Anger and Response

Looking primarily at Exodus five and six.

God has sent Moses to His ‘firstborn son’ Israel, to demand its release by Pharaoh.  Pharaoh increases their workload to impossible proportions.  Everyone is confused and hurt.  The people grow angry with God.

There is a movement in the church that claims anger towards God should be non-existent in the life of a Christian.  I agree completely.  They claim that if anger persists there is some false view of God, some mistaken understanding of His character and actions.  I agree.  Sometimes this is used to condemn those that feel angry.  There, I stand completely opposed.

I have been angry at God.  It has been almost entirely rooted in sin and pride, and in failure to trust.  Anger at God is never right.  Yet it will continue to occur in our hearts and within the church simply because we are not yet right ourselves.  We are not yet made to feel rightly.  As Beautiful Eulogy puts it, He still has not wiped away all our tears.  Is it right to be angry at God?  No.  It means that we are broken.  Does anger towards God therefore mean we are not His children?  No.  Never.  Simply that His children still have room to grow.

This understanding of brokenness allows us to express anger rightly.  Anger itself is not appropriate, but it is more inappropriate still to bury it under a cheap legalism that says ‘I should not feel this way’.  No, I should not feel this way- yet still I do.  The proper way, then, to respond to broken emotion is an honest expression of feeling to God, like Moses and so many other leaders of God’s people.

Moses approaches God and asks (with us), ‘Why?  How could You let this happen?  I was obedient, and now what?  Penalties and beatings and harsher workloads- how can this be Your will?’  He expresses his anger to God to Him.  Not, it appears, to the rest of Israel.

 

This is crucial.  Psalm 73:15 says "If I had said, “I will speak thus,”
I would have betrayed the generation of your children."  In consideration of the prosperity of the wicked, the psalmist is despairing in frustration with God.  Yet he does not proclaim his feelings to the crowd, lest the generation be betrayed.  Crucial, crucial wisdom here.  Wrong emotions are a product of a broken spirit, a slowly healing spirit, in relationship with God but not yet made whole.  Expressing these emotions, offering them to the Lord is necessary- but the means by which we do so can be either healthy or damaging.  We must act with wisdom and discernment in how we share our failures and brokenness.

In my season of despair during my senior year at Furman, I shared my experience with many, many friends.  Often their words inspired hope in me, even if only the meager hope that this too would pass, eventually.  I expressed my feelings in confidence and in despair, in unsurety but in humility, hoping for hope, begging for peace- offering, for wisdom and critique, all I felt and experienced so deeply in that season.  My hands were open, begging for bread, begging for water.

And I wrote many, many blogs, or half blogs, in despair.  It helped me process my feelings; express them, know what I felt and (in my better moments) offer them to the Lord.  I never published these, and I probably never will.  I have a document on my computer full of blogs from those ‘dark nights of the soul’.  But to share them would not inspire faith in the Lord, mine nor yours, and would do no good.  It may feel theraputic, some vomit of emotions, some ‘harmless’ venting, but in truth it offers only the false relief of accusing God, standing boldly as the arbiter of truth and justice.  Their tone is accusatory, like Job, and angry.  They held no form of humility, no assumption of brokenness, no assumption of the goodness of God.  They stood as a middle finger in the curled fist of my emotion, railing at the one I sometimes felt had cheated me, ignored me, forgotten me.  They would betray the generation, cast away the ones who looked up to me.  To publish my feelings and doubts would not heal them, but give them finality, continuing my claim to authority.  To publish my doubt was to continue in doubt, because they offered no waiting, no trust, upon a Lord who may yet save.  Who did.

The root of these emotions was the same, in both situations.  In both I came before God.  He can handle me coming in humility or in pride.  He knows me, regardless.  He knows my heart, regardless.  At least in offering my rage to Him I allowed Him to whisper healing into it, softening me.  And when I come in humility He could comfort, often in silence, reminding me of His forespoken love, pre-demonstrated beauty.

