A Tree Planted by the Stream

Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers. (Psalm 1:1-3 ESV).

In order to get the water off the hill to flow away from both the house and the pool, we were very intentional about the contour of the final grade. It works perfected as planned; however, that soil stays pretty wet after it rains. In fact, even after the sprinklers are activated, it is still pretty damp. So, our idea was to plant some trees that are “happy” in the water. In my opinion, there is no prettier tree for that kind of location than a river birch. So, we place three separate “clumps” in the wet area. They are a Texas variety and handle the high temperatures as well as the damp soil. They are growing rapidly. In few years they ill provide both beauty and continued function in that area of the yard. As I thought about that I returned to a wonderful promise in the Scripture. We find it in our reading today. It says, “In all that he does, he prospers” (v. 3). The psalmist simply declares that the righteous prosper in everything they do. Is this naïve or profoundly true? In this life, it certainly seems that the wicked prosper. In this life the righteous often suffer and their goodness is rewarded with abuse. The psalmists themselves knew this. We are not protesting something they didn’t already know. Therefore, when the psalmist says, “In all that he does, he prospers,” he is not naïve. He is pointing through the ambiguities of this life to life after death, where the true effectiveness — the true prosperity — of all that we have done will appear. This is also the way Paul thought. First, he celebrates the victory of Christ over death. “‘O death, where is your victory?’ . . . Thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ” (cf. 1 Corinthians 15:55, 57). Then, he draws out the implication that, because of this triumph, every work that believers have ever done will prosper. “Therefore, my beloved brothers . . . in the Lord your labor is not in vain” (cf. 1 Corinthians 15:58). When something is not in vain, it prospers. Because Jesus died in our place, he guaranteed that every good deed prospers — sooner or later. “Whatever good anyone does, this he will receive back from the Lord” (Ephesians 6:8). “Blessed are you when others revile you. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven” (Matthew 5:11-12). What seems naïve in the Old Testament (“in all that he does, he prospers”) points profoundly to the work of Christ and the reality of resurrection.

A Trip Down Memory Lane - Pt 5

Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Let those of us who are mature think this way, and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal that also to you. Only let us hold true to what we have attained. (Philippians 3:12-16 ESV).

What we’ve been doing the last few days is to give a mini theology of the past. The past is a great reservoir of knowledge and wisdom. Where else can we learn anything except from the past? The future has not happened yet. We can’t learn anything from what hasn’t happened yet. The present is ephemeral. I mean try to learn something from the present. I mean try to focus on the present. As soon as you have got the present focused it is the past. I mean it is every millisecond is flowing over the waterfall of the present turning into a past reservoir just as soon as you see it go over the waterfall. As soon as you focus on a moment, it has become a past moment. The only thing we can focus on that has any stability at all is the products of the past. Think of it. All books are from the past. All video or audio recordings are, by their nature, from the past. However, if we were having a conversation, and I said anything at all, that sentence would be a part of the present. It would shortly fade into the past though. Time simply will not stand still. This means that all the means of stored knowledge and wisdom are from the past. It is the only place we have to go to learn anything or to grow in knowledge or in wisdom. So for the Christian that means even the Bible, which was, like all other books written in the past. Therefore we may come to the conclusion that the best is always yet to come. And I really mean it. I mean for eternity starting right now the best is always yet to come for the Christian. So the future is massively important. We are people of hope and therefore we do not live in the past. We draw thankfulness from the past. We draw life giving repentance from the past. We feed our faith and hope on the faithfulness of God in the past and we learn everything we know and get all the wisdom we have from the past. But all of it is for the sake of this afternoon’s joy and this afternoon’s faith and this afternoon’s obedience and the joy of all eternity.

A Trip Down Memory Lane - Pt 4

What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. (Romans 8:31-34 ESV).

