In a Bottle

Psalm 56 [KJV]


1 Be merciful unto me, O God: for man would swallow me up; he fighting daily oppresseth me.
  2 Mine enemies would daily swallow me up: for they be many that fight against me, O thou most High.
  3 What time I am afraid, I will trust in thee.
  4 In God I will praise his word, in God I have put my trust; I will not fear what flesh can do unto me.
  5 Every day they wrest my words: all their thoughts are against me for evil.
  6 They gather themselves together, they hide themselves, they mark my steps, when they wait for my soul.
  7 Shall they escape by iniquity? in thine anger cast down the people, O God.
  8 Thou tellest my wanderings: put thou my tears into thy bottle: are they not in thy book?
  9 When I cry unto thee, then shall mine enemies turn back: this I know; for God is for me.
  10 In God will I praise his word: in the LORD will I praise his word.
  11 In God have I put my trust: I will not be afraid what man can do unto me.
  12 Thy vows are upon me, O God: I will render praises unto thee.
  13 For thou hast delivered my soul from death: wilt not thou deliver my feet from falling, that I may walk before God in the light of the living?

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God is good. Always. But especially, God is good when we most need Him to be. A lot of times, as one goes through life, it is very easy to think as if God is not watching. As if He doesn't care. As if when someone goes through life and fails, and starts dropping everything that they had previously been able to juggle, and collapses and cries out for someone to help them--a lot of times it may seem as if God is cold to such agony. But He isn't. In fact, in this Psalm it is easy to see the heart of our Saviour. "You number my wanderings; you put my tears in a bottle. Are they not in Your book?" (v8). God is not simply concerned--He is dedicated. He loves to such a degree, and cares so much about our sorrow, that He would go as far as to collect them in a bottle, to write each instance down in His book. I don't think anyone else exists who is like that. No one one earth could possibly love someone else to such a degree--the human being is simply not capable. Not on our own, anyway; that is certain. Not without Christ can we even begin to understand love, or sorrow, or pain, or peace. We cannot understand. But He does--and that is why we can come to Him. The shortest verse in the Bible is as follows: "Jesus wept." That is such a beautiful picture of a God who knows what His people experience, and who loves them beyond all measure. He is a magnificent King, but He knows our pain--indeed He has taken it for us.

I know not who shall read, but it pleases me that I, unworthy as I am, might live in some small way for Christ.

Do Work

"Go to the ant, you sluggard; consider her ways and be wise!"
Proverbs 6:6

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This is my third year in high school. I really have begun to hate work.

I don't know how other people feel. I really have never heard anyone else in any of my classes tell me that they love to work. Who likes doing long, arduous, tedious tasks all day, then going to activities later, and then staying up even later than that so that they can finish everything with a clean mind about the matter? No, I really have come to despise it.

But there's just one problem with this. There is a few, actually. For one, hating this work doesn't make it all go away. I still have to do it. Secondly, there is a Biblical problem with this mindset. If I don't work, then I do not rightly fulfill my purpose for Christ in this world.

 Why is it so hard? How is it that these necessary tasks are so painful? Is there something wrong with us, that perhaps other people might not have issues with?

In Genesis 3:14 it says that "And unto Adam he said, 'Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree which I command you, saying, 'You shall not eat of it,' cursed is the ground for your sake. In sorrow you shall eat of it all of the days of your life." So therefore in one sense the reason why work is hard is related to why there are earthquakes and tornadoes and death, among other things--due to original sin.

So if it is from original sin, what are we supposed to do about work? Are simply supposed to grind on bitterly, deploring it as a loathsome yet necessary duty?

No--as Christians we have no excuse.

We know this because in Collosians 3:23-24 it says "Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ." So okay, we know that we need to do work really well and vigorous, and we know that we are doing it for Christ. AND we know that doing so will bring us reward.


In Proverbs God tells us to "Go to the ant, you sluggard; consider her ways and be wise!" Now this, coupled with the verse from Genesis, might seem a little unfair. Sluggard? Me, lazy? But what does this mean? In what way do ants work?

