"I'm your husband, not your boyfriend."

As the Scriptures say, “A man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one.” This is a great mystery, but it is an illustration of the way Christ and the church are one.

[Ephesians 5:31-32 NLT]

Over the years, I've heard God speak to me [John 10:4, 14-16] - not audibly, but clearly and unmistakably, in my spirit.  Sometimes in the quiet morning hours or when I lie down to go to sleep, it's a statement that reveals His heart for me personally, at the deepest level of my need for Him.

For a long time it was this:  "I love you, my daughter."  All through the years of single parenting post-divorce, while I struggled to "do it all" or "do it right" - at home, at work, at church - when I got still, I'd hear that again and again:  "I love you, my daughter."  He knew how much I needed to be secure in His Love for me.

Last year, as I was learning to listen and follow Him more closely, I heard repeatedly, "I want you, my daughter." I understood:  although I'd given my heart & life to Christ in January 1982 - well, sometimes we find ourselves trying to work out issues in ways that aren't fully connected to His heart & life.  God wants all of us, our whole being - spirit, soul and body.  If we are His, we belong to Him completely;  learning to live in this reality involves a growing awareness of how much more we need to yield to Him, day by day.  The "up" side is, He truly wants and desires us - in a world full of rejection, loneliness, error and criticism, that's good news.  :)

More recently, as I processed various uncertainties through the early months of my "health saga" (see 4/12/11 posting), I often heard:  "I am your husband."  As a single woman, I felt God's closeness as never before - alone at home, feeling weak and vulnerable at times, I knew His constant companionship and sensed His embrace and His kindness in significant ways.

Then, a few weeks ago, sort of a "zinger" - it didn't seem harsh or scolding, but it definitely made me stop and pay attention:  "I'm your husband, not your boyfriend."   I had to ask Him what He meant by that.  I had a sense that this statement applied to me, and also in a wider sense to others who say they belong to Jesus Christ.  I think it has very little to do with earthly marital status or gender - singles and married people may face different types of temptation or distraction from their "first love" relationship with God, but all true Christians are described in the Bible as "the Bride of Christ."  Below is some of what I've understood so far...

It's not just a weekend romance.
Of course we're not just Christians on Sundays and holidays.  If God lives in us and we're in Him, that's every day - everywhere - all the time.  Some of us treat God like we're dating - we want a guy who adores us enough to take us places, buy jewelry or win us a big stuffed animal at the county fair, but we aren't fully committed to living and working together "as one" every day.

God spent a long time teaching me to have fun with Him, because I was so schooled in "service" and "sacrifice" I didn't know that side of His Love;  but our relationship isn't just Sunday worship, exciting short-term mission trips and Caribbean cruises.  We eat together,  live together, work and play and dream together.  I talk with Him about my hopes and disappointments, feelings and how my day went.  He speaks, listens, comforts, guides, instructs, and shares His amazing heart with me, too.  There is no part of my life that is "off limits" to God, nothing we cannot discuss, no part of me that doesn't fully belong to Him.  I want to live my life in total harmony and agreement with His perfect Love and wisdom.

In sickness and in health, for richer or poorer...
God is not only our God in the good times, when we're feeling "successful" or strong in faith, or like our lives are lining up with everything the Bible says is His will for us.  Nor is He just there when we desperately feel our need for Him.  Our covenant with Him means faithfulness in every situation - we walk together through every hour and circumstance that may arise.  God didn't "let me down" just because a doctor said there was cancer in my body last January;  He was right there, holding my hand, helping me make decisions, comforting and accompanying me all the way through the treatment process.  I pursue and believe for good health and provision to advance His kingdom - but He doesn't love me any less "in the valley" than He does "on the mountaintop."

It's a deeply committed, lifelong partnership.
There's a passage in the New Testament that compares marriage between a husband and wife to Jesus and His Church - in terms of love and respect, submission and self-sacrifice [Ephesians 5:21-33].  It's a difficult passage for those who perceive "submission" as a dangerous invitation to oppression or abuse.  But I've found that surrendering my whole life in relationship with Jesus actually gives me freedom to fulfill my true identity.

"Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom." 

[2 Corinthians 3:17 NIV]

"If you cling to your life, you will lose it; but if you give it up for Me, you will find it."

