I was surrounded by chocolates. Or, to be honest, I was surrounded by a variety of wrappers and a few leftover chocolates that barely escaped with their lives. We pitched up and down the waves, rocking and weeping until the wee hours.
If you’ve been up all night and cried till you have no more tears left in you – you will know that there comes in the end a sort of quietness. You feel as if nothing was ever going to happen again.
-C.S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
That eerie calm settles on the heels of grief, and when the hits keep coming we look at the future and wonder if this is a pattern we need to just face with bleak resignation. My life as I knew it is long gone, and I don’t like the way this is heading.
I was reading the book of John and got to the part about Martha and Mary and the raising of Lazarus. And He caught me on that one little verse and kept me there: Jesus wept.
Why, though? He knew He was going to raise Lazarus in just a few minutes. If He knew it was going to be good, why did He give in to grief in the meantime?
I think it has to do with what Martha said to Him a little earlier: “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” And a few minutes later, Mary came and said the same thing.
Now when Mary came to where Jesus was and saw Him, she fell at His feet, saying to Him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”
– John 11:32
They knew it, and He knew it. And I knew it, too. It was this: You could have prevented this.
In every loss we experience, it’s true. We’re aching and heaving, and He could have prevented it. Sometimes He does, more than we realize. And sometimes He doesn’t. And He weeps and rocks with us…more than we realize.
When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come with her also weeping, He was deeply moved in His spirit and greatly troubled.
– John 11:33
Then He does something else that seems odd.
And He said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to Him, “Lord, come and see.”
– John 11:34
Where did they lay him? Why did He ask that? Didn’t Jesus, the God-man, already know? It was more than that, though. He wasn’t just asking where the dead man was.
He was saying, Show me where it hurts.
And that’s when He cried.
He weeps with Mary and Martha – and us – because He understands that sometimes we experience loss and pain for the sake of the expansion of the Kingdom. He knows we come under attack and we don’t know how to handle all the upheaval. He weeps with us because He knows we hurt and we often don’t understand why. He knows we rock in agony with no answers; He knows our ship swings between the violence and the lullaby.
In loss – whether it’s the death of a person, a pet, our plans, or something else entirely – we want certainty and explanation, but what we usually get first is refinement. We learn a little more about what it is to walk into the unknown, blank pages He sends us into. Please don’t misunderstand me; I’m not talking about accepting a hindrance, sickness, or other harassment from the enemy. We must not fall for his trick of casting righteous-sounding blame on God for attacks that come from the pit of hell. Denying ourselves and following Him is a mission, not a malady. The calling out of our comfort zone is our cross.
Sometimes, because He causes all things for good for those who love Him, grief and loss launch us farther and faster into His assignment for us. He knows it’s hard and it grieves Him, too. But He also knows what’s coming.
Jesus said to her, “Did I not tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God?”
– John 11:40
We learn not to love our life so much – not because we’re ungrateful or bitter, but because we are unfettered and surrendered. We know this place isn’t permanent.
We’re not resigned. We’re reloading. And He’s not taking our life; He’s resurrecting it.
It took two and a half years, but I finally finished reading Les Miserables (insert wild, nerdy rejoicing). In it, I read about a major cleanup operation – the saturated underground sewer system in Paris.
It was a formidable campaign; a nocturnal battle against pestilence and suffocation.
The operation was complicated; the visit entailed the necessity of cleaning; hence it was necessary to cleanse and at the same time, to proceed…They advanced with toil. The lanterns pined away in the foul atmosphere. From time to time, a fainting sewerman was carried out.
Still with me? One more little section:
At certain points, there were precipices. The soil had given away, the pavement had crumbled, the sewer had changed into a bottomless well; they found nothing solid; a man disappeared suddenly; they had great difficulty in getting him out again.
— Victor Hugo, Les Miserables
The project was tackled in 1805 because one man was willing to go into the putrid darkness and do something about it.
His name was Pierre Bruneseau. He did what needed to be done in the place and time he lived in, willing to be the cleanup operation and go into the dark when others shuddered at the thought of it.
God nudged me as I read it. What would happen if each of us took this approach with prayer?
What would happen if those darkest, most hopeless places, institutions, and people were tackled in prayer on a level that no one has had the grit and persistence to take on before?
What if we prayed – really prayed, with bright, life-giving detail – over those who’ve grown wild, refusing to admit fault, admit reality, admit their own weakness? What if we were brave enough to picture what it would look like if the darkest businesses were replaced with those that breathed life in a community – and then we prayed it into existence?
A friend said this in a sermon and it stuck with me: The presence of fire in the Bible often symbolizes the presence of God. The fire on the mountain, the burning bush, the pillar of smoke, the tongues of fire that could not be contained in a room.
