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I know the Bible gets deeper and wider the more we read it. Many truths are like gold that we have to dig and search for, as Solomon describes the way to seek wisdom as silver or hidden treasures in Proverbs 2.

But other insights are given to us like nuggets lying on the surface of the stream of His grace, just waiting for us to pick up and admire. God gave me one of those nuggets this morning as I was thinking about the first resurrection morning.

What first caught my attention was this quote by G. K. Chesterton:

“On the third day the friends of Christ coming at daybreak to the place found the grave empty and the stone rolled away. In varying ways they realized the new wonder; but even they hardly realized that the world had died in the night. What they were looking at was the first day of a new creation, with a new heaven and a new earth; and in a semblance of the gardener God walked again in the garden, in the cool not of the evening but the dawn.” –GK Chesterton

I had never thought much about Mary Magdalene mistakenly identifying Jesus as the gardener in the story John tells of her visit to the tomb. Finding it empty Mary turns from the two angels to see Jesus, and:

Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.” (John 20:15)

What if Mary wasn’t mistaken about calling Jesus a gardener, but saw something true about the figure in front of her?

Wasn’t Adam’s job to be a gardener in Eden, to work it and keep it (Genesis 2:15)?

The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it.

But when the first Adam sinned, he was sent out of the garden into a wilderness of thorns and thistles and painful toil. Christ as the Last Adam is the true Gardener returned to remove the thorns, “far as the curse is found,” as we sing in Isaac Watts’ hymn of joy at Christmas:

No more let sins and sorrows grow,
Nor thorns infest the ground;
He comes to make His blessings flow
Far as the curse is found,
Far as the curse is found,
Far as, far as, the curse is found.

Another interesting contrast in the two garden scenes is the different way Adam and Mary respond to the voice of God. When God calls to Adam, Adam turns away and hides because of the shame of his sin. When Jesus calls Mary by her name, rather than turning away, she immediately recognizes who He is and tries to cling to him (John 20:16-17).  Jesus, the new Gardener has made complete provision for our shame through his death and resurrection. We no longer need to hide. A new dawn has truly come.

 

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This verse struck me with special force yesterday in my daily reading of the M’Cheyne plan. I have certainly thought about this psalm before, for David’s words have a particularly powerful way of directly confronting one of my besetting sins: discontent.

Many times as I read these words I have had to humble my heart and ask forgiveness for fretted about different aspects of my life situation, whether job, family, housing, finance. I often didn’t feel like I was in a pleasant place.

It is easy to think of David sitting on his throne in his palace of cedar and gold and writing “The lines have fallen in pleasant places.” But perhaps he wrote these words when he was hungry and alone  in a dark and smelly cave, fleeing Saul.

Today, we have all found ourselves with new unchosen boundary lines. Setting healthy boundaries—a topic for many self-help books—has taken on a new and sinister meaning. We go to the store and see lines of tape every 6 feet to keep us apart: healthy boundaries indeed.

Many of our choices have been stripped away. The boundaries have closed in…we cannot move. No, I can’t go hang out at my favorite coffee shop with a friend. No, I can’t go to the book store and browse the shelves for a new reading adventure. No, I can’t see what great bargain I can find at the thrift store to change up my wardrobe. No, I can’t start planning a trip to see my precious grandson in Hawaii, who is growing up so quickly. All my thoughts crash into the new boundaries set around me: No, No, No.

But David gives us the key to making these and all boundaries pleasant. “The Lord is my chosen portion and my cup.” In this time of isolation, I can choose to focus on God himself. I can gaze with fresh wonder on the mercy and grace that led him to the cross. I can read the Bible and drink deeply of his precious word, preserved for me by God’s determined will and the suffering of unnumbered saints.

And I can pray for those for whom the new boundaries are creating real suffering, for those who are sick, for those who have lost loved ones, for those who have lost jobs, for those on the front lines of serving in a pandemic.

The word used for line in Psalm 16:6 comes from the Hebrew word for cord since boundary lines for individual portions of land were measured and set with a standard length of cord. Cords were used on Jesus when he was bound and taken away to Pilate to be judged for our sins (Mark 15:1). These cords are part of  the beautiful inheritance we have in Christ.

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Scientists even say that the earth itself is moving less now that people have stopped rushing to and fro to stores and work.

It is a Selah moment. This mysterious word that occurs 71 times in the Psalms now governs our life. Strong’s Lexicon defines Selah as “a technical musical term probably showing accentuation, pause, interruption.” It is derived from similar Hebrew word meaning balance. So by extension we have “a pause that brings balance.”