Yet in one form I shared my brokenness with friends, and in one I did not.  Even in the middle of my anger, I somehow knew to honor God with my lips*.  Nearly everyone knew I was in pain, I was broken, I was hurting.  I shared in individually and corporately, over the microphone and the telephone and in person.  I was not hiding my brokenness: the tension of a faith that is not yet fulfilled, of a kingdom here and coming.  Yet I guarded my words, so as not to speak faith, to walk in the Spirit, even as I felt only doubt and faith.  Call it hypocrisy, and you may be almost accurate.  But more than that, it was choosing to limit my doubt to my emotions, trusting Him with my conversation.

And so as Moses brings his case before the Lord, God speaks.  He reminds Moses of His nature, and offers him a promise: He says, “I will take you to be my people, and I will be your God, and you shall know that I am the Lord your God, who has brought you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians.”

He promises that they will know, because He recognizes that, while they may have trusted Him just days before, their faith now shakes with the pressure of their subjective experience.  Still, He promises that they will know.  His people will have certainty.

Immediately afterwards, Moses shares what he has heard with the people.  Scripture says that they did not listen to him, ‘because of their broken spirit and their harsh slavery.’  Does this nullify God’s word?  No.  Did it put into danger their position as His firstborn?  No.  Was it right for them to feel this way?  Certainly not.  Yet God was not daunted by their doubt, nor by their outright rejection of His plan.  He knew.  He foreknew.  And yet He called, and promised that one day they too would know.  Know Him, and His heart towards them.  His plan for them, so good and soothing and sating.

In summary, God calls us, often into things we don’t understand.  At times, we may experience anger.  It is evidence of brokenness within us, yet ought not to lead us into condemnation but instead into His very presence as we offer our feelings to Him.  While to share our brokenness (in honest humility, with choice friends) is good, even necessary, we are to be careful how we express it, and in what ways and before whom, lest we increase our sin in our anger by speaking wrongly.  A good test is to watch the posture of our hearts.  Had my heart hands, would they be open, begging, or curled into fists?  In both cases, we are to bring our hearts before the Lord for healing, and to be transformed more into trust and faith and hope by His ever present, promised love, but usually it is only in the former, in the posture of humility, that it becomes appropriate to share our hearts with those to whom we desire to minister, and from whom we hope to glean encouragement.

*credit to scripture and the conviction of the Spirit on that one.

A Day in the Life

While not the most creative of posts, this may be the most informative yet, to those interested in my doings.

Times are estimates, and my work schedule changes regularly.  This is, generally, what happens on a Tuesday/Thursday.

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8-9.  Wake up.  Sit on my bed and try to wake up/pray/figure out if there are any 'ox in the ditch' scenarios this morning.  Confirm, no, not unless I make something into one.

9-9:45, sometimes til 10:30, depending.  Read the Bible.  2-3 chapters of the old testament, 1-2 of the new.  Underline things that jump out.  Star things that really jump out.  If I have time, I might read back over the passages that seem to drift a bit longer before they settle in the past tense of my morning.  If I really have time, I might get out a calligraphy pen and write a section out.  Then, like this morning, if I want to meditate on it further, I'll sing the verse over some basic chords.  Today was Matthew 11:27-30.  All things are handed over to me.  No one know us, unless I let them.  Take my yoke.

Somewhere in the middle of that I probably wander downstairs to eat something for breakfast.  Today, breakfast casserole donated to the cause by my parents.  Delicious.

10:30 or so-11:30.  If I'm just making it down to breakfast now, I'll piddle around with some house maintenance stuff.  Take hooks off of an old board to be used to build a bike basket.  Strip an old pallet to use later for a compost bin.  Pull nails out of the wall.  Hang a picture.  Do laundry/empty the dishwasher.  Glue the legs back on a chair.  If I'm lucky another roommate will be eating breakfast, and we chat about job hunting or dating or the balance of work and rest.  Sometimes, like yesterday, I have to seek out someone from the night before to whom I need to apologize.  Those kinds of things weigh heavy on me.

