For 13 years Abram was convinced Ishmael was God’s way! Until God breaks in…. When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the LORD appeared to him and said, "I am God Almighty; walk before me and be blameless. Genesis 17:1
God’s redirection for Abram’s life started by revealing a new aspect of His character. Knowing God as the Almighty is a great comfort when He calls us to new steps of obedience, particularly when they are difficult and painful steps.
This is the Bible’s first use of the name El Shaddai, the Almighty, The Most Powerful. El Shaddai combines words meaning who and enough to remind Abram, and us, that we are dealing with The God who is enough.
This Almighty, however, wasn’t distant, but up close and personal. It was a name that said, “I am the “Can Do God”, I am Almighty for you. I am Almighty to love you, care for you, choose you, protect you, prosper you, challenge you. I am Almighty to solve the difficulties that you seem to think you are having in your walk of faith. I am the Almighty who can enable you to obey when it is difficult. God says I’m sufficient, when you are weak, frail, and fearful.
Whenever God’s servants are hard-pressed and needing reassurance, God appears as the Almighty…The God of the impossible, the God beyond our wildest dreams, able to work in us way beyond what we would ask or expect, and even beyond nature.
And, when we get a new view of the God of the Impossible, when our life intersects with Him, He will radically change our lives.
Most mornings Carol will tell me about the name of God that she is focusing on for that day. El Elyon, El Shaddai, Jehovah Nissei, Each of God’s names focus on some aspect of His character. Each name calls us to trust Him in a new way in this daily, on-going walk of faith. It is a great practice…getting a new view of God for every day.
How are you experiencing God today? How is He appearing to you? Sometimes He appears to me as provider, sometimes as challenger, rebuker, or comforter. Sometimes He appears as angry father because I’ve messed up and hurt myself, but other times as a loving father, Almighty, all sufficient, all knowing, all forgiving.
The key is…the God who assigns us difficult tasks, Who calls us to walk the road of the cross, Who calls us to turn our backs on the deadends in which we have invested years of our lives, this God is sufficient to be what we need. We can trust the Almighty enough to follow Him.
And, that’s what turned Abram into an Abraham.
Friday, August 28, 2009
Saturday, August 22, 2009
When God and You Intersect
Like Abraham in Genesis 17, we learn that our walk of faith is not just an event, not just something that happens when we are 9 or 29, but an ongoing experience of God’s presence and promises that radically alters our character and behaviors.
Genesis 17 begins with When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the LORD appeared to him and said, "I am God Almighty; walk before me and be blameless. Genesis 17:1
This was Abram’s fourth intersection with God. When he met with God, God got loose in his life. God changed his name from Abram to Abraham-- Your name will no longer be Abram, but Abraham. His life went from being about an Exalted Father to being about a Father of nations, from being about himself to being about those who followed him. When we experience God’s presence, He gets loose in our lives and begins to work in us what He wants. Like Abraham, we have choices to make to install the new changes or to keep working with an obsolete, outdated operating system that will no longer be supported. For Abraham, the choice was to take on the sign of the covenant, circumcision, cut into his body. For us, the choice is to take on the sign that marks us as belonging to Jesus…the sign of love that is cut into our heart and works itself out into behaviors with others.
Bottom line: When we grow in our relationship with God we will experience changes.
So, the obvious question is: What has changed in my life, in my marriage, in my parenting, in my job? Because, if nothing changes, maybe I'm not meeting with God. I'm just reading my Bible!
Genesis 17 begins with When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the LORD appeared to him and said, "I am God Almighty; walk before me and be blameless. Genesis 17:1
This was Abram’s fourth intersection with God. When he met with God, God got loose in his life. God changed his name from Abram to Abraham-- Your name will no longer be Abram, but Abraham. His life went from being about an Exalted Father to being about a Father of nations, from being about himself to being about those who followed him. When we experience God’s presence, He gets loose in our lives and begins to work in us what He wants. Like Abraham, we have choices to make to install the new changes or to keep working with an obsolete, outdated operating system that will no longer be supported. For Abraham, the choice was to take on the sign of the covenant, circumcision, cut into his body. For us, the choice is to take on the sign that marks us as belonging to Jesus…the sign of love that is cut into our heart and works itself out into behaviors with others.
Bottom line: When we grow in our relationship with God we will experience changes.
So, the obvious question is: What has changed in my life, in my marriage, in my parenting, in my job? Because, if nothing changes, maybe I'm not meeting with God. I'm just reading my Bible!