Was our life out of balance before the pandemic? Could this be a pause to bring correction? A realignment of our actions and thinking?

Selah has been variously translated “Stop and think about that” and in The Passion Translation, “Pause in His presence.”

Having time to stop and think about it and pause in His presence, I looked up all the occurrences of the word Selah in Psalms. Then I categorized the verses based on general topics in an effort to find the primary things that God wants us to stop and think about. This is what I discovered:

• 11 verses are about the actions of evil men, how they think, what they say, and the consequences of evil. Many there be which say of my soul, there is no help for him in God. Selah. Psalm 3:2
• 19 verses are about various aspects of God’s goodness: how he blesses his people, redeems them, saves them, forgives them, shows himself faithful, and provides a refuge in the time of trouble. You are a hiding place for me; you preserve me from trouble;  you surround me with shouts of deliverance.  Selah. Psalm 32:7
• 21 verses are concerned with God’s sovereignty and righteous judgement, which has two aspects: protecting and establishing righteousness and punishing and destroying wickedness. Let the nations be glad and sing for joy, for you judge the peoples with equity and guide the nations upon earth. Selah. Psalm 67:4
• 11 verses deal with prayer, how God delivers and answers when we cry out to him. I cried aloud to the Lord, and he answered me from his holy hill.  Selah. Psalm 3:4
• 9 verses exalt God, 5 verses with words of praise and adoration and 4 by describing the glories of Zion where God’s people will be with Him and see His glory. In God we have boasted continually, and we will give thanks to your name forever.  Selah. Psalm 44:8

So in this unprecedented moment of pause where we are being inundated with bad news and fear, let’s take time to refocus on what the Psalmist has asked us to “stop and think about.” God is good, his judgements are righteous, he will deal with evil, he hears us when we cry out to him, and no matter what is happening around us, he is worthy of worship.

One day we will be in his presence in the New Jerusalem, the true City of God, where every tear will be wiped away.

(Note: If you would like to see the full list of verses categorized, you can find it here.)

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As the M’Cheyne Bible reading plan has led us through the book of Exodus, I was struck by how the word intricately is always used to describe the ephod, the special priestly garment woven of linen, gold, blue, purple, and scarlet threads. For example, here it is introduced in Exodus 28:8

And the intricately woven band of the ephod, which is on it, shall be of the same workmanship, made of gold, blue, purple, and scarlet thread, and fine woven linen.

Intricate also describes the wonderful ways that the Holy Spirit has woven the themes in the Bible together. Today I caught a glimpse of that intricacy in a reference to a humble plant, the hyssop. 1 Kings 4:33 describes Solomon’s wisdom in speaking of trees, from the greatest—the cedar of Lebanon—to the least—the lowly hyssop that grows out of the wall. Similar to many references to Biblical plants, scholars are not agreed on the exact species of plant that the Hebrew word ezowb points to. But hyssop plays a crucial role in Old Testament worship. It was used:

1. By the Hebrew people to mark the lintel and door posts of their homes with blood so the death angel would pass over (Exodus 12:22)
2. By Moses to sprinkle blood during the dedication of the book of testimony and the people (Hebrews 9:19)
3. By the priests to sprinkle blood for the cleansing of leprosy (Lev 14)
4. By the priests when they burned a sacrificed red heifer for creating the ashes used to purify the unclean and prevent them from being cut off from the community (Numbers 19)

In all these cases, no power rested in the lowly hyssop; rather, it became the means of sprinkling the blood that brought freedom from death and forgiveness of sin. It is in this sense that David mentions hyssop in Psalm 51, which is his great psalm of repentance after Nathan exposed his sin with Bathsheba.

And this is where we see the intricate weaving of threads come together in John 19:29-30. In Jesus final moments on the cross, he cried “I thirst,” and a soldier reached a sponge soaked in sour wine to him. The soldier could have attached that sponge to any kind of stick; but instead, he “happened” to use a branch of hyssop to touch the lips that next uttered the word “Tetelestai” (it is finished).

God again provided a humble branch of hyssop to touch the true blood sacrifice that takes away the sin of the world, foreshadowed in Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers.

For if the blood of bulls and goats and the ashes of a heifer, sprinkling the unclean, sanctifies for the purifying of the flesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? Hebrews 9:13-14

That Roman soldier could have grabbed anything at hand, but God ordained a branch of hyssop to be available so he could add a finishing touch to the intricately woven story that began in the Garden, where he promised that the seed of the woman would crush the serpent’s head.

