Threads from Henry's Web

Tag: caring

  • Psalm 23:4 – With Me

    Psalm 23:4 – With Me

    Even though I’m walking in a deadly dark valley
    I will fear no evil, for you are with me.
    Your scepter and your staff give me comfort.

    The words are few, but the message is deep. Even with God guiding us, we will find ourselves going through times of trouble and darkness. We will be in places where we will wonder what happens next. Journeying with God is not a constant triumphal parade in which everything that happens to us appears and feels glorious.

    God’s scepter and staff (rod and staff – KJV), meaning is authority and his support and presence give us the ability to live through the times of deep darkness and the fear of the shadow of death. God is there.

    This is a message (I think the message) in the book of Job. When God appears, 38 chapters in, God provides no answers to Job’s questions. God dismisses everything from the third through the 37th chapter.

    “Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?” God asks Job. Then he proceeds to ask Job questions. When the speech is done, Job responds,

    I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear,
    but now my eye sees you;
    therefore I despise myself,
    and repent in dust and ashes.

    Job 42:5-6 (NRSV)

    But even there, God changes the tune as he tells Job’s friends that they have not spoken of him in the right way, as his servant Job has done.

    It’s knowing that God is there that satisfies Job.

    In that deep valley, we can know that God, who, through Christ, is acquainted with our every trial and weakness (Hebrews 2:10-11 & 4:14-16). Like Job, we will try to find reassurance that God is actually hearing us and aware of our situation, but we have the assurance.

    I like the description of God, originated by process philosopher Alfred North Whitehead, as the “fellow-sufferer who understands.” There’s some more to this view of God, however. Let me quote Bruce Epperly, author of the book Messy Incarnation, which I publish:

    God is the fellow sufferer who understands and the joyful heart who celebrates. God cries along with the Bethlehem mothers, mourning the slaughter of their children. God experiences the hopelessness of parents separated from their children to fulfill the campaign promises of a self-interested political leader. God feels the terror of a child running for his life in a war-torn land and the panic of an adult on the streets of Minneapolis, Minnesota, crying for mercy, “I can’t breathe.” God places you on God’s knees in prayerful embracing. God never places God’s knee on your spiritual neck!

    Bruce Epperly, Messy Incarnation, p. 37

    I would like to emphasize here that God suffers with all sufferers, not just those we manage to care about. God loves the world and feels the pain brought about by evil. God’s caring is not limited and conditional as ours so often is.

    Yes, God can even care for me,. one who so often forgets, fails to recognize, and lives as though caring was optional and occasional. Even while writing this, there was a call to care, and it annoyed me. I acted, but not with grace. Yet God still cares and walks with me.

    Who is God calling you to care more for today?

  • Psalm 119:149 – Mercy and Life

    Psalm 119:149 – Mercy and Life

    Hear my voice according to your lovingkindness (hesed).
    Oh LORD, give me life according to your judgments.

    This is a very interesting verse. I think it is also challenging.

    We see two aspects of God’s grace and mercy working together here. First, the psalmist asks for mercy from God, and so should we. Listen to us as one who is merciful.

    But what is the result of this mercy? We often think mercy as the part where the authority cancels punishment or removes other negative effects of something one has done. But here mercy leads to the next part, giving life, and this life is according to God’s judgments. Those judgments call on us to be merciful. (See Hosea 6:6 in the Hebrew scriptures.) Jesus used this very concept in the beatitudes, with Matthew 5:7: “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.”

    But this goes back to the call of Abraham in Genesis 12, where Abraham is told that God will bless him and others will be blessed through him.

    It’s easy to get this in reverse. We like to feel that we earn things. But the starting point is receiving God’s mercy, and one of the results is that we will learn to become merciful ourselves. We can think of this as a special action by God, but I would suggest that it is built into the fabric of the universe God created. We find this as the law of sowing and reaping. If we sow mercy, we reap mercy. That is, we help create an atmosphere in which mercy rules.

    Matthew 7:1, “Judge not, that you be not judged,” should likely be read in a similar sense. Don’t sow judgment and condemnation. Sow grace and forgiveness. Do this because you have received grace, and do it because grace is a good thing, and you can spread it to others. One of the best ways for someone to learn of God’s grace is to see God’s grace working in one of God’s professed (and hopefully real) followers.

    When we cry out to God, as this section of the Psalm has been describing, God doesn’t merely waive a penalty for things we have done. Yes, God does that. But God does much more. God begins to work, according to God’s judgment, on giving us life.

    And in all this we become partners with God in creating this life and this atmosphere of mercy and caring. We’re not God’s partners because we came with something new to contribute. Rather, we can give because we received.

    I want to add something the Psalm is not addressing. Mercy and caring are not economic goods. That means they are not scarce. You can care about additional people without running out. Caring about one person doesn’t mean you have to despise another. All people, not just the ones you or I happen to like, can receive God’s mercy and God’s care. And all people should receive our care.

    Who can you have mercy on today as God has had mercy on you?

    (Featured image generated by Jetpack AI. First try, too!)

  • Psalm 119:95 – Consider

    Psalm 119:95 – Consider

    The wicked wait for me to destroy me,
    but I consider your testimonies.

    What do I think about when you realize that wicked people are after me?