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Ride Your Problems
Carol and I took in the Village Theater Musical Showboat. It was a delightful drift through the 1890’s when river boats provided entertainment on the Mississippi. You would probably recognize songs like “Old Man River” and “Can’t Help Lovin’ dat Man.”
Besides the beautiful songs, terrific staging, and talented actors, the story line floated you a couple messages.
The first is a story about love and marriage. There are 5 marriages depicted in the play: The owner of the showboat, the lead actor and actress, the comedy dance team, the African-American workers, and the owners’ daughter who marries the flashy and talented riverboat “gentleman.” Every marriage has its problems: The owner puts up with his domineering and demanding wife. The lead actor and actress have to run when the local police discover that she is mixed-race and come to arrest her…only to see their marriage dissolve in Chicago. The comedy dance team with running ad-hominem banter, cracking jokes at each other’s expense, surprisingly stick together and eventually make it big in Hollywood. The young lovers are married, much to the dismay of the riverboat owner’s wife and the delight of the riverboat owner. They wind up in Chicago where the gambler loses his shirt and deserts the love of his life and their child. The only marriage that seems to be solid and encouraging is that of the African American couple, because she “can’t help lovin dat man”. What do you learn? Every marriage has problems and challenges. Every marriage, even with the most auspicious beginning, faces extreme challenges and problems. Marriages stick together in spite of the problems and fall apart because of the problems. Marriages that last find ways to deal with the irritations and annoyances introduced by the partner, and their deep loyalty binds them together in spite of the pressures that threaten to pull them apart. The challenges serve to either melt them together or split them apart. Love is painful but powerful. It is even sometimes very sad. But, true love holds even the most painful marriage together. Marriage is an institution where two imperfect people struggle together through many difficulties to forge a union that withstands the tests of life.
The second lesson is about life. Life goes on and you can’t stop it any more than you can stop the Mississippi. The young couple marry, go to Chicago, have a child, and raise the child. The story ends with the child back at the showboat and falling in love, thus the cycle starts all over again. Life is like the Mississippi, Old Man River, who just keeps rolling along…through good and bad, through problems and pain and joy, celebration and challenge. You can’t stop it. You can only ride it out. Likewise, we can’t escape the problems, but we can ride on them. Apply what Paul says in 2 Corinthians 4 to your marriage, and ride on the problem to God’s grace.… 2CO 4:7 But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. 8 We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; 9 persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. 10 We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body.
And, in 2 Corinthians 12….he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. 10 That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
Besides the beautiful songs, terrific staging, and talented actors, the story line floated you a couple messages.
The first is a story about love and marriage. There are 5 marriages depicted in the play: The owner of the showboat, the lead actor and actress, the comedy dance team, the African-American workers, and the owners’ daughter who marries the flashy and talented riverboat “gentleman.” Every marriage has its problems: The owner puts up with his domineering and demanding wife. The lead actor and actress have to run when the local police discover that she is mixed-race and come to arrest her…only to see their marriage dissolve in Chicago. The comedy dance team with running ad-hominem banter, cracking jokes at each other’s expense, surprisingly stick together and eventually make it big in Hollywood. The young lovers are married, much to the dismay of the riverboat owner’s wife and the delight of the riverboat owner. They wind up in Chicago where the gambler loses his shirt and deserts the love of his life and their child. The only marriage that seems to be solid and encouraging is that of the African American couple, because she “can’t help lovin dat man”. What do you learn? Every marriage has problems and challenges. Every marriage, even with the most auspicious beginning, faces extreme challenges and problems. Marriages stick together in spite of the problems and fall apart because of the problems. Marriages that last find ways to deal with the irritations and annoyances introduced by the partner, and their deep loyalty binds them together in spite of the pressures that threaten to pull them apart. The challenges serve to either melt them together or split them apart. Love is painful but powerful. It is even sometimes very sad. But, true love holds even the most painful marriage together. Marriage is an institution where two imperfect people struggle together through many difficulties to forge a union that withstands the tests of life.
The second lesson is about life. Life goes on and you can’t stop it any more than you can stop the Mississippi. The young couple marry, go to Chicago, have a child, and raise the child. The story ends with the child back at the showboat and falling in love, thus the cycle starts all over again. Life is like the Mississippi, Old Man River, who just keeps rolling along…through good and bad, through problems and pain and joy, celebration and challenge. You can’t stop it. You can only ride it out. Likewise, we can’t escape the problems, but we can ride on them. Apply what Paul says in 2 Corinthians 4 to your marriage, and ride on the problem to God’s grace.… 2CO 4:7 But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. 8 We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; 9 persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. 10 We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body.