How much more can he provide for us and ordain our steps as we trust in Him!

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Today, as part of the M’Cheyne reading plan, I read Exodus 32, which describes God’s wrath when the Israelites began worshipping the golden calf while Moses is on the mountain. In response, God tells Moses that he will wipe out the people, and offers to start a new nation based on Moses. But Moses—the humblest of men—intercedes for the people, and in Exodus 32:12, he begs God to relent. And then follows this wonderfully hopeful verse:

“So the LORD relented from the harm which He said He would do to His people.” Exodus 32:14

The word relent in Hebrew is nacham, which comes from a primitive root meaning to sigh or breath heavily, by implication to be sorry. As a positive action, it means to offer comfort. And I do find it comforting to think of God sighing…the way a mother sighs when she sees her kids fighting again…not in anger, but in sadness and longing for them to learn to play together peacefully, the way Jesus sighed and wept over Jerusalem (Luke 13:34).

David also experienced mercy when God relenting from destruction. When David sinned by numbering the people, the prophet Gad gave him three choices of punishments. David chose the plague because he trusted in God’s mercies. And indeed, in 2 Samuel 24:16, the Lord relented and David built and altar and worshipped.

And when the angel stretched out His hand over Jerusalem to destroy it, the LORD relented from the destruction, and said to the angel who was destroying the people, “It is enough; now restrain your hand.” 2 Samuel 24:16

Later, the Psalmist in recounting all of God’s goodness to Israel in Psalm 106 remembers also how God relented:

But they rebelled in their counsel
And were brought low for their iniquity.
Nevertheless He regarded their affliction, when He heard their cry;
And for their sake He remembered His covenant,
And relented according to the multitude of His mercies.
Psalm 106:43-45

Jeremiah the weeping prophet insists on God’s willingness to relent from judgment when people turn from their evil.

If that nation against whom I have spoken turns from its evil, I will relent of the disaster that I thought to bring upon it. Jeremiah 18:8

Five times he offers the hope of God relenting if his people will repent (Jeremiah 18:8, 26:3, 26:13, 26:19, and 42:10), but of course we know the judgment came as Babylon destroyed Jerusalem and took the people away.

Other prophets also remind us that God relents from harm when his people return to Him:

So rend your heart, and not your garments;
Return to the LORD your God,
For He is gracious and merciful,
Slow to anger, and of great kindness;
And He relents from doing harm. Joel 2:13

God relented of two disasters when Amos pleaded for his people in Amos 7:3 and Amos 7:6.

And even more famously (or infamously depending on how you feel about the Assyrians), God relented from his plan to destroy Nineveh when the people of the city turned from their evil ways at the preaching of Jonah.

Then God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God relented from the disaster that He had said He would bring upon them, and He did not do it. Jonah 3:10

What does all this have to do with COVID-19? Surely a great evil has come upon us and the world. And truly, God is the same, yesterday, today, and forever. So we can be confident that when we intercede, our God is willing to change his mind.

Let us plead his mercies, turn away from our sins, and perhaps we also as David did will see God relent and halt the plague among us.

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Write the vision; make it plain on tablets, so he may run who reads it. Habakkuk 2:2

I’ll have to admit that I chose this theme verse because it was about writing, which seemed a natural fit. Writing is what I have done most of my adult life and I hoped that my website would be a place to continue writing after I retired.

In the years since I first created my website, I have discovered many other reasons to love Habakkuk. Habakkuk is short (the 4th shortest book in the Old Testament) but packed with truth. And of course—and most obviously—the fact that God told Habakkuk to write is secondary to the actual message he wrote down.

Here are some of the reasons I have grown to love Habakkuk over the years.

Habakkuk is a man of prayer. Habakkuk is introduced to us through his prayer, which is not for his own needs. He is an intercessor whose heart breaks over the condition of the world around him: a world filled with violence, where God’s word and ways are no longer followed, and wickedness prevails. His world sound a lot like the one we live in and I find my own heart often crying out “How long, O Lord,” as I scan the local and world headlines.

Habakkuk receives an answer to his prayer central to redemptive history. To his intercessor, God entrusts a glimpse of his plans to purify his people by bringing a great evil against them. Habakkuk’s response is initially disbelief, but he continues to seek God for how this evil can produce faith.

God tells Habakkuk to write down what he is about to hear, and what he writes is that “the righteous shall live by his faith,” a verse referenced three times by New Testament writers:

• Romans 1:17 is the key that opened up the Gospel to Martin Luther and became the basis of the Protestant reformation: man is made just by God’s grace through Christ when grace is received by faith, and not by works.
• Galatians 3:11 highlights the foundational confusion of the Galatians between faith, which produces life, and works of the law, which produce death.
• Hebrews 10:38 emphasizes the ability of the believer to endure by faith and the hope that God will complete His work.

The woes Habakkuk records give us hope for final justice. God proclaims five woes over the Chaldeans, Israel’s enemies. Even though God plans to use them to purify his people, they will not ultimately escape judgment for their evil deeds. These woes give substance to our faith that the “judge of all the earth will be just” (Genesis 18:25). God demonstrates his concern about social justice issues in the pronouncement of woes on:

1. Those who take from the poor (Habakkuk 2:6-8)
2. Those who accumulate wealth with no thought for others (Habakkuk 2:9-11)
3. Leaders who build using methods that abuse others (Habakkuk 2:12-14)
4. Those who encourage others to abuse drugs and alcohol to take advantage of them (Habakkuk 2:15-18)
5. Those who encourage others to trust in the works of their hands rather than the living God (Habakkuk 2:19)

Habakkuk looks forward to the final consummation of history. Habakkuk’s prayer in Chapter 3 looks back at God’s mighty acts in the Exodus, but even more to his final victory over not just Egyptians or Chaldeans, but over the enemy of enemies, that old serpent, Satan. Habakkuk 3:13 speaks of crushing the head of the house of the wicked, echoing the words God spoke in Genesis 3:15 that the seed of the woman would bruise Satan’s head.

Habakkuk gives us reason to sing in the darkest time. The final verses of Habakkuk’s prayer (3:17-19) are a powerful and joyful expression of faith and hope that is not based on anything the eye can see.

As a watchman who has been called to pray, this hope in the unseen has been life-giving to me since often all I can see with the natural eye is destruction and sorrow. Still, remembering Habakkuk, I can rejoice in the Lord and take joy in the God of our salvation.

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Here is a list of some of the books that ministered either to my heart and my spirit, or challenged my thinking. I’ve included a quote from each to give you a flavor of the content. The books are listed in the order in which I read them. I hope you will find your next read among them!

Becoming Mrs. Lewis: The Improbable Love Story of Joy Davidman and C. S. Lewis by Patti Callahan

C. S. Lewis is one of my favorite authors and I have read several biographies about his life. I was a little hesitant to read this book since as a work of fiction I was concerned that it would distort Lewis’s life and character. But persuaded by others who love Lewis, I took the plunge and enjoyed this book for what it was. I don’t know how accurate all of it is, but it felt authentic to the man and certainly made his relationship with Joy more lively and her more of a real woman than many biographies do.

“What on earth would become of me if I should ever grow brave?” Joy asks in this novel, and Callahan shows well her path of suffering and joy.

Confessions of St. Augustine

Of course, everyone says they want to read this book but who other than the scholarly actually does? I’m not sure what motivated me to try reading this at this time, but I am glad I did. I discovered that this book really is not challenging or obscure…it is warm and intimate and real, and similar to reading the psalms. I read the Modern English translation by Baker House.

“You light my candle, O Lord my God. You cast a beam through my darkness. You gave us of all that You are, and You are the true Light. You blaze the way before every human that walks the earth. In You we see no shades of gray. In You are seen no shadows of change.”

Why I love the Apostle Paul: 30 Reasons by John Piper

Many people find the Apostle Paul dry or too intellectual; I know I felt that way too at one time. This book give you a fresh look at all the amazing ways he has blessed and encouraged John Piper. Did you ever notice how Paul always travelled with companions and missed them when they were gone? Piper calls this Pauls Passion for Precious Community. This book makes a great devotional for reading with the Epistles and discovering more treasures about the author.

“But in spite of the complexity and profundity of Paul’s reasoning, the emotional maturity and full humanity of the man shine through the depth and tenderness and intensity of his emotions, which (like his own imperfections) he was willing to reveal. “We were gentle among you, like a nursing mother taking care of her own children. So, being affectionately desirous of you, we were ready to share with you not only the gospel of God but also our own selves, because you had become very dear to us. (1 Thess. 2:7–8)”

Lab Girl by Hope Jaren

This autobiography captured my interest because of Hope’s unusual career focus and her honesty about herself. As a child, Hope spent hours in her father’s college lab and found a sanctuary there from a difficult relationship with her mother. Her love of science reveals secrets to the germination and growth of seeds in different types of soil…as she wrote lyrically about the power of life in seeds, the parallels with Jesus parable of the sower came quickly to mind in a fresh and dramatic way.