If breakfast came earlier in the routine, I may have wandered back upstairs and found myself playing guitar, or checking my email, Facebook, blog.  One of my brilliant friends may have posted something great*, which often engages me for up to an hour.  Seldom would I spend that long on email or Facebook.  I get anxious.  Too much to keep up with.

11:30-12.  Snack, maybe piece of fruit or cupcake donated to the cause.  Check my work schedule.

12:15-2 or so.  Read a book**.  Or, like today, take a walk.  Watch for people who might be encouraged by prayer, or who look like they need help.  If I'm lucky, maybe find one.  A guy shielding his eyes, just out of MUSC, needs to borrow a cell phone.  Give him my sunglasses because he needs them, offer to pray, he accepts, and then he tells me to save his number in my phone and give him mine.  He an 'upcoming rap artist' in town, and his list of hit singles sound awful.  I say, great, yeah man.  Give me a call if you want.

On a good day, walk turns to worship, sit on a bench at colonial lake and pray, writing it out to help me stay focused.  Drink some water.  If I'm feeling good, maybe stop in at Black Tap and get some iced coffee and cucumber water.  It's delicious, and free.  For the cause, you might say.

Short walk today, because I have work at three.  Get back, slice up a tomato and a bell pepper, carrot, celery.  Toss them in a tupperware, re-purposed from a ham package.  The veggies are to go on top of the mixed greens (organic) and ham (thin sliced, honey baked) that I have waiting at work, in the kegerator, on top of the Green Flash IPA.

Grab a headlamp, tail light, helmet.  Dodge conversation, because I'm a little behind.  I bike to work, down Spring, across President, up Canon, down St. Phillips, left on Vanderhorst.  Pull in. Take off my, helmet, ruffle my hair.  Take off my Chacos, put on my closed-toe shoes (NB101, worn into the ground).  Say hello to the regulars.  Ask the professor what she's working on today.  Check on so-and-so's back.  Tom.  Fancy seeing you here.  How's the second office?

Chuch bell rings, three strokes.  The time clock is a little behind, but I'll start anyway.  Keep the bosses happy, or just serve them well, or better, bless them.  The motivation depends on the day.

3-6. Make a TON of lattes.  Pour some beers (lots of Allagash, currently, but soon to be dominated by Westbrook and Bells.  That brewer's night is going to be fantastic).

6-6:15.  Sit down to eat a little dinner.  Salad with ham and chopped vegetables from earlier.

6:15-10.  Run register, wash dishes, make more lattes.  A little anger surfaces towards Starbucks for blended drinks.  Snag some chocolate chunks that fell out of the pastries.  If I'm really hungry, split a cookie, or put my salad on a croissant and panini press that sucker.  Delicious.

10-11,11:30.  Close. Turn music volume way down.  Play something more relaxed, like Balmorhea or 'The Melody of Rhythm' with Bela Fleck.  Clean.  Wipe down tables, flip chairs, sweep, mop.  Restock.  Count the register.  Fill out paperwork.   Lock up.  Turn off the fountain. Turn on lights. Bike Home.

11:45-12,12:30.  Chat with roomates, snack, brush my teeth.  Put in bite guard, so I don't grind my teeth.

12-12:30.  Bed.  Read if I'm not that tired.  Check my alarm to make sure it's set if I have to work early tomorrow.  Drift to sleep.  Roll over to recheck my alarm.  Sleep.

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*The link near breakfast is to a friend's photo blog who documented a day in my life for a school project, the inspiration for this post.  She also caught an afternoon sailing, which makes me seem much cooler than I usually am.  Check it out.

**Books currently reading/recently read: 'The Two Towers', Tolkien.  'A Long Obedience in the Same Direction', Peterson. 'Red Moon Rising', Grieg and Roberts.

