Ordinary But Determined

By Jim LePage

For those of you who are the best of the best, the brightest, the ones voted “most likely to succeed” in high school, the cheerleader or the star athlete, I have good news for you: God can still use you.

God has a habit of using the most unlikely people to accomplish tasks for his kingdom. All throughout the Story God used the weak, like Gideon and Jeremiah. He used women, who were deemed worthless in Jewish society, like Ruth and Deborah. He used people with sinful pasts like Paul. He even used children, like Esther and Mary, who were probably no more than 13 years old. God loves to use the people in society that we would look at and deem completely short of greatness. God loves to use the ordinary.

One person in particular that God chose to use was an ordinary man by the name of Nehemiah. Nehemiah had a very normal job, perhaps even a very mundane job. He was a cupbearer for the Persian king. Nehemiah was the guy who drank the king's wine before he drank to make sure that no one had poisoned it. As you can imagine, this was a very blue collar job. No Israelite child would list this occupation as the job that they hoped to obtain when they grew up. You know the saying "Every job has it's poison?" Well, this one really did...

Nehemiah lived during a very difficult time period for the Israelites. After disobeying God multiple times and not keeping their covenant with Him, God finally permitted foreign nations to come and occupy their land. Many Israelites were dragged away to live in a foreign nation away from the Promised Land and were forced to serve in a pagan kingdom.

Finally, a king named Cyrus the Great assumed the throne of Persia and permitted the Israelites to return to Israel and rebuild the city. Nehemiah remained in Persia serving the king, but when he heard the news about what was going on in Israel he was cut to the core.

Here's how the story goes according to the Voice translation:

Hanani and the Judean Men (to Nehemiah): It’s a disaster. The survivors of the exile who are in the Persianprovince of Jerusalem have been wronged and are hated. The wall of Jerusalem has been reduced to piles of rock, and its gates consumed by flame.
Hearing this, I was overwhelmed with grief and could only sit and weep. For days I mourned this news and sought the audience of the True God of heaven, praying and fasting before Him.
Nehemiah: Notice me—Eternal One, God of heaven, great and awesome God. You are the keeper of the covenant and loyally love those who love You and follow Your commands. Now, pay attention with open ears and eyes to me and see how I, Your servant, plead day and night for Your consideration. I confess our wickedness, not just for Your servants the children of Israel, but for my family and the household of my father, Hacaliah. We have acted extremely wickedly toward You. We have rejected Your commands, disregarding the regulations and judgments You gave to Your servant Moses to show us how to live. I ask that You remember Your words to Your servant Moses,even when we did not. You told him, “If you are unfaithful to Me and choose another, then I will send you away and you will live separate from Me—you will live as aliens in strange lands; but if you have a change of heart and return to Me and walk according to My commands, then no matter how far you have gone, even to the places beyond the horizon, I will gather you and bring you to the place of My choosing, where My very name dwells.” They are Yours, God—they are Your servants; they are Your people whom You liberated from the exile by Your initiative and power. O Lord, hear Your servant praying to You and pay attention, and not just to my prayers but also to the prayers of these very Jews whose greatest joy is to live in fear and awe of You.I am asking for success today, God; please make sure this man is compassionate to me, Your servant.

So the Israelites had returned and were restoring the nation to the way it was prior to the foreign occupation. They had finished the foundation of the Temple and were beginning to rebuild the walls surrounding Jerusalem. Unfortunately, the Israelites faced opposition building the walls. As it said in the passage, the walls had been torn down and the gates were burned to a crisp. This may not seem like a big deal to us today, but this was devastating for the Israelites. —In the ancient world, city walls were a symbol of strength and stability. A city without walls was vulnerable to being attacked by other hostile nations. Further, the ruined walls portrayed Israel’s God as powerless to the other nations. This was huge insult to Yahweh. Yahweh couldn't even protect his own nation from being attacked. This was deeply humiliating.

By Lydia Nichols

When Nehemiah hears the news, he sat down and cried for days. Plural. I don't know about you, but I don't think I've ever really cried about anything indirectly related to me for several days. This probably wasn't the neat, tidy kind of cry. The kind where a few drops of tears roll down your face and you're still photogenic. This was the snotty nose, bloodshot-eyed kind of cry. The first thing Nehemiah does is he cries for people thousands of miles away. Now, these people weren't in his immediate circle of influence. Back in ancient times, this was incredibly far away. They were a long trip away by camel. By the time you arrived back in Jerusalem, it would be like Oregon Trail. You would look like different people, somebody might have died along the way. This was a far distance. 

It would have been easy for him to say, “Man, that’s awful. My heart goes out to my peeps in my homeland. Keep me posted on Facebook about what’s going on. Send me a picture on Twitter. I’ll be praying for y’all.”

It is so easy to dodge suffering. I don't know about you, but I’m really good at ducking pain. Whenever we feel any sort of discomfort, we immediately try to find a distraction. Suffering is like Hot Potato -- as soon as it comes, we try to toss away lest it burrow within us.

