Hope

Micah 7: 7 NIV

But as for me, I watch in hope for the Lord.  I wait for God my Savior; my God will hear me…

Why Is There So Much Waiting?

The other day I needed to call the city garbage service because the church recycling dumpster hadn’t been emptied.  I spent twenty minutes waiting on the phone for someone to help me.  Later I tried to figure out how to get my new Bluetooth speaker to sync with my computer.  I searched on line for solutions and nothing worked.  After an hour going through various options trying to locate the Bluetooth device in my laptop, I discovered that I did not have one so I would need to buy a device to plug into it that would allow me to have Bluetooth.  The next morning I went down to an electronics store only to discover that it did not open for another hour and so I returned to my office and went on with my work.  That night I returned to the electronics store and purchased an inexpensive device that would give me Bluetooth capability.  In the morning I opened the packaging and installed the adapter.  It worked.  I excitedly turned on my speaker and tried to connect to it with my computer.  No sound came through my speaker…at least no musical sounds.  I could tell that it was wirelessly connected to my laptop because the speaker actually told me it was but I could not get it to play my songs from ITunes.  I was able to finally get in touch with a service representative from the company that made the speaker and after an hour on the phone with her trying various suggestions for getting it to work, I discovered that the Bluetooth wasn’t the problem nor was the speaker.  It was ITunes.  I then contacted Apple services to try to find out why ITunes would not let me connect with the wireless speaker and all the service rep could offer was to download the latest version of ITunes.  This of course took time and didn’t change anything.  He was supposed to call me in an hour to see if downloading the new ITunes version took care of the problem.  Hoping that he might be able to provide a solution, I counted down the minutes until the Apple rep promised he would get back in touch with me.  I regretted getting the speaker.  I regretted getting my laptop.  I regretted having music on my computer.  Yet I still had hope that I could eventually get the speaker to work with my computer but all the waiting seemed like a terrible waste of time. What a hassle!

It may seem to you like half your life is spent waiting.  You wait for the traffic to clear.  You wait in line at stores.  You wait to see your doctor.  You wait for programs to download.  You wait for your children to finish their work.  You wait for phone calls or text replies.  You wait for work to end or school to finish or graduation to come or the wedding to arrive.  You wait to be loved.  You wait to get over illnesses.  You wait for answers that never seem to come.  Many times you wait and do not even know if all your waiting was worth it.  Yet you do wait, hoping that something good will come of all your waiting.  For many the waiting is so painfully long that they weep silently by themselves.  Others get angry and take out their frustration on their family members.  Some grow depressed.  Plenty stop trying.  Many lose hope!  Waiting takes its toll on you.  It can break your heart and sometimes your health.

One of the most famous verses in the Bible indicates that waiting can be good for us.  But it is not just random waiting; it isn’t every kind of waiting that helps us.  A particular type of waiting is what improves our lives.  The King James Version of the Bible translates it this way.  But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint. (Isaiah 40:31 KJV)  Notice the difference in how the NIV translates this same verse.  …but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint. (NIV)  The King James version translates the Hebrew verb Kavah as “wait” and the NIV makes it “hope”.  The difference between the two at first glance seems wide.  Few of us like waiting, but hope, that sounds good.  Hope is what you do within; wait is what is forced upon you.  We wait because we have to wait.  We hope because we choose to hope.

Yet if you think about it, waiting is something that is required for hoping.  Hope cannot occur if there is not something delayed; something that potentially is on the way.  Hoping without waiting is like having an ice cream sundae without ice cream.  Hope is by definition a form of waiting.  You can of course wait without hope but you cannot hope if you do not wait.  Now our verse that we just considered makes a distinction that must be pondered.  There is a waiting that is not “upon the Lord” and hoping that is not “in the Lord”.  Only hoping or waiting that has the Lord at the center of it is promised a renewing of strength.  Your waiting that does not make God its object might result in renewed strength but there is no promise of it.  Hoping or waiting that makes God the reason for hope or the object of waiting always results in a growing stronger, a moving forward and going somewhere.