What are You Doing Here?

Elijah has just demonstrated the sovereign authority of Jehovah when the apostate queen Jezebel orders his execution.  His performance (or rather that of the Lord God) has called her spiritual claims to authority into question, and thus Elijah has been condemned.  And that paragraph sounds like a textbook.

He flees to the wilderness, leaving even his servant behind (lack of trust, perhaps?  desire for a martyr's end?), and asks the Lord to take his life.  The greatest of triumphs has lead to his apparent conclusion.  For what should he live?

The Lord feeds him, and then Elijah fasts and makes a pilgrimage to the mountain called Horeb, where the Lord met Moses so many years ago.  The Lord speaks to him in a cave there, and asks "What are you doing here, Elijah?" Elijah explains what has happened.  Then the Lord promises to pass by the cave, and tells Elijah to come before Him.

Many of us begin to recognize the story here.  First, there is a wind that breaks apart the stones.  Then an earthquake, then a fire.  But the Lord remains distant.  Then, in the silence that follows, Elijah, sensing the imminence of the Lord, covers his face [to preserve his life] and steps to the entrance of the cave.  I imagine an anticipation so great as would replace the rhythm of his heartbeat with that of a hummingbird, the silence before a terrifying scene in a thriller, or the moment between the celebrant's question and the bride's 'I do', if she can stand to wait even a moment.  This silence is thin, one translation says, like the Celtic descriptions of holy places.  A thin place, a liminal place.  A threshold.

And there, the Lord breaks His silence.  He speaks, and asks his servant, "What are you doing here, Elijah?"



I feel so often that the Lord has placed a desire on my heart, has called me out into something, but as I have walked and waited on his further guidance I hear the question echoing through me, "What are you doing here, Drew?"

It's not a critical question, if I let it sit long enough.  At first if feels harsh, challenging, confrontational.  But it isn't, not really.  It's a question primarily born of relationship, and of waiting, and of a desire for me to be trued as a wheel.

At first glance, though, it can be frustrating, even disconcerting.  You called me here, didn't you Lord?  You put these desires in me, these longings, yearnings.  Or, so I thought.  What am I doing here?

But the question echoes still.  What are you doing here, Drew?  As this scripture simmered over the past few days, I have sensed a chuckle behind it, good-natured and inviting.  His question lends itself to the molding of my humility, to the purification of my desires, to the increase of my persistence or long-suffering.  It's a walking question, a relationship question, a question, again, that produces a holy tension not meant to be quickly resolved.

This question has moved me from frustration to worship, as I have realized that it does not negate my desires.  As he asked Elijah the second time, the Lord did not mean him to second-guess himself.  The Lord had told him to come, after all.  Instead the question encourages my faithful listening, the pruning and purifying of my desires.  The tension, there produced, is a crucible, burning away the fearful longings added by the flesh and the needy discolorations of the world.  When my desires finally settle on Him, rooted in love and joy, I see the question's tension as it was purposed: to be beautiful, directive, purifying.  Rare are these moments, in which I find my desires properly aligned, but so beautiful are they that they are cause for meditation and wonder.  They seem to come either in the presence of sheer beauty, or in the weightiness of deeply rooted tension. Or, more often, in amalgamations of the two.  Like when, on a beautiful Charleston night, a friend calls to share hard news.  Or as found this morning, sitting by Colonial Lake and praying though my jumbled yearnings.

What are you doing here, Drew?

Often in the Tanak (old testament), as the Spirit reveals dreams and visions to the prophets, an angel (or the Lord) will ask, 'What do you see?'  The prophet can only respond, 'Lord, you know.'  Perhaps these questions are intentionally rhetorical and repetitious.  Perhaps they seek less a resolution than a reliance, less an answer than awe.  These questions force us back to the Lord, to wait on Him, and worship.

