Jonah's Lament (or Why We Hate Mercy)

And he prayed to the LORD and said, "O LORD, is not this what I said when I was yet in my country? That is why I made haste to flee to Tarshish; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster."         -Jonah 4:2 (ESV)

   Jonah has some gall.  Regardless of the fact that God delivered Jonah from a death at sea, rescued him from the digestive tract of a great big fish, and rescued him from God-knows-what awaited him in Tarshish and the remainder of a disobedient life, Jonah is mad at God precisely because God is a rescuer.  In the complaint Jonah lodges against God in verse 4:2, he is saying, in essence, "I knew you were merciful, which is exactly why I didn't want to be your prophet!"
   It seems strange to be angry at God because He is merciful, especially since this is one of His most attractive characteristics.  And even though Jonah doesn't like the Ninevites -- in actuality he despises them -- it's hard to sympathize with his position.  If the Ninevites repent, and God shows them mercy, isn't that a good thing?
   In fact, that is exactly what happened.  Jonah must have presumed this would happen, because his whole gripe with God is that he knew God would show mercy.  He knew that God tends to relent from disaster.  The whole thing irks him; he was hoping to see Nineveh destroyed, feeling in his heart that really they deserved it.
   I would like to point out that we are not at all unlike Jonah.  Although we would be quick to agree and proclaim that the Gospel of Jesus is for everyone everywhere, really we harbor the conviction that some people just plain don't deserve it.  In our hearts we feel that some people are beyond salvation, and usually all signs point to this possibility.  The obvious examples are also the cliches: Adolph Hitler, Osama Bin Laden, and many other terrorists, tyrants and terrible people.  We look at these such characters and think exactly what Jonah thought; namely, "How could you be merciful to them?"
   The fact is, God loves everybody.  And He doesn't love everybody the way that we would, because He actually loves everybody.  No one is exempt from the love of God, even if they exempt themselves from His salvation.  God can't help but love all people, because it is His nature.  He is love, therefore He loves.  Not only that, but His love is perfectly egalitarian: it knows no favorites.  So God loves everybody, and He loves them all with exactly the same measure of love.
   If that doesn't gall you, you're either spiritually enlightened enough to have come to grips with it, or you're lying.  It sure galls me.  I can throw a stone and hit someone I consider unworthy of His love.  Hell, I can look in the mirror and see someone unworthy of His love.  And that's the point: none of us are worthy.  Jonah wasn't worthy of God's love, and who cares that he was an Israelite, he still wasn't worthy.  He was as worthy as the Ninevites, which is to say not at all worthy.  But Jonah didn't realize this, just as we so often don't realize.
   This is the beauty of the Blood of Jesus, of the Good News of Salvation: it's free and it's for everyone.  You see, God's love and mercy do not recognize us for who we think we are, or for what we've done.  The Ninevites were no doubt still blemished, still fallible and imperfect, and still prone to sin in the eyes of God, but they must have had repentant hearts, because God showed mercy.  It wasn't who the Ninevites were that saved them, it was who God is.  And Jonah tells us exactly who God is: gracious, merciful, slow to anger, and relenting from disaster.
   But even knowing this, Jonah shows us both his heart and our own.  We hate mercy.  We can't stand that God is slow to anger, that he relents from disaster.  Why we hate mercy is maybe a bit complicated, but summarily we hate it because it functions independent of who we are and what we do.  By definition mercy does not rely on whether we are worthy of it; because we are unworthy of the mercy we receive, it can be called mercy.  If we were worthy of it, it would be called our due, our wages.  It would be earned.  And because we can't earn it, because we can't perform to acquire it, our Flesh, our egos, our pride, hate it.  We rebel against mercy because it's freely given.  But here's a catch to the will of our Flesh: if we freely accept mercy, we rebel against our Flesh, and we are saved.
   The beef that Jonah has with God is the same beef that so many have had with God.  I don't doubt that a lot of us are annoyed by the thief on the cross who found God's mercy in his final hour.  He did nothing for the Lord his whole life, but found himself serendipitously in the presence of the Son of God in his last hour.  He repented, and he was shown mercy.  To those of us who have spent our lives in pews and prayer, this state of affairs is supremely unfair, because we will cross the threshold of God's presence beside this thief, this man who probably never did a thing God wanted of him prior to his moment of repentance.
   But oh, that is the beauty and the glory of salvation.  If mercy required a lifetime of proper service of us, none of us would have it.  Jonah must have thought he had earned mercy, or else he wouldn't have begrudged the Ninevites their mercy.  He was worthy in his mind; the Ninevites were not.  Many of us are worthy in our minds, but unfortunately for us, we are not our own salvation.  However, we are fortunate that Jesus is worthy, because in God's mind Jesus is us and we are him, and that means that in the mind of God, in the mind that matters, we are made worthy.

