glory and praise in the midst of tragedy. It was a huge heart check. I started asking some questions that are really hard to process. “Where is God in all of this?” “Is God really good?”
I ended having a lot of conversations with friends and with my parents about it. Sometimes when tragedy strikes, it’s difficult to stand up and definitively state, “God is good.” My heart wanted to say it, but my eyes were so stuck on the hurt and pain of so many thousands of people. I realized that when I’m confronted by heartache or tragedy, I’m fine with saying, “God help!” but I struggle to say, “God, thank you.” But that’s exactly what we’re supposed to do. Here’s what Paul told the church in I Thessalonians chapter 5:
16 Always be joyful. 17 Never stop praying. 18 Be thankful in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you who belong to Christ Jesus. (NLT)
Thankfulness is rooted in faith. Expressions of thankfulness to God serve as both an evidence of our faith in him as well a foundation upon which faith is built. The more we acknowledge God’s provision through thanksgiving, the more our faith in him is renewed and strengthened. To be thankful through trials is an evidence of unwavering faith in God.
So, how do we get there? How can you say “thank you” when what we see is calamity and what we feel is heartache? I think that we have to build our faith upon two scriptural promises about God: first that he is good and second that he is unchanging. As you start to look at these two things in scripture, you’ll find that they are very often mentioned in the same breath:
Psalm 107:
1 Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good!
His faithful love endures forever.
James 1:
17 Whatever is good and perfect comes down to us from God our Father, who created all the lights in the heavens.[a] He never changes or casts a shifting shadow
The truth is that sin is the greatest tragedy the universe has ever seen. Where God intended us to live every day wrapped up in his goodness and glory, sin created a wedge that separated us. But God in his perfect, unshakable goodness has chosen not to leave us separated from him. The sacrifice of Christ on the cross tore the curtain in the temple that separated us from his presence. Each day that we live brings us closer and closer to the day that we will be with him again, and what a glorious day that will be!
Rom 8:
18 Yet what we suffer now is nothing compared to the glory he will reveal to us later. 19 For all creation is waiting eagerly for that future day when God will reveal who his children really are. 20 Against its will, all creation was subjected to God’s curse. But with eager hope, 21 the creation looks forward to the day when it will join God’s children in glorious freedom from death and decay. 22 For we know that all creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. 23 And we believers also groan, even though we have the Holy Spirit within us as a foretaste of future glory, for we long for our bodies to be released from sin and suffering. We, too, wait with eager hope for the day when God will give us our full rights as his adopted children,[j] including the new bodies he has promised us. 24 We were given this hope when we were saved. (If we already have something, we don’t need to hope[k] for it. 25 But if we look forward to something we don’t yet have, we must wait patiently and confidently.)
So, with hope in my heart, I look at the destruction in Haiti and long for the day of Christ’s return. It is in God’s goodness and steadfastness that I have hope, and because of it I can say, “God, thank you for loving me. Thank you for never changing.” From there, love and compassion leads to action. And that is why we volunteer and give and go and serve, that the people of Haiti might also find hope in the promise that even when everything else around shakes and crumbles, God is good and he never wavers.
Paul McCartney is somebody who knows a little bit about songwriting. He once said this about making music with other people:
“When you find someone you can talk to, that’s special…when you find someone you can play music with, that’s really something.”
That’s how I feel about writing songs with Lindsey Jones. Every time I’ve ever sat down to write a song with Lindsey, something beautiful comes out of it. Several of those songs have ended up on both of our records. Today we got together for the first time in months and wrote a song about God’s love.
I’ve been particularly enamored by the promise that God’s mercies are new every morning. How amazing is God’s love that it doesn’t get tired like our human love does. God never wakes up and says, “Man, I just don’t feel it today.” However, I do. A lot.
So Lindsey and I wrote this song called “To Know You” that’s basically a prayer to love and trust God better even when we don’t feel his presence. We count on the promise that he is always with us, and we are thankful that he allows us the room to ask for faith when we don’t have any.
I’ll go ahead and include our rough work tape. It’s not polished or produced in any way, and I definitely screw up some of the chords, but I want you to hear it.
Your love, no I don’t always feel it
Burning a hole in my heart
And I know you don’t try to conceal it
But it seems like we’re so far apart
I know it’s not it’s always a feeling
‘Cause feelings they come and they leave
Help me to know you
Help me to love you
Help me to trust you
When you’re there but my eyes just can’t see
Help me to know you
Help me believe through my unbelief
Your mercies are new every morning
Before I even get out of bed
You’ve numbered the days set before me
And you know every hair on my head
What more could I ever ask for
When you’re all I want love to be
I know it’s not it’s always a feeling
‘Cause feelings they come and they leave
What more could I ever ask for
When you’re all I want love to be
So, here were are. 2010. It’s hard to believe that it was 10 years ago already that we were ringing in the year 2000. But anyway, enough waxing sentimental. On to the resolutions!
This year, my church has encouraged us to take on a Mitzvot for the new year. Rooted in Jewish traditions, a Mitzvot is a task one voluntarily undertakes in order to experience a spiritual change. So here is my Mitzvot, my resolutions for the new year, all rolled into one.
Read the One Year Bible
Read one book per month
Listen to 1 sermon podcast per week (in addition to the sermon from my home church)
Run 3x per week (I’ve found running to be great prayer time)
The only one I’m a little nervous about is the running. I love to run, but I haven’t been as disciplined as I should be about it. I’ll keep you updated on how that goes. Also, I’ll be updating the blog with reflections as I read through the Bible and read at least 12 other books this year too.
Hey guys,
Sorry I haven’t blogged in a long time. It doesn’t mean that I haven’t had anything going on. I’ve actually been extremely busy, and I will have some exciting stuff coming your way soon (new record anyone? shhhh…it’s a secret).
In the meantime, I recently had the honor of interviewing a fellow songwriter who has influenced my own music more than just about anyone. Sara Groves. She’s was incredibly humble and transparent. Her new record comes out at midnight, and I encourage you to pick it up (it’s amazing). Head over to http://backseatwriter.wordpress.com/2009/11/16/sara-groves-honest-reflections-on-faith-songs-and-fireflies/ to read the interview.
