David’s Song of Thanks

“Oh give thanks to the Lord; call upon his name;
   make known his deeds among the peoples!
Sing to him, sing praises to him;
   tell of all his wondrous works!
Glory in his holy name;
   let the hearts of those who seek the Lord rejoice!
Seek the Lord and his STRENGTH;
   seek his presence continually!
Remember the wondrous works that he has done
  his miracles, and the judgments he pronounced,
you his servants, the descendants of Israel,
   his chosen ones, the children of Jacob.
He is the Lord our God;
   his judgments are in all the earth.
He remembers his covenant forever,
   the promise he made, for a thousand generations…”
(1 Chronicles 16:8-15)

It seems odd to juxtapose this seemingly happy song with images of the 9/11 memorial museum at the World Trade Center Memorial in Manhattan.  Taken at face value, it would almost seem insensitive or inappropriate.   The song of David recorded in 1 Chronicles 16 was sung when the Ark of the Covenant was brought into its temporary dwelling in Jerusalem.  While joyous, it was a celebration tinged with a great deal of pain, loss, and fear and trembling.   This was the second attempt at bringing the Ark “home” to Jerusalem – the first attempt was a dramatic failure resulting in loss of life.

Not only that, but while this was a moment in David’s life where he was beginning to experience the consolidation of his kingdom, it was a rise to power that came at great personal expense.  David had suffered the loss of his closest friend Jonathan, he had been exiled and pursued as an enemy of the state by his mentor King Saul, he had to feign insanity to avoid being murdered by enemy rulers, and he had even experienced personal rejection by his own flesh and blood.   It wasn’t an easy road for David.  Yet, when confronted with all these challenges and terrors, David pressed courageously towards the Lord and trusted in God to save and protect him.

The song in 1 Chronicles 16 is simply an outward expression of a persistent response in David whenever confronted with loss, danger or fear – praise the Lord and remember all of His wonders.

When we are confronted with our darkest struggles and most painful challenges, let us respond like David with faith-filled praise in the God who has faithfully and compassionately gone before us time and again.  He will not leave us or forsake us.  He will not forget “...the promise he made, for a thousand generations…”

Father, thank you for your wondrous works in our lives.  Thank you that you are a just and compassionate God and that You alone are strong to save.  Help us to seek You and Your strength….help us to seek your presence continually.

I don’t usually care for pithy slogans on church marquees.  In fact, I find them rather annoying.  However, for the last month the sign at a small country church on my morning commute has caught my attention.  It reads:

“There is nothing as strong as gentleness”

For the last few blog entries I’ve focused on dramatic natural phenomena like mighty winds, earthquakes, and raging forest fires.  In and through all these things God’s strength and might are demonstrated not only in the power He summons, but in the protection and sustenance He provides when His children are confronted with crisis and disaster.  The whole time, however,  I’ve had this passage from 1 Kings 19 in mind:

“And the word of the Lord came to him: “What are you doing here, Elijah?”

He replied, “I have been very zealous for the Lord God Almighty. The Israelites have rejected your covenant, torn down your altars, and put your prophets to death with the sword. I am the only one left, and now they are trying to kill me too.”

The Lord said, “Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.”

Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake came a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper. When Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave.”

Elijah had just experienced the most dramatic high of his ministry in the supernatural showdown with the prophets of Ba’al at Mount Carmel, only to suffer his most discouraging blow when his much hoped for national revival didn’t materialize.  On top of that, the evil queen Jezebel, instead of ducking her tail between her legs and fleeing the country, dug in her heels deeper and breathed murderous threats against Elijah.  So Elijah fled to Mount Horeb – the same mountain where Moses and Israel witnessed God descend in fire, smoke, and thunderous trumpet blasts to deliver the Torah to His newly redeemed people.

Was Elijah hoping God would show up again in a frightening display of pyroclastic holiness, enraged at Elijah’s suffering, ready to wipe Israel and Jezebel off the map?  Maybe.  Whatever the expectation, it was clear God wasn’t going to speak to Elijah in wind, quakes, and fire.  But, a gentle whisper.