Miracle Workers

   God does miracles, let's agree on that.  But rarely does God do miracles without the cooperation of a person.  Think of the most impressive things God did that are recorded in the Bible.  Think of the parting of the Red Sea; God used Moses to perform that miracle.  Think of the altar soaked in water erupting in flame, and you'll remember Elijah as the instrument of that miracle.  Think of the battle for Jericho, fought and won with trumpets and torches.  Think of the 5,000 fed with a child's lunch of bread and fish.  Think of just about any miracle of which you've heard or which you've personally experienced, and chances are you'll see that God used some person through whom to perform it.
   God doesn't need us in order to work miracles, but He consistently uses us to work miracles.  This is important because it tells us that God prefers to work His power through us.  We can pray and pray for God to just do something miraculous, a firebolt out of the blue sky, but the reality is He will more likely deliver a spark through the hand of a friend.  This is the beauty and brilliance of being a Believer, being the conduit for the power of God.  And not just a conduit, but a repository of His power: the Holy Temple of His Holy Spirit.
   When you go looking, then, for miracles in your life, look around at the Believers in your life.  If you're going to see miracles, you're going to see them by way of a Believer - any Believer, as long as they have the faith to be a conduit.  The Lord makes it clear that He's going to do amazing things through us.  Jesus told the disciples,

"Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father." - John 14:12 (ESV)

The truth is that we should be working miracles, because Jesus tells us we will.  You need to expect that God is going to move in power through your fellow Believers.  More importantly, you should expect that He is going to move in power through you in their lives.  But if you expect this, both of them and of yourself, it's going to require some faith.  Your faith in what God can do is the determining factor in what He will do.
   If we don't have faith in the miraculous power of God, we become a broken link in the chain of what God can and wants to do.  Because God works through His people, He needs us to cooperate in order to do His miraculous work.  If we don't have faith in what He can do, we're not going to do what He can do; we're not going to be the instruments of his power, and the result is that no one sees the miracles of God.  We can't all come together in a room and expect to see a miracle if none of us are willing to perform the miracle.  It's one thing to ask God to heal the person in front of me, and entirely another to put my hand on them and believe He's going to heal them through me.
  We have to believe that we will be the miracle workers if we're ever going to see miracles worked.  Above all, this faith first requires that we sell ourselves out to the Father.  If we seek Him above all else, if we go after What He's after, if what we want is Him and everything He's doing, then we'll see the miraculous.  And we'll do the miraculous.
   The world needs His miracles, as much now as it ever did.  The world is still full of the blind, the deaf, the hurting, the imprisoned.  And God still restores sight and hearing; He still heals bodies and hearts; He still shakes prisons and opens the doors.  And just as He has often done in the past, He still does: He still uses His people to do what He does.  What a privilege to be His hands in this world, in this world that so needs His hands.  What a job to be the Miracle Workers.

Why Faithfulness is the Most Important Thing About God

"I will sing of the mercies of the LORD forever; With my mouth will I make known Your faithfulness to all generations.  For I have said, 'Mercy shall be built up forever; Your faithfulness You shall establish in the very heavens.'" - Psalms 89:1-2 (NKJV)

   God does not lie.  He never promises what He can't deliver.  He doesn't say He will do one thing and then change His mind and do another; or do nothing at all.  When He promises, he comes through.  When He says something will happen, it does.  What He says sticks, is true, never fails, and is always possible.

