Threads from Henry's Web

Tag: decisions

  • Psalm 119:113 – Hate and Love

    Psalm 119:113 – Hate and Love

    Lawbreakers I hate,
    But your instruction I love!

    Well, now. That’s harsh!

    Commentary on verses uses “hate” and “love” often centers on explaining that these two words don’t always mean the same thing. For example, Malachi 1:2-3 includes the words “Jacob I love, but Esau I hate.” This again sounds pretty harsh, but commentators point out that the Hebrew words “love” and “hate” can mean something like “chosen” and “rejected,” even if that relates to selection for a role.

    That’s sort of correct, as long as people realize that “love” and “hate” in Hebrew also include the emotional preference and a range of meanings. And in case you’re trying to make “hate” too gentle in that particular instance, Malachi 1:4b says “They will be called a country of wickedness, a people with whom the LORD is angry for ever.” This is a fairly energetic form of rejection.

    Sometimes we’re looking for harsh. It brings clarity. The popularity of movies such as the early Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, and a number of adventure movies show this by their popularity. What do these movies have in common? There are good guys and bad guys, and we know which is which. We also know that the bad guys lose and the good guys win. We like it to be that way.

    Then reality sets in. A reality in which the good guys and the bad guys overlap and sometimes change places, and we can’t always be sure who wins, at least in the short term.

    One reason we really like fiction that has a clear line between good and evil is that real life doesn’t generally work out that way. We are usually flawed people working with other flawed people and trying to make things work out reasonably well. We often can’t agree on what is good and evil.

    There’s a passage from one of my favorite Science Fiction writers, David Weber, in his book A Rising Thunder. Someone is looking at the difference between shades of gray and black and white (the long, tall niece in the passage sees more black and withe).

    “Well, usually, that’s what it is.” Benton-Ramirez y Chou’s tone was suddenly much more serious. “But sometimes it isn’t, and my long, tall niece here has a point.” He smiled a little sadly at Honor. “Comfortable or not, when those ‘sometimes’ come along, the only coinage history seems willing to accept is our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.”

    David Weber, A Rising Thunder (ePub Edition), 308.

    And that’s why we like fiction, like many of Weber’s books, where the lines are much more clearly drawn.

    I think it’s important, while recognizing our own faults and failings, to also realize that there are lines that we should not cross, things we should and should not do, and that we should be willing to back those lines with our emotions and actions.

    Sometimes “harsh” is also “true.”

    What lines are you facing? What lines might you need to draw?

    (Featured image generated by Jetpack AI.)

  • Psalm 119:109 – Risky

    Psalm 119:109 – Risky

    My life is in my hands continually,
    yet I do not forget your instruction.

    What I’d like to say, and first thought about saying was that it might be better to say, “My life is in my hands, so I don’t forget that you, God, are in charge.”

    The fact is, however, that we need to remember God’s instruction(s). I want to emphasize, as always, that it is not on the basis of keeping up with God’s instructions that we become part of the family of God. But we have a need to make good decisions at all times, and the time when we are most likely to forget what we have learned from God’s instructions is when we are most at risk.

    This morning, Jody had a problem with her heart. It scared me. I got very tense. I had a hard time making decisions. I forgot to pray. Part of the time I forgot to think. And it wasn’t even one of the worst moments we’ve had over the last few years. Talking to a few people helped me settle down. Praying helped settle me down. (I frequently note that prayer is much more about changing me than about changing my circumstances.)

    Now Jody is fine, though I’m still a bit nervous. But it was precisely during that time when I’m watching numbers related to her health and thinking they’re not going where they’re supposed to that I need to remember God’s instructions.

    Now you may be wondering where in the Bible I find something about how to deal with pulse rates, blood oxygen, blood pressure, and such things. No, there is not a book of “Cardiac Care.” The idea is to find a way of thinking, a way in which I can process problems. I then need to apply that way of thinking to various problems.

    We talk a lot about breaking bad habits. I think we need to talk more about developing good habits. Good habits set you up to do the right thing when the wrong thing happens.

    I recall reading in Jacob Milgrom’s 3 volume (2200 pages!) commentary on Leviticus, that the Torah has clearly been written as a teaching tool. (I paraphrase from memory.) I didn’t really understand that until I took a group of Christian young people to visit a Synagogue for their Religious Education, which was on Sunday morning. A Rabbi talked to the young people I had brought together with theirs.

    On this occasion, he chose to talk about the command that is found in Exodus 34:26(b) and elsewhere, “You shall not boil a kid in its mother’s milk.” This refers, of course to a baby goat. Not quite as astonishing. But yet you may ask why such a law would exist.