I find the way that this verse is phrased to be quite interesting: "Consider her ways and be wise."
If you think about ants, and the lives they lead, one might be tempted to call them futile. Empty. Without purpose. But that isn't true--because purpose is defined by God. Those ants work and live exactly as they were designed and called by God to do, consistently, and we must do no differently.

So then, the question we must ask ourselves is this: For what purpose do we work?

In I Corinthians 10:31 it says that "Whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all for the glory of God." So not only do we have a means of work, and a description, but now we have a purpose. We are to do everything, including work, with but one purpose in mind--to do so for the glory of God.

And that is all that really matters.

I know not who if any shall read, but I am pleased to know it is well to write for Christ.

Hold my Hand

"For I the LORD your God will hold your right hand, saying unto thee, 'Fear not; I will help you.' " -Isaiah 41:13

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A while ago I had been doing some praying about this year, and all of the hundreds upon hundreds of very large and important things which I would have to be juggling this year, and, being overwhelmed, my mind came to the many instances in the Bible in which God says "Fear not for I am with you," and yet we don't believe Him. It is almost as if, Common English being so often used arbitrarily, that we often miss the great magnitude of that the statement being that God is always with us. Not looking down from heaven only, simply throwing down little axioms of encouragement simply meant to trick us into taking a few more steps. God is actually with us every day and every moment, experiencing our own situations as they happen. God does not want us to be the Lone Ranger, having to shoot down all of the enemy, with no one else to help or turn to. That is His job. God is greater than superman. I don't even come close.

God tells His children that he "will hold your right hand." I don't know. That image, to me, is a powerful one. God is not some nameless general in the battle of God vs. the World, and he certainly does not simply send his troops to places that He himself would never go. He goes there himself, with us, as we are in the moment. And it is in that instant in which He helps us. So we have every reason to "Fear not". We know that God is with us, and that when we need it, the help will surely follow.

Weak and Strong

"And He has said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.' Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me." --II Corinthians 12:9 (NASB)

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I am oftentimes astonished at how utterly powerless I am to control the circumstances of my life and those around me. And it is not so much that I am surprised that such things do happen to me, but rather that I myself, the great and mighty being which lives my life, cannot do anything about it. I suppose that everyone, whether they would profess it openly or not, would like to be thought of as strong, dependable, and brave. Everyone wants to be thought of as a hero, just like superman, just like wonderwoman, intelligent, strong, and unbeatable. Everyone wants to win. Everyone wants to be on top. In our secondary school culture and society, more and more I see and feel the pressure to be strong. And we all, in one way or another, answer that call to the best of our ability. But it also makes me wonder, just how many of us retreat towards the end of the day, and lay upon our beds and cry out in despair for just how really, utterly, and unequivocally weak and destitute we are of any true virtue of our own in our possession.

We all do our best to appear strong, to appear well thought out and put together, to avoid the shame of being human. We play God, the saint, the savior, but at the end the day we know that we have nothing. And I know that some people cannot deal with that. But it is all so very interesting.

At my church we have lately been going through the life of Sampson. What an intriguing character he is! And how appropriate for this subject. Sampson, a man who has been gifted with enormous physical strength, far beyond any other man in history, is a nazarite with a special vow, and is judge of Israel. One would think he would be a hero! One might think he could be a saint! A savior of Israel from their enemies, the Philistines! But Sampson, in all his strength and might, in all of his God-bestown gifts, was utterly powerless to keep his life from falling apart.

Sampson makes one bad choice after another, until even his own wife tries to kill him three times. And at the end of his life, his final act is his revenge on the Philistines. But what a wretched life to lead. How did it get this way? How is it that Sampson, judge of Israel, eventually became the bane of his own nation, his own people, and his family?

"My grace is sufficient for you," says the LORD, "for power is perfected in weakness." Sampson's strength did not come to him because he worked any harder than the Philistines, or even because he was an Israelite! It was because God decided to give it to him in order to fulfill his purposes for Sampson.

Sampson forgot whose strength it was. We forget too. At least I do.