"Righteousness and justice are the foundation of your throne; steadfast love and faithfulness go before you." - Psaml 89:14

   All that God does, all of the Good that He is, comes by way of His faithfulness.  His righteousness and justice demand it; His mercy requires it; His love does not exist without it.  Faithfulness is what God is and does above all things, and everything about Him is wrapped up in this simple and exquisite truth: He is faithful.
   Because He is faithful, I know that these things are true:

He will never leave me nor forsake me
I am forgiven for my sins: past, present, future
He has put His Holy Spirit inside of me
I am righteous
I can do anything He calls me to do
He speaks to me, and I recognize His voice
He will never promise and not deliver
Death is defeated

Being a Vessel

   God has handmade each one of us, which any artisan will tell you is no small undertaking.  When you make something with your own hands, you put a little of yourself into it, which is why, I think, the scripture says we are created in God's image.  There's a little of Him in each of us because he handmade us; He "skillfully wrought" us, as David so beautifully puts it in Psalm 139:15.  In fact, Psalm 139 is a fantastic Homage to the Maker, and it reminds us that we are each unique and intimately known to our God.
   Each of us is a vessel.  Think of yourself as a vessel of clay, because you were essentially made out of dust:

"then the LORD God formed the man of dust from the ground..." - Genesis 2:7a (ESV)

   And like a well made vessel you were finished, with a glaze only God could make:

"...and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature."          - Genesis 2:7b

   So we are each of us vessels.  And a vessel is only as useful as what it holds.  For us Believers, we are jars of the Spirit of God; we hold something of immense value, power, and brightness.  And He likes each vessel He made.  He loves each vessel He's made, loves each one immensely and equally.
   Here's the thing: do not despise what He made.  Love what He made.  Jesus, when he wanted to convey just how much we should love others, said, "Love them like you love yourself."  This kind of statement assumes that you actually do love yourself.  And I don't think Jesus meant this in the sense of self-preservation.  We all want to survive, and I guess our sense of personal protection of our life is a kind of love, but it's a very shabby love when it's turned on to someone else.  If your friends only cared about you as much as they could keep you alive, I doubt you'd be answering their phone calls.
   No, I think what Jesus expects of us with this statement is twofold.  First, we've got to love ourselves as we ought to, because God thinks we're pretty damn valuable.  Second, we've got to love everyone else we run into with equal sincerity and heart, because God thinks they're just as valuable as us.
  On the fist point I need only point to one thing to show how much God values us, and that is Jesus.  I don't fully understand the ins-and-outs of how Jesus was all man and all God, but the essence of the gift of Jesus is that God gave up everything to have us back.  Jesus is the lamb who was slain before the foundation of the world -- that means that God knew what He was going to give up, and he went ahead and made us anyway.  That is some crazy kind of love.
   So knowing this is how God loves, Jesus expects us to take part in it and love our neighbors.  I'm not going to pretend like I know just how to love as Jesus commands.  Neither am I going to pretend that I do love my neighbors as I love myself.  I will however say this: I'm on the right track, because I love myself, this vessel He made, and I'm willing to love my neighbors with the same fervor.  And with God, motive is everything.
   Being a vessel is a beautiful thing, and a peculiar thing.  In a sense it requires us to be worthy of what fills us.  And in a sense it doesn't matter a lick.  If you were thirsty enough, you'd drink clean water out of an old boot just as soon as you would a crystal goblet, because what matters is what's in the vessel.  The same goes for the Holy Spirit.  Some of us look like old boots, all cracked leather and frayed laces, and some of us are as sky-bright and chiseled as crystal, but all Believers carry immense value inside.  And if we love the Lord, we'll love what He has made and we'll offer up what He made back to Him, and He will make it as worthy as it needs to be.
  So be a vessel, be the vessel that He made, and love what He made.  Only then will the love you give away be as valuable as the love that was given to you.
 

Earnestly Seeking

   When it comes down to it, the Christian Life is about motive.  As the scripture tells us, God looks at the heart; He looks past the display and the drama and looks into the motive of each one of us.  This is how He saw the king in the least of the sons of Jesse; how He saw the great leader of Israel in the bumbling figure of Moses; how He found conquering strength in the weakness of Gideon; and how he found a rock in the unpredictable actions of Peter.  God looks inside, not outside.  He looks at the motives behind the actions, not just at the actions themselves.
   God recognizes earnestness, and I think that it's something He prizes.  The term shows up in several scriptures, in situations befitting its definition of "characterized by a serious and intense state of mind".  When David is on the run from Saul, hiding in the wilderness of Judah, he sings:

"O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water." -Psalms 63:1

   Serious and intense are two good ways to describe David's need here.  Desperate and alone, on the run for his life, he is probably seeking God about as seriously and intently as he ever has before.  Of course, David's earnest need for God was not limited to his trials.  The Bible tells us that David was "a man after God's own heart," meaning his heart - his motivation - was in line with God's heart.  David is a great Biblical figure, and great man in general, because he earnestly yearned for who God was and is.
   Isaiah also expressed the deep need for God that comes from an earnest heart.  His motive was to speak what God spoke, and see prosperity brought to Israel again.  He ached to see Israel return to the Lord, to love God as he loved God.