    Well, in Judaism, the Rabbi told us, this was where the rules on eating meat and dairy products together came from. The young people were generally mystified. What good is this rule? Why should anyone keep such a law? What’s the purpose?

    The Rabbi explained that this is a rule that tells us we have a choice in what we do. We are not subject to our passions in all things. We can choose to live one way and not another. I deduce that you put this rule into practice in order to become accustomed to doing things according to rules, that you have a habit of following rules.

    I think that’s the point of remembering God’s Torah, or instruction. When it becomes a question of life or death, when decisions are coming at you faster than you can handle them, when you don’t know the way out you have a way in which you think of things.

    I was discussing a decision with a friend some years ago, looking at two courses of action. Both appeared acceptable, but I was uncertain which one to take. Then ethics took hold and I suddenly saw that one of the courses of action would likely lead to things I knew were wrong. I hadn’t seen certain consequences. Suddenly I knew. Only one choice was in accordance with God’s instruction.

    What instruction from God will guide you at a moment of decision?

  • Psalm 119:30 – I Have Chosen

    Psalm 119:30 – I Have Chosen

    I have chosen faithfulness as my path.
    I’m in place1 with your judgments.

    1 There is considerable controversy about how this verb should be translated.

    A literal translation may make this clearer:

    Decided have I a way of faith
    with your judgments I have agreed

    D. Robert MacDonald, Seeing the Psalter, p. 382

    Let me commend again, Bob MacDonald’s treatment of the Psalms, and indeed is work with music of Hebrew scripture.

    As I meditated on this verse, I kept coming back to New Year’s resolutions and the fact that I don’t make them. I have done so in the past, but I haven’t for years. New Year’s resolutions are famous for their short duration. We determine to do things, but then we really don’t. Thus the broken New Year’s resolution has become a cliche. I heard this question recently on a Family Feud episode, and if I recall correctly, the #1 answer was two weeks. And that might have been optimistic.

    We joke about it, but then we tend to live our lives that way. So should we give up on making decisions? Should we cease to try to do right because we so often fail?

    About two years ago, I got the results of some blood tests that showed my glucose was way too high. The doctor already had a list of prescription medications he wanted me to take. I said, “I don’t think so. I’m going to do some lifestyle changes and see how that goes.” The look of skepticism he gave me was memorable. But he agreed with my process, and I graciously (!) didn’t tell him it wouldn’t have mattered if he hadn’t.

    Three months later the relevant numbers, including now A1C and blood glucose had dropped below levels of concern. They weren’t down to where one would like them, but he confessed that most of his patients who were on medications had trouble maintaining that good of numbers.

    I made a decision, and for the most part, I carried it out. Not nearly to perfection, but to my own benefit. My sleep is better, my productivity is better, I have more energy. The result is great!

    So what if I said, “Most people fail at these things. In fact, I usually fail at these things. There’s no point in making an effort”? I’d be taking more medications, and while my glucose level would likely be lower due to medication, the other benefits would not have occurred.

    Or, on the other hand, I could observe difficult moments, days on which I didn’t complete my exercise goals, or the time back in September when I was sick for a week, and then practically had to start over building up my activity levels.

    I don’t know if Psalm 119 is a Psalm of David, but David was “a man after God’s own heart,” (1 Samuel 13:14), and wrote some of the Psalms. I’ve just been listening to the stories of David including his behavior with Bathsheba and his murder of Uriah. We also have Psalm 51, which the superscription presents as David’s confession and determination to follow God’s way after God has forgiven and restored him.

    I think it’s important to recognize when decisions and resolutions are valuable and when they are not. Writing these meditations was a decision. I plan to write 176 of them. I may skip Christmas and New Year’s Day, but then again, I might not. I can tell you that while my statistics indicate readership is dismally low, simply taking the time to mediate on these verses as been a worthwhile resolution.

    Might I suggest that Hebrews 6:1 “be carried on to perfection” provides a similar resolution. I’ve summarized the message of Hebrews as this: “Get on the right train and stay on it till it reaches the destination.” With the author of Hebrews, I’m determined to stay on the train.

    But don’t let your value be determined by your resolutions or your success at carrying them out. You are “a little lower than God” (Psalm 8:5), you are a child of God, a brother of Jesus Christ (Hebrews 2:11). You are all that already.

    Make good decisions; rest in God’s goodness.

  • Overspiritualized Decision Making

    Overspiritualized Decision Making

    The question came to me after I had been talking about intercessory prayer and hearing God’s voice, but it came as a surprise.

    “What should I do about sharing knowledge I get from God about other people? Can I tell other people so that we can pray more specifically?”

