Word of Life Church Podcast

If we’re schooled in denial we don’t know what to do with suffering when it comes. But the Hebrew people—formed in the crucible of suffering—know what to do. You write a poem, sing a song, create a lament that gives full expression to the pain you feel. You make art out of your pain so that you can give it away to God.

Jeremiah was a prophet for the end times; and we need such prophets because things are always coming to an end. It’s hubris and idolatry to think that anything other than God and his kingdom lasts forever. Nations and empires, institutions and economies, moments, movements, and even our lives all come to an end. But prophets like Jeremiah help us accept these inevitable endings and see the purposes of God in them.

This road we are on following Jesus isn’t pretty or neat and tidy. It’s hard to follow Jesus. Whoever told you otherwise is selling Jesus short. Following Jesus is thrilling and rewarding, but it isn't easy. We have to accept hardship as the pathway to the peace that Jesus talks about. The psalms have been given to us as very real, very honest language to be used to reach out to God through the hardships of the Christian life including the hardships of patience, perseverance, forgiveness, and love.

This beautiful pilgrim psalm is a meditation on the mercy of God. The psalmist sings about how God does not mark iniquities, about God’s plenteous forgiveness, about God’s steadfast love, about God’s great power to redeem. It’s also a song about waiting with hope. The soul of the pilgrim waits for the mercy of God...more than the watchman for the morning. Yes, we wait for the mercy of God—mercy as sure as the morning.

"Sometimes when I stand in some corner of Auschwitz, my feet planted on Your earth, my eyes raised toward Your heaven, tears sometimes run down my face, tears of deep emotion and gratitude. And I want to be there right in the thick of what people call “horror” and still be able to say: life is beautiful. And now I lie here in a corner, dizzy and feverish and unable to do a thing. But I am also with the jasmine and with that piece of sky beyond my window. For once you have begun to walk with God, you need only keep on walking with Him and all of life becomes one long stroll—such a marvelous feeling." -Etty Hillesum (1914-1943)

Pilgrimage (a journey of a spiritual nature) has always been a practice among spiritual seekers. The ancient Jews were to make three pilgrimages a year to the holy city of Jerusalem. This is the context for Psalm 84 — it’s a meditation on the pilgrim journey to Zion. As such it's a profound reflection upon the all-important journey of the heart — an inner pilgrimage toward a mature revelation of God.

On the journey of life, we will find ourselves as both the helper and the helped. The myth of the self-made man is a strong belief in our culture, but an honest reflection on life will find "no man is an island entire of itself." We are a God-made mankind and it is not good that we are alone. Therefore, may find comfort in a God who is good and faithful - who's help most often comes through other people.

We are resurrection people not only because believe in the doctrine of the resurrection. We are resurrection people because we practice resurrection. We walk in newness of life. There are four practices that open up the door to all the other practices of the faith, namely awareness, learning, reflecting, and action. When we adopt these four practices, the way of life opens up for us.

“The devout Christian of the future will either be a ‘mystic,’ one who has ‘experienced’ something, or he will cease to be anything at all. –Karl RahnerThe tsunami of secularism will be survived, not by clever apologetics, or by waging misguided culture wars, or by pining away for an irretrievable past, but being a person who has had their own mystical experience with God.

My Back PagesBob DylanCrimson flames tied through my earsRollin’ high and mighty trapsPounced with fire on flaming roadsUsing ideas as my maps“We’ll meet on edges, soon,” said IProud ’neath heated browAh, but I was so much older thenI’m younger than that nowHalf-wracked prejudice leaped forth“Rip down all hate,” I screamedLies that life is black and whiteSpoke from my skull. I dreamedRomantic facts of musketeersFoundationed deep, somehowAh, but I was so much older thenI’m younger than that nowGirls’ faces formed the forward pathFrom phony jealousyTo memorizing politicsOf ancient historyFlung down by corpse evangelistsUnthought of, though, somehowAh, but I was so much older thenI’m younger than that nowA self-ordained professor’s tongueToo serious to foolSpouted out that libertyIs just equality in school“Equality,” I spoke the wordAs if a wedding vowAh, but I was so much older thenI’m younger than that nowIn a soldier’s stance, I aimed my handAt the mongrel dogs who teachFearing not I’d become my enemyIn the instant that I preachMy existence led by confusion boatsMutiny from stern to bowAh, but I was so much older thenI’m younger than that nowYes, my guard stood hard when abstract threatsToo noble to neglectDeceived me into thinkingI had something to protectGood and bad, I define these termsQuite clear, no doubt, somehowAh, but I was so much older thenI’m younger than that now