“A seed is alive while it waits. Every acorn on the ground is just as alive as the three-hundred-year-old oak tree that towers over it. Neither the seed nor the old oak is growing; they are both just waiting. Their waiting differs, however, in that the seed is waiting to flourish while the tree is only waiting to die.”

The Road Trip that Changed the World: The Unlikely Theory that will Change How You View Culture, the Church, and, Most Importantly, Yourself by Mark Sayers

After listening to a couple of Mark Sayers’ podcasts, I decided to read one of his books. This one is a cultural analysis of life since the 50’s using  Jack Kerouac’s book On the Road as the paradigm for the modern world view.

“In the culture of the road our true broken selves are never revealed, because when things become difficult, when our hurts and pain are revealed, when individual wills are challenged, we physically or mentally move on.”

Finding Hagar: God’s Pursuit of a Runaway by Michael F. Kuhn

Michael Kuhn takes a fresh look at a woman in the Bible often dismissed and finds a beautiful story of God’s pursuit of a fugitive who falls outside the line of his chosen people. The book combines scripture, illustrations, imaginative storytelling, and thoughtful commentary to make Hagar’s story come alive, and bestow honor on the only woman in the Bible to give God a name.

“In a narrative where Hagar appears as a cog in the wheel of domestic servitude and exploitation, she now manifests a unique power, issuing from her encounter with the living God. She bestows a name upon divinity. It is a type of resurrection – a transfer from helplessness and passivity to initiative, action, power – resulting from the encounter with Yahweh.”

Black Death at the Golden Gate: The Race to Save America from the Bubonic Plague by David Randall

David Randall shines his light on a little-known episode in California history. At the turn of the century, a Chinese immigrant in San Francisco dies of the plague, and rather that rushing to find a solution, local press, railroad barons, and elected officials attempt to deny the possibility of an epidemic in order not to damage tourism! In this scenario Rupert Blue, a federal health officer, becomes an unlikely hero in an unfolding battle for truth and protection of the public. I love reading books like this one that help me realize that politics in California have always been crazy and it is only by the grace of God any of us are still alive and healthy.

Fierce Convictions: The Extraordinary Life of Hannah More—Poet, Reformer, Abolitionist by Karen Swallow Prior

Hannah Moore rose from a somewhat obscure background to become the friend of many of the well known social and intellectual leaders of her day, but her closest friendships were with the members of the Clapham Sect that gathered around William Willberforce and whose united effort brought an end to the English slave trade and positively influenced the life of the poor and oppressed throughout British society.

“It should be held as an eternal truth, that what is morally wrong can never be politically right.”

Near to the Heart of God: Meditations on 366 Hymns by Robert Morgan

Robert Morgan provides a hymn for each day of the year selected because of some connection with the date in history. With the hymn is interesting information about its background, author, or composer of the music. You will discover, for example, that the woman who wrote these familiar words was bedridden for 30 years:

“He giveth more grace as our burdens grow greater, He sendeth more strength as our labors increase; To added afflictions He addeth His mercy, To multiplied trials he multiplies peace.”

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I witnessed the catastrophic consequences of taking many small shortcuts and steps of untruth and denial when I read Midnight in Chernobyl: The Untold Story of the World’s Greatest Nuclear Disaster. I think the biggest take away from this story was the danger of setting unrealistic deadlines, especially in a bureaucracy filled with fear and jealousy.

I was reminded again of the eternal consequences of insisting on one’s own way by reading C. S. Lewis’s The Great Divorce.

I discovered that Phillip Keller first learned to appreciate the nuances of shepherding by watching the Maasai in Kenya were his parents were missionaries when I reread A Shepherd Looks at the 23rd Psalm, and was humbled to recognize I had missed the gift of this distant culture when I first read this book years ago.

I followed David Sitton on his great missionary adventures in Reckless Abandon and was convicted again about what it means to count the cost.

I trekked with David Platt through the mountains of Nepal and wept with him at the end of seven days when his heart broke over the desperate spiritual and physical condition of the villagers he met.  Something Needs to Change is his journal of this life altering trip that has fueled the fire of missions in his soul. (I received a pre-release copy; the book releases Sept. 17.

I discovered a wonderful book by Richard Bewes, rector of All Souls Church, London (1983-2004). All Saints was John Stott’s church, and Richard was his friend. Under the Thorn Tree: When Revival Comes is a wide-ranging and deeply challenging book that looks at aspects of the moving of the Holy Spirit in Africa and around the world.

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