[Matthew 10:39 NLT]

Loving and serving God isn't oppressive, but this statement ("I'm your husband, not your boyfriend") did challenge me to examine the depth of my yieldedness to God in all things. In a dating relationship, we maintain a measure of independence, or being able to go our own way if things aren't happening to our liking.  Marriage is a union - two becoming one.  Both of us are "all in" 100% "as long as we both shall live" - in this case, that's forever.  :)

God loves, protects, provides and gives all of Himself for me - I can trust Him fully to care for me with perfect wisdom.  Have I really given Him all of my heart and life?  Do I make myself fully available and yield everything to His Spirit on a daily basis?

It's the most intimate love, different from any other.
Our relationship with Christ is primarily a love story.  Although military metaphors and literal battles abound in the Bible, some people talk too much about the Christian life in terms of spiritual warfare.  And "serving God" is something we do willingly, because we love Him - it's not supposed to be a "job" we resent or stoically endure out of fear or necessity.  The story of the Prodigal Son [Luke 15:11-32] reminds us that our relationship with God is family, and the foundation of a strong and healthy family is committed love. 

We confide in our friends - find enjoyment, connection and emotional support in various types of relationships - but marriage involves an exclusive level of intimacy that distinguishes it from any other friendship.  In Christ, a husband and wife come together on every level:  spirit, soul, and body.  Hebrews 13:4 points out the sacredness of this union - it is set apart from and honored above all other relationships.  Are we deeply and faithfully committed in our love for God, or have we somehow set His Love aside while we seek satisfaction and comfort elsewhere? 

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No doubt there's a lot more I need to learn about this, but that's to be expected:  a marriage relationship grows and evolves over time.  I just had this sense that many of us (myself included) sometimes lapse into living with a more or less worldly or self-centered way of thinking, brightened by special "moments with God," when He's after a deeper level of commitment and union with Him - which lead us into deeper levels of blessing and fruitfulness as well.  I believe God used this statement to call me closer and to remind me that I am truly and fully His at all times.  Are we really (becoming) "one" with Him?

If this all sounds a little "extreme," consider that the end of this age culminates with "the Marriage Supper of the Lamb," when "the Bride has made herself ready." [Revelation 19:7-9]   Do we see the "moments" of our daily lives in light of this ultimate goal?  A few more reflections on this theme, written by apostles Paul and John - including an invitation by God's Spirit - follow...

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For I am jealous for you with the jealousy of God himself. I promised you as a pure bride to one husband—Christ.  But I fear that somehow your pure and undivided devotion to Christ will be corrupted, just as Eve was deceived by the cunning ways of the serpent.  You happily put up with whatever anyone tells you, even if they preach a different Jesus than the one we preach, or a different kind of Spirit than the one you received, or a different kind of gospel than the one you believed.

[2 Corinthians 11:2-4 NLT]

I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband.

[Revelation 21:2 NIV]

The Spirit and the bride say, “Come!” And let the one who hears say, “Come!”  Let the one who is thirsty come; and let the one who wishes take the free gift of the water of life.

[Revelation 22:17 NIV]

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Bonus track:  Jason Upton, "You Are The One"  [from his CD, Great River Road]   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AqJwR6lIc-s

 (P.S.  I had no idea Keith Green originally wrote this song, until I noticed the comment on YouTube video of Jason's version  :))

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& another P.S.  a friend posted the following comment on my Facebook link, what an excellent verse for this posting:

"And it will come about in that day," declares the Lord,"That you will call Me Ishi" - Hosea 2:16 -  Ishi means "my husband."

Learning to Rest

"Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth."

[Psalm 46:10 NIV]

[I enjoy comparing different translations of the same Bible verse on intranet - it's so easy!  I use www.wava.com "Search the Bible" at bottom left of the page, then click "Compare Translations" below the verse - or "Passage Lookup" on http://www.biblegateway.com/.] 

The phrase translated "be still" in the NIV (above) is alternately rendered:  "be at peace" [BBE], "be silent" [NLT], "be quiet" [NCV], "cease striving" [NAS], "let go" [GW], and "stop fighting" [GNT].

Many of us don't fully understand or obey God's command to "be still" until we are arrested by circumstances - perhaps during an illness or injury, the birth of a child, the loss of a job or a loved one, etc.  I think it's interesting that the word "arrest" comes from the Latin ad "to" + restare "rest"  :)  www.dictionary.com defines the English word as follows: 

ar·rest
–verb (used with object)
1. to seize (a person) by legal authority or warrant; take into custody: The police arrested the burglar.
2. to catch and hold; attract and fix; engage: The loud noise arrested our attention.
3. to check the course of; stop; slow down: to arrest progress.

