No Empty Words

Most of us know what empty words are. Some had their first exposure to empty words in childhood when Dad frequently promised to attend school plays or soccer games, but never showed up. Sometimes his failure to show wasn't even acknowledged and when it was discussed, there was a promise to come next time or an admonition to not be a crybaby about his absences. Or maybe Mom repeatedly promised a trip to a favorite ice cream parlor after chores were done, but trips never materialized and when asked about them, she was too tired or claimed it was too close to dinner. And to add insult to injury she would usually add, "Maybe next week!" Some had their first exposure to empty words, when a noncustodial parent never showed up for visits. The excuses were many--new wife needed him, the dog was sick, got home too late from work, or maybe there was just silence with no excuses offered. Some had their first exposure to empty words when a parent's addiction was the root of broken promises. They promised repeatedly to stop drinking and to be a better parent, but the roots of addiction ran too deep and words--they were empty and couldn't be trusted. Some experienced empty words that were threats of disciplinary actions that never followed through and Mom and Dad still wonder why their kids are so unruly or got in trouble with the law. 

Some grew up in healthy homes where words were kept, but they were exposed to empty words outside the home. Maybe it occurred when a friend repeatedly failed to fulfill the plans you made together. Maybe she left you hanging at the Mall, the Basketball game, the movie theater, or just didn't show up for planned sleepovers. For some it occurred when they were dating a guy who repeatedly double booked or got caught up in the moment with his friends, failing to show up for dates, and promising to do better while expecting you to be "understanding." After all, isn't that what good girlfriends do? After all, don't Christians have to show grace? For some, it happened in a job when a boss promised a raise that never materialized. He was good at convincing workers to work until the project was finished so the company could make enough money to give you the raise you hoped for--the raise that never came to be.  

For many, empty words came in the form of apologies. Oh, the apologies rolled so easily off the tongue. "I am sorry I missed your game." "I am sorry I pushed you so hard to "do it," it won't happen again." "I am sorry, I didn't make it home in time for dinner again." "I am sorry I forgot to fix that leaky pipe this weekend, I'll do it next Saturday." "I am sorry I forgot to call you when I knew I was going to be late." "I am sorry I can't pick up the kids this weekend." "I am sorry I got drunk and made a fool of myself in front of the kids, it won't happen again." "I am sorry I was viewing porn again, I promise I won't do it again." But the apologies are made of empty words and the people saying them are saying the words only to alleviate his or her guilt and the behaviors, but they never change. 

But, with God, there are no empty words. In a world filled promises broken, vows not kept, pledges retracted, and assurances quickly given and even more quickly forgotten, God remains true to His Words. History proves it:

• "Thus the Lord gave to Israel all the land that he swore to give to their fathers." (Joshua 21:43a) 
•  "And the Lord gave them rest on every side just as he had sworn to their fathers." (Joshua 21:44a)
• "Not one word of all the good promises that the Lord had made to the house of Israel had failed; all came to pass." (Joshua 21:45} 

These verses are important verse because they show the partial fulfillment of the promise God made to Abraham in Gen. 12:2-3, "And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonor you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” 

And the complete fulfillment of them is found in Jesus. In Him, every person has the possibility of redemption. We have a truth-minding, promise-keeping, covenant-fulfilling God. And this is important as we live out our faith in a broken world filled with fear-inducing events, debilitating illnesses, broken promises, and sinful people who fail to love well. 

God's faithfulness is how the parents of a child who is suffering with heart defects or cancer makes it through the day. They hold on to the Psalmists words, "The LORD sustains him on his sickbed; in his illness You restore him to full health."  (Psalm 41:3)

Those grieving can find comfort and hope in Psalm 30:5b, "Weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes with the morning." 

Those struggling with loneliness and fear of abandonment can hold onto the Lord's promise found in Hebrews 13:5, "I will never leave you or forsake you." 