His presence sanctifies, purifies, covers, and brings light.
Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire.
– Hebrews 12:28-29
The light yoke of responsibility, maturity, and surrender are only a breath away. The heavy yoke of filth and blackness costs so much, and lies to those who are in it that the effort to take the deep breath of surrender isn’t worth it. What if we made the road smoother through prayer that refuses to give up on them?
I’ve also been the one who was lost, and losing, and needed someone to fight in prayer for me. Many of us would not be who we are today without those who fought the darkness for us.
We have loved ones stuck in this kind of mire, and this is where the fight comes in for those of us who love them and are tempted to just wash our hands and give up on them. Giving up seems easier to us, just as it seems to them, because the pain of disappointment after raised hopes is so hard to bear.
But this stubborn, unyielding prayer is where we fight, because the decision between hope and despair is where the battle rages. This is where the outcome of victory or defeat is decided. And we should take someone with us, because even spiritual proximity to the morass can threaten to suck us under, too. We can be the powerful loving ones, clinging to a healthy vision of the one who is lost in darkness, refusing to let it go.
Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world.
– 1 Peter 5:8-9
We cling to this hope and pray it into existence regardless of the blackness that pulses and threatens. We could fade away and give up, but heroes run into the battle and not away from it. Our loved ones need us to be those heroes – because they too are meant to be heroes, and that’s why the enemy fights so desperately for them.
That enemy whispers, “Give up. Lower your weapons.”
This, like last Saturday’s news, is not about political parties or an election. This is about a fight for our culture.
Last week’s assassination attempt was meant to do more than kill one man, which is horrific enough; we need to recognize that that man was not the only intended target.
Every American watching on live TV – plus those who would see the videos replayed ad nauseam in the future – was a target, because it was intended to horrify and traumatize every witness: Not just those attending the rally, but every man, woman, and child who watched, live, with cameras rolling.
All were meant to see the gore and blood and terror.
And it was meant to be replayed and replayed and replayed until all were desensitized to the horror and it became ho-hum in our culture.
So this was a message, too: Don’t threaten the status quo, and stop fooling yourselves about how “free” you are. Just so you know, this is what happens to people whothreaten those in power.
Some of them will do whatever it takes to stay there.
So yes, we are under attack. There are people who want to make our everyday activities a war zone of fear and panic – and if that strikes you as hyperbole, you’re just not paying attention.
I “just happened” to be reading about another attack this week – in a less dramatic way than Trump “just happened” to turn his head at the pivotal second, but the source of both moves was the same, no doubt – and have been praying through its lessons all week.
It’s one of the most famous battles in the Bible so you’ve probably read about it and heard it mentioned in a hundred sermons before. But there’s good news for us here, and it, too, takes place after there has been exposure of evil, followed by government reform:
After this [King Jehoshaphat’s reforms] the Moabites and Ammonites, and with them some of the Meunites, came against Jehoshaphat for battle. Some men came and told Jehoshaphat, “A great multitude is coming against you from Edom, from beyond the sea; and, behold, they are in Hazazon-tamar” (that is, Engedi). Then Jehoshaphat was afraid and set his face to seek the Lord, and proclaimed a fast throughout all Judah.
– 2 Chronicles 20:1-3
The first part of this last sentence is key because two things happen in conjunction that don’t always go together:
1) Jehoshaphat felt afraid, and 2) he sought the Lord.
Wait, why is that weird? Isn’t that what we’re supposed to do?
Yes, it is. But it’s not what we always do when we’re afraid. We know it’s what we’re supposed to do, but that’s totally different.
What tends to happen when we’re afraid? Often we panic and look for the obvious answer rather than seeking the Lord (we see this throughout the Bible, too). Alternatively, sometimes we feel shame immediately after fear because we know we’re not supposed to be afraid, and that drives us from the Lord too, because shame is a separator.
But Jehoshaphat didn’t fall for those. He did the right thing, sought the Lord, and led his people in doing the same thing, per verse 4:
And Judah assembled to seek help from the Lord; from all the cities of Judah they came to seek the Lord.
Then King Jehoshaphat prays. And as he recognizes who God is and what He does, he’s also reminding himself and his people:
And Jehoshaphat stood in the assembly of Judah and Jerusalem, in the house of the Lord, before the new court, and said, “O Lord, God of our fathers, are you not God in heaven? You rule over all the kingdoms of the nations. In your hand are power and might, so that none is able to withstand you.