"My soul yearns for you in the night; my spirit within me earnestly seeks you." -Isaiah 26:9

   You see, God can use an earnest heart.  In fact, He requires it of us if we are to be used by Him, to do great things in His name.  He requires that we seek after him seriously and intently.  God can't make much use of a flippant or thoughtless heart.  If we aren't after what He's after, yearning for him and earnestly seeking Him, how will we even know where He's going, or what He's up to?  If we don't want Him above all other things, there will be times when we just plain miss Him.
   I like this idea of earnestly seeking God because it feels like the best way to describe how I feel about the Lord.  There are other ways I could describe my need for Him.  I could say that I love Him so much that at times I don't know what to say.  I could say that I want so much more of Him that at times I don't know what to do.  I would like to think that my love for the Lord is so intense that I could find myself in a state like Jesus found himself in the Garden of Gethsemane as he waited to be delivered up to death.

"And being in an agony he [Jesus] prayed more earnestly; and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground."   --Luke 22:44

   I can't even imagine what this would feel like: to be in such agony, such a feverish state of mind and spirit, that sweat pours off of my face.  I believe that in this instance, Jesus is on the verge of sweating blood, which is why it says "his sweat became like drops of blood".  That is intense.  That is serious.  And that is how I want to go after God, with such intensity that I could sweat blood.

I Am Anointed

"The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me, because the LORD has anointed me to bring good news to the poor; he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound; to proclaim the year of the LORD's favor, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn; to grant to those who mourn in Zion-- to give them a beautiful headdress instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the garment of praise instead of a faint spirit; that they may be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, that he may be glorified. They shall build up the ancient ruins; they shall raise up the former devastations; they shall repair the ruined cities, the devastations of many generations.  Strangers shall stand and tend your flocks; foreigners shall be your plowmen and vinedressers; but you shall be called the priests of the LORD; they shall speak of you as the ministers of our God." - Isaiah 61:1-6

"Behold, how good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell in unity!  It is like the precious oil on the head, running down on the beard, on the beard of Aaron, running down on the collar of his robes!" - Psalm 133:1-2

   There is an anointing that was reserved for the high priests in Israel, and for the holy instruments of the Temple, and this anointing is now ours.

"But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light." - 1 Peter 2:9

   We are "a people for his own possession".  God wants us to be His.  He wants us to walk in the anointing of His Holy Spirit, bearing his name as a standard.  He wants to call us His own, and wants us to proclaim in turn that we are His.  Here is what God wants from us:

"And while he was at Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, as he was reclining at table, a woman came with an alabaster flask of ointment of pure nard, very costly, and she broke the flask and poured it over his head." - Mark 14:3

  God has anointed us, and what He desires from us is only what costs us the most.  If you are like me, the most costly thing you have to give is your heart.  If you are like me, your chest is an alabaster jar full of pure nard, a fragrance of value and pleasant, pungent aroma.  If you are like me you have spent much of your life with your arms crossed, protecting that jar and it's valuable contents.
   The scripture says that some who watched this anointing of Jesus with the nard said, "Why was the ointment wasted like that?"  Don't be shocked that they said this; they did not value Jesus as he should be valued.  We have all said this to ourselves, or even to God.  When we have gone our way instead of the Lord's way; when we have valued our will over His; when we have abandoned the unity of the brotherhood of Believers, we have said, "Why waste the ointment?"
   Be encouraged brothers, and let the anointing oil cover you.  Let the oil be poured over your head, drip down to the collar of your shirt, run in your beard until it drips off of your chin.  And do not hesitate to offer Jesus your heart in full, not in part.  Pour it out entirely over his head.  He is worth it.

What Atheism Seems to Be

   Before you read this post, read this article.