The past is a source of faith for the future. Our reading is a part of a larger passage that I often quote to others who may be struggling in difficult times. The past serves the future by feeding faith, because of all the faithful works of God to make a future for us in the past. Israel failed precisely to do this and that is why they were undone in the wilderness (cf. Psalm 106). They rebelled because they didn’t remember. They didn’t remember and they didn’t have faith to walk with Moses through the sea the way they should have. And they grumbled on the other side. All of it was rooted in forgetting past grace. So they didn’t trust him for future grace, because they didn’t remember past grace. No one disagrees about the complexity of our world. That does cause us to wonder how we will manage and get to “our future”. Globally, it is not a time of peace and harmony. That makes us wary and unsure, because we have to live in these times and try to pull some happiness and success into our lives out of that lack. It can make our own lives off balance; and, combined with our own individual issues, it can be discouraging. These times take our courage and strength to get through. Martin Luther King, Jr. said it so well in our meme today: “Take the first step in faith. You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.” He said that a full year before his famous speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in which he called for civil and economic rights and an end to racism in the United States. It was on September 12, 1962, as he spoke at the Park-Sheraton Hotel in New York City to commemorate the centennial of the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation. I wonder if he could’ve imagined all that would transpire in the next six years, ending with his assassination in 1968. I rather doubt he thought about that; he thought about the first step! We have that opportunity in our lives. We know the God who has gone before us winning our deliverance. We can remember Him and trust the future into his capable hands!

A Trip Down Memory Lane - Pt 3

For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death. For see what earnestness this godly grief has produced in you, but also what eagerness to clear yourselves, what indignation, what fear, what longing, what zeal, what punishment! At every point you have proved yourselves innocent in the matter. (2 Corinthians 7:10-11 ESV).

The past is a source of healthy repentance. The Apostle Paul wrote to the Ephesians, “Remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, strangers to the covenants of promise. You had no hope and were without God in the world.” (Ephesians 2:12). Isn’t it amazing that he told us to remember that? I just think that is amazing. I think it would be natural to desire to foirget that. However, we should not desire to forget that, because if we forget from what we were saved, our sense of repentance will be shallow and our enjoyment of grace will be thin. So it was a healthy remembering that Paul was calling the Ephesians to do for the sake of a healthy repenting. The apostle also wrote something very similar to the Corinthians. We have that in our reading today. Notice verse ten: “Godly grief produces repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death.” In other words, there is way to think about our past that leads to repentance, leads to salvation, leads to life, leads to joy through and beyond regret and there is a worldly way to think about the past that paralyzes you and brings death. Neuroscientists have discovered that when someone recalls an old memory, a representation of the entire event is instantaneously reactivated in the brain that often includes the people, location, smells, music, and other trivia. In fact, recalling old memories can have a cinematic quality. Memories often seem to play out in the mind's eye like an old home movie or even a Technicolor film. The importance of this is supported by recent research. New studies have indicated that people who look at the past through rose-tinted glasses are happier than those who focus on negative past experiences and regrets. “Godly grief” is the key. This kind of regret should always produce an understanding of our position as forgiven and restored. These are the components of Biblical repentance. It is only when we fail to remember the work of Jesus on our behalf that we fail to overcome our sense of failure. We are not failures, even when we fail. We are forgiven! There’s a huge difference in those concepts!

A Trip Down Memory Lane - Pt 2

Oh give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever! Let the redeemed of the Lord say so, whom he has redeemed from trouble and gathered in from the lands, from the east and from the west, from the north and from the south. (Psalm 107:1-3 ESV).

Well, let’s continue the “trip down memory lane” with the first of the principles necessary to balance our past and future. It is the principle of gratitude. Our reading encourages us to be thankful for the goodness and steadfast love of God (v. 1). In other words, history is an ever-growing reservoir of past grace where the thankfulness of our hearts can drink and drink with continual pleasure. That is what it is for, the drinking of thankfulness. And when I say past I mean five seconds ago to five thousand years ago. It is all past. Let me illustrate a bit. I may lose things, but I never want to lose sight of what God’s done for me. I never want to become like the Israelites in the Old Testament. The psalmist says, “When our ancestors were in Egypt, they gave no thought to your miracles; they did not remember your many kindnesses, and they rebelled by the sea, the Red Sea.” (Psalm 106:7). When I’m facing “Red Sea” challenges, it’s easy to forget God’s miracles and kindnesses. Often I look at the mountain in front of me instead of at the God who stands with me. I forget His hand on me. I focus on the problems around me instead of on the God whose Spirit lives inside me. Sometimes it’s not even a mountain in front of me. It’s a little molehill that takes on gigantic proportions. When I bend down and look at it long and hard, it grows. I lose sight of the big picture of God’s love and faithfulness. This is symptomatic of the human condition. We all struggle with spiritual amnesia. Gratitude is the answer for that. When we thank God, it is impossible to take Him for granted. That means we tell our stories. We need to tell them to our children, our grandchildren, our friends. I call these “stories” talking in color. I’m often questioned about my use of stories in conversation. I must admit that a part of my propensity for story-telling is in my comfort of using them. It is what I know best. However, story-telling is also very intentional with me. Not only does it recall for me the basis of my hope and gratitude, it encourages me to anchor my dreams in the present. Perhaps you should “color” your memories more. If you do not already journal, I encourage you to start. It is a great way to allow the work of God to be evident in your daily life and color it with hope and peace.

