Lots going on. Lots happened in the last 18 months.

We’ll see whether or not I pick up the mantle again and carry this on.

Like having a child. Still waiting for that, though. Due date’s in three days, so any day now they can come!

Anyway, I am still here, still in ministry, still pondering how to do this thing and live life in a God-honoring way. And still reading books. Just not the ones I have in the sidebar at the moment…that’s the next update!

Hopefully, I’ll post more later. In the meantime,  back to whatever it was I was doing before.

Verses 16-19 describe the actual salvation that David experienced. It is entirely God’s doing. David’s enemy had no hope of stopping God’s plan to save David. And there was nothing that David did of his own that saved him. God plucked him from his misery. God saved. Sounds like Paul’s salvation by grace through faith. As the hymn writer says, “Nothing in my hand I bring, simply to Thy cross I cling.”

The last set of verses, 20-24, are a struggle for me, though. There David says that God dealth with him according to David’s righteousness, and that he had upheld God’s statutes – there was no fault on him. Where does this righteousness come from? Is it a righteousness credited to David somewhere along the way, as Genesis 15 says that righteousness was credited to Abraham? Is it akin to the righteousness we have by means of the blood of Jesus?

Since finishing Jerry Bridges’ The Pursuit of Holiness, I have been struggling with this – and the Bible passages I’m reading seem to keep bringing it up. What is my role? David could say he was blameless before God. I cannot do the same. Yet, I believe that Christ’s work is sufficient for my sin, that there is nothing that I can do other than bring what Isaiah called “filthy rags.” I feel a calling to live a holier life, and I struggle with the areas I know fall short that I cannot seem to change.

Pray for me. And I’ll be praying for you.

I’m not up to a daily reading yet, but I have been reading most days of the week, especially when I go int othe office at church. The whole goal of Powerd by 4 is to get people to read the Bible 4 times a week. Of course, the ideal is daily, but it gives us who struggle with maintaining a consistency in Bible reading a starting point. If you find yourself struggling in the discipling of Bible reading, I encourage you to check out their plan. They send out a daily e-mail. It’s great for me, because there is not a day that goes by that I don’t check my e-mail. Why I can be so faithful with checking e-mail and reading blogs but not sitting down for even 10 minutes to read and reflect on Scripture without a gimmick I cannot explain.

Anyway, after reading through Genesis 12-50, the daily readings have moved on to Psalms. We read the first ten Psalms before diving into Genesis, and we picked up with Psalm 11 after finishing the story of Joseph. Today’s reading is Psalm 17.

What a psalm! David is praying to God, and tells God that he knows that God can examine him and find nothing to fault David for. There is absolutely no way that I could say such a thing, and that is painful to admit. Old struggles rear their heads, things that I have fought in the past and am tired of fighting, so I just give in. And I justify them as “normal,” because I see so much of it around me, so many people who condone the things that I know are wrong. I look out and find comfort that I am not alone in my struggle. I find comfort by those who would find value in what in my heart of hearts I know is wrong. And I rely on the blood of Jesus to recover old sins that I succumb to again.

Not quite an example of Christian virtue.

David goes on in the psalm to ask God to save him from his enemies, and David speaks of his enemies as those who have looked to the world for their wealth and riches. They spend all of their energy in the here and now, looking to the next generation to “carry their legacy.” Do we not do the same thing?

David calls us to a higher standard: “As for me, I shall behold your face in righteousness; when I awake, I shall be satisfied with your likeness.” (Psalm 17:15)

I love the hymn “Face to Face,” where we sing about that day when we shall meet Jesus face to face after this world is through and we are part of the new creation. It will be a glorious day. I should be living for that, not for the good of the next generation. Not dwelling on the pleasures of the here and now that are fleeting. Eternity looms. God awaits.

And I’m too busy succumbing to old passions.

I’m pretty sure that this book is destined to be one of those that I read and reread over the course of my life. It serves as a good reminder of the depth of sin, the bleakness of it, the need to eradicate it from our lives. Surely such a thing would be obvious to those of us who identify ourselves as Christ followers, who have sworn our lives to serve the One whom we believe died for our sins. And yet it is so easy to forget. I’m not sure why. I just know that, having finished reading this book for the second time (I read it in college for a class), I am newly inspired to pursue a Christ-like life that can be described as pursuing holiness. I want it. And right now, I am even willing to get up at 5AM every day to demonstrate that.