So what does it mean to be weak, or to be strong? I suppose that when we are weak, as we always are, if we rely upon God, and trust that His "grace is sufficient", then his strength will will make us strong, and allow us to have His control to be in charge of our lives.

Oh Give Thanks

Psalm 106
"Praise the LORD. O give thanks to the LORD; for He is good--for His mercy endures forever. [2] Who can utter the mighty acts of the LORD? Who can bring forth all His praise?"

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I was reading through Psalm 106 some time this week, and these few verses in the beginning really struck me. "Praise the LORD. O give thanks to the LORD; for He is good--for His mercy endures forever." We know to praise God. We hear it all the time. We know to thank God. We thank God at mealtimes (sometimes) and we thank God for good tests and for close saves. But how should we really do things? "Who can utter the mighty acts of the LORD? Who can bring forth all His praise?" In other words, in my life, in my praise, in everything that I do for God, I should give it everything I've got--knowing that that STILL isn't enough, because nothing that I have or could say or could give is ever enough to be worthy of what our great and awesome God deserves.

And then there is why we do so. In my life, sometimes (not all the time), I forget that the reason why I am thankful and grateful and give everything to God is not duty, is not because He's done some good things but because "He is good" and because "His mercy endures forever."

Thank You, God. Thank You for being good, for being what You are. And that Your mercy endures forever.

Amen

Eh. Something different, but this I feel struck me this week. So, enjoy the Psalm amidst the many Proverbs I've been posting!

Thoughts and Works

Proverbs 16:3 "Commit your works to the LORD, and your thoughts will be established."

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I was thinking about this verse lately. It is kind of interesting when you think about it. A bit flummoxing, a tad confusing one might say.





Oh, quite surely this verse is very straight forward. There is little to debate about it regarding its mere meaning. "Commit your works to the LORD, and your thoughts will be established." If we commit, if we give, if we lift up our works in praise and worship to the LORD, then our thoughts will be established. But the significance of what these verses are telling us--that is what struck me as I examined it with my soul.





One might expect a verse like this to say, "Commit your thoughts to the LORD and your works will be established." And that may or may not be true. But in this verse, we are not promised that. If we commit our works, then our thoughts, not our works, are established.





And in the end, I suppose, that is what really matters anyway. Our thoughts--our hearts, rather, being established.





There is a work that I am itching to accomplish, and I want to do it for God and I want it to be awesome. So if I commit it to God, then surely my thoughts will be established in Him and that is all that matters.





Again, I know not how helpful or how little these things of which I spread. But I write for Christ, and in this I am glad.

Ponder our Path

Proverbs 4:26-27 "Ponder the path of your feet, and let all your ways be established. [27] Turn not to the right hand or the left; remove your foot from evil."















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Every now and then it does a man (or woman) good to simply stop for a moment and to think about where his life is going, where the path is taking him. "Ponder the path of your feet" the proverb says, "and let all your ways be established." So now we have moved from simply thinking about our life, but now to establishing it. Many a thing can go awry if we do not establish our path, if we do not clearly mark it for our treading. Having an established breakfast, an established prayer time, an established bed time (hehe), and whatever else one may think of. Any way taken, truly it is wisdom that I in my life need to consider more often.

How, one may wonder, are is person supposed to establish their path, so to speak? "Turn not to the right hand or the left," God says to us, "remove your foot from evil." So, if a pattern in our life is by the wayside, or near the fence, or if our foot is stuck in some evil, then we must eradicate it.

Ponder our path, turn not to the side, continue straight on, and remove ourselves from evil. These things are what I get from this verses. Again, I know not who shall read, but it is good for me to write for Christ.

BitterSweet

Proverbs 27:7 "The full soul loathes a honeycomb, but to the hungry soul every bitter thing is sweet."

