Brown's Daily Word 11-9-07

Good Morning,
Praise the Lord for this Friday. I trust you had a productive and profitable week and are ready for the weekend of rest, renewal, worship and praise. We are getting ready for an awesome weekend. We will gather for our November men's breakfast at 7:30 tomorrow. It will be a full breakfast, with all the trimmings. Our friend Chris Seavey will be the speaker for the morning. Chris is a distinguished professor at Davis College.
Sunday will be our Friend Day and Homecoming Sunday. The Russian Men's Ensemble will bring the special music at both 8:30 and 11:00. They will present a full concert program at 7:00 PM. There will be a Thanksgiving Feast at 12:30 PM, following the second morning worship service. The meal will include plenty of home-cooked turkey, homemade mashed potatoes, homemade pies, and the works. The University students from Father's Love, many of whom are international students, will be joining us.
Shane Hipps wrote an intriguing article in Leadership Magazine called, “Praise That’s Premature.” He suggests that when worship is just celebration it becomes a kind of pep rally to inspire excitement about who God is. Because grief is an unpleasant emotion we tend to deny our suffering in favor of celebration. “Authenticity and integrity in worship means expressing both lament and praise. Each element completes the other. Without lament, praise is little more than shallow sentimentality and a denial of life’s struggles and sin. Without praise, lament is a denial of hope and grace, both of which are central to our life of faith...” (www.leadershipjournal.net) Hipps points out that the Psalms and books like Habakkuk employ “a narrative arc, a movement from grief and lamentation to celebration and joy.” It’s not wrong to ask questions, or even complain to God. The Book of Job and many of the Psalms express serious questions to God. For example, Psalm 10:1 begins rather abruptly, “Why, O LORD, do you stand far off? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?” It is as if the men were saying, "God, you may be powerful and you may be personal, but why can’t I sense your presence right now?" The psalmist is expressing his frustration at the aloofness of the Almighty.
The psalms are saturated with these kinds of questions. Here’s just a sampling.
* Psalm 13:1: “How long, O LORD? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me?”
* Psalm 44:23-24: “Awake, O Lord! Why do you sleep? Rouse yourself! Do not reject us forever. Why do you hide your face and forget our misery and oppression?”
Habakkuk 1:3: “How long, O Lord, must I call for help, but you do not listen? Or cry out to you, ‘Violence!’ but you do not save? Why do you make me look at injustice? Why do you tolerate wrong?” He’s basically charging God with being both indifferent and inactive.
When tragedy leaves us teetering, it’s not unspiritual to declare our questions to God. He’s big enough to handle your cries. Some of us have been rocked by some pretty tough stuff.
What do we do when we are faced with an avalanche of agony and we feel like God is playing “hide and seek” with us? Some of us think that Christians shouldn’t question God and so we keep your concerns bottled up. I turn to Hipps again: “By incorporating expressions of sorrow, pain, and grief into our worship…the hurting are ushered into God’s presence with honesty. At the same time, the rest of the congregation is reminded of the suffering community gathered in their midst.”
The word question has as its root the word “quest.” If we are on a quest to understand, if we are serious about seeking answers, then let us not hesitate to declare our doubts. If we don’t ask, we might miss out on some surprising answers and ultimately short-circuit some growth that God wants to accomplish in our lives.
After declaring his questions to God, Habakkuk next gets very specific and describes his complaints. His main complaint is that it doesn’t seem fair that God would use a wicked people like the Babylonians to punish God’s people. Habakkuk spells it out in 1:13: “Your eyes are too pure to look on evil; you cannot tolerate wrong. Why then do you tolerate the treacherous? Why are you silent while the wicked swallow up those more righteous than themselves?”
I love the faith progression that takes place in this little book. The hurting follower begins with a “how long” question, followed by two bold “why” questions and then he spells out his complaints in specific detail. As a result of being honest with God, and after questioning and complaining, Habakkuk is now in position to move to the next step in the praise process. Check out 2:1: “I will stand at my watch and station myself on the ramparts; I will look to see what he will say to me, and what answer I am to give to this complaint.” Habakkuk is now ready to hear God’s answer even though he’s not going to like what God has to say. We can learn from this same process.
God answers Habakkuk but never really answers his “how long” or his “why” questions. He does give him two anchors to hold on to. In verse 2, God tells him to “write down the revelation.” Anchor #1 is the Word of God. In verse 3, God tells him that the Babylonians will destroy them even though it will be delayed for awhile. God sets forth the second anchor in verse 4, which is quoted in Romans 1:17, Galatians 3:11 and Hebrews 10:38. In the midst of the mess of life, when problems are pummeling you, hold on to this: “…But the righteous will live by faith.” In other words, “Hold on to me Habakkuk, because I know what I’m doing.” When our faith is anchored to the Word of God we will be able to handle what comes our way.
It is possible to praise even when you are in pain. We can love the Lord, even when we experience loss. In fact, the most authentic times of adoration are often when we feel the most awful. As we come to chapter 3, let’s learn from Habakkuk as he followed a process that moved him from pain to praise. Worship is not complete until we follow the arc from agony to adoration. When pain has been acknowledged, we are invited to focus on God’s faithfulness in the midst of suffering. Verse 1 tells us that this chapter is really the prophet’s prayer: “A prayer of Habakkuk the prophet.” He’s moved from a complaint about problems to a composition of prayerful praise.
John Walvoord writes, “Habakkuk’s book begins with an interrogation of God but ends as an intercession to God. Worry is transformed into worship. Fear turns to faith. Terror becomes trust. Hang-ups are resolved with hope. Anguish melts into adoration.”
Thank you Jesus.
In Him,
Brown