   The point I would like to make about atheism is this: atheism is not what it seems to be.  By definition, atheism is a belief that there is no God (from the Greek a (negating prefix) + theos (God), or godless).  It is not the same as nihilism (from the Latin nihil (nothing)), which we can interpret as a belief in nothing; or perhaps more accurately, a lack of belief.  Atheism is not a lack of belief.  In fact, the reason I say that atheism is not what it seems is that I believe that there is a good deal of belief (and faith) involved.
   While this is probably not the soundest policy for debating an idea, one could argue that it is just as difficult, if not impossible, to disprove the existence of God as it is to prove His existence.  Arguing this point, one could plausibly argue that atheism requires as much faith as Christianity.  I don't know that this conclusion would matter to an atheist, but I hope it would, because what it proves--or at least, what we can propose--is that atheism is a religion, just as much as Christianity is.  This point of argument probably would matter to an atheist.
   Look at the language that Susan Jacoby uses in her essay.  She talks about atheists as a group with a common identity.  She talks about atheism as a thing separate from herself which she finds comfort in or from which she receives aid.  She talks about the need to promote or defend atheism.  And her identity is wrapped up in it; she is, perhaps most importantly in her mind, an Atheist.
   This stance, this way of thinking about oneself, is a sort of photographic negative of the Christian identity.  While Susan Jacoby and many other atheists identify themselves by their disbelief in God, the identity itself, and it's definitive relationship to God, fit the identity of the Christian, only in reverse.  What I mean is, God figures in to both identities.  In the case of the Christian, God exists.  In the case of the atheist, God does not exist.  But the atheist needs for there to be belief in the existence of God in order to make the case that He does not exist.  Otherwise atheism would cease to exist as an independent movement or identity.  None of us would care that you don't believe in God if none of us believed in God.
   Atheism requires the faith that the rest of us are wrong.  In this sense, every atheist needs a Christian in their life, not only for the benefit of contrast, but to reinforce their core belief that there is no God.  I would argue that the reverse is also true: that every Christian needs to be friends with an atheist (at least one).  Because we have something they don't (a faith in God, and belief that God exists), something that we believe they need, we will find deeper faith in our position.
   To me, conversion to atheism from theism is rooted in the wrong assumption, and I would argue that the assumption is this: that God makes bad things happen.  Any Believer who reads (and believes) the Bible knows that God does not make bad things happen.  God has given man free will, and Satan prowls and lives on the Earth, so chaos is borne of the works of Satan and his demons, in conjunction with the free choice of all people.  From this perspective it would be impossible to turn to atheism because one believes God makes bad things happen, when one knows that He doesn't.  Of course it is unlikely that an atheist would believe that Satan exists either, since his very existence is dependent on God's.  So we see that conversion to atheism is fueled primarily by bad theology.  Most atheists would likely argue that their conversion was based on reason.
  Of course, it serves no real purpose to argue that atheism is a religion.  As we know from both history and experience, people will join groups for the sake of identity, and the most compelling reason to join any group is commonality of belief.  So it is natural that atheists will congregate.  What I would like to argue is that atheists need God, whether they believe in Him or not.  From a Christian perspective this is obvious.  We all need God.  God is the source and purpose of our existence, and He does not require our faith to exist.  But from a non-Christian perspective, atheists need for God to continue to exist (for Believers) so that they can define themselves.  In order to continue in their faith, they need my faith; they need our faith.  And truthfully, we need their doubt.  We need them to challenge us to live what we believe.  We need them to doubt the Father so that we can trust the Father.  But they need not doubt the Father forever, and that is where we come in.

Stop Playing Nice (or How to Be Angry)

"Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and do not give opportunity to the Devil."  -Ephesians 4:26-27 (ESV)