Nothing is as strong as gentleness.

In the picture above, taken at Crowders Mountain, NC, this rather large crevice between two jagged rock faces acts like a wind tunnel.  When there’s a good breeze out, the wind funnels through the gap with a decent howl.  But when it stills, the quiet echos.  You could hear a dislodged pebble click clack all the way down the gap.

When the storms and winds and fires are raging around you, it’s difficult to find those quiet pauses.  But they do come.  And when they come are you prepared to hear the Lord’s gentle whisper?  He will still the racket long enough for you to hear.  For Elijah, God didn’t tell him why things were the way they were, but He provided a game plan, and then a firm reassurance that whatever it looked like on the surface, He was still in control, and He would still win the day.

What is the Spirit of God whispering to you today?

Ask anyone on the West coast – wildfires are frightening.  When I was in High School, I remember a visit to the Berkeley Hills outside San Francisco following a particularly vicious outbreak of wildfires.  The hills were charred black, with the only recognizable structures being an occasional lonely chimney or metal beam contorted by the terrible heat.  It was a startling site.  Tina and I also visited the Malibu hills in 2007, a day after the Malibu fires that year had subsided.  It was the same picture.  Acres of charred, black coastal hills.  While in nature, wildfires may be a natural process that actually helps regenerate forest vegetation, when this comes in contact with human civilization the effects can be devastating.

On a recent trip to Titusville we noticed an alarming plume of smoke rising over the neighborhood.  It turns out the smoke was coming from a prescribed burn in the marshlands just West of Titusville.  My father, Alan Long, is something of a prescribed burn guru.  For years he’s provided teaching and consultation on prescribed (controlled) burning throughout the Southeast.  To quote the guru:

“Prescribed (or controlled) fires today provide the same benefits that accrued to natural fires  – periodic fuel reduction to decrease the likelihood of high intensity wildfires and regular renewal of the high plant biodiversity in the ground-level vegetation that is so important to many forms of animals. Critical to maintaining the fire benefits is the need to repeat prescribed fires on cycles similar to those that occurred naturally.”

I was reflecting on all this wildfire and controlled fire business and 1 Peter 3 came to mind:

“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. This inheritance is kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are receiving the end result of your faith, the salvation of your souls”.
(1 Peter 1:3-9, NIV )

In reflecting on this passage from Peter, and the thoughts from my guru-father, it occurred to me that trials and challenges in life are a lot like prescribed burns.

First, they help eliminate the outbreak of much worse uncontrolled wildfires.  Sometimes God is using the situation you are in to refine your character, to strengthen your resolve, to deepen your faith.  Only God knows why, but I believe at times it’s because He knows there’s a threat around the corner far more perilous to our testimony and our spiritual livelihood that requires a toughening of our spiritual fortitude.  This doesn’t mean you’re in sin, it just means God wants you stronger than you are.  Believe me, I don’t like it, but I’ve seen this to be the case in my life time and again.

Second, trials can renew our fruitfulness (our “ground vegetation”, if you will).  I’ve heard story after story of how God has used somebody in the middle of a seriously trying situation to actually minister grace and healing to someone else in a similar situation.  Perhaps you can recall God doing this in your own life.  Look for ways that God wants to use you to replenish the life of others.  He is a master at this and I marvel every time I see Him work this out in the lives of His saints.

Third, and this is probably the most painful part, trials often need to be repeated.  Although sometimes this might be due to our hard-headedness (I certainly will own that one), I think the actual reason is far less clear.  Sometimes we never know “why” some suffering continues to plague us over and over.  But, as a former pastor of mine once said, “God doesn’t waste pain”.  Your suffering isn’t arbitrary.  And this is where I cling to Peter’s assertion in the passage above: “These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.”.  He has a reason, and it is ultimately in glory.