A Trip Down Memory Lane - Pt 1

I will remember the deeds of the Lord; yes, I will remember your wonders of old. I will ponder all your work, and meditate on your mighty deeds. Your way, O God, is holy. What god is great like our God? You are the God who works wonders; you have made known your might among the peoples. (Psalm 77:11-14 ESV).

Old picture albums can be both wonderful and terrible. As I mentioned yesterday, I have been more nostalgic than usual lately. My frequent trips down “memory lane” have given me a wide range of emotions. Of course there has been a recall of spectacular experiences. However, there has also been a renewed sense of the failures along that path also. Memory Lane is like that. The psalmist in our reading today encourages us to remember “the wonders of old” (v. 11). My experience with memories is that I can’t merely restrict my path through the past to just the “wonders”; I also easily recall the pain and trial of the path of my life. So, I began to do some work in achieving a balance with nostalgia. It is possible to sin against God and hurt our soul by failing to remember the past and by remembering it in the wrong way. In other words, you could blow it both ways. You can wreck your life by neglecting the past and you neglect your life by an excessive living in the past. The word nostalgia may point to something innocent and healthy or something excessive and unhealthy. It would be unhealthy, however, if you thought about those past experiences continually and felt burdened by the fact that they are never going to come again. That becomes a kind of paralyzing regret that it is all over and the best days are in the past. That starts to be unhealthy. So what we need, I think, is a theology of the past. The past is not for fueling and paralyzing regret and disappointment. The past is not meant for fueling anger and grudges. A lot of people use the past for regret and use the past for disappointment and use the past for grudges and use the past for anger. Those are all misuses of the past. That is not what the past is for. God didn’t give us the past to make us regretful and to paralyze us with disappointment or rage or grudge. There are positive uses of the past that God does ordain. There are at least four that I can think of: gratitude, repentance, faith, and knowledge or wisdom. We’ll look at each of these in the coming days. However, for today, might I encourage you to simply pray that the Lord will grant you a peace about both the past and the future? Adopt the truth that past failures and future fears must not rob you of present joy.

The Tracks We Leave

For all our days pass away under your wrath; we bring our years to an end like a sigh. The years of our life are seventy, or even by reason of strength eighty; yet their span is but toil and trouble; they are soon gone, and we fly away. Who considers the power of your anger, and your wrath according to the fear of you? So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom. (Psalm 90:9-12 ESV).

I suppose I am more reflective than usual as a result of two “milestones” in the near future. One is my 70th birthday. Though that won’t happen for a few weeks, I have caught myself thinking about the past more than is typical for me. The second milestone is our 50th wedding anniversary, which won’t take place for several months. Both of these together, however, are powerful incentives to become a bit more nostalgic and reflective. Finding a proverb accredited to the Dakota Tribe, I was taken to our reading today. I have made a conscious effort to ignore the most obvious reference of verse ten which detail the number of our years. My intention is to focus on verse 12, “So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom.” That speaks to the concept of “legacy.” Leaving a legacy involves far more than handing down a monetary inheritance or passing on a good family name. For those things will surely pass away and forever be forgotten. A lasting legacy, one that continues for eternity, is written on the hearts of our loved ones. Of course, from my perspective, this ought to contain a strong belief in Jesus; however, there ought to be more than that left behind. This requires more than a “religious” education. As our children (and, if possible, our grandchildren) grow up, they may not see faith as something precious and invaluable. Especially if they have been raised in the church and surrounded by Christianity their whole lives, the value of a godly heritage may not be immediately apparent to them. My hope is that they will remember the “tracks” of faith I’ve lived out in their experience. I remember a critical time in my career years ago as I was charged with the accusation that I believed my family was more important than the church. I often regret not having the wit quit enough to answer with a more powerful response than I gave. I was guilty of that charge; I still am today. That brings me to a bit of encouragement to you as you read these words. The best of what I have done is poor; and, we certainly don’t want to look at the worst! However, my hope is that I have left deep tracks of love, care, and understanding along the trail so that my family might easily follow that path. My hope is that is has become well worn and clearly visible. I am convinced it is never too late to begin making those tracks in the hearts and minds of those whom we love. Wherever you are in your journey, forge that trail clearly!