My experience in these thin places is limited, but I sense that it is from these crucibles of desire and restraint, of tension, that the Lord speaks, and matures us.  As we find ourselves here, turning from frustration to prayer, waiting and worship, we are prepared for growth.  Perhaps, as we find ourselves here, in the liminal silence of pilgrimage and waiting, we are truly closer to God than when we think we have reached a resolution.  What are you doing here?  Lord, you know.

And off to work I go.

When to Stop Waiting

A friend asked a great question of me this weekend.  She asked, how do we know when to stop waiting.  When should we stop being alone, by ourselves?  At what point do we say, well, this isn't working, and try something else?

Great question, and one I've wrestled with.  A dangerous one.

A year or two ago, I was so frustrated with trying to walk with God, in every way I could think to walk, that I was tempted to simply walk away.  The season lasted for nine months or so-  what kept drawing me back was the beauty of creation, namely fireflies and Paris Mountain.  I couldn't walk away from the goodness, the beauty, that God put in front of me.

But a question like this may have lead me there.  I have spent most of my life approaching God for something.  Usually, it wasn't for anything more than assurance, or direction.  I wanted to hear His voice, feel His presence.  I spent much time trying to experience the Spirit, in whatever way I thought I could at the moment.  Which is fair, and a good pursuit.   Often, scripture discusses the experience of God.  The book of Acts mentions 'times of refreshing' that will come 'from the presence of the Lord', in line with the 'blotting out of sins' and the return of Jesus as the threefold result of repentance and faith.  David wants to be a bird in the sanctuary, to build a nest and stay there.  Countlesss theologians, mystics, and everyday Christians have experienced the presence of God, some once or twice and others regularly.  'Pursuing the presence of God' is attested to, then, by scripture and the 'cloud of witnesses' flitting about.  And by my experience as well.  I have felt moments of overflowing joy, of deep deep love, some out of nowhere and some with cause.  I have felt a gnawing excitement, as though something desired to be expressed but could be contained with no words.  I've been shocked and moved and challenged and drawn by experience, and that is a good thing.

The danger comes when we seek the experience of God over God Himself.  Imagine a date, meticulously crafted, five course meal and candles and flowers and all the trappings.  And then imagine your date focusing exclusively on making sure the date runs smoothly.  Continually asking you how everything tastes, checking the oven, taking the temperature of the chicken, lighting more candles, moving the candles around, asking how you like the candles, taking pictures, taking notes on how to do it better next time-  obnoxious, right?  Because the date happens whether everything goes perfectly or not, regardless of the 'experience'.  And really, the point is not the feeling of romance, but the presence of love towards the other person, sometimes manifest simply by sitting together.  Perhaps even in silence.  How many of us have said, at one time or another, how much we diesire someone just to sit with, to read a book next too.  There is intimacy in that, in waiting with eachother, that does not rely on any 'accomplishment'.  Because it's not about achieving, but about being.  Or, more accurately, about being with.

So it is, I think, with God.  Are big production dates bad- no, of course not.  Are feelings wrong, or inferior, or of no importance- of course not.  But they are not the point.  The point in intentional time together is the being together, whether that looks like speaking, listening, mutual enjoyment of something else, or simply being silent.  God is good, and beautiful, desirable and experientially present.  But we do not need a 'new' experience of that to prove it to us again and again.  At some point, we must worship, be in relationship, in faith, in trust, in remembrance of who He is and (you guessed it) what He has done.  Waiting may be best termed a call to remembrance, or to meditation, to slow savoring of the beauty that we know.  Because we do know it. And an opening to whatever else the Lord may have.  Because sometimes He does have something new.