Unfortunately, 11 hours from now will be a real test of that passion, and that’s just sad. That my life is challenged by that, and not defined by that. I am a Christian. A “little Christ.” I am part of His body. A hand or a foot or a little toe or a hair that protects from cold or something – I’m a part of His body. And I don’t live it. I have as my job the training of other members of His body. And I don’t live it.

It takes me a week to read a 158 page book about it, too. Arg.

I definitely need to reread this one once every few years, if not more often.

All of which can make it pretty awkward to be a pastor. Can you imagine the person I just described in the last paragraph when he enters a new church as a new minister for the very first time? Let’s just say it’s very energy-draining when I have to force myself to reach out and engage people, especially a lot of people or over an extended period of time (say once a week, every week).

I’ve excused myself from the typical role of the pastor as care giver, the pastor as the one who visits the sick in the hospital room, the pastor who leads the way in evangelism. I’ve excused myself by relying on the passage in Acts where the Jerusalem church leaders divide the work of the ministry among the deacons who minister to the poor and widows and the elders who focus on the ministry of the word. I’ve just understood my role as that of an elder rather than what was called in that passage a deacon.

So today I’m reading through the latest issue of Outreach Magazine, and I come to an article by Ed Stetzer called “Questions for McChurch.” The article is about the problems he sees with the multi-site movement among churches. (Actually, it’s rather interesting – the article leaves the impression that he’s in favor of the multi-site movement, but his contract with Outreach requires him to take the “contratrian” [his word] position, so he has to find things to be negative about the movement.) His first criticism on the multi-site movement among churches is about the pastoral role, and how the multi-site church really limits the amount of ministering the senior pastor can do in the traditional pastoral care roles such as praying over the sick, watching over the flock, and breaking bread with one another. And he goes on to say that, in the multi-site church, the senior pastor is rarely the primary care pastor.

That phrase struck me. Maybe it’s because doctors and medical care have suddenly taken on an explosive new role in the lives of my spouse and me because of the new bundle of joy we’ll be holding in a just a few more weeks, but I had never thought of the pastor in such terms. When all of those forms ask about a primary care physician, I had never thought of the idea of a primary care pastor. Who is that? Should it be the senior pastor always? Is it appropriate to have a pastor of pastoral care who handles all of that while another teaching pastor takes on the role of the sermons (like my ideal church setting would have it)? Were is the place for pastoral care in the role of senior pastor (or whatever you call that)? If the day comes for me to be a senior pastor, whose primary care pastor will I be? Do I need to be a primary care pastor for a set of people even now in my associate role?

Lots of questions. Few answers.

I am struck by a couple of aspects. One, that she praised God at all. I’m sure it was a pretty normal thing in the culture of the day to praise a deity for the gift of a child, particularly of the male variety. I guess she thought that since Rachel was barren (apparently), and she now had four sons for Jacob, that he status was secured, even if Jacob never loved her as he loved Rachel. In a way, I guess the praise feels “left over.” Like an afterthought or something. Especially since, when Rachel hands over her maidservant, the competition starts all over again with renewed vigor.

The other thing that strikes me, and contributes to the “left over” feeling, is that it took her to son number four before she gave praise to God. The first three were all about Jacob. Even her fifth and sixth sons she counted as wages due her by God for some action she had taken – something God provided for her on account of her circumstances, rather than an undeserved blessing for her simply to be thankful for.

And I guess I’m struck because I have the same tendency. God is down on the list. I eventually think of Him and even thank Him for the good things in life – the blessings. But it’s after they are here for a while, and I’ve enjoyed gloating over them or showing them off to someone else. It’s about me getting my status right first. Then I’ll give God the glory and the honor. Once I’m set up the way I want to be set up, then I’ll turn over the praise.

More ramblings that probably have little or nothing to do with what Rachel and Leah actually were dealing with in their lives. Besides, there are so many reasons that I cannot understand or comprehend what they were going through…beginning with my chromosome set.

It is titled “Train a Child; Affect the World” and the Scripture passage is Exodus 2:1-15. It’s about Moses being reared by his own mother in Pharaoh’s household. The line that gets me is this:

It was doubtlessly under his mother’s care that Moses trusted God for his salvation.

Pardon me? People in the Old Testament knew about trusting God for salvation? This is the guy who spent the first 40 years of his life as an Egyptian prince and the next forty years as a fugitive desert sheepherder for his father-in-law. It wasn’t until God encountered Moses in a burning bush – God being the actor here – that Moses’ life really took a dramatic turn. And he didn’t exactly leap at the opportunity to follow and serve God – he demanded a surrogate speaker from the God who can burn a bush without consuming it! That doesn’t exactly sound like “trusting for salvation” to me.