And, in 2 Corinthians 12….he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. 10 That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
Saturday, August 1, 2009
Lean Into the Mountain
A week ago, Carol and I drove to the top of Steptoe Butte outside Colfax. I could say it was the high point of our 1325 mile trip across Oregon and Washington. At least, it was the white knucklist point! Steptoe Butte is a 1000 foot mountain with a narrow, one lane road with two-way traffic winding to the top. I call it white knuckle driving because there is no guardrail. And, you would roll a long ways before you stopped. So, even though I enjoyed Carol in my lap (because the edge was on her side of the car), I tried to steer away from the edge and as close as possible to the mountain.
I first realized I was White Knuckle about edges and heights in 1967 when I made a mid August assault on Mt. Hood. At a certain place, I found myself trying to step back into the mountain. Years later, when our son was about 10, I found myself on the higher part of my rough one night trying to finish a Christmas light project. I was on my stomach, finger nails dug into the shakes, shaking. Matt called out, “Dad, what’s wrong?” I answered, “I’m freaked!” I was clinging to the roof for dear life.
You'd think I'd have sense enough to avoid high places with such physiologically white knuckle reactions! Noooo! Not me! Not many years later we took a family road trip to Edmonton. We drove through Glacier Park on the way up, with an emphasis on that last word, “up”. As we drove up the valley, admiring the mountains and trees, we saw the sheer rock face of the mountain in front of us. Suddenly I saw light reflecting off glass…there were cars on that rock face! That was the “Going to the Sun Highway”…that winds up across the face of the sheer cliff with only 1 foot rock guardrails between you and eternity! White Knuckle! I leaned into the mountain.
Steptoe Butte had no guardrails! Hence: White Knuckle! I leaned into the mountain, trying to stay as close to the mountain and as far from ledge as possible.
Likewise, I find that leaning into the mountain is a good picture when it comes to avoiding the ledges and edges of life, from falling into temptation and crashing my life and my family and my friends into oblivion by some mis-step. The Message version of I Corinthians 10:13 says, No test or temptation that comes your way is beyond the course of what others have had to face. All you need to remember is that God will never let you down; he'll never let you be pushed past your limit; he'll always be there to help you come through it.
God’s way of escape isn’t just to avoid edges and ledges. It is to stick as close to the mountain as possible. That’s the idea God told Abraham in Genesis 17, "I am God Almighty; walk before me and be blameless. (NIV)….It is only by sticking close to Almighty God that we can walk blamelessly before Him.
Lean into God, and you’ll stay away from the edges of life.
I first realized I was White Knuckle about edges and heights in 1967 when I made a mid August assault on Mt. Hood. At a certain place, I found myself trying to step back into the mountain. Years later, when our son was about 10, I found myself on the higher part of my rough one night trying to finish a Christmas light project. I was on my stomach, finger nails dug into the shakes, shaking. Matt called out, “Dad, what’s wrong?” I answered, “I’m freaked!” I was clinging to the roof for dear life.
You'd think I'd have sense enough to avoid high places with such physiologically white knuckle reactions! Noooo! Not me! Not many years later we took a family road trip to Edmonton. We drove through Glacier Park on the way up, with an emphasis on that last word, “up”. As we drove up the valley, admiring the mountains and trees, we saw the sheer rock face of the mountain in front of us. Suddenly I saw light reflecting off glass…there were cars on that rock face! That was the “Going to the Sun Highway”…that winds up across the face of the sheer cliff with only 1 foot rock guardrails between you and eternity! White Knuckle! I leaned into the mountain.
Steptoe Butte had no guardrails! Hence: White Knuckle! I leaned into the mountain, trying to stay as close to the mountain and as far from ledge as possible.
Likewise, I find that leaning into the mountain is a good picture when it comes to avoiding the ledges and edges of life, from falling into temptation and crashing my life and my family and my friends into oblivion by some mis-step. The Message version of I Corinthians 10:13 says, No test or temptation that comes your way is beyond the course of what others have had to face. All you need to remember is that God will never let you down; he'll never let you be pushed past your limit; he'll always be there to help you come through it.
God’s way of escape isn’t just to avoid edges and ledges. It is to stick as close to the mountain as possible. That’s the idea God told Abraham in Genesis 17, "I am God Almighty; walk before me and be blameless. (NIV)….It is only by sticking close to Almighty God that we can walk blamelessly before Him.
Lean into God, and you’ll stay away from the edges of life.
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