   Can I just admit in all honesty something you that might make you cringe (if you're a churchgoer, that is)?  I hate greeters.  I don't hate them personally, just that they are there.  You know, the men in suits who stand in the lobby of your local Baptist church and smile and shake your hand when you come in?  Their whole purpose is to be the Nice Face of the church.  Their whole purpose is to reassure you: See, we're nice people here; we're friendly!  Their whole purpose is to be your friend during your first impression.
   What I hate about greeters is just that they are so Nice.  There is something false about it, akin to paying someone to go to dinner with you.  In my idea of a church, a good church, a church in tune with the Lord, you wouldn't need to appoint greeters, people would walk in and feel the Holy Spirit, like you would feel steam if you walked into a sauna.  Not that there is anything particularly wrong with being friendly; it's the damnable Niceness I can't stand.
   Let me define Nice for us.  My meaning is that of being pleasant and agreeable, as most dictionaries define it.  But also I mean that tendency to deal meekly with people; to avoid stepping on any toes; just trying to make a good impression and keep people happy so that everyone feels good about everyone else, and there's no animosity or contention.  Nice people are passive, they are pushovers, they are mainly concerned about avoiding offense.
   Here is what I have said many times about the Baptist Church because that is my background, but which can be said for any denomination in the Body of Christ: they mistake being Nice for being Powerful.  They assume that it is bold to be nice.  Many people in the Church have assumed that there is power in being nice.  The truth is that there isn't.  But there is power in being angry.  The power of God resides in righteous anger.
   Look at what Paul says, quoting Psalms: "Be angry".  This is a command.  Paul (and God, who inspires scripture) is telling us what we should do.  And of course there is an important caveat, which is "do not sin."  That means, we should have righteous anger.  We should channel the anger of God.  And what is God angry about?  Sin.  His wrath is directed at sin because He is Holy.  And so, in order to conform to His likeness, we should adopt His anger.  So be pissed off at the devil.  Hate the crap that goes on in the world, the sin and misery and injustice.  For God's sake, be angry.
   It's so important to be angry, in fact, that Paul tells us to not let our anger abate.  Did you catch that?  You might have thought when he said, "Do not let the sun go down on your anger," that he meant, Don't go to bed angry.  But that's not what he's saying.  The phrasing here means don't let the end come to your anger.  Let it continue indefinitely.  Just like when the sun sets on the day, and that means that the day is over, so too Paul is saying don't let the ending of your anger come.
   I think that we have made the false assumption that we show our love by being Nice.  I can see where we got that.  The world has been working to make us Nice for a long time.  In fact, the Enemy wants us to be so damn nice that we'll become the doormats of everyone else.  You see, Nice People don't confront the errors of those around them, because confrontation isn't nice.  It's just not nice to call someone out when they're wrong.  While most Christians I know would not consider themselves "tolerant" in the liberal sense of the word, they also don't quite grasp how to "hate the sin and love the sinner".  It doesn't take a lot of nerve to decry gay marriage on Facebook, or to fund the Republican Party because they have a zero tolerance stance on abortion in their party platform.  Righteous anger will manifest itself to God's glory in our intimate lives -- with our friends and family, in our close relationships, in one-on-one conversations.  Righteous anger will bring a good deal of discomfort into our lives, and we won't be able to hid behind the skirts of an Organization, Association, or Party.
   Being Powerful as God has called us to be will inevitably offend some of those closest to us.  Even Believers will sometimes be offended by what the Lord has put in us, usually because we stopped being nice.  Whenever you speak Truth to someone, and someone else says, That wasn't very nice, you'll know you're onto something.  And if someone does say this to you, ask yourself: Yes, but was it True?  Was it Powerful?  And was it God?
   Be angry, and do not sin.
   You know something else God hates?  He hates confusion in His Church.  God does not create confusion, He brings order.  It's the devil that brings confusion.  The devil brings false doctrines and lies.  The devil creates rifts in churches over theology, over doctrine, and even over the color of the carpet.  The devil has perverted anger, just like he has perverted so many things from God, and now we find ourselves as Believers confused about anger, to the point that we'd just as soon resign ourselves to being nice.  Why deal with the conflict?  Surely God just wants us to be friends.  I think at times we put the words of Rodney King into the mouth of God: "Can't we all just get along?"  But what God really wants is for us to be like Him.  And He isn't nice.  He's kind, yes.  We know that because kindness is the fruit of the Spirit.  He is loving (in fact, He is love).  He is honest, dependable, faithful, and good.  But he isn't nice.  And so we shouldn't be either.

A Measure of Good

Finally, brethren, whatever things are true,
whatever things are noble,
whatever things are just,
whatever things are pure,
whatever things are lovely,
whatever things are of good report,
if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy—
   meditate on these things.