And I think the last forty years of Moses’ life had a lot more to do with the burning bush, ten plagues, divided sea, hand-carved commandment stones, rock-struck streams, and face-to-face conversations with a God who left his face glowing so much he needed a veil than anything from the first eighty years of his life. I think his mother’s rearing probably had a lot to do with his murdering an Egyptian guard at 40…..but personal trust in God as his Savior? That’s way too AD twentieth-century evangelistic crusade for me to believe it had anything to do with Moses’ spiritual life.

Besides, God, especially in the Old Testament, seems much more concerned with people groups (families, tribes, and nations) than with particular individuals apart from those groups.

Just my own thoughts and reactions.

In any event, the thought went on to ask the question about the reader’s own first encounter with God. What was it like? Jacob set up conditions (“If God does this, then I will do this”), but also set up the altar that he called Bethel (“House or Dwelling Place of God”).

I don’t know if I remember my first encounter with God. In fact, I’m sure that I do not. I remember when a tropical storm (or minimal hurricane, not sure which) went over the house we were living in on the Gulf Coast, and Mom gathered us in her bedroom and prayed to God to protect us. I was young then, maybe four or five. We were fine, as was our house. Is that an encounter with God? I remember flickers of what I call my salvation experience…being in my parents’ bedroom, talking with our church’s pastor, being baptized. Is that my first encounter? I can look back and clearly see places and times where God guided me, protected me, steered me, put me in the precisely right place at the precisely right time. Are any of these my first encounter? I remember as a senior in high school, ten years after that time in my parents’ bedroom, pacing up and down the street in front of our house, trying to figure out what to do with my life (so that I could finish my college application – singular – by writing down a major), and having the assurance that I would be in full time ministry. Without a doubt. Though I had no clue what that looked like (pastor? missionary? professor?). Just that ministry was it. Because I was 18, it’s probably the most vivid encounter with God that I can remember. But I wouldn’t call it my first encounter.

I guess my first encounter came before memories started sticking in my brain. Probably my mother singing to me or praying over me (or for me, in another room). I do know that my life is different from the lives of others in the world who have not encountered God in a significant way. While I often take detours down the paths of consumerism and commercialism and materialism, I’m always drawn back. Jacob was a conniving liar who stole from his twin brother and spent the remainder of his life cowering from him, but God still chose him and always drew him back into His plan.

Sometimes I wish I had a dramatic instant-change testimony like I sometimes hear at meetings or conferences or read about in books. But then I count myself lucky that my encounter with God is lifelong, ever present. I have, at times, flirted with doubts about God’s existence or providence, but never for long. He is always with me. Just like God promised to always be with Abraham, with Isaac, with Jacob, with their descendants. He is always with me.

That’s my Bethel.

Today’s Powered by 4 reading was Jonah 4. Jonah and Whale is a familiar to story to most anyone who grew up with any kind of a connection to the church. It’s a classic kids story. I haven’t been so faithful this week with the daily readings, mostly because I believed the four chapters of Jonah to be very familiar – tired and well worn. Not something that I need to read again, at least not this week.

I know. I should know better.

I am struck by the last two verses of the book. Jonah has been nudged not-so-gently into Nineveh. He walked three days into the city, proclaiming his message. The word gets to the king, and he declares that the whole city should repent, both man and beast. What evangelist today would not rejoice at such a turn in a city of 120,000 people – especially one with the reputation of Nineveh! Yet chapter 4 finds Jonah sulking over God’s grace towards Nineveh. He declares that this was the very reason he did not want to go to Nineveh and fled west in the first place – so God would NOT spare the city.

Jonah, sulking, goes out into the desert and sits down, waiting for the destruction of the city. God raises a vine overnight to shade him, and Jonah rejoices at the provision of shade. The next night, however, the vine is eaten away by worms, and it withers and no longer provides shade to Jonah. So he becomes even more bitter and angry. And God asks him if he has reason to be so bitter about the plant. Jonah responds that he does. And God asks, “Why the vine and not the 120,000 people of Nineveh? What makes the vine so much more worthwhile than they?”

How often have we fallen into the same trap, caring more for the fleeting things of life – the iPod or iPhone or dinner out or seeing the movie that’s getting all of the buzz or not missing an episode of our favorite show or cleaning out the dirt under our nails rather than the world that is dying around us? Are the people around us not of more worth than those other things?

It is a trap into which I easily fall. I pray that I will become more attuned to the world around me. To see more with God’s eyes. To place my time, effort, and energy into things that are lasting and worthwhile rather than fleeting.