Sunday, February 23, 2014

Chapter 19

Chapter 19 - The Story

I had to wrestle with this a bit.  It's not that I felt like this chapter didn't belong or didn't matter.  It did, for a variety of reasons.

But I've had one of those days that had sweetness and awfulness to it.  And I think I needed this day to prepare me for writing.  Because I have to remember that God is good.  He's very good.

Today we went through Chapter 19 from Haggai's writing.  A frustrating text that highlights God's grief at the temple being so diminished when the people returned.  He was hurting for his home to be rebuilt, in the middle of their rebuilding.

Yes, I think it had to do with their priorities.  It's a great case for tithing and giving to the local body.  It's important.  It is important to becoming devoted, mature followers of Jesus.

I think, though, that the target is more defined and more direct.  In the Old Testament, it was God's only place to dwell with his people.  They built their own homes without providing a place for their God to be near them.

I want God near me.  Better yet, I need God with me.  Because he's good.  Because he's mine.  Because he knows me and loves me in a way that is so unbelievable and so unending, that it defies logic.  Nobody loves me the way he does.  Not my mom.  Not my husband.  Not my son.  I can't wrap my mind, let alone my heart, around that very simple fact.  The totality of love wants to live with me.

In my newest testament life, that is the difference.  I can't have an existence that works without God.  I need him here.  It's the only way I'll make it through the insane roller coaster of the people who I need to love and the people who disappoint me the most, and when those people are the same people.  It's the only way I can look myself in the mirror when I have days that are reckless and I don't deserve someone loving me.

 It is God, expressed through the loving sacrifice of his son Jesus - the high priest who sits next to his father, interceding on my behalf when I need it, and when I don't deserve it.  It's the Holy Spirit who checks me into the boards when I think awful thoughts; who counsels me when I don't understand why dumb things happen.

So yes.  Giving out of my first-fruits is maturity.  Making a place for God so he can be here with me is necessity.  Critical importance.  I need him so close that I can run into his arms.

Eliza Cortes Bast

Wednesday, February 12, 2014

Extra Credit

Chapter 18 - The Story

For those who know me, you know I'm taking master's classes right now.  Which has been fun.  For those who knew me in my bachelor-degree days, you'll remember I thought those classes were fun too.

Except Statistics.

Who came up with that class?  I mean, really?  I get the importance of data, and I LOVE data.  But I hate designing it, and then using things like >0.6.  Which I know is important.  I just don't know what that means.  So hats off to my extra cool statisticians who know.  You complete me.

Needless to say, I worked my backside off, hoping to never come to stats land ever again (amen).  And then I went to grad school.

Under a cool, catchy new name, I signed up for my required class of "organizational analysis".  It was code for stats.  Once again, I'm back to feeling 19 and clueless as I figure out what >0.6 means, again.  But now the stakes are higher, and more expensive, and require tri-weekly 15 page research paper on how to interpret >0.6.  It was a stone cold bummer.  I didn't just pass that class.  I survived that class.

Thank God for extra credit.  That sweet bit of extra work that helps your instructor understand that you're not lazy, just a tad (or a whole lotta) lost.  Papers.  News journals.  Organizational mags.  Please let me prove that I actually can read.  And maybe even write.  Just one pinch of extra credit!

Chapter 18 of The Story loses no steam on a guy who has to prove himself.  Again.  And again.  Poor Daniel!  You get carted off into exile, you and your buddies get promoted, then you are supposed to be executed, and then you and your buddies get promoted again.  Awesome!  Nope.  Your buddies get thrown into a fire.  Then they are rescued.  Then God has to write on a wall and the new king ends his party with a bang.  Now a new guy, and his buddies hate you.  And you get thrown into a lion's den.  Along with all this, you get angels called down to help fight for you and have visions of the future.

Daniel's got a lot going on.  Daniel's a BOSS.