There is this measure we have of what is worth hearing, seeing, thinking, considering, meditating on, studying, researching, discussing, dissecting, understanding, enjoying.  I think about this all the time.  When I hear a wonderful song; or when I see a drawing or painting that is stikingly good; when I spy one of my children playing when they aren't aware I'm watching; when I eat something of fantastic flavor, or have an amazing cup of coffee; when a group of us fall upon something funny and can't stop laughing; when a scene in a movie gives me chills, or makes me cry; when I see in my wife's face some lovely memory; when the leaves turn in autumn and I almost can't bear the brilliance of it; when it rains in the summer and smells like a new world; when I spot a deer in the dark on my way to town; when the sound of a cello moves me to complete silence and stillness; when I walk on thick, soft grass; when I hear the thumping of my son's feet upon the wooden floor; when the bread is baked and brown and high and round; when the pantry and the refrigerator are full; when I am struck at the size of the world and the variety therein; when I read someone else's ideas, and am awestruck; when I read a book which I can't put down; when I can't stop saying, "It's just so beautiful"; when my breath is quick and my muscles tight from running; when the sun rises, as it did yesterday, as it may tomorrow, and I know the Lord is just as good as He has always been and always will be.

Strength in Weakness

But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.

-2 Corinthians 12:9 (ESV)

   When Gideon was leading the Israelites to battle the Midianites who had invaded their land, God looked at his army and said, "The people with you are too many for me to give the Midianites into their hand, lest Israel boast over me, saying, 'My own hand has saved me.'"  So God worked with Gideon to whittle an army of 32,000 down to 300 men, and those 300 men routed the Midian army.
   Now, that is a heartening story.  And Christians have the tradition of Gideon as a source of encouragement and strength.  We have Gideon himself as a symbol of strength, as a Judge through whom God delivered Israel from their oppression.
   However, the greater symbol Gideon presents for us is one of weakness.  Earlier in the story we find Gideon, the same man who will lead Israel in conquest over their enemies, squatting in a winepress so as to hide from the Midianites while he threshes some wheat.  God sends an angel to visit Gideon, and the angel says, "The Lord is with you, O mighty man of valor."  Surely this is irony, and Gideon says as much.  He says to the angel, in essence, Yeah Right!
   Gideon does not much endear himself to us after this.  God next tells him to tear down the altar of Baal, but since Gideon is afraid he sneaks out and does it at night.  Then God brings all of Israel to him; they are assembling for war.  They assemble around this man who is the self-proclaimed least of his house, which is the least in the nation.  So what does Gideon do?  He asks God to give him a sign if God indeed will deliver Israel by his hand.  God obliges, Gideon witnesses the sign, and then...he asks for another.  God obliges again.
   It's hard to feel sorry for Gideon when his army is reduced to 300 men.  God has performed a half dozen miracles for Gideon by the time we find him on the edge of war with his tiny force.  And yet he is still afraid, still doubtful.  And what does God do?  He encourages Gideon.  "Arise, go down against the camp, for I have given it into your hand.  But if you are afraid to go down, go down to the camp with Purah your servant.  And you shall hear what they say, and afterward your hands shall be strengthened to go down against the camp."  Gideon goes down, overhears the fright in the Midian camp, and the next day they begin to rout their enemies.
   If ever God's power was made perfect in a man's weakness, it was with Gideon.  In spite of his doubt, his fear, his lack of self-confidence - or rather, because of these things, God is powerful and victorious.  God does not require our strength to be strong in us.  He does not give us strengths so that we can accomplish what He wants for us.  I have no doubt that He gives us our strengths for a reason, and that we should make use of them, but even on our best day we will not accomplish what He can do.  There is comfort in this, and there is also frustration in it.  The frustration is for our Flesh, which wants to be the one to do it.  The comfort is for our Spirits, because we know that He is The One who Did It.
   There appears to be a balancing point between embracing our weakness (and thus embracing God's strength) and incubating doubt.  Gideon seems to refuse to take God on His word.  He so doubts that God will deliver Israel, especially by his hand, that he keeps asking for assurance.  Understand this: God deals in assurance as much as He deals in anything, but no proof will ever win over the hard heart of doubt.  Whatever his failings and doubts, this at least Gideon did: he believed God, finally.  For many of us who beat ourselves up for our weaknesses and despise our doubts, we too can probably say this much about ourselves--about some instance when we decided to believe on faith in the Lord--and feel that we too share in some of the good of Gideon.
   The way that God deals with Gideon's doubts is reassuring.  It is a picture of God's Grace.  That the Lord allows Gideon to go down and hear the Midianites fretting over Israel's army is, in this story, the greatest proof of His Grace.  He gives us what we don't deserve, even to excess.  He loves us so much that He holds our hands while we struggle to get where He's going.  And I think this is the important thing that Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians 12:9: that the Lord says, "My grace is sufficient for you."  So sufficient in fact that His power is made perfect in our weakness.  Even our weakness cannot hinder the power of God.