The Bible warns about certain kinds of hope.  Command those who are rich in this present world not to be arrogant nor to put their hope in wealth… (1 Timothy 6:17 NIV)   Likewise, it is foolish to hope your power can protect you. When a wicked man dies, his hope perishes; all he expected from his power comes to nothing. (Proverbs 11:7 NIV)  Entire countries and city states have hoped that all they have accumulated in trade and industry will keep them safe but they have been proven to be terribly wrong in such hope.  Tyre has built herself a stronghold; she has heaped up silver like dust, and gold like the dirt of the streets. But the Lord will take away her possessions and destroy her power on the sea, and she will be consumed by fire.  Ashkelon will see it and fear; Gaza will writhe in agony, and Ekron too, for her hope will wither.  Gaza will lose her king and Ashkelon will be deserted. (Zechariah 9:3-5 NIV)  The horse in the Bible and other ancient writings has long symbolized the vast assortment of weapons of warfare that armies count on to bring them victory but there is not a weapon invented that can save a nation from God’s judgement. A horse is a vain hope for deliverance; despite all its great strength it cannot save. (Psalm 33:17 NIV)  In the end, death puts a stop to all hope not resting in God.  For what hope has the godless when he is cut off, when God takes away his life? (Job 27:8 NIV)

What is often misunderstood about hope is that there are two types of hope.  The first is a hope based upon evidence that is contrary to what will take place.  It is like hoping you will be proven right that the earth is flat.  Adam was wrong to hope that following Eve’s lead would make them both happy.  King David was wrong to think that gathering more wives would improve his life and Sarah was wrong to put her hope in letting her husband sleep with the slave girl Hagar.  The outcome of hope is not always happiness or peace or security or contentment.

The second sort of hope is built on evidence that is aligned with what shall take place.  The evidence may be slight, nearly nonexistent, like Mary and Martha hoping Jesus would save their brother Lazarus but what hope they had was placed in something that would happen. Their hope of course was proven right when Christ raised their brother fron the dead.  Neither the amount of evidence nor the sort of evidence is what determines if a particular hope should continue.  All that matters is what the outcome will be.  Now this is where it gets tricky.  When God looked at Adam and Eve, even after they sinned, He had hope that He could turn their lives around.  Why?  Because He knew what He was going to do for them!  When Jeremiah looked back at Jerusalem and the walls of the city that had been destroyed, the buildings that had been wrecked and burned to the ground, the dead bodies scattered about, he had hope that it would be rebuilt because the Lord told Him it would be.  The thief dying on the cross next to Jesus had hope that he had a wonderful life ahead of him because Jesus told him that the same day he would be with Christ in paradise.

What makes hope, hope?  It is not the evidence you possess or the lack of evidence there, it is the fact that the object of your hope has not yet come to pass.  Hope must always involve waiting.  Hope does not exist if there is no waiting.  What you want to happen or expect to happen or dream of happening is stalled for one reason or another; that is why you hope.  Hope though must be carefully considered.  Not all hope is the same.  There is hope that will break your heart and hope that will give you joy.  In the Bible there is the account of a woman who seemed to be infertile or perhaps was.  Her misery over being childless was extreme.  When God told Hannah through a prophet Eli that she would have a child, she left the Temple happy because she was certain that it was God telling her she would become pregnant.  All the time she stayed in Jerusalem with her husband and as she traveled back to her home, this woman maintained hope that she would eventually be a mother.  It had not happened and even when she became pregnant, before she knew she was pregnant, she had to rely upon hope to see her through.  But then when she gave birth to a son, Hannah no longer had hope of motherhood because hope did not exist there any longer.  When Josiah the King gathered his army and went off to fight the Egyptians, he had hope that he would defeat them.  But, he did not have any indication from God that he would succeed and when he died in battle, Josiah’s hope died with him.  It matters what is the basis of our hope.

Years ago the Lord told me that Mary Jo and I would have Rachel our daughter.  It was just as certain that Christ spoke to me about this as if a voice filled with thunder burst into my ears.  Of course, we did not have Rachel yet.  I had hope that we would have Rachel and now we do.  I also at one time hoped that I would make my high school basketball team but I did not.  My hope was based not upon what God shared with me but upon my own desire to make the team.  It matters what your source of hope is.  How do you know if your hope is built upon God or not?  It is difficult at first.  Many times you will be wrong. But there are certain things in the Bible that are clear and sure but have not come to pass yet.  You know your hope in those things is hope generated by God.  You must never back off from hoping about them.  But what about praying for things to come to pass?  Why is it so important that we pray for things?  Prayer is hope…it is always hope.  But it is a mixture of hope in God and hope in what you want, hope generated by your thoughts.  How do you know that when you pray, your hope is from God or from you?  For a while you don’t.  You are guessing.  But as your ability to hope in God grows by means of your experience of faith in Him and love for Him, you will hope more and more through God and less and less through yourself.  You will begin to realize what should be an object of hope for you and what shouldn’t because you will know what Christ is saying to you about it.  Eventually, your hope will be the same as God’s hope and when that is so, every prayer you pray will come to be.