God did not reveal himself to me emotionally for the better part of a year (with little exceptions here and there) to teach me to pursue Him, not the experience.  I tried everything I could think of to kindle a flame, but each seemed to fail to achieve what I sought.  Now, when I wait on the Lord, I try to sit not in expectation of some new experience, but in faith of a present God, Emmanuel, waiting with me.  Expectation not of something new, or surprising, but of something that has always been there.  The loving presence of God.  Is that easy for me, no, not a chance.  But it's good for me. I still yearn for a new experience, as I think I always will.  And, with an infinite God, there will always be new.  But the old is no less valuable, no less beautiful, no less real, if the new is not present as I'd like it to be.  The truth of God remains, His spoken word continues to reverberate in His creation, and His beauty is not in jeopardy.  We seek, knowing we have already found Him, and so in peace.  We listen, knowing He has already spoken, and so in satisfaction.  We love, and we wait, and we sit with Him.  And that is enough.

That's not very practical, but opens up some conversations, I think.  I want push back and challenge on this one, dear reader.

On Waiting

In seeking to follow the Lord, a friend* told me to stop stepping back to analyze the signs and instead to step in, deeper, and listen to what the Lord was saying, now.  Another** asked how to know when to stop waiting.  This is a prayer that merges the two thoughts, written on a walk today.  Bit of a ramble, but so was the walk, though neither as much as you'd think.
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Lord,

I am moved.  I'm not sure why. I feel attentive.  I feel more aware, awake, more curious.
I desire certainty, of course, and of course there is none.  And I worship you.

I wait for you.  But for how long?
Do I wait for something?  Do I simply wait
upon you, breathe in you, listening for your all-speaking silence?

Oh Love that will not let me go,
I cling to your fingers.
Point, but only if it will not loosen Your grasp on me.
Speak to me, Lover of my soul.
Father of my desires,
make them burn as the pyre of all fleshly thoughts.
Do I yearn rightly?
Let me burn brightly,
My yearning true and hot,
that I would know myself better,
that I may better give myself to thee.

The glimpses of beautiful things
lead me to the bend
and to an intersection, a division, a fork,
leave me breathless, hopeful, and wonderfully unanswered, un-assured and secure.
I breathe deeply, for any smell, and trace, any taste;
I look deeply.
A decision to be savored.
A question worth waiting upon, instead of an answer worth waiting for.
Breathing in, listening as its crevasses respond to my searching, listening ears.

How wide, deep and long; the space to be
filled, the room to be furnished
slowly, in pieces, as each is found abandoned and broken,
salvaged and repaired,
pieces of one into the other
to make one whole and strong,
scarred, sacred, weathered and resigned to beauty;
a beauty that worships Creator and Redeemer and Sustainer,
A guaranteed beauty, of hands and care and love,
of a never resigning Carpenter, a never sleeping Caretaker-
One who walks in the garden.

I am moved by you, Lord of heaven
and earth.
I am moved by your voice, by your presence, your creations.
I worship You.

The Healer unifies, the Healer repairs;
Was not My Spirit in this all?
I wait on you, I wait on You.
We wait, give weight, lean and dance.
You wait on me, and take my weight, all weight,
all wait, since in the beginning of time You knew,
and waiting, breath baited, to draw me in
and dance.  To wait, to breathe, to rest and look, to run.
Glorious indecision: the tension that pulls
into bend and swing, sling, slung into motion.
Lord, you lead, and I wait, and pull back,
and lean,
to be brought forward into greater things.

And I will be moved,
And I do not know;
Yet I am acquainted with your ways,
and am in relationship with the tension,
and I worship You.

Decision sprouts, and clarity grows
from nothing, to nearly nothing, to slightly less than something,
sharp moments of distinction-
death to life,
leaf or blade,
climb or crawl, or reach, stretch,
amidst waitings and hopings and unsureties.
I pray, Lord, I wait, as watchmen for the morning.

What life do you bring me,
as light from the dawn reaches through tree and through window
to wake me?
I am awake, aware, attentive.  I am waiting.
I am moved, moving, resting and walking to the Battery.
Order my steps.
Lead me in the way everlasting,
the wait everlasting;
the worshipful tension
of waiting upon you
forever.

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*Ben Thompson
**Lizzy Willingham