“Let us make a name for ourselves” Genesis 11:4b

I am a writer, by passion if not by trade. I’d like to be one by trade. At first, I told myself that it didn’t matter, that I’d keep writing even if I never get published. The second part is true. Writing is part of who I am. But I had to admit that I do want to get published. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with wanting to be published. I think it’s a noble and worthy goal. But the question is, who am I writing for? What am I writing for? Do I want to get published so I can make a name for myself? Or do I want to get published so others can hopefully draw closer to God through my words. I told God, the first time I sent off a query letter, that I only want to be published if it’s His will, to bring Him glory. That’s why the rejection letters don’t hurt so much.

I think many times it’s not what we do that’s the problem, it’s why we do it. I don’t think it was building the city with the tall tower per se that was the problem. It was why they did it. They didn’t want to spread out over the earth, as God commanded. It sounded to me like they thought if they banded together, building a tower that reached into heaven itself, they could beat God at His own game. They’d be the ones calling the shots. It would be their name above everything, not His. How foolish. And yet, how many times are we guilty of the same sentiment, if not the same expression of it. How many times do we take the glory that is God’s alone and ascribe it to ourselves.

Oh how I pray that I always do what I do for the glory of His name, not mine.

“Then God remembered Noah” Genesis 8:1a

The storm raged, the waters rose, everything they knew was gone. I wonder if in the confines of that ark, it felt like God had forgotten them. Did they spend day after day looking for some sign that He knew where they were and what they were going through? Did the trial of that never-to-be-repeated flood shadow what they knew of God’s promises? I couldn’t blame them if they doubted. They probably did better than I would have.

I’ve felt forgotten by God before. I went through a lot of incredibly difficult years. I struggled until I felt like I wasn’t going to last another day. Did God know? Did He care? I remember the day everything changed. Not in my circumstances, mind you, but in my view of God in the midst of the trial. I ducked into a quiet spot, desperate for just a moment’s relief. “I just can’t do it anymore, Lord,” I silently cried. “I can’t hold on anymore. I don’t have the strength. It’s just too much.” Immediately, an image came to mind. A child in the arms of her father. No matter how hard that child held on, it was the strength of the father that kept her there. If she clung to him until her strength ran out and then let go, she still wouldn’t fall to the ground because it never depended on her strength. In that moment, I knew God hadn’t forgotten me. He knew exactly where I was. Things didn’t change that day. In fact, they continued to get worse. But I never again doubted that I was in the arms of my loving Father, and that when I just didn’t have the strength to hold on to Him, He was still holding on to me.

In the arms of a loving Father. I don’t know about you, but I don’t think there’s any better place to be. Especially when the storm is raging.

“Thus Noah did; according to all that God commanded him, so he did.” Genesis 6:22

My daughter and I were driving along in the car one day, many years ago. After a long silence she asked, “Mama, if the rapture happens while we’re in the car, will Jesus be able to get us out without hitting our heads?” Oh, the sweet innocence of a child! She didn’t sit and contemplate all the reasons why it would be impossible for God to actually snatch all of His people off the earth. I told her this will one day happen, and she believed me. I’m happy to report that, now an adult, she still believes it, although I’m pretty sure she’s no longer worried about hitting her head on the roof of the car.

What God told Noah must have seemed impossible too. Build an ark? We have no indication that at this point in history mankind had begun to travel on the water. God would destroy the earth with a flood caused, at least in part, by rain? We also have no indication that rain had ever fallen. The same attitude largely prevails today. We obviously know what rain is now, but you hear plenty of other arguments against the possibility of a worldwide flood. It’s impossible for enough water to cover the earth high enough to cover the tallest mountains, Noah couldn’t have fit all the animals into the ark, let alone all the food necessary to feed them, the list goes on. Impossible. Didn’t happen. Only fools believe that it did. But God said it, and Noah believed Him. God tells us in His word that it did indeed happen, and we believe Him. Just like God tells us that through the sacrifice of one Man, His beloved Son, Jesus, we can find salvation. Just like He tells us that someday, Jesus will come back again to get us. He said it, and that settles it. Time vindicated Noah’s faith. Time will also vindicate ours.

In the meantime, let us stand up, let the world call us a fool, and take God at His word.

“Then men began to call on the name of the Lord” Genesis 4:26b

My husband started an evening class tonight. It would have been silly for him to come home from downtown Seattle only to turn around and head back down less than an hour later. So, he shifted his work day. I got to keep him home a little later this morning, but I won’t see him again until I pick him up after class. I’m used to having him home by around five o’clock. By five-thirty, I was feeling pretty lonely. I thought, ‘well, class doesn’t start until six, he’s probably working quietly in his office, I’ll give him a call.’ I should have known the second he said hello that my assumption was wrong. He had that ‘business-mode’ tone of voice. Turns out he went down to the class a little early, and he wasn’t the only one. The conversation was, shall we say, very short. He wasn’t rude, he wasn’t angry, he was just busy.