If we belong to the Lord, then perhaps we should stop resisting when we are "taken into custody" - when He attracts, fixes or engages our attention - or when He checks our course,  slows us down, and causes us to stop.  In fact, the Latin restare doesn't mean to sleep - it means to remain, fixed and stable.  God wants to establish us in His purposes;  will we slow down or stop long enough to really know Him, and let Him be exalted?

The great warrior-king David, who accomplished tremendous victories in the land of Israel, understood the importance of finding this place of rest in the Lord.  He wrote:

See, I have made my soul calm and quiet, like a child on its mother's breast; my soul is like a child on its mother's breast.

[Psalm 131:2 BBE]

In this short psalm (3 verses), David connects this quiet attitude with a lack of pride (v. 1) and finding eternal hope in God (v. 3).  Sometimes we are so busy doing things we think are "good," "of God," or "for God," that we don't realize we have lost perspective and become disconnected from His heart.  Sometimes we act like fussy, tired babies who thrash and flail, unable to find and attach to the source of nourishment and strength we really need.  A nursing mother cultivates an atmosphere of peace and quiet comfort in which to feed and nurture her child.

Heidi Baker often says that "fruitfulness flows out of intimacy."  The world tries to make us hurry and "grow up" so we can accomplish more, but the kingdom of God doesn't work like that.  Lately I've noticed that, as I slow down and simplify, taking more time with God, I actually become more focused, productive and effective in every area of my life.  Jesus taught us another antidote to worldly busy-ness: the kingdom values of humility and childlikeness.

"...I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven... whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven."

[Matthew 18:3-4]

Recently, as I was going through surgery and radiation treatments (see 4/12/11 posting), I experienced feeling "left out" of the busy-ness of life.  I was unable to participate in "normal" activities at the level I had before I was "arrested" by my circumstances.  At first, it was frustrating to encounter unexpected limitations on my time and energy, yet I noticed that I felt the closeness of the Lord, in quiet peace and trust.  Gradually it dawned on me that this is the attitude of rest God wants us to have every day - we can choose His pace in life.  As I returned to work (part-time, at first), I found myself much more in tune with His guidance and His grace.

It occurred to me during this season that a mother's breast is a symbol of nurturing and nourishment.  One of God's names in the Old Testament is "El Shaddai" - literally, "the one of the breast" or "the many-breasted one."  He is our Source and all we need.  An attack of breast cancer also spoke to me of an attack on my ability to nourish and nurture myself and others.  Do people really feel loved and valued when we are too busy to stop for lunch?  And how many of us experience illness as a result of not taking time to replenish ourselves and rest, both physically and spiritually?

Jesus invites us to come to Him, receive His rest, and learn how to live differently.

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.  Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.  For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

[Matthew 11:28-30 NIV]

If we really want to know God and see Him exalted, we need to slow down and walk with Him.  Taking His yoke means living at His pace - I'm learning He's not frantic, and the fruitful life He has for me is not so hectic, as I learn more of Him.  His commands are not burdensome [I John 5:3].  Accomplishments of eternal value require that we rest and remain in Him.

“Yes, I am the vine; you are the branches. Those who remain in me, and I in them, will produce much fruit. For apart from me you can do nothing." 

[John 15:5 NLT] 

In closing, I'd like to encourage you to watch this 10-minute video of Pastor Bill Johnson that a friend sent me a few weeks ago.  He has some wonderful things to say about "The Importance of Rest."  Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=nvkE4PyVZrs

"Soul Surfer"

Just a quick movie tip about "Soul Surfer," the inspirational true story of Bethany Hamilton, who lost an arm to a shark attack and went on to experience even more love & greater victories... see it!  <3  I was pretty sure I was going to like this movie when I walked in and saw her suntanned parents (played by Helen Hunt & Dennis Quaid) singing along with their Calvary Chapel worship team to "Blessed Be the Name of the Lord" by Matt Redman (Bethany is a Christian):  the message of that song - that we praise God both when life is glorious and when it doesn't seem so glorious at all - has always resonated with me... and I knew the Hawaiian surfing scenes would be breathtakingly beautiful (they are).  You can read more about Bethany's story and the movie on the website:  http://www.soulsurferthemovie.com/  

The main reason I chose to post this little tip is simply because  it struck me:  we're all broken somewhere.  This girl has a great testimony for anyone who's had to deal with things that don't make sense or don't seem fair, when the life you thought was "blessed" isn't turning out at all the way you expected... Bethany shows us how Christ-in-us can triumph over whatever the attack has been.  P.S. of course I was in tears when I saw her ministering to the little tsunami survivor on the beach in Thailand... and lots of other scenes as well.  When a reporter asks if she regrets going surfing the day of the attack, Bethany smiles and says she wouldn't change anything, because she's been able to embrace more people with one arm than she ever could before.  That's His strength in our weakness... it's what amazing Love can do. <3 worth seeing <3  :)