    I had not been talking about getting information about people from words of knowledge or whatever other means one might think of doing so. Considering the number of people I have heard claim to get special knowledge from God, and the number of cases in which I have found this information to be incorrect, my first concern was that someone would consider an unverified thing they heard to be safe to share with anyone.

    But the questioner had a different concern. Somehow, this person thought that if the information came from God, sharing it would not be gossip. The “spiritually acquired” information was somehow special, and would absolve one of gossip.

    As an aside, I would say that whether you believe you got your information straight from God, picked it up by being a good reader of people, heard it from a gossip in your church, or put it together from clues that lead you to a conclusion, sharing it with someone else inappropriately is gossip.

    I begin with this story to illustrate a basic problem. People give themselves a special category for spiritual things. They say things and do things in a “spiritual” context that they might never do in real life.

    Whether you hurt someone through physical action or through some sort of spiritual activity, they are still hurt. In fact, by giving extra spiritual weight, such as by saying “God told me” or “this came to me during my prayer time” can increase the emotional damage that you can do.

    I’d go so far as to say that I have heard this phrase many more times as spiritual manipulation than as genuine spiritual counsel and help.

    Think about it! If you tell something that you think the church should undertake a particular project, they can easily object and discuss the merits of the case. If you say, “God told me we should do it,” they have to not only challenge your ideas, but call you a false prophet, speaking the word of the LORD when the LORD has not spoken. When you say you came to your conclusion in your prayer time, you can combine both elements, by giving yourself an extra spiritual aura and at the same time suggesting that your suggestion should be seen as coming from God.

    Outside of the realm of decision making, and with people who will hear it as I intend it, I may say that I have heard this or that from God. I will note here, however, that what I hear from God invariably is about me, not anyone else. Actions I take based on that hearing may impact you, but I rarely hear something for someone else. The exception is often with prayer partners where we help one another confirm a course of action.

    So how can one be sure that one knows the will of God? Surely I can suggest a way in which you can be certain and thus can act on what you hear from the Lord without further consideration.

    No, I don’t. I do not have a checklist that will make certain. I find the tests in Deuteronomy very interesting. In Deuteronomy 18 we are told that if a prophet’s word is not fulfilled, their word is false. I call this the “dead test” for a prophet, because by the time you know whether the prophet spoke truly, you’re dead. Try the story in 1 Kings 22 as an example.

    But in Deuteronomy 13, we’re told that even if a prophet’s word comes true, if they tell us to worship other gods, we are to reject them as false. This is a live test, but it kind of leaves us with a serious question. How do you know what God is saying? How do you know God’s will?

    Now let me detour to those who think they will get all answers from scripture, for example. Some of the craziest decisions I have ever heard of came from people who thought they were following scripture. They also didn’t know God’s will.

    So is there a problem there with scripture?

    Well, you can call it a problem, but it’s really a problem with everything. I am a human. I’m finite. I’m imperfect, subject to error. Whether I’m interpreting scripture, following tradition, doing my best scientific calculation, or listening to the voice of God (as I perceive it), I’m still imperfect.

    Consider a laser measuring device. Suppose it is capable of measuring the distance to a point to 1/16″, such as this one I found on Amazon.com. Now supposing we have a readout that will only read measurements accurate to an inch. We cannot actually get the correct measurement of which the device is capable because we can’t actually read that result.

    Similarly, while God is entirely accurate, I am not. I cannot make a 100% claim of correctness no matter what. Any 100% correctness would have to be accomplished by God, and then in turn, the message is likely to be misunderstood by the next person down the chain.

    So does that leave us unable to make any decisions? Not at all! We live with ambiguity all the time. We make mistakes all the time. Just because you make a mistake in church doesn’t make it incredibly devastating.

    Unless, that is, you try to make the claim that you are, in fact, a prophet who is without error. You can make your claims more destructive by the claim of perfection for yourself. A good approach is whether it’s just your opinion or whether it’s what you believe you heard from God, present it as yourself. That’s not arrogant. That allows for God speaking to the other person. A number of times I have said something which someone else says was precisely what they needed to hear, generally when I didn’t even have the slightest notion that I was giving someone God’s word. The hearer identified it as something they needed without my saying so.

    Decision making involves lots of sources and finally your own reasoning.

    Yes, Proverbs says to “lean not on your own insight” (Proverbs 3:5). But even your understanding of what God has said goes through your own mind. You’re eventually going to have to decide, and your mind will be involved in doing it. Hopefully, it seems good to the Holy Spirit and to you (cf. Acts 15:28), and so it is not purely your own understanding, but you are going to have to make the decision, no matter what input goes in.

    Personally, I take everything in, test it as best I can, hold what is good, and make my decision (1 Thessalonians 5:20-22).

    (Theme Image Credit: Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay)