The Richland Church of Christ

Richland Blog 3

Wonder and Praise

This past Saturday, the boys and I were out exploring the Tri-city area. We made it to the northern portion of Richland, where we discovered Leslie Groves Park. I must say, you all have some great parks. It is great watching my sons explore these new environments. Recently they have picked up a new fascination with rocks; they will pick up any and every rock if I let them—everything from small pebbles to fist-sized river rock. To me and my adult muffled point of view, these rocks are nothing special; they are typically gray and not particularly smooth… they are just rocks. We walk across them and never pay attention to them, but they are a treasure to my sons. If I let them, they would have filled up a stroller full of rocks. An older man with his dog passed us by and remarked, “I wish I still saw the world as they did.” This made me think, why don’t I look at the world like this anymore?  

I suppose it’s because we have lived long enough that these everyday occurrences become commonplace. We have seen these very similar rocks a thousand times before. We have looked at the world around us and have allowed it to become uninteresting in our eyes. Sadly, we become so used to the “day-to-day” events in our lives that we don’t act accordingly when something truly spectacular happens. I have two passages for us to reflect on this week; the first comes from Luke 19:40. Jesus is entering Jerusalem for the final time in what we call the “Triumphal Entry,” people have crowded the roadside and are praising and cheering for him. The Pharisees find this to be rude and disrespectful and want Jesus to put an end to it; here is Jesus’ reply:

Luke 19:40 ESV
“[Jesus] answered, “I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out.”

The Pharisees get a bad rap, they really are trying to uphold the Law and a mere man shouldn’t be accepting praise that is intended for God alone. However, what the Pharisees missed because of their dulled point of view is that God was doing something incredible right in front of them. Because they had closed their mind to Jesus being the Anointed One, they missed out on rejoicing in one of the greatest moments in the history of the World. Consider how great it would have been to be a part of this moment, cheering for Jesus as he makes his entrance into Jerusalem to redeem humanity. Jesus’ reply confronts the Pharisees in their muted point of view; and he lets them know that there are moments that even if we don’t recognize them, creation itself will cry out on behalf of these spectacular moments.  

My first challenge is: Don’t be so caught up in such a desensitized point of view that you miss what God is doing in your life, passing it off as mundane or ordinary.

And yet, even on top of that understanding, we should count the mundane and ordinary parts as life as spectacular. Not because a rock is more than rock, but because a rock was made by God. When we view God as sovereign, our world should come to life.

Psalm 115:1, 15-18
Not to us, O LORD, not to us, but to your name give glory, for the sake of your steadfast love and your faithfulness! … ¹⁵ May you be blessed by the LORD, who made heaven and earth! ¹⁶ The heavens are the LORD’s heavens, but the earth he has given to the children of man. ¹⁷ The dead do not praise the LORD, nor do any who go down into silence. ¹⁸ But we will bless the LORD from this time forth and forevermore. Praise the LORD!”

When we correctly view that everything belongs to God and that God has imparted it to mankind for our purposes, it should give new life and meaning to the world around us. The little rock is no longer just a rock. I recognize first that God created it, it was found by my boys to marvel at, and it allows me to give praise back to God. I praise God because of how He created the world and how He created humans to be able to marvel at the world around us. I should be in this cycle of marvel, wonder, and praise as long as I am alive. I love that the psalmist rights that this is for the living to do forevermore.

My second challenge is: While you are still living, use each moment to recognize the world around you and turn that praise back to God.

Whether the moments are big or small, recognize what God is doing or has done and give Him the praise that He is due.

Are you ready?

As the moving saga continues, we are heading into our third week of waiting for our household goods to arrive. My first note is a gigantic “THANK YOU” to everyone willing to give us enough items so that my wife and kids could join us. This was a tremendous blessing and really took a lot of the pressure off of us. Being together is best for everyone, so thank you again to everyone who made it happen. Secondly, we are thankful for everyone’s thoughts and prayers;. However, we wish circumstances were different; we really have all that we need and are content. Amanda remarked that we almost don’t need our stuff anymore; we have all we need right now.

When thinking of the God-centered life, for a person trying to live as God desires, asking the right question helps give us the best starting point. Most Christians are okay with the basic questions such as, who, how, and why.

Who– God- He is the creator of all things (1 Peter 1:20)

How– He is God, and therefore His ways are about our ways (Isaiah 55:8-9)

Why– Because He loves us enough to send His Son for our sake (John 3:16)

I think our most significant inquiries come when we discuss the question of “When.” We all want to follow God, and we know why we should follow Him. We want to know: how long the commitment will be if there is a way to speed it up or shorten the duration? As we travel throughout the Old Testament, this element of patience and waiting is consistently portrayed. Noah builds an ark for 100 years, wandering in the desert for 40 years, 70 years of exile… following God requires patience. When Isaiah is commissioned, he asks the Lord how long he will be proclaiming his message (Isaiah 6:11). During Jesus’ time, people were looking for a sign to know “when” something would happen, either the coming of the Messiah or the end of time. It is human nature to know how long something will last; I see it in my oldest son; he continually asks when the next thing will happen- be it the next meal or going to the park. We want to know the “when” of it all.