    It’s an interesting question. Recently, we had some temporary residents move onto a property near us. I know the owner, who was doing what he regarded as the right thing: helping people in need find a temporary place to live. Though there were complaints around the neighborhood, I agreed with him about Christian duty.

    Then a few items normally left outside disappeared. Nothing expensive, but we live in an area where you can normally leave things out and expect them to still be there the next day. I started leaving outside lights on at my office (a separate small building) and on both porches. We didn’t have further trouble.

    My friend who owned the neighboring property did have more trouble, and eventually some people had to be removed from the property. Through all of this, that property owner remained a positive. His concern? Some people who behaved badly had made it impossible for him to help others.

    I like his example. Often we allow the way others behave to change who we are. We become bitter. We can even become angry and ruin our own lives because of what other people have done.

    This verse points to another approach. Even when others are treating you badly, keep your eye on God and on something better.

    I see this sometimes among Christians who feel that their faith has been disrespected by others. They become afraid to speak publicly or admit who they are. I always have to confess when I talk about this that I’m saved from this issue by an occupational hazard. As a publisher of Christian books, it’s hard for me to hide even if I wanted to. But it’s easy to isolate ourselves or perceive ourselves as outcasts when that’s not what people are thinking at all. We’ve just worked our way into a prison of our own thinking.

    In various television shows or movies and even in the news, I see stories of people who imagine a complete relationship with someone that doesn’t exist. Someone may do this with a celebrity, for example.

    Ray Stevens has a humorous song about this phenomenon.

    We laugh, but people get messed up by imagined situations. Then, of course, there is the reality of real danger, real hostility.

    What to do?

    I think this verse provides a most excellent antidote. Meditate on the good stuff. Meditate on what God has done. Meditate on what’s right. That will help you recognize the real danger and understand how to respond to various threats. Don’t spend your time in the first half of the verse.

    Let God’s word be your anchor in a potentially dangerous world.

  • Psalm 119:70 – Unfeeling or Insensitive

    Psalm 119:70 – Unfeeling or Insensitive

    Their hearts are clogged with fat;
    I delight in your instruction (Torah).

    A very literal alternative for the first half of the verse would be “fattened with fat are their hearts.” The REB translates:

    [T]hey are arrogant and unfeeling,
    but I find my delight in your instruction.

    With the heart being more the seat of thought than of emotions in Hebrew imagery, we could say that their thinking and perceiving equipment is all clogged up. Some cognate words in related languages suggest foolishness.

    This is a good example of translating an idiom. There are those who prefer word-by-word translation, what is called formal equivalence, which means the translator tries to represent each grammatical form (word or sometimes phrase) in the source language with an equivalent in the target language. In this case, translating “their heart is fat with fat” would be formally accurate, but not necessarily communicative.

    While I like the way in which the REB translates, I would tend to replace “unfeeling” with “insensitive.” (Assuming I was aiming for functional equivalence.) The reason is that this verse suggest to me a contrast. Unlike the Psalmist, those who smear him are not able to delight in God’s law. This accords with the psalmist’s many prayers that the Lord will teach him and keep after him even if he goes astray.

    The word sensitivity was on my mind in my meditations today. It seems to me that there are two closely related types of sensitivity that are necessary for the one that delights in God’s law in the theme of this verse. The first is a sensitivity to God’s commands. The second is a sensitivity to those around, to the community of which one is a part.

    Sensitivity to God’s commands in a way that makes them a delight requires that one care about good, ethical, and productive behavior. Indifference is not delight. The psalmist wants to do right. The slanderers want to do injury. They are not sensitive to what their actions do to others. Their hearts are blocked up and unable to receive new, clean blood.

    Create in me a new heart, Oh God, and renew an upright spirit within me (Psalm 51:12)

    The second part of this sensitivity is a sensitivity to other people. It is very easy to come to the point of not caring what happens to other people. But this attitude is decried in scripture. Besides commanding the Israelites to love the LORD their God with all their hearts, they are commanded to love their neighbor as they love themselves (Leviticus 19:18).

    To love someone as you love yourself, you need to be able to appreciate them as a person of value, independent of what they can do for you. You need to be able to understand who they are and what their needs are. You need to be able to recognize and acknowledge their differences. You will begin to disregard someone you don’t respect as their own person.

    God’s instruction is filled with concern for others. When we get to the New Testament, we have Philippians 2:4, which tells us that we should not each seek our own well-being, but rather then well-being of others. This is followed by the famous passage of Philippians 2;5-11, which tells us that Jesus gave up more for us than we can even comprehend, going from infinite something to nothing for us.

    With this in mind, how can we, as Christians, fail to care about the needs of others? How can we fail to take them seriously?

    Who is there that you just can’t stand, but that God is asking you to love?

    (Featured image generated by Jetpack AI.)

  • Are the Pillars Choking Your Church?

    Are the Pillars Choking Your Church?

    I wrote this essay some time ago. I’m strongly in favor of caring for our long-term church members, those who keep the church going through thick and thin, and have been doing so for a long time.

    But as a member of the long-enduring group, I advocate every effort being made for the next generation, physically and spiritually.

    Of Trees and Saplings

    Featured image by S. Hermann & F. Richter from Pixabay