Isn’t it wonderful to know that God is never busy? We can call on Him whenever we need Him. Whether a major crisis, like when the doctors told me my husband was having a heart attack, to the little things, like feeling lonely because my husband didn’t have time to talk to me, He’s always there and always ready to listen. The second we call out to Him, He responds. It can be a long conversation, a simple cry of help, or sometimes no words at all. What a thrill of joy to remember that God not only lets me call out to Him, He actually wants me to! He wants me to share every bit of myself with Him, whether I’m happy or sad, at peace or in turmoil. And because He’s God, He can have that level of intimacy with all of His children. We never have to wait our turn.

People, even wonderful people, don’t always have time for us. God always does.

“The tree of life was also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.” Genesis 2:9b

Why did God put the tree of the knowledge in the garden when He knew what Eve, and then Adam, would do? Why did He create Lucifer when He knew the havoc that would result from his downfall? For that matter, why did He even create us, when He knew the price He would have to pay for our sin? The answer, for me anyway, is I don’t know. There have been a lot of questions in my life with the same answer. Sometimes, God shows me the answer in time. Some of the questions, however, I believe won’t be answered until I’m on the other side of the curtain (if I still want to know at that point). But the more I walk with the Lord, the less the ‘I don’t knows’ bother me.

When I can’t figure out the what, I’ve learned to trust in the who. What I mean is this. Sometimes, we don’t understand what God has done or allowed to happen. In those times, we need to trust who we know Him to be. My husband lay on a hospital bed, wires going every which way to the various machines attached to him, while the doctor told me he was having a heart attack. I walked in the door a wife. I could have easily walked out a widow. In that moment, not later after I knew he would be OK, I knew that God loved me, He loved my husband, and He was absolutely trustworthy to get me through anything He allowed to happen. I didn’t know why the man I loved was in that hospital bed, but I knew the God who was holding us both while he was there. It was enough.

Sometimes God won’t tell us why, but His Word clearly tells us who He is. That is the one thing we can hold on to when nothing else makes sense.

“Then God blessed them, and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it.’” Genesis 1:28a

I was out working in my garden yesterday, trying to get some fall cleanup done before the rains begin in earnest. As I pulled weeds, cut back the Lithodora that wants to take over my walkway, and dead-headed rose bushes, it occurred to me that I was not just doing a chore, I was obeying God. He said to subdue the earth, and I was out there subduing my little corner of it. Suddenly, the mundane task of yard work didn’t seem so mundane. Yard work can be God’s work? Yeah, right. But what if instead of seeing it as endless weeds that just keep growing back, I see it as an opportunity to marvel at the beauty of God’s creation? What if as I trim back the roses I thank Him for giving me roses to trim back?

It’s funny how a shift of attitude can change everything. I can’t count the number of times I came out into a kitchen I’d left clean the night before only to find a mess I didn’t make waiting for me. I’m embarrassed to admit my attitude while cleaning it up was not exactly gracious. But I knew my attitude wasn’t right and asked God to deal with it. He did. Eventually, ever so gradually, I saw the chronic mess-maker – my step-son – not as an inconsiderate, thoughtless burden I had to bear for the privilege of being my husband’s wife, but instead as a frightened, hurting young man fighting a terrifying, exhausting battle with mental illness that I couldn’t even begin to understand, and doing it alone because he believed everyone and everything was against him. I won’t say living with him got easier, but my attitude did change. The mundane task of cleaning the kitchen became the sacred task of showing love to a step-son who couldn’t let himself love me in return.

We don’t have to be a Billy Graham to do sacred work. All we have to be is someone willing to look around, see where God has placed us, and seek to obey Him in that place.

“He who testifies to these things says, ‘Surely, I am coming quickly.’ Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus!” Revelation 22:20

With these words, plus a benediction, the book of Revelation ends. It ends with a prayer. John has just finished glimpsing the distant future, a future filled with both tremendous horror and tremendous praise. Look at the book of Revelation from the perspective of one apart from Christ, it is a book of horror. Calamities beyond imagination are coming and there is no escape. Look at it from the perspective of one belonging to Christ, and it is a book of praise. Yes, there will be much pain, much suffering, much destruction, but the overarching theme of Revelation is not the horrors of the tribulation period, it is the victory and supremacy of Christ. What happens on earth happens at His command. When all the dust settles, He stands victorious with the sanctified children He died to redeem.

John saw this day and longed for it to come. Do we? I’ve heard many people say they want the Lord to return, just not yet. Some of their reasons are noble. They have unsaved friends or loved ones who aren’t ready for the Lord’s return. Others don’t want Him coming back yet because there are things they want to do first. Whatever the reasons, this viewpoint seems to be foreign to the men God used to pen the New Testament. They write of our Lord’s return with longing and anticipated joy. If anyone had cause to hesitate regarding the Lord’s return, it was John. His vision could not have been easy to watch. But what were his words when the vision finished? “Come, Lord Jesus.” He longed for the day when His beloved Lord achieved that final, complete victory over evil.

Should we all go stand on a mountain top and stare at the sky? No. But should we long for the return of the Lord even as we go about His business? I think so. Do you?

“Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people. God Himself with be with them and be their God.” Revelation 21:3

God used to walk in the Garden of Eden with Adam in the cool of the day. Then sin entered and that intimate level of communion ended. Man could no longer be in the direct presence of God. Since that dreadful day, God has been working to redeem for Himself a people who can once again be in His presence. That is the end-game of it all; that God may dwell with His people and they with Him. In a sense, of course, God dwells with His people now via the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in each true believer. This is something different. I don’t understand exactly how this will work out, but I do know it is something I long for more and more.

Our pastor asked a question this week: Would you rather be closer to your Savior or “fill in the blank.” Would you rather be closer to your Savior or have that dream job? Would you rather be closer to your Savior or meet the person who will be your perfect spouse? Would you rather be closer to your Savior or have a life filled with ease and comfort? The list goes on and on. God can and does give us marvelous gifts, but when they become the object of our hope instead of gifts from a loving, gracious Father who is our only hope, there’s a problem. The end-game is to live continually in God’s presence. If that’s where we’re headed, why do we let anything else take priority while we’re on the way?

May nothing take God’s place in our hearts as our hope, our joy, our peace, our security. May nothing grow more important to us than being closer to Him.

“Now when the thousand years have expired, Satan will be released from his prison.” Revelation 20:7

Why is Satan bound for a thousand years and then released? Why is he allowed to once again wreak havoc and inspire rebellion against the Lord? These are questions that have hounded people who study the book of Revelation. Why, after defeating Satan and his minions at the final battle of Armageddon, would God not toss him into the lake of fire once and for all and be done with it? Ultimately, we don’t need to know the answer. This is the way God has decided to do things, and His reasons must be sufficient. Nevertheless, there is one possible answer that shines some light not only on who God is, but who man is.

Mankind, since Adam pointed his finger at Eve, has always had an excuse as to why he doesn’t obey God. During the millennium, all of those excuses will be gone. Mankind will live in a perfect environment. Every need will be amply provided for. Peace will reign throughout the earth. Mankind will live in harmony with each other and with nature. And as for the excuse that we have no evidence that God even exists, let alone that Jesus is Him, He’ll be personally reigning from Jerusalem. Every excuse gone. And what happens? At the end of the thousand years a vast multitude of the people living on earth will once again decide to believe Satan rather than God. They will gather together to make war against the very God who has graciously, perfectly, personally given them ample proof that He is worthy to be worshipped and obeyed.

Someday, we all will have to give an account for our lives. On that day, those who have rejected God and the salvation He offers will have no excuse.

“And he cried mightily with a loud voice, saying, ‘Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen…” Revelation 18:2a

The discussion flies fast and furious over who exactly Babylon the great is here. Three views I’ve heard most often are the literal city of Babylon in Iraq, America, or the whole worldly system that opposes God. Regardless of who it is, one thing is certain. Babylon the great is going down. There is no question about it, this entity, renowned for her rebellion against God and her corrupting influence, will face total and complete destruction. The world views Babylon as a great and mighty city, her downfall mourned the world over. God views Babylon as the vilest of poison, and her destruction causes rejoicing in the heavens. Whoever Babylon is, the point is clear; Babylon, with all her evil, will not last.

The same is true of anything and everything that opposes God. It may not be in the dramatic, startlingly sudden manner that describes the fall of Babylon, but everything that opposes God will one day be gone. Frank Sinatra may sing with pride about doing it “my way” but the only way that will stand is God’s way. We as believers would do well to keep that in mind. What are we spending our time and energy on? Is it on things that will one day be destroyed? While we are not saved by the works we do, scripture is cleared that our work as believers will be tried. Will our works survive the testing and emerge refined like gold and silver, or will it be shown to be nothing more than worthless rubble that burns away like straw?

As the days grow more evil around us, let us invest ourselves not in the things of Babylon slated for destruction, but in the things of God which last forever.