So, no matter what the fiery trial you are facing, and no matter how many times it has returned upon you, I pray you also know that in it and through it, through faith you are “…shielded by God’s power”.  Whatever God’s ultimate reason may be for allowing it, His power is at work in the middle of it to refine and strengthen you and to make you more fruitful, that through you He may bless others.  Ask Him to reveal that regenerative power through you today.

“...The king’s command was so urgent and the furnace so hot that the flames of the fire killed the soldiers who took up Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, and these three men, firmly tied, fell into the blazing furnace. Then King Nebuchadnezzar leaped to his feet in amazement and asked his advisers, “Weren’t there three men that we tied up and threw into the fire?” He said, “Look! I see four men walking around in the fire, unbound and unharmed, and the fourth looks like a son of the gods.” Nebuchadnezzar then approached the opening of the blazing furnace and shouted, “Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, servants of the Most High God, come out! Come here!” and the satraps, prefects, governors and royal advisers crowded around them. They saw that the fire had not harmed their bodies, nor was a hair of their heads singed; their robes were not scorched, and there was no smell of fire on them. Then Nebuchadnezzar said, “Praise be to the God of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, who has sent his angel and rescued his servants! They trusted in him and defied the king’s command and were willing to give up their lives rather than serve or worship any god except their own God.” ( Daniel 3:22-28, NIV )

A few years back Tina and I took a 15-year wedding anniversary trip to Hawaii.  While there, we visited Volcanoes National Park on Big Island, home of the famous Kilauea volcano.  We took a hike through Kilauea Iki (pictured above) which around 50 years ago was an active lava lake.  Descriptions of the eruptions at the time describe how the magma which had spilled up into the reservoir broke along the rim in waves like the ocean.  When the spouting would recede, the lava would drain down again in a giant whirlpool.  I can only imagine what it would be like to see such an event.  The heat would be so overwhelming, it would prohibit anyone from approaching.

I wonder if that’s what the heat was like in Nebuchadnezzar’s massive furnace described in Daniel. If you’re familiar with the story you know that Nebuchadnezzar built a towering gold idol and demanded everyone in his kingdom to bow down and worship the idol (a wonderful testament ultimately to Nebuchadnezzar’s own inflated ego and majesty).  Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego – three Jewish captives in Babylon – refused to bow.  They were summarily bound and tossed into the fiery furnace Nebuchadnezzar had prepared for any insubordinates.  Their statement immediately before being tossed in is what has always impressed me:

“If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to deliver us from it, and he will deliver us from Your Majesty’s hand.  But even if he does not, we want you to know, Your Majesty, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up.”

It’s that “..even if” that gets me every time.  They had no reason to believe they would become anything but ash on that afternoon.  Who had EVER heard of someone being thrown into a fiery furnace (or lake of lava) and surviving?  Yet, they stood their ground.  No matter what, there is only one God.  And this fabricated gold idol wasn’t Him.

Life often presents us with these fiery furnace moments.  Maybe not that dramatic, but they can be a crisis for our faith either way.  Maybe the terror you’re staring down makes you feel like you’re being dangled over a lake of lava.  It’s just a matter of time before the string breaks and you’re incinerated.  It’s tempting, like Job’s wife, to want to just curse God and die.  After all, why would a Good and Loving God allow this suffering?

If that’s you I pray the Lord, by His Spirit, would fill your heart with the determination of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.  I pray you would know beyond a doubt God is able to deliver you, and even if He doesn’t He has a purpose that will bring Him glory, and you joy and peace.

Of course, the marvel of this account in Daniel is how God shows up right in the furnace.  He didn’t spare them the fire, but He showed up in the middle of it (spoiler alert! – that fourth man glowing “like a son of the gods” had to be Jesus!)    As you face down your fiery furnace today, know that even if God doesn’t spare the fire, Jesus is right with you in the middle of it.  It’s not just a nice thought, it’s the absolute truth.  He is “Emmanuel”, God with us – especially so in our fiery trials.

I’m sure you’ve seen the news and have heard of the horrible church shooting in Charleston, SC.  As I and a colleague at work together looked at pictures of the captured suspect, we both sadly commented at the deep vacancy in his eyes.  It was like nothing was there but pure, unbridled hate.  It’s difficult to imagine what drives a person to such a black and twisted place.

Now, more than ever, we cling desperately to the words of Christ in John 16:33:

“I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”

Father, we lift up the people of Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church who have suffered such a tremendous, unimaginable horror.  We pray for the families of those whose lives were so callously taken and ask that you would surround them with supernatural comfort, compassion and peace.  We ask that you would in time renew their sense of security, and allow this congregation to become not only a place of healing, but a place of forgiveness and revival.  Lord, what the Enemy has intended for absolute evil, would you in your strength and grace transform into something life-giving….only You are capable of such miracles.   Show us how to love and serve our brothers and sisters of Emanuel AME in our prayers, our giving, and our sincerest compassion.  Lord Jesus, be with these precious saints and carry them through the turbulent waters ahead.  We pray also for the troubled young man who committed this act of hate.  If anyone can save and transform such a lost soul, it is You.  Thank you that you have already overcome all this evil, and one day you will completely vanquish the Enemy.  Come Lord Jesus.

In Christ’s mighty name – Amen

“And Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and Yahweh moved the sea with a strong east wind all night, and he made the sea become dry ground, and the waters were divided. And the Israelites entered the middle of the sea on the dry land. The waters were a wall for them on their right and on their left.”
(Exodus 14:21-22, LEB)

There are a few places I’ve visited where the wind is so fierce that taking photos is almost futile.   Conner Pass in Ireland was one of those places.  As I was trying desperately to steady myself for the panoramic image above, I was reminded of the passage in Exodus where God used a “mighty wind” to separate the waters of the Red Sea.  The scene itself on Conner Pass made me wonder if the cleared sea bed didn’t look something like this, and what kind of holy fear must have gripped the Israelites as they witnessed God’s unprecedented action on their behalf.

In Ancient Near Eastern lore and literature, the “waters” or “seas” often represented chaos in the world – the chaos of suffering and of the unknown.  So, in Genesis 1 when we’re told that the Spirit of God was “hovering over the waters” in creation, we get a picture of Yahweh, the Lord who rules over even the chaos…the unknown.  In fact, the Scriptures are full from beginning to end of images of God conquering the “waters”.  Even the final vision of Revelation is a renewed Creation without any seas (Revelation 21:1).  God will one day remove all suffering, all uncertainty…all chaos.

Thankfully, however, we’re not just left with that hope for the future, powerful as it may be.  It’s no accident that we read the following account of Jesus in Matthew:

“And in the fourth watch of the night he came to them, walking on the sea. But the disciples, when they saw him walking on the sea, were terrified, saying, “It is a ghost!” and they cried out in fear. But immediately Jesus spoke to them, saying, “Have courage, I am he! Do not be afraid!” And Peter answered him and said, “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water!  So he said, “Come!” And getting out of the boat, Peter walked on the water and came toward Jesus. But when he saw the strong wind, he was afraid. And beginning to sink, he cried out, saying, “Lord, save me!” And immediately Jesus extended his hand and caught him and said to him, “You of little faith! Why did you doubt?” And when they got into the boat, the wind abated. So those in the boat worshiped him, saying, “Truly you are the Son of God!”
(Matthew 14:25-33, LEB)

Not only does Yahweh part the waters, Yahweh-in-flesh (Jesus) walks on the waters.  And not only does He command the winds to clear the seas, but He commands the winds to calm the seas as well.  He is Lord over creation and chaos, from start to finish.

Which person do you identify with?  Moses, confronted by an impossible passage through a raging sea, or Peter an impossible walk upon a raging sea?  Whatever your impossible situation, know today that Jesus parts the seas, walks upon the seas, and even calms the seas.  Keep your eyes on Jesus, Lord over the chaos of the world, and the chaos of your life.  He will carry you through, and lift you above the wind and waves.