Brown's Daily Word: Brown's Daily Word 7-6-12

Friday, July 6, 2012

Brown's Daily Word 7-6-12

Thanks be to Jesus our Lord for this day. America the Beautiful has celebrated Independence Day. Many have put their lives into vacation gear. Praise the Lord for the good land the Lord has given us. On July fourth we drove around the Lake District through some of the rolling hillls full of corn fields, (which were knee high by the fourth of July), and by some of the vineyards of New York. I often wonder why we who live in the United States of America and have life so good, seem to be so discontent at the same time. How can we have so much of this life’s goods and pleasures, freedoms and privileges, resources and comforts, and yet be so miserable? Perhaps we have too much.
One of the stories the Bible tells us is the necessity of gratitude, if life is going to be meaningful. We read of Job being tempted to curse God and give up because of the suffering in his life. He was, however, a man who continued to trust God with his life and his future. That is radical gratitude. We read about King David, who faced with a mountain of problems in trying to lead his nation, yet continued to look to God and wrote a whole book of songs praising God. We read about Paul, who was persecuted, beaten, jailed, and left for dead, who could say: “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ” (Ephesians 1:3). Despite all his difficulties, he said, “We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed” (2 Corinthians 4:8-9).
I have been reading Psalm 100, which we will be using as the "Call to Worship" this coming Sunday. I have also been listening to the tune, "The Old 100th" in various renditions. It is both powerful and joyful.
Douglas Coupland wrote a book entitled "Girlfriend in a Coma". In the book, a young woman comes out of a coma that she has been in since ‘79. After she is out of the coma for awhile, someone asks about her impressions of people who live in the ‘90s. She says, “A lack. A lack of convictions, of beliefs, of wisdom, or even of good old badness. No sorrow, no nothing. The people I knew when I came back, they only, well, existed. It was so sad.” But what would you expect from people who have crammed their lives with everything but God?
In the Bible we read about a God who created a world and called it good. It tells of a God who loves the world and has loved its people into existence. It demonstrates that he came to redeem people even if it meant dying for them. It claims he came to show us that death has no power over us, and that this world is not all there is. The Bible’s story is that history is headed somewhere and that there is a divine purpose to our lives and the world. It’s message is that there can even be meaning in suffering.

Corrie Ten Boom, a survivor of the holocaust, spoke about the goodness of God even in and through the terrible circumstances she faced. She wrote in her book, "The Hiding Place", “Often I have heard people say, ‘How good God is! We prayed that it would not rain for our church picnic, and look at the lovely weather!’ Yes, God is good when He sends good weather. But God was also good when He allowed my sister, Betsie, to starve to death before my eyes in a German concentration camp. I remember one occasion when I was very discouraged there. Everything around us was dark, and there was darkness in my heart. I remember telling Betsie that I thought God had forgotten us. ‘No, Corrie,’ said Betsie, ‘He has not forgotten us. Remember His Word: “For as the heavens are high above the earth, so great is His steadfast love toward those who fear Him.”’” Corrie concluded, “There is an ocean of God’s love available — there is plenty for everyone.

May God grant you never to doubt that victorious love — whatever the circumstances.” The Psalmist tells us: “Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name” (Psalm 100:4).
Another message of the Bible is that we cannot be grateful until we believe with all our heart that life is good. Even some Christians I know spend the majority of the time speaking and thinking about how terrible the world is. There is so much sin and evil, and the idea is that the world is so horrible that we just can’t wait until Jesus comes again. Somehow in all of this we have missed out on what the Psalmist understood: that life is good and God’s wish is that we would revel in it. Life is not to be endured, it is meant to be enjoyed. What’s the purpose in making a good world if no one is going to enjoy it? How can we hate the world when God loves the world?
At the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C. there is a large wooden altar from a Jewish synagogue. It was vandalized by Nazi soldiers who had come to remove all Jews from their city. The soldiers had tried to destroy the altar. The hack marks of their axes are yet to be seen, but still decipherable across the altar is a single phrase of Hebrew carved deeply into the wood. Though the axes of man attempted to delete the words, the phrase is still reads: “Know before Whom you stand.” The problem with our pagan culture is that we do not know before whom we stand; therefore we do not understand the value and purpose of life. For this reason, we cannot stand at all. Is it any wonder that we have such a low view of the world and life itself? It is no surprise that we miss the clues about how good and wonderful life is because we try to erase the fact that we are to live before God in this life.
Life is good even when there are difficulties and sufferings. Dr. Dale Robbins writes, “I used to think people complained because they had a lot of problems. But I have come to realize that they have problems because they complain. The Psalmist knew God, and therefore understood the world and what life was to be like in the world. He said, “Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth. Worship the Lord with gladness; come before him with joyful songs. Know that the Lord is God. It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people, the sheep of his pasture” (Psalm 100:1-3).
“For the Lord is good and his love endures forever; his faithfulness continues through all generations” (Psalm 100:5).