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I was thinking about this a little this week, but this verse is a good reminder just to myself that our perspective on what is going on in our lives can have a big impact in both how much we enjoy it and also how well we respond to it. In this Proverb it says "The full soul loathes a honeycomb". This is quite interesting. Honey is really sweet, so why wouldn't someone want it? They are, "full", the proverb tells us. I think everyone gets like this sometimes. God gives us so many good things, but then, being content with the things, we look at all of the good things that God blesses us with and say to Him "God, I think I need something more than this. I want something sweeter." But they don't really need anything sweeter, because it is not the quality of the honey which is the problem, but the appetite of the person who is receiving it. "To the hungry soul every bitter thing is sweet." This person is the complete opposite. It's like he gets this massive hunk of rotting wormwood, takes a big hunk out of it and goes, "MAN! WOAH! I get to eat THIS???!!!! God You are so very good to me." He eats this bitter nasty thing and it tastes sweet, because He is hungry for anything that God gives to Him. Because what may look like Wormwood on the outside may actually be honey within.

This is how we should always be, I think. Hungry--for God.

I know not who may read, but it gladdens me to write for Christ.

Plowing in the Cold

Proverbs 20:4 "The sluggard will not plow by reason of the cold; therefore shall he beg at harvest and have nothing."





Colossians 3:23-24 "Whatever you do work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward.







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I think a lot of times we as Christians and people, and Americans, often get tired of plowing. Very few reading this may be farmers, or even remotely close to such a profession (indeed I am not much of a simple gardener even), but I know that this still applies to my own life as it is.

I think, in my life at least, a person may go on for weeks or months throughout the school year, or in the work place, or at the market place, day in and day out doing one thing, and one thing only. Work, work work and more plowing and shearing and pruning and harvesting. Work. We people, especially in high school, would give a great deal simply to have no responsibility and simply sit for a few days and simply REST without doing ANYTHING at all that is required of us.
And then winter comes.

Yeah. We don't want to go out there and PLOW EVEN MORE when we've been plowing out and working our faces off for the rest of the year.

There's just one problem with this. While it is good to rest, we must also realize that when the time calls for it, it is good to work.

And according to Proverbs, it is only the sluggard who "will not plow for reason of by cold." And doing this also costs the sluggard something beyond just getting work done. "Therefore shall he beg at harvest." If we don't plow now, when it's hard, when it stings us in the wind, then we will pay for it later. This is what this verse said to me.

Beyond this, in the other verse I mentioned, it says to "work heartily as for the Lord and not for men."

The reason why we must plow now, in the cold, is not because we try to further ourselves, or so we can work less later. It is to provide for us in the future, and it is because it was to this end that God has created us to function.

To work. To work heartily. In the cold.

And most importantly, for Him.

I know not all who may read, but I write this to honor Christ. And that is all that matters.

Even at Maine West, God Has Control

Daniel 4:35

...But He does according to His will in the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth, and no one can ward off His hand...

Romans 8:28

And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.


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I wanted to write a short post about all of the cuts that are happening, which I'm pretty sure all of you know about (if you are from Maine West). I know that a lot of us, like me, are upset about at least one of the potential cuts, whether it's a teacher or a club/sport. The reason I wrote Daniel 4:35 is because it says that God's will will always be done. It really shows His sovereignty and power over all; and I think that it can also be comforting, like in this case, that He is always in control. Even if what we want doesn't get done, we can know that everything is going as He wants (and because He is holy and righteous, we should rejoice in that). No board member or anyone else involved can change that (or, ward off His hand).

Romans 8:28 was actually the first verse that came to my mind when I started thinking about my post. What's really great about it is that no matter what happens, God will turn all things for the good of those who love Him. The cuts might not be what we want or expect, and it might not even be the best for us academically, but we can know that God will work this out for our spiritual good, even if we don't understand why or how. And again, no one can change that.

I still encourage all of you to go to the meeting at Maine East on Wednesday (and I'd go too, except I help with Awana Sparks that night), but if things don't go the way we want it or the way we think it really should be, I just want to remind you (and myself) that we can trust that God is in control and will work it for our good, no matter what happens.

Rule or Die

Proverbs 16:32 "He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty, And he that rules his spirit than he that takes a city." Proverbs 25:28 "He that has no rule over his own spirit, Is like a city that is broken down, And without walls."