Introduction to Job

This week’s posting is from Eugene Peterson's Introduction to the Book of Job (in The Message version of the Bible*), which addresses a number of issues about finding God in the midst of human suffering - a subject I touched on last week (4/26/11 "Ordeal" - Part 1). Honestly, I picked up Peterson after I wrote last week’s posting, and I thought he did a much better job!  :)  I find Peterson’s introductions to the books of the Bible (as well as his translation / paraphrase of scripture) a rich source of inspiration and encouragement - and he writes beautifully.  Enjoy!


“Job suffered. His name is synonymous with suffering. He asked, 'Why?' He asked, 'Why me?' And he put his questions to God. He asked his questions persistently, passionately, and eloquently. He refused to take silence for an answer. He refused to take clichés for an answer. He refused to let God off the hook.

“Job did not take his sufferings quietly or piously. He disdained going for a second opinion to outside physicians or philosophers. Job took his stance before God, and there he protested his suffering, protested mightily.

“It is not only because Job suffered that he is important to us. It is because he suffered in the same ways that we suffer - in the vital areas of family, personal health, and material things. Job is also important to us because he searchingly questioned and boldly protested his suffering. Indeed, he went 'to the top' with his questions.

/ / /

“It is not suffering as such that troubles us. It is undeserved suffering.

“Almost all of us in our years of growing up have the experience of disobeying our parents and getting punished for it. When that discipline was connected with wrongdoing, it had a certain sense of justice to it: When we do wrong, we get punished.

“One of the surprises as we get older, however, is that we come to see that there is no real correlation between the amount of wrong we commit and the amount of pain we experience. An even larger surprise is that very often there is something quite the opposite: We do right and get knocked down. We do the best we are capable of doing, and just as we are reaching out to receive our reward we are hit from the blind side and sent reeling.

“This is the suffering that first bewilders and then outrages us. This is the kind of suffering that bewildered and outraged Job, for Job was doing everything right when suddenly everything went wrong. And it is this kind of suffering to which Job gives voice when he protests to God.

“Job gives voice to his sufferings so well, so accurately and honestly, that anyone who has ever suffered - which includes every last one of us - can recognize his or her personal pain in the voice of Job. Job says boldly what some of us are too timid to say. He makes poetry out of what in many of us is only a tangle of confused whimpers. He shouts out to God what a lot of us mutter behind our sleeves. He refuses to accept the role of a defeated victim.

“It is also important to note what Job does not do, lest we expect something from him that he does not intend. Job does not curse God as his wife suggests he should do, getting rid of the problem by getting rid of God. But neither does Job explain suffering. He does not instruct us in how to live so that we can avoid suffering. Suffering is a mystery, and Job comes to respect the mystery.

"In the course of facing, questioning, and respecting suffering, Job finds himself in an even larger mystery - the mystery of God. Perhaps the greatest mystery in suffering is how it can bring a person into the presence of God in a state of worship, full of wonder, love, and praise. Suffering does not inevitably do that, but it does it far more often than we would expect. It certainly did that for Job. Even in his answer to his wife he speaks the language of an uncharted irony, a dark and difficult kind of truth:  'We take the good days from God - why not also the bad days?'

/ / /

"But there is more to the book of Job than Job. There are Job's friends. The moment we find ourselves in trouble of any kind - sick in the hospital, bereaved by a friend's death, dismissed from a job or relationship, depressed or bewildered - people start showing up telling us exactly what is wrong with us and what we must do to get better. Sufferers attract fixers the way roadkills attract vultures. At first we are impressed that they bother with us and amazed at their facility with answers. They know so much! How did they get to be such experts in living?

“More often than not, these people use the Word of God frequently and loosely. They are full of spiritual diagnosis and prescription. It all sounds so hopeful. But then we begin to wonder, 'Why is it that for all their apparent compassion we feel worse instead of better after they've said their piece?'

“The book of Job is not only a witness to the dignity of suffering and God's presence in our suffering but is also our primary biblical protest against religion that has been reduced to explanations or 'answers.' Many of the answers that Job's so-called friends give him are technically true. But it is the 'technical' part that ruins them. They are answers without personal relationship, intellect without intimacy. The answers are slapped onto Job's ravaged life like labels on a specimen bottle. Job rages against this secularized wisdom that has lost touch with the living realities of God.