He continues: You cleared the land for us. You gifted it to us. We’ve lived here and made a sanctuary for Your name, and remember? Ages ago, back when the Ark was brought into the Temple and Solomon prayed, we made a deal together: If disaster comes, and we cry out to You, You will hear and save us. And here we are, under attack.
Then he says this:
O our God, will you not execute judgment on them? For we are powerless against this great horde that is coming against us. We do not know what to do, but our eyes are on you.”
– 2 Chronicles 20:12
There they stood, like we do, with their families: husbands, wives, little ones. Waiting. Wondering what to do. Knowing that anything we can do on our own is just a drop in the bucket, so futile without God’s help.
And then the Spirit comes.
And through Jahaziel, a man who is never mentioned anywhere else in the Bible, He speaks:
And he said, “Listen, all Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem and King Jehoshaphat: Thus says the Lord to you, ‘Do not be afraid and do not be dismayed at this great horde, for the battle is not yours but God’s. Tomorrow go down against them. Behold, they will come up by the ascent of Ziz. You will find them at the end of the valley, east of the wilderness of Jeruel. You will not need to fight in this battle. Stand firm, hold your position, and see the salvation of the Lord on your behalf, O Judah and Jerusalem.’ Do not be afraid and do not be dismayed. Tomorrow go out against them, and the Lord will be with you.”
– 2 Chronicles 20:15-17
Isn’t that nice? I mean, the Holy Spirit was right there telling them exactly what to do, where to go, and what would happen.
That would sure be handy for us right about now, too.
But what if He has already told us what to do?
What if we just need to be focused on those things? And rather than apologizing for how insignificant they seem, what if we realized how powerful they are?
To sum up, let’s look at their instructions:
Do not be afraid. There it is again.
Do not be dismayed. Not the same as fear; more like “disillusioned” or “discouraged.”
Okay, those are the things we don’t do. Got it, easy peasy…riiiiight.
But now, for the things we do:
Go meet them tomorrow, stand against them. On the offense, not the defense. And this is interesting because I was just looking at this other passage recently:
For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.
— Ephesians 6:12
Ready for some Fun With Greek? Of course you are, yay!
The repeated use of the word “against” struck me in this verse. The Greek word is “pros” and some translations use the word “with” (“we wrestle with the rulers” etc).
But it means a motion TOWARD something to interface with it. It’s not defensive, but offensive — we are to make the move forward, against, toward the threat, not simply to stand where we are and hold our current ground.
We offensively oppose the spiritual forces of evil — pressing forward and even plowing over (or through) enemy ranks.
So we’re looking at two different instances of “standing against” in Scripture: One in Hebrew and one in Greek, but both are in the context of battle.
We do not step back and diminish anything we’re already doing. We don’t cower or cave or shrink; we take what we have and press onward, against the threat. We don’t give the enemy room; we take the land and make him shrink back. We don’t give ground; we gain it.
The daily small things we do are notes in the song as we march our days forward: making these sandwiches, learning this skill, memorizing that verse, reading those books with the kids, having that talk with a friend. We will not cede this ground; we will not live in terror; we will not let our children grow to know a country that is less than what we ourselves were raised in.
We will not be intimidated into shrinking silence and survival mode, pursuing safety over sanctification, choosing the idolatry of living in fear of man.
We will live in loud freedom, instead.
They set a net for my steps; my soul was bowed down. They dug a pit in my way, but they have fallen into it themselves. My heart is steadfast, O God, my heart is steadfast! I will sing and make melody! Awake, my glory! Awake, O harp and lyre! I will awake the dawn! I will give thanks to you, O Lord, among the peoples; I will sing praises to you among the nations. For your steadfast love is great to the heavens, your faithfulness to the clouds.
– Psalm 57:6-10
Our steady, life-giving routines are the chorus we keep coming back to: Turn this page in the Bible and move on to the next chapter. Pray with your spouse, pray with the kids. Weed the garden, harvest the veggies, delight in the flowers blooming. Make the meal, gather with friends. Take something to the neighbor, pick up the trash along the road. Call your grandparents, or your grandkids. Chat with the grocery clerk you see every week.
For our boast is this, the testimony of our conscience, that we behaved in the world with simplicity and godly sincerity, not by earthly wisdom but by the grace of God, and supremely so toward you.
The Kingdom is here, at hand, all around us and within us. The Kingdom is peace, joy, and righteousness, and every move to abide and reflect Jesus makes earth a little more as it is in heaven.
God is setting an ambush and routing the enemy as the Word reigns in and around us. That Word hovers through the land as we read, sing, remind, write, recite, and declare.
We don’t need to be on stage; we’re all leading worship.
All were meant to see gore and blood and terror, but instead, we witnessed a miracle. And singing and rejoicing as we take the land, we will continue to do so.
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