Calling and Answering

"Before they call I will answer; while they are still speaking I will hear." Isaiah 65:24

Yesterday was CPR training day at work, so naturally I had a dream that involved calling 911, it's just the way my mind works.

In this dream my family's house was being destroyed by crazy people cutting down trees and running into it with their cars (so strange). I was the heroic person who decided to call 911 for the terrified crew. Panic set in when I realized the noise outside was too great and I could not hear what the receiver was saying on the other line. In my dream I wasn't getting through to have help be sent and had to keep trying again and again. During one of the failed 911 attempts I heard the sound of sirens, an entire fleet of them! We realized that one of the neighbors had called for us, but to us at the time I remember thinking in my dream it seemed like we had an answer before we even called.

A couple days ago we had a notice on our door that the 'bug people' , as I affectionately call them, would be coming to spray our apartment soon. Enter massive cockroach in the apartment the next morning!! The exact people that I would have called (after the bug was securely hidden under a cup in my bathroom) had told me that they were already on their way. That's service.

On a more practical note, there are a select group of precious times that I can look back on the life of my family and see God working on our behalf before we even called out to Him. It brings amazing comfort to my future to be in intimate fellowship with my Creator! God has proven to me, not as if I deserved it, that He is actively working on my behalf.

Often, we are delivered before the "just in time" moment and we see that as something less than God's divine appointments. In times of reflection it is those moments where, only in hindsight, can I see that I was rescued from a terrible season or situation before I knew that it was a dangerous road to be traveling on.

Silly as it may be, that dream scared me. Yet, in His own way God confronted me with the reality of my own fears by the overwhelming reassurance of His presence, and not only His presence but His protection and power.

Today, we are under the care of our God who hears while we are still speaking and who knows our thoughts before they are spoken (Psalm 139:4).

Praise God from whom all blessings flow!

the smell of burning hair

A few years ago I read a story where a woman would light a candle each morning as she sat down to have her time with the Lord. Burning the candle was a way to separate those precious minutes with God from the other hectic hours of the day.

Occasionally, I have started the practice of lighting the candle on my desk before I sit down for a quiet time. As a side note, I love candles - the current candle on my desk is jasmine bouquet- a nice, light summertime fragrance (I'd recommend it).

This past morning found me sitting at my desk lighting a candle as I opened my Bible. Not too much time had passed before I realized that it wasn't the smell of jasmine bouquet that was filling the air, but that of singed hair (arguably one of the top 5 most unpleasant smells). Now don't be frightened - I wasn't foolish enough to catch my hair on fire, but a solitary strand of hair had fallen close enough to just be within grasp of the wick, easily overpowering any pleasant fragrance that would come from the lit candle.

The concept of our offerings and our prayers being presented to the Lord as a pleasing aroma is not a foreign one. In Revelation we hear about the 'prayers of the saints' which are 'golden bowls full of incense' (5:8). Just as actions can be detestable before the sight of the Lord, our sins can cause a stench in the nostrils of God.

The first chapter in Isaiah is amazing for the way that it shows God's thoughts to some of the traditions that we find ourselves in, disguised under the umbrella term of 'religion'. Specifically, in verse 14 "The New Moon festivals and appointed feasts" I could substitute 'Sunday services and daily quiet times'. A familiar term for such a problem might be 'hallelujahs without holiness'.

What I learned from lighting the candle that morning was that the act of lighting the candle (pardon the redundancy) didn't ensure a pleasant aroma. The strand of hair, that I hadn't taken the time to remove or given the attention to notice made it's self noticeable. I must realize that simply reading the Word without examining my heart makes me more like the smell of singed hair than that of incense. In fact, such a daily repetition without a spiritual humility may be exactly what God meant when He speaks of the "trampling of [His] courts" (v 12).

Praise God that He provided a solution to the mess we've made! Chapter one of Isaiah doesn't end with God's frustration with His people. Beginning in verse 16 the first instructions are to "wash and make yourselves clean" followed by His atonement in verse 16 "though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow". Our Teacher Himself, exposes a problem and then He, Himself provides the solution.

The Vine and the City

Jonah 4:

But to Jonah this seemed very wrong, and he became angry. ² He prayed to the LORD, “Isn’t this what I said, LORD, when I was still at home? That is what I tried to forestall by fleeing to Tarshish. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity. ³ Now, LORD, take away my life, for it is better for me to die than to live.”

⁴ But the LORD replied, “Is it right for you to be angry?”

⁵ Jonah had gone out and sat down at a place east of the city. There he made himself a shelter, sat in its shade and waited to see what would happen to the city. ⁶ Then the LORD God provided a leafy plant^[a] and made it grow up over Jonah to give shade for his head to ease his discomfort, and Jonah was very happy about the plant. ⁷ But at dawn the next day God provided a worm, which chewed the plant so that it withered. ⁸ When the sun rose, God provided a scorching east wind, and the sun blazed on Jonah’s head so that he grew faint. He wanted to die, and said, “It would be better for me to die than to live.”

⁹ But God said to Jonah, “Is it right for you to be angry about the plant?”

“It is,” he said. “And I’m so angry I wish I were dead.”

¹⁰ But the LORD said, “You have been concerned about this plant, though you did not tend it or make it grow. It sprang up overnight and died overnight. ¹¹ And should I not have concern for the great city of Nineveh, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left—and also many animals?”

What's important is not that Jonah was happy about the vine or that he was angry at its absence. The city was God's concern all along- even to the extent that He would preserve Jonah's life for three days in a fish.
This emphasis on 'the city' reminds me of a verse in Jeremiah 29:7. The Lord tells the people to pray for the city that they are exiled to 'for if it prospers, you prosper'. Jonah's problem from the beginning is that he didn't like the city of Ninevah (he would probably go beyond not liking it). Beyond that, Jonah's reason for going outside the city was to see if the Lord would bring His warned destruction upon the people. God cares for cities. Even when He provides blessing that seem to 'spring up overnight' or when the same God provides a worm to destroy the vine, God's interest remains on the city.
Along with blessing the name of the Lord in seasons of plenty or want we must make sure to stay focused on the Lord's will; which is much greater that the blessing of a vine that I 'did not tend to or make grow'.