This is where the teachings of Jesus are revolutionary. Jesus doesn’t focus on the various questions; he simply states, be ready. “For this reason, you also must be ready; for the Son of Man is coming at an hour when you do not think He will.” (Matthew 24:44) This statement changes everything. It takes the responsibility of waiting and wondering when something will happen and places the ownership on the individual to ensure that they are ready. This transforms the way we think; instead of sitting back and doing nothing, it begs the question, “Is there something I can be doing in the meantime?” And so, I ask you all the same question, “Is there something you can be doing to be ready?” 

The Waiting Game…

“The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life. Attitude, to me, is more important than facts. It is more important than the past, than education, than money, than circumstances, than failures, than successes, than what other people think or say or do. It is more important than appearance, giftedness, or skill. It will make or break a company… a church…. a home. The remarkable thing is we have a choice every day regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day. We cannot change our past…we cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude…I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% how I react to it. And so, it is with you…we are in charge of our attitudes.”

― Charles Swindoll

We are entering into week number two of waiting for our household goods to arrive from parts unknown. My wife and I have talked numerous times about when or if our stuff will come. We are more than confident that it will show up someday; however, it is the waiting that is the hard part. This is where the quote from Charles Swindoll comes in; it is a demonstration of one of my favorite sayings to the teenagers I used to work with, “The only thing you can control is… yourself.” This concept may be one of the hardest lessons that we ever have to learn; it takes a lifetime of work and reflection to realize this point. This attitude is where I have personally reached for our household good situation; I can’t make a truck show up any faster whether I worry or not… it will get here when it gets here. This is life. Life happens precisely at the same speed it is going to happen; there is little I can do to change it. So, what I can control is my attitude. I can manage my actions. I can adjust for the future but, I can’t make it manifest the way I want it to, so we wait. It reminds me of the beginning of Israel wandering in the desert; we read, “When the people saw that Moses was so long in coming down from the mountain, they gathered around Aaron and said, “Come, make us gods who will go before us. As for this fellow Moses who brought us up out of Egypt, we don’t know what has happened to him”” (Exodus 32:1). Here are the people who have just witnessed the power of God, and yet they grow impatient that things are not happening on their timeline. What is their timeline? We have no idea… they had just grown impatient with Moses and with God. They want a god that will lead them when they want to be led. We should take note that God is the One who is in control… when we being to impose our timeline into God’s, we are in essence saying, “We don’t trust you; we will create our own god to lead us.” So we adjust our attitudes, we control our reactions, and we trust God. Things will all work out the way God wants them to, and I am just fine with that. 

Tom 

Moving to the Tri-Cities-

Let’s talk about moving… it is not fun. Exciting? Sure. Intimidating? I’ll agree to that. Exhausting? Absolutely!

There is just so much that has to be done in order to replicate the world that we once knew. Maybe that is the problem. We prefer to have things to be like they once were. We love these little pieces of our lives that give us comfort because it makes us feel as if we are in control. We do this in little ways, moving from New Mexico, perhaps I will try to find a “piece of home” here in Washington; maybe it is a restaurant or a particular view, perhaps it is just a picture I look at fondly and remember what used to be.

Back to the problem. Things that once were can never be what will be. That is the condition of moving. No matter how much we try, we can’t replicate it, so instead, we should embrace the new. We should embrace the new experiences and see what is right before us; living in the past is comfortable, but it is still the past.

In this regard, I think of Lot and his wife. In Genesis 12, Abram takes his nephew Lot to a new place… this is Abram’s first failure, “The LORD had said to Abram, “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you.” (Genesis 12:1). Abram wanted to keep a little bit of his former life with him; God explicitly instructed him to leave his father’s household behind… yet Abram takes Lot. This problem multiplies in Lot and Abram’s life. Lot moves to be among the cities in Genesis 13; this would have been familiar to Lot, the land of Ur would have been more accommodating for city life… and Lot missed it.

In the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, Lot is given a test to see if he has learned his lesson of wishing things would stay the same… in other words… would he trust God? “As soon as they had brought them out, one of them said, “Flee for your lives! Don’t look back, and don’t stop anywhere in the plain! Flee to the mountains or you will be swept away! ” (Genesis 19:17). Don’t look back, and don’t stop. We see how this plays out in the tragic tale of Lot’s wife.  This passage is not a condemnation on reflecting or thinking about the past; however, it is a cautionary passage on trusting and relying on God.

As I settle into my new place here in the Tri-cities, I should reflect on this and realize that God has brought me here. And although returning back to the comfort of the known would be easier and safer, it is not where God has placed me… so I should pause and trust that God is in control.

Tom