We've all been there. We were watching our favorite TV special when a commercial about starving children comes on. The commercial shows pictures of little kids living in the filth of slums with their bellies protruding from hunger and for a while we're moved. "Man, that's awful. People don't have access to clean water? Children are susceptible to malaria because of their living conditions?" We may shed a little tear. But then suddenly our program returns on TV and just as quickly we forget what we just saw and what we just felt. We find ourselves saying, “Hunger... I’m hungry… Man, I want some Cheetos!”

We’re good at being upset about something for a while, but we do not allow the burden to sink deep into who we are. We've incredibly good at dodging pain.

Let me ask you this, "What breaks your heart?" What disturbs you? What makes you comfortable? What, when you slow down and take time to reflect, makes you cry?

* Maybe it directly relates to you. Maybe divorce breaks your heart. Your parents went through an awful divorce, or your friends, and you strongly believe that no one should have to go through this. Or maybe family members who don't know God or who have walked out on him break your heart. You think about those around you not living a life of worth with their Creator and you are cut to the core.

* Maybe you become upset when animals are abused or we as humans damage God's creations. Unfortunately, creation care has been underemphathized by Christians or sometimes even labeled as unimportant when compared to other things. But God has affirmed the goodness of his creation time and time again through the Biblical narrative. The birds of the air, the flowers of the field, the mountains, the valleys, the entire ecosystem is subjugated to pollution and depletion. These environmental factors largely impact others. Prolonged droughts and invasive species are a result of our sin, and they are often causes of famine (which leads to poverty), economic crisis, and widespread migration.

* Poverty, homelessness, children without parents, loneliness, depression, diseases... the list goes on.

So what breaks your heart? What area of suffering have you been hesitant to enter into? God didn’t put us here on this earth so that we can accumulate things and live comfortable lives and then die. God put us here for a purpose, and that purpose is building up his kingdom here on this earth. We become kingdom people when we invite suffering to resonate amongst us instead of pushing it aside, and we build His kingdom here on this by the ways that we pray for and participate in his work.

Like Nehemiah, God can take your misery and turn it into ministry.

Creativity as Divine

"Creative Mess" by CasseteFace

I ran home in record speed.

As I threw open the door and dashed into the house, my husband looked up from his reading, startled. I gave him a "can't-talk-now" look and hurried past him to my art studio. I grabbed my comic's storyboard and started writing, praying that the creative impulse that had just struck me would linger long enough until I connected the vivid world hovering in my imagination with the physical pencil and paper. I couldn't help but to chuckle to myself, thinking, Aaron probably mistook my urgency for a very necessary trip to the bathroom. 

For the past few months, I had been un-inspired to do any sort of art. Every time I sat down to draw or paint I'd stare at the blank sheet of paper or canvas, waiting for something to "hit" me. So why, out of all the times I intentionally set time aside to create, did I suddenly become inspired while on my daily run on the neighboring nature trail?

For reasons I cannot explain, sudden moments that are pregnant with creative possibilities seize me without forewarning. These are moments that only artists, poets, and musicians can understand. When these moments come upon me, I feel so alive. It's almost as if I've tapped into some sort of infinite creative energy. It's all I can do  but to pray the moment doesn't leave me before I've managed to crudely assemble it onto paper. Even then paper can't completely encapsulate the immense imagery and ideas of the ethereal, creative realm.

Finishing up my second degree in Biblical studies, where creatively is ironically minimized and occasionally even scorned, I began to think that my interests in art and creative writing wasn't really all that important. But then I read this passage from Scripture:

Exodus 35:30-36:1

Then Moses said to the Israelites, “See, the LORD has chosen Bezalel son of Uri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah, 31 and he has filled him with the Spirit of God, with wisdom, with understanding, with knowledge and with all kinds of skills— 32 to make artistic designs for work in gold, silver and bronze, 33 to cut and set stones, to work in wood and to engage in all kinds of artistic crafts. 34 And he has given both him and Oholiab son of Ahisamak, of the tribe of Dan, the ability to teach others. 35 He has filled them with skill to do all kinds of work as engravers, designers, embroiderers in blue, purple and scarlet yarn and fine linen, and weavers—all of them skilled workers and designers.1 So Bezalel, Oholiab and every skilled person to whom the LORD has given skill and ability to know how to carry out all the work of constructing the sanctuary are to do the work just as the LORD has commanded.”

What first comes to your mind when you think about the Spirit of God coming upon someone? Do you think about Samson and his supernatural strength? Do you think about Isaiah, and his profound prophetic messages to apostate Israel? Very rarely have I ever thought about God's Spirit sweeping down upon someone for the task of creating!