In the Bible we are told that hope is always going to exist, that we will never get past waiting.  We will forever be anticipating something of God, looking forward to something from Him.   And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love. (1 Corinthians 13:13 NIV)  Waiting, just like hope, will always be with you and me.  It is not an enemy.  It is a mechanism by which our faith grows and our love for Christ deepens.  Hope in anything is a waste of time if it does not start with your love for Christ and your confidence that He loves you and that He will work everything out in your life so that eventually you will be perfect in every way.  When you have that sort of hope, hope in Christ, hope in His love for you, it will be wonderful waiting for what comes next.

But as for me, I watch in hope for the Lord, I wait for God my Savior; my God will hear me.  Micah 7: 7 NIV

Unmasking Christ

Isaiah 48: 6 NIV

"From now on I will tell you of new things, of hidden things unknown to you.”

What Do You Know About Jesus?

The other day I stood at the door while eighth graders filed past me as they entered the classroom where I was to be their substitute teacher.  I heard one say, “Oh, we have a sub!”  I don’t know if that was good or bad.  Was she happy there was a substitute teacher or disappointed?  I wasn’t greeted.  Eye contact was not made with me.  The girl just walked past me and made the declaration, “We have a sub!”  She did not know me and I did not know her and it seems unlikely we would ever come across each other again in this life unless of course I was a substitute teacher in another class of hers.  What struck me was that I was a category, not a person.  The only characteristic I possessed that this young teen cared about was that I was a sub.  She was not wondering about me at all.  It did not matter if I was young or old, married or single, a father, a Raiders or a Patriots fan, a Christian or a Muslim or a Hindu, an intellectual or a high school dropout, a nice guy or mean and disinterested in what I did.  The girl did not even worry herself over whether I was a human being or some creature from another galaxy.  I was a sub and that was all that mattered.  This girl did not have any interest in knowing anything else about me.

When someone like the famous atheist Carl Sagan makes clear that he has no interest in finding out anything about God, no one is surprised.  It seems normal for him to not even have a bit of curiosity about the Creator.  When someone who is Hindu or Buddhist makes no effort to learn about Christ, we aren’t shocked.  But if a person who claimed to have an interest in Christianity did not care about finding out what God was like or how Christ thought about things, we might wonder about that.  It would maybe be odd if you did not show interest in knowing more about God; if you were in fact satisfied that you knew all you cared about knowing when it came to Christ.  Now we come against a rather stunning discovery.  Many Christians without saying it have decided they know all they need to know about Christ; that they have come far enough in their understanding of Him to be satisfied.  What about you?  Have you gone as far as you care to go in your familiarity of God and what He is like?  What is your true interest level in God and how He is personally?

When we think of heaven and eternal life and the rewards of God, we don’t generally think along the right lines of all this.  Jesus defined the chief characteristic of eternal life when He was praying in front of the disciples just before being arrested and crucified.  He declared, “Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.” (John 17:3 NIV)  Eternal life is knowing God; knowing Jesus Christ.  That is all there is to it.  Nothing about streets of gold or great food or new bodies!  The most crucial aspect of eternal life is knowing God.  The verb translated “know”, has two qualities to it.  It is intimate knowledge, not hearsay, not proclaimed and overheard but personal knowledge that is experienced.  Second, it is a knowledge that keeps developing, keeps happening.  It is not the knowledge of a moment but the knowledge of everlasting, of never-ending.  Eternal life is God and more God and more God.  It is like falling in love and never wanting to back away or take a break but being so head over heels in love that you cannot get enough of the one you love.  There is always something more wonderful and beautiful to discover, always something more fascinating and electrifying to learn.  That is eternal life.  Getting to know God more and more and never being bored of it, never getting weary of it because it is too good to quench.