The St. Petersburg Men's Ensemble
Sunday, November 11, 2007

The St. Petersburg Men's Ensemble will be in concert at the Union Center United Methodist Church during the 8:30 and 11:00 a.m. worship services, and in full concert at 7:00 p.m. This group consists of four gifted and talented male vocalists, who sing a cappella. They sing a wide repertoire of musical styles, including classic songs of the Christian faith and Russian folk songs.
The church is located at 128 Maple Drive, Endicott, NY. For information, please call (607)748-1358.




Lawns & God
GOD: St. Francis, you know all about gardens and nature. What in the world is going on down there in the USA? What happened to the dandelions, violets, thistle and stuff I started eons ago? I had a perfect, no-maintenance garden plan. Those plants grow in any type of soil, withstand drought and multiply with abandon. The nectar from the long lasting blossoms attracts butterflies, honeybees and flocks of songbirds. I expected to see a vast garden of colors by now. But all I see are these green rectangles.

ST. FRANCIS: It's the tribes that settled there, Lord. The Suburbanites. They started calling your flowers weeds and went to great lengths to kill them and replace them with grass.

GOD: Grass? But it's so boring. It's not colorful. It doesn't attract butterflies, birds and bees, only grubs and sod worms. It's temperamental with temperatures. Do these Suburbanites really want all that grass growing there?

ST. FRANCIS: Apparently so, Lord. They go to great pains to grow it and keep it green. They begin each spring by fertilizing grass and poisoning any other plant that crops up in the lawn.

GOD: The spring rains and warm weather probably make grass grow really fast. That must make the Suburbanites happy.

ST. FRANCIS: Apparently not, Lord. As soon as it grows a little, they cut it, sometimes twice a week.

GOD: They cut it? Do they then bale it like hay?

ST. FRANCIS: Not exactly Lord. Most of them rake it up and put it in bags.

GOD: They bag it? Why? Is it a cash crop? Do they sell it?

ST. FRANCIS: No, sir -- just the opposite. They pay to throw it away.

GOD: Now, let me get this straight. They fertilize grass so it will grow. And when it does grow, they cut it off and pay to throw it away?

ST. FRANCIS: Yes, sir.

GOD: These Suburbanites must be relieved in the summer when we cut back on the rain and turn up the heat. That surely slows the growth and saves them a lot of work.

ST. FRANCIS: You aren't going to believe this, Lord. When the grass stops growing so fast, they drag out hoses and pay more money to water it so they can continue to mow it and pay to get rid of it.

GOD: What nonsense. At least they kept some of the trees. That was a sheer stoke of genius, if I do say so myself. The trees grow leaves in the spring to provide beauty and shade in the summer. In the autumn they
fall to the ground and form a natural blanket to keep moisture in the soil and protect the trees and bushes. Plus, as they rot, the leaves form compost to enhance the soil. It's a natural circle of life.

ST. FRANCIS: You'd better sit down, Lord. The Suburbanites have drawn a new circle. As soon as the leaves fall, they rake them into great piles and pay to have them hauled away.

GOD: No. What do they do to protect the shrub and tree roots in the winter and to keep the soil moist and loose?

ST. FRANCIS: After throwing away the leaves, they go out and buy something which they call mulch. They haul it home and spread it around in place of the leaves.

GOD: And where do they get this mulch?

ST. FRANCIS: They cut down trees and grind them up to make the mulch.

GOD: Enough! I don't want to think about this anymore. St. Catherine, you're in charge of the arts. What movie have you scheduled for us tonight?

ST. CATHERINE: Dumb and Dumber, Lord. It's a real stupid movie about ...

GOD: Never mind, I think I just heard the whole story from St. Francis.