But on page 252, Daniel goes to Nebuchadnezzar to tell him he knows the meaning of his dream.  He says, "No wise man...can explain to the king the mystery has asked about, but there is a God...".  He continues on page 253 and says, "As for me, this mystery has been revealed to me, not because I have greater wisdom than anyone else alive, but so that Your majesty may know the interpretation and that you may understand what went through your mind."

Here's a guy who we would think needs a self-marketing campaign.  Yet he doesn't take the credit.  Not for his wisdom, his insight, his ability to interpret dreams.  Same with his buddies.

ALL of the extra credit went to God.  Daniel didn't need it.  Didn't want it.  He knew God had it.  He didn't have to prove anything.  With an eery calm, Daniel responds to each crisis knowing that the God in heaven CAN respond and is the God who saves - the "revealer of mysteries".

In a day and age of measuring and assessing and trying to move ahead, we miss no opportunity to do the "extra credit" it takes to be the best and make sure people know it.  Here's a guy who was phenomenal, and didn't take the chance to put himself first.  He squarely position God at the helm and the spotlight.  God gets the credit.  No extra papers, no extra medals, no "plus" after the A.  Just God.

Eliza Cortés Bast


Monday, February 3, 2014

3 Easy Taunts

Chapter 16 - The Story

Sennacherib is just fun to say.  Even as I'm typing this, I'm saying it in my head: "Sennacherib".  Son of Sargon II (fun, but not as fun as his son), Sennacherib was the powerful king of Assyria around 705 BC.  He wasn't so much a military strategist as he was a builder, renovator, and all-around expansionist.  There was some bad blood between Father and Son, and it seems he wanted to be remembered differently from his dad.

But he wasn't a slouch.  He didn't take too kindly to a young king of Judah named Hezekiah.  Hezekiah wasn't interested in Assyria, their god Nisroch, or paying tribute anymore.  He wanted to worship the Lord - and he systematically went about destroying any of the idol worshiping in Judah to do that.  The Lord was with Hezekiah, and things were about to go down.

Nothing says, "Release the Kraken" like one tiny province thumbing their nose at you.  Sennacherib sends his generals on a vicious military campaign that decimated some of the fortified cities on their way to Jerusalem.  Hezekiah closed in the town, readied for what's to come.

Here is where things get weird.  Instead of just fighting the city, 185,000 Assyrian soldiers set up camp, and the field commander called out for Hezekiah.  The palace administrator comes out with the scribe, and the field commander begins to make some suggestions.  "Listen...no one is coming to help you.  I'll even give you some horses if you have enough soldiers to ride them.  You are on your own.  Let's just cut a deal and I won't completely destroy you."  No response.

Then he calls out in Hebrew: "Look - your king is lying!  He won't save you!  He's telling you the Lord will deliver you, and he won't.  I'll even take you to a land that's just like this, but better! Give in!"

Sennacherib gets a message that Hezekiah's not budging.  So they send the final salvo - "We are coming for you.  No one has survived us.  We're taking you down.  Love, Sennacherib."

Hezekiah prays.  He lays it all out before God.  And God listened.  An angel of the Lord shows up, and smites 185,000 soldiers in the night.  185,000 dead bodies at the dawn's early light.

Isn't that like our enemy?  He rages and thrashes, and then stands outside making fun of us when we are at the end of our rope.  He'll even use our own language.  He shoots at us 3 easy taunts when crisis hits:
1. You are all alone in this.
2. God is lying.  He's not that good.  Your life can be just as good without following Him.
3. You're not going to survive this.

The truth is, the Lord hears.  And he doesn't take too kindly to be taunted with lies.  The direct quote was, "Who is it you have ridiculed and blasphemed?  Because your insolence has reached my ears, I will put my hook in your nose and my bit in your mouth."  Ouch.  Total domination.

Again - Jehova Shaw Mah'.  The Lord who hears.  He is motivated on our behalf!  Not just the Lord who hears.  He is the Lord who responds.  Amen!

Eliza Cortés Bast