Here is the problem we face.  We have the heritage of Adam and Eve as our own.  Before Adam sinned, he walked with God and enjoyed Him continuously but as soon as he sinned, Adam hid from God and did not want to be seen by Him, did not want to talk with Him or be with Him.  That is the heritage of the human race.  Sin has made God irrelevant in us; unattractive to us and uninteresting.  We certainly want Him to give us something but the interest is more in what He gives than who He is.  It is like Jacob, who when he found out his father Isaac was going to bestow a blessing on Jacob’s older brother Esau, he dressed up as Esau to fool his blind father into giving him the blessing rather than who his father wanted to have it, Esau.  Jacob did not care how it hurt his father to be fooled.  He did not love his father enough to let him do what made him happy.  He did not want to know why his father felt strongly about giving the blessing to Esau. Jacob just wanted the blessing…but…and we are not being too judgmental to see it…Jacob was not very interested in the father behind the blessing.  That is the curse of sin in us.  It makes God less inviting and less desirable than whatever He might give us.

There is a fascinating case study in the Bible of just what it is like to begin the journey of eternal life and it is a mirror of our own experience.  When Jesus invited Peter to follow Jesus, he knew enough about Christ to do so.  What information he had, we cannot say exactly but it was enough for Peter. As Jesus was walking beside the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon called Peter and his brother Andrew. They were casting a net into the lake, for they were fishermen.  "Come, follow me," Jesus said, "and I will make you fishers of men."   At once they left their nets and followed him. (Matthew 4:18-20 NIV)  Sometime later, after having seen some of Jesus’ miraculous deeds and listened to Him teach, Peter made a most surprising decision.  When a great storm arose on the Sea of Galilee and Peter was with the other disciples, off in the distance came someone walking toward them on the water and everyone in the boat thought it was a ghost.  It was of course Jesus and when the Lord reassured them that it was Him, Peter asked if he could climb out of the boat and walk on the water too and Jesus told him to come on out and join him.  But after just a few steps, Peter looked at the waves and his faith in Christ sank.  Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus.  But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, "Lord, save me!"  Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. "You of little faith," he said, "why did you doubt?" (Matthew 14:29-31 NIV) Now Peter knew by experience, personal experience, something about Jesus he did not know before.  He could trust Jesus to take care of him in even the worst of circumstances.  That is eternal life; knowing more of Christ.

Later, Peter was on a hill with James and John and Jesus when something wild happened.  About eight days after Jesus said this, he took Peter, John and James with him and went up onto a mountain to pray.  As he was praying, the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became as bright as a flash of lightning.  Two men, Moses and Elijah, appeared in glorious splendor, talking with Jesus. They spoke about his departure, which he was about to bring to fulfillment at Jerusalem.  Peter and his companions were very sleepy, but when they became fully awake, they saw his glory and the two men standing with him.  As the men were leaving Jesus, Peter said to him, "Master, it is good for us to be here. Let us put up three shelters — one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah." (He did not know what he was saying.)  While he was speaking, a cloud appeared and enveloped them, and they were afraid as they entered the cloud.  A voice came from the cloud, saying, "This is my Son, whom I have chosen; listen to him." (Luke 9:28-36 NIV)  What an amazing experience.  Peter got to meet the legends Moses and Elijah.  What he did not know until then was that Jesus was not on a par with Moses and Elijah.  He was not their equal, not their peer.  He was the Son, He was their God.  He did not know this before.  He thought he knew who Jesus was but He was much more than Peter realized.  He was the Son.  This was eternal life.  He knew more about Christ than he did before.

A fourth experience of Peter gives us an even better idea of what eternal life is.  Boldly, before Jesus died, Peter announced to everyone including Jesus that he was far more brave and loyal to Jesus than any of the others.  Jesus was not very encouraging.  He told Peter that Peter would in fact deny that he was one of Jesus’ followers three times in the next few hours and that of course is what happened.  Peter was heartbroken later when it came to pass and he felt like an absolute failure.  But after Jesus returned to life and began meeting with the disciples and others, Christ pulled Peter aside and three times asked Peter if Peter loved Him, the exact same number of times, Peter cowardly denied knowing Jesus.  In the end the Lord gave Peter a special mission one that required great courage and dedication.  Jesus said, "Feed my sheep. I tell you the truth, when you were younger you dressed yourself and went where you wanted; but when you are old you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go."   Jesus said this to indicate the kind of death by which Peter would glorify God. Then he said to him, "Follow me!" (John 21:17-19 NIV)  Here, on the shores of the Sea of Galilee, Peter found out how merciful Jesus is.  Christ did not hold Peter’s cowardice against him.  He did not lose confidence in Peter.  He gave Peter a mission, to take care of the new community of Christians who would soon join them and He did so without any sort of warnings against failing.  Jesus, Peter learned does not hold our sins and failures against us but builds up our lives and gives us honorable work to do.  Peter learned something new about Jesus and that is eternal life.  He discovered how kind and generous Jesus is.