“In every generation there are men and women who pretend to be able to instruct us in a way of life that guarantees that we will be 'healthy, wealthy, and wise.' According to the propaganda of these people, anyone who lives intelligently and morally is exempt from suffering. From their point of view, it is lucky for us that they are now at hand to provide the intelligent and moral answers we need.

“On behalf of all of us who have been misled by the platitudes of the nice people who show up to tell us everything is going to be just all right if we simply think such-and-such and do such-and-such, Job issues an anguished rejoinder. He rejects the kind of advice and teaching that has God all figured out, that provides glib explanations for every circumstance. Job's honest defiance continues to be the best defense against the clichés of positive thinkers and the prattle of religious small talk.

“The honest, innocent Job is placed in a setting of immense suffering and then surrounded by the conventional religious wisdom of the day in the form of speeches by Eliphaz, Bildad, Zophar, and Elihu. The contrast is unforgettable. The counselors methodically and pedantically recite their bookish precepts to Job. At first Job rages in pain and roars out his protests, but then he becomes silent in awestruck faith before God, who speaks from out of a storm - a 'whirlwind' of Deity. Real faith cannot be reduced to spiritual bromides and merchandised in success stories. It is refined in the fires and the storms of pain.

"The book of Job does not reject answers as such. There is content to biblical religion. It is the secularization of answers that is rejected - answers severed from their Source, the living God, the Word that both batters us and heals us. We cannot have truth about God divorced from the mind and heart of God.

/ / /

“In our compassion, we don't like to see people suffer. And so our instincts are aimed at preventing and alleviating suffering. No doubt that is a good impulse. But if we really want to reach out to others who are suffering, we should be careful not to be like Job's friends, not to do our 'helping' with the presumption that we can fix things, get rid of them, or make them 'better.' We may look at our suffering friends and imagine how they could have better marriages, better-behaved children, better mental and emotional health. But when we rush in to fix suffering, we need to keep in mind several things.

“First, no matter how insightful we may be, we don't really understand the full nature of our friends' problems. Second, our friends may not want our advice. Third, the ironic fact of the matter is that more often than not, people do not suffer less when they are committed to following God, but more. When these people go through suffering, their lives are often transformed, deepened, marked with beauty and holiness, in remarkable ways that could never have been anticipated before the suffering.

“So, instead of continuing to focus on preventing suffering - which we simply won't be very successful at anyway - perhaps we should begin entering the suffering, participating insofar as we are able - entering the mystery and looking around for God. In other words, we need to quit feeling sorry for people who suffer and instead look up to them, learn from them, and - if they will let us - join them in protest and prayer. Pity can be near-sighted and condescending; shared suffering can be dignifying and life-changing. As we look at Job's suffering and praying and worshiping, we see that he has already blazed a trail of courage and integrity for us to follow.

/ / /

“But sometimes it's hard to know just how to follow Job's lead when we feel so alone in our suffering, unsure of what God wants us to do. What we must realize during those times of darkness is that the God who appeared to Job in the whirlwind is calling out to all of us. Although God may not appear to us in a vision, he makes himself known to us in all the many ways that he describes to Job - from the macro to the micro, from the wonders of the galaxies to the little things we take for granted. He is the Creator of the unfathomable universe all around us - and he is also the Creator of the universe inside of us. And so we gain hope - not from the darkness of our suffering, not from pat answers in books, but from the God who sees our suffering and shares our pain.

"Reading Job prayerfully and meditatively leads us to face the questions that arise when our lives don't turn out the way we expect them to. First we hear all the stock answers. Then we ask the questions again, with variations - and hear the answers again, with variations. Over and over and over. Every time we let Job give voice to our own questions, our suffering gains in dignity and we are brought a step closer to the threshold of the voice and mystery of God. Every time we persist with Job in rejecting the quick-fix counsel of people who see us and hear us but do not understand us, we deepen our availability and openness to the revelation that comes only out of the tempest. The mystery of God eclipses the darkness and the struggle. We realize that suffering calls our lives into question, not God's. The tables are turned: God-Alive is present to us. God is speaking to us. And so Job's experience is confirmed and repeated once again in our suffering and our vulnerable humanity."

Author: Eugene Peterson
"Introduction - Job”
The Message Remix: The Bible in Contemporary Language
© 2003 by Eugene H. Peterson
Published by Navpress Publishing Group

*(Note from Gina: if you don’t yet own a copy of The Message, you might want to get one! :) )