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I have not posted in a really, good long while. This is mostly due to neglect. I am a busy person, but every person is a busy person so there is no excuse in that sentiment. Nevertheless, I have been thinking about things for a while, reading a chapter of proverbs in the morning, and then reading the same chapter of proverbs before bed (when that hour comes). But one verse that has struck out to me has been these two.

What does it mean to truly have "rule" over one spirit? According to proverbs, a person who has this is "better than he who takes a city", and a person who does not "is like a city broken down, and without walls."

For a Christian, to have "rule over one's spirit" means to have your life be in submission to Christ. Before Christ, we were our own, blinded in our sinful ways. Now, we have Jesus, and He is the King of the castle.

So if we are Christians, and He is the ruler of our spirits, does that mean that every Christian will always have rule over their own spirit? No.

I used to ask how a Christian man could struggle with Pornography. That's because I was one of those, and I couldn't understand it. My life was miserable, and I didn't know what was going on. People said it was "common" and "normal" for people of my age to struggle with such a thing. But I knew--garbage. Those words are meaningless in Christ's kingdom! Against a Holy, Righteous God! Why do people who know Christ become unstable or have trouble fighting things like Pornography, drugs, alcohol, or bad video games, distasteful music, gossiping, slander, hate, jealously, covetousness--ANYTHING, fill in the blank? It is for this reason that this is even possible:

They do not have rule over their own spirit. Their "old man", their "old nature" is what is the problem, as is every Christian's problem. Basically, they are the problem. But it is the part that does not love Christ.

For at conversion, God creates in us a "new heart" and makes us a "new creation", the Bible says. When that person, the person that Christ created us to be, is in control, as Christians we are stable and have rule over our own selves, because Christ is our master. This is where all of us as Christians should be.

However, that is not always the case. Unbelievers have no problem sinning because their is only one master of their lives, and it is them. They are in control, and because of this, they unanimously have no problem with living sinful lives.

However as Christians this presents a problem, as man can not serve two masters. Whether it be God, money, lust, excitement, adventure, praise, man can only have one King of the castle at one time. If a Christian gets caught in an old sin, or even a new one, this presents a state of turmoil in his life.

The "castle" or "city"---basically his soul----is under siege. Christ is King, but it is a battle ground in the village. That is why Proverbs says that those with no rule over their own spirits "are like a city broken down, and without walls." Because when sin is trying to take over a believer's life, and the believer doesn't stop it, then it will. It waltz right on through and rip, tear, and pillage every single thing in a person's life that they had ever built, dreamed about, or hoped of nurturing. Sin will come to destroy you. That is what these verses say.

Paul talks in the new testament of a double-minded man as being "unstable in all his ways." Why is he unstable? Because he is at war! No town or city or even nation is stable or at peace when it is at war. The objective is to destroy the enemy, to shut them out and regain control. And this is precisely what these verses are getting at.

I don't know what these verses say to others, but to me it has said this thing:

"You will be victorious or die."

That is what dawned on me. A lot addicts of sin or substances are never freed from it because they do not realize this one thing: You can not beat an addiction step by step. There is no 10 Step plan that will help them, there are not a million Nicotine Patches in the world that can cut their habit. Either you have Total and Utter Victory, regaining your Rule over your spirit, or you don't--and then you die, because it kills you. It was on this realization that God gave me the ability and the victory to overcome my sin.

I used to be afraid of admitting such a sin. What would people think? But now that it is dead, now that Christ's sword is caught within its chest, being dead it no longer seems scary to me anymore.

Because Christ is stronger than sin. Maybe you aren't. Maybe you couldn't beat it in a game of checkers but Christ is always victorious. He never lost. Not once. In anything.

Thus you need only raise the sword, and Christ's arm shall be your victory. Complete victory, or utter defeat. It is the fight of your life, and it will be hard. But you must be determined and choose your victory, make it a decision, a final decision. If a Christian trusts in Christ and faces their sin with that choice, "I will not lose". If they choose victory, as Christ offers it, then they shall never be defeated.

I hope most of you won't be traumatized reading this. I hope this may help some people. We are all sinners; but the Christians have Christ as master.

I know not who shall read, but I know I have written to honor Christ, and that is all that matters.