One more moment we can consider about Peter’s life.  After Jesus went back to heaven and physically left the disciples, now known as Apostles, they all were gathered together praying when the Holy Spirit came upon them and they began to speak in all sorts of foreign languages that were supernaturally given to them.  A crowd was nearby made up of people from various parts of the world.  As the Apostles preached to the mass of people, each one understood perfectly in his or her own language what the Apostles were saying.  This was a miracle and one that was stupendous but that was not the greatest miracle that day.  What the Apostles discovered and Peter in particular was that God took them all in, regardless of race or national origin; gave each of them salvation.  Peter saw, and more fully than he had ever seen before, that Jesus is Savior no matter who you might be or what you have done or where you have been.  Christ takes the sin out of you and makes you perfect in every way.  All the heartache, all the anger and bitterness, all the hard feelings and held grudges, all corrupt lusts and selfishness and wrecked parts, Christ saves you from them.  There is not a part of you that Jesus will not make perfect and completely good and lovely.  He will do this for every person who comes to Him for salvation.  He is Savior.

This week, become attentive to Christ.  Think about Him.  Let your thoughts turn to Him again and again.  Assume He will talk to you.  There is so much for you to learn about Christ.  So much you don’t know.  You and I are like little children.  We have just begun to begin to get to know Jesus and to find out what He is like.  If the Bible is true, and we say it is, then God is love and the more you know the love of God, the more joyous and peaceful and full of hope your life will be.  Make Christ the center of your thinking this week and every time He comes to mind, be prepared for our Lord to show you something you have never seen before.

Is God Good Enough?

Have you thought about why you get angry, frustrated, discouraged or unhappy?  It nearly always seems to be due to something that has happened to you or someone who has irritated you.  No matter how determined you are to be calm and patient, your mood gets high-jacked at some point by an event or a conversation that is too tough to handle.  Yet God never puts the cause of your mood swings into the hands of circumstances or relationships.  When Ahab the King of Israel became depressed that Naboth would not sell his vineyard to him, his wife Jezebel made the same mistake so many of us make.  She asked her husband why he was so sullen and Ahab told her the pitiful account of his failure to convince Naboth to let him have his vineyard.  Jezebel took matters into her own hands and arranged the murder of Naboth so that Ahab could buy it from his heirs.  Of course this got Ahab the vineyard but it did nothing to solve the problem with his mood swings.  The cause of Ahab's depression was not Naboth but rather his own envy.  As long as Ahab wanted what was someone else's, he could not live in peace.   The beginning of sin was the desire to have what did not belong to Adam and Eve.  It is a universal plague.  Rather than live within the grace of God and trusting in His goodness, we fret over what we don't have.  We aren't respected.  We don't get the help we want.  Our wishes are ignored.  We aren't treated fairly.  We have been offended.  It all boils down to just this.  We think we deserve better.  After the great Apostle Paul begged God to relieve him of his suffering, the Lord sternly but gently rebuked him.  "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." (2 Corinthians 12:9 NIV)  When Peter wondered what John's fate would be after the Lord told Peter that he would suffer a terrifying and difficult death, the Lord put an end to that line of questioning.  "If I want him to remain alive until I return, what is that to you? You must follow me." (John 21:22 NIV)  When Christ begins to satisfy your soul from top to bottom, you will find yourself at peace in any circumstance and with whatever you have or don't have.  Until you settle matters with the Lord and decide that the salvation of God is good enough to make your life right, you will continue to ride the stormy swells of envy and dissatisfaction.

Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; his love endures forever.  1 Chronicles 16:34 NIV

Sleep

Psalm 127:2 NIV

In vain you rise early and stay up late, toiling for food to eat — for he grants sleep to those he loves.

Are You A Hard Worker?