God didn't need a tabernacle to house him, because as Solomon later recounts in I Kings 8:26 even the heavens cannot contain God. How much more the earth, or the tabernacle/temple? But God graciously complied with the Israelites' house. Here's what tickles me - He essentially says in this passage from Exodus, "Well, if I'm going to dwell in a house it might as well be pretty." Yahweh saw the aesthetics of the tabernacle as something of importance, even to the extent that he gifted certain people with the job of overseeing the tabernacle's visual appearance.

When someone is complimented for their work, they typically reply, "I get it from my dad," or "I come from a long line of artists." But maybe we shouldn't attribute creativity to mere genetics. Sure, Bezalel's grandmother may have been a jewelry-maker. But what if Bezalel's artistic abilities was also given to him by God, simply because God sees creativity as important and he just wanted to give this ability to him?

In ancient Greece, it was believed that a person's capacity for creativity was not a product of his own ability but was a mark of the divine. An artist was merely the vessel, or conduit, of creativity. Poetry, woodworking, and music were spawned from what they called a "muse." This muse would come upon someone and grant them supernatural ability. Thus, if someone's sculpture came out disproportionate or lumpy, if wasn't the human creator's fault; he just had a bad genius. Similarly, when a person created a breathtaking masterpiece, it was attributed to the muse.

In Roman thought the "muse" was called a "genius." Now, in our modern world, a person no longer has a genius. A person is a genius.

But maybe we need to begin thinking about creativity as the mark of the Divine. Maybe we are mere conduits of God's creative activity and his Spirit comes upon certain people to create beauty, order, vision, and joy for His Kingdom. Maybe God's Spirit doesn't just come upon warriors like Samson or kings like David, but upon artists like Bezalel and Oholiab.

People who know the Creator should be the most creative people in this world. May we surrender ourselves to the purpose of God's Kingdom so that we may become the point of contact between heaven's creative power and earth's destructive captivity.

Trash Talking the Law

Recently, a video entitled "Why I Hate Religion but Love Jesus" has gone viral and sparked many discussions on Facebook. While I won't point out the many flaws in this video's theology (many others have undertaken this and done a fantastic job -- I don't have much more I could add), I was struck by the widely-held view about the nature of the [Old Testament] Law. Ever since I was a little girl, it was ingrained in me that the Law of the Old Testament is bad, but Jesus is good and replaced the Law. I was taught that the Law was bad because the Israelites thought that they could earn God's merit by upholding it. Instead, the Law brought death and self-righteousness.

This perspective completely disregards the greater witness of Scripture. This past semester, as I was studying John, I was really impacted by what the writer of John had to say about the Law:

"From the fullness of his grace we have all received one blessing after another. For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ."
- John 1:16-17

The word that the NIV chooses for "blessing" is the Greek word for "grace." In other words, this is saying that "From the fullness of [God's] grace we have received one grace after another." I think that we have often made "grace" into an ambiguous "Christianize" word. What does "grace" even mean? (I griped a bit about this in this post.) At its core, "grace" means anything that is given. It implies "giftedness."
The author of John gives two examples of God's gifts: the Law through Moses and Truth through Jesus. The Law is not presented as something that was bad; it is presented as a gift from God.

A few weeks ago, my husband took me out to lunch at a really nice Asian restaurant. It was late in the afternoon and I was starting to become really hungry. As we were driving to the restaurant, I saw all these other restaurants and desperately wanted to stop anywhere to satisfy my stomach rumblings. In my mind, I developed a rating system of what restaurants sounded really good to me:

Restaurant	Rating
Red Robin	Excellent
Bob Evans	Really Good
Fazoli’s	Good

But then I got to P.F. Chang's and the food was sooo good. I was so glad that I had waited! The other restaurants could not compete with honey sesame chicken. Now, however, I had a dilemma. I couldn't rate P.F. Chang's fairly on the rating scale. Red Robin was rated much too high. I could rate P.F. Chang's as "really excellent," but that still would not do it justice. It would be too close in rating to Red Robin.

So, in order to fix my dilemma, I need to rate the other restaurants lower.

Restaurant	Rating
P.F. Chang’s	Super Excellent
Red Robin	Okay
Bob Evans	Fair
Fazoli’s	Bad

Do I really think that Fazoli's is "bad?" No, I would gladly eat there any day of the week. But now that I've tasted the awesomeness of P.F. Chang's even Fazoli's ravioli pales in comparison.

I think that this is what's going on for the New Testament writers. The Law was a beautiful thing to them. It was the revelation of God himself to his people. It was a wonderful gift. By following the Law very carefully, the Israelites were loving God the way they knew best.

But now God revealed himself through His Son Jesus. How could this even compete with God's revelation through the Law? This is why many of the New Testament writers (like Paul) seem to be "trash-talking" the Law. It was a wonderful grace, but it was nowhere near as special as the grace of Jesus.

I learning to think of the Law in the Old Testament much in the same way that the first recipients thought about it - as a grace. God loves us so much that he has given us "grace after grace." Studying and mediating on the Law, even though it has been fulfilled (not annulled) through Jesus Christ is a way that I can reciprocate God's love and better appreciate his grace.