The other day I was sitting in the sanctuary praying and I realized I was dreaming…literally REM dreaming.  I shook my head, closed my eyes again to pray and fell asleep once more with vivid dreaming.  A third time I started praying and tried a different tact, trying to pray for each person who came to my mind.  This worked for a while until I got distracted and started thinking about what I had to do.  I did not have what you might call a very spiritual experience.  For a while, the “power nap” was a popular concept.  Who doesn’t like the idea of in the middle of a work-day taking a break to snooze?  Doctors have recommended the practice but how many managers and supervisors want their workers sleeping on the job. The Bible doesn’t seem to be an enthusiastic supporter of naps!  How long will you lie there, you sluggard?  When will you get up from your sleep?  A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest — and poverty will come on you like a bandit and scarcity like an armed man. (Proverbs 6:9-11 NIV)  The sluggard buries his hand in the dish; he will not even bring it back to his mouth! (Proverbs 19:24 NIV)  That sounds like a power nap in the cafeteria.  I wonder how well that would go over at most work places!

Probably you are a hard worker and would never consider yourself a sluggard.  You get up early and start your day off with a cup of coffee or a shower to charge your batteries and then off you go.  Maybe you don’t like getting up and “getting off” but you do it because it is right and necessary.  There are plenty in the world who consider work the most noble of ventures and success the goal in life.  The Bible isn’t exactly against hard work and in fact it is celebrated in many places.  Yet there is a passage in the Psalms that provides critical insight into our work habits and God’s view of how we use our time.

Unless the Lord builds the house, its builders labor in vain.  Unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchmen stand guard in vain. (Psalm 127:1 NIV)  The thought that all one’s effort could be a waste of time is rather disconcerting!  Who hasn’t felt though at one point or another like that?  What good is it to try so hard at something when it is bound to fail anyway or it won’t be appreciated or it won’t matter in the long run?  This verse creates an immense line of demarcation between two categories of work.  The first is work that is contained completely within the realm of human effort.  Whether it is the building of a great housing complex or the stacking of vegetables on the kitchen counter, it either is done in God or it isn’t.  If it isn’t, then it is work done in vain.  The term translated “vain” does not imply that it was done out of a desire to puff up oneself but rather that it was empty of purpose, without value.  Jesus expressed this idea in vivid fashion when He warned against storing up for yourself treasures on earth that moths and rust can wreck and thieves just take.  Stored up earthly treasures are vain in this sense, they are without reason or purpose.  They are “empty” possessions.  The same can be true of work.  If God is not behind it and not in agreement with it, the work, whatever it might be gets gobbled up and becomes worthless.  This of course is not logical and perhaps not even reasonable to most.  Why does every work have to go through God?  Were computers developed by those holding prayer meetings?  Did the ones who put together the internet have their Bibles open as they worked?  Plenty of great things have been done by those who did not care one bit what God thought of their efforts.

Yet we do know that the marvelous invention of the phonograph became obsolete when eight tracks were developed.  Cell phones make landlines a dinosaur and whoever thought of rotary dialing is not celebrated today.  Those who worked so hard on their movies find that they are eventually forgotten and ignored.  Does anyone care who invented the wheel or started the first fire by rubbing sticks together?  All work, regardless of how great we might think it is today will be buried in time and no one will give it a funeral.  Only God can keep alive the memory of work that is done and make it as meaningful and important today as it was ten thousand years ago.  However, we see work started and completed without any thought given whatsoever to how God views its value or thinks of the effort.  Solomon used the term “vanity of vanities” to describe so much of how we spend our time.  At the top of his list of vanity of vanities would be our attempt to get done what is not inspired or empowered by God.

If it seems from these comments that God is not in favor of hard work or creative thought, but that is not the case.  Our Lord wants us to work.  It must though be done in the right way and for the right reasons.  Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving. (Colossians 3:23-24 NIV)  We see work assigned by God all through the Bible.  Whether it was Bezalel designing and putting together the Ark of the Covenant or Paul sewing tents, work is honored by God.  Of course you can make a good living doing all sorts of work and even be celebrated by your supervisors or the public at large for what you have done but it will in the end be forgotten and fall apart if God is not in it.  Our Lord promises you an inheritance that will last as long as He does if you work for Him.  Everything else you do will be devoured by time and lost.

There is a more practical reason for doing your work through God.  It comes from the next verse in the Psalm we quoted earlier.  In vain you rise early and stay up late, toiling for food to eat — for he grants sleep to those he loves. (Psalm 127:2 NIV)  This verse has a wealth of insight to it that some translations do not make clear.  It is worthless, the verse insists, for us to get up early and stay up late trying to get things done that God has no interest in us doing.  The Hebrew, which is translated by some English versions as staying up late toiling for food to eat more literally describes staying up late and putting off eating the bread your hard and wearisome work has produced.  This is work generated by worldly cares, by concerns that are produced in those who are disconnected from God.  The more we work without Christ empowering and inspiring it, the less pleasure it brings and the more burdensome it becomes.

More than that though is the promise this verse provides us.  The NIV translation has a footnote in this verse that brings clarity to it.  The promise is not that our Lord rewards those who live in Him with sleep.  It is that He gives to His beloved ones in sleep.  The New American Standard Version translates this phrase, “For He gives to His beloved even in his sleep.”   The Grammar in this little phrase is tricky but certain.  Sleep is a powerful mechanism by which the Lord pours Himself Into you.  There are instances in Scripture documenting the way God has spoken to His people while they were sleeping including Jacob in the Old Testament when he was running from his brother in fear of his life and in the New Testament Joseph who was engaged to Mary the mother of Jesus providing for him comfort and reassurance that Mary had done no wrong in becoming pregnant. And then there is the example of Daniel who as he slept was shown by the Lord the content of King Nebuchadnezzar’s dream and how to interpret it.  God wants His people to sleep because of what He can do in them when they sleep.  It is not just that we physically need to rest.  In sleep God can get at the places where sin has done its most damage, in the deep parts of the heart or mind if you will, and comfort us and encourage us and strengthen us.  Just some sleep and the pain we felt before over a loss, a tragic event, an insult or a failure can be healed and we feel it when we awaken.

Do not just go to sleep.  Prepare yourself for God to work in you when you sleep.  Pray and get ready.  Tell God what you think you need before you fall asleep.  Talk to Him about what is bothering you.  Pray with someone else, if you have that person, just before bed.  Who knows what God might do for you and in you through the praying of someone who loves you?  Sleep is when God blesses us with some of His greatest comfort and insight.  What you could not grasp before you slept, with Christ working in you as you sleep, it can come to you as easily as holding a feather in your hand.  The world and all the pressures it can bring to bear upon you can wait a while as you meet with God in the depths of your heart.  Did you know that you can pray even while you are sleeping?  You can but you must quiet your heart in tender worship beforehand to make it ready to meet with Him there.  Try an experiment this week.  Just before you go to sleep, read a little bit of scripture or quote some to yourself and then pray quietly.  See what the Holy Spirit does in you as you rest in Christ.

Self-Discovery

If we are not careful, we will live as if God does not exist.  We are not atheists by declaration or by determination but rather by our disregard for God's presence in and about us.  Sin is the absence of God in what we do and think.  It rarely is blatant rebellion against God's rule;  it is almost always a careless looking away from Him so that matters can be settled quickly and easily.  Whether it is the fueling of a lust or the dampening of a once passionate affection for all things  Christ, Sin begins with passive aggression.  Remember that you become Satan's ally once you turn aside from God's rule of you.  Adam just wanted to please his new wife and took the fruit because it seemed like God wasn't looking.  A Lord so great and so all-consuming cannot reveal Himself completely until you choose Him in the silent quarters because to have life in Him you must choose Him freely without compulsion.  No one can decide for you if His redemption is good enough to take whole-heartedly; it is your call.  When you do, the Holy Spirit begins to work in you a growing disgust for everything that doesn't have the smell and taste of Christ living in it.  The most miserable people in the world are Christians who have stopped being disciples for a while and taken to the corners of faith where Christ is shadowy and troubling.  The fruit never tasted good; it just seemed good and once it was grabbed by Eve and then Adam the power of its pull was in the loss of trust in God to make all things right and truly good.  It was always a lie that God didn't have Adam's best interests at heart and that is where we begin to go when we stop thinking about and with Christ.  The mind not on God quickly descends into darkness.  Satan doesn't care much what distracts you...whether it be an "Eve" or an "apple" or the fanatic infatuation with self, it is fine with him.  Satan wants you disoriented enough to not care if Christ is with you or not.  Once you turn to God however, the powers of Heaven are brought to bear in you and you have all the mercy and love of Christ at your disposal to live in the limitless joy His personality in you can bring.

But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God.  John 3: 21 NIV