Those wondering if the sin they just committed is one sin too many sins to be forgiven can hold on to 2 Corinthians 12:9, "But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness."

Those afflicted from every side can hold onto the promise found in Psalm 34:19, “Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the LORD delivers him out of them all."   

Those struggling with fearful hearts can trust the words of a prophet in Isaiah 41:10, "Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand. Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of them all." 

Those facing death can hold on to the promise Jesus made in John 14:2, "In my Father's house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?" 

And those feeling distraught over the immoral, hate-filled climate in which we live can hold onto   1 Thessalonians 4:16, "For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and the sound of the trumpet of God." 

In this world filled with empty words, we can remember God speaks no empty words! Every word is trustworthy, powerful and life-sustaining. Our struggle with unbelief often has had its roots in man's failures, not God's. 

Meeting God in the Hard

Life is hard because of the losses we experience. These include people we dearly love and people we’ve spent years grieving over because some relationships are so broken. Life is hard because of long seasons of loneliness in which we reach out and beg for changes that could build intimacy with spouses or friends only to be met by anger that leaves us wounded or by passivity that leaves us feeling invisible and unheard. Life is hard when we lose relationships or friendships due to divorce or because conflicts couldn’t be resolved; no matter how hard we tried. Life is hard even when we chose to end relationships to preserve our integrity or to stop pain we could no longer bear. After all, aren’t we, as believers, supposed to make it all work? In reality, it is not always possible. Whether loss of relationship is by choice or not it sometimes makes life hard. 

Life is hard when we lose material things–things stolen, homes repossessed, or homes destroyed by natural disasters. Material losses include things we can easily replace and the sentimental items that can’t–baby pictures that burned, wedding albums floating in flood waters, scrapbooks of family vacations taken by a tornado, or grandmother’s china that shattered in an earthquake. And yes, things are things, but some things have special meanings and, yes, sometimes life is hard when we can’t replace those things.

Sometimes life is hard because we face losses due to abuses we’ve experienced. It doesn’t matter whether they were sexual, physical, and/or emotional in nature–victims experience a loss of innocence. They lose a sense of being safe in their home, their family, their community, their church, and even their own bodies. Losses are felt when we experience violence either first hand or vicariously. They are felt when we experience injustices and judgments in the face of divorce and long drawn out custody battles. Losses can be unfulfilled dreams or decreased abilities due to illness or injury, or even the aging process. 

Life is also hard because we are part of a culture that experiences violence such as Nine-Eleven, Columbine, Newtown, Colorado, Taft, churches all over the world, bombings, and now the mass shooting in Las Vegas. Many will grieve because of so many lives lost. Many will struggle as they work hard to physically recover from wounds. And many will struggle the impact of trauma from having been there and survived, having watched it on TV, and having been shocked to realize our sense of safety is being rocked to the core. When there are such big losses some will shut down and not experience their losses for a while as they struggle to come to terms with it. Yes, life is sometimes hard for a season as we face and grieve these losses.   

Ironically, the more we love, the more potential we have to experience hard. I’ve lost extended family and three friends who deeply impacted my life. I’ve lost my parents, my parent-in-laws, my spiritual Dad, and precious friends I met through church. My heart has also ached because I have chosen to walk with many through painful things. Yet, observing them courageously facing their hard and choosing to acknowledge it and move through it so it can no longer control them blesses me! Standing shoulder to shoulder with the hurting is standing on the most sacred ground there is. I’ve watched as friends, both near and far have buried loved ones–parents, spouses, children, and grandchildren. To be honest it has made me angry at death and sin and it has created in me a thirst for heaven where I know there will be no more death, no injustice, no sin, no abuse, no grief, and no tears–no hard-but for now sometimes life is hard.

Friends have just buried their eighteen-year-old son, grandson, brother, and friend. I’ve pondered a lot about how we deal with life in the face of the pain of the hard. The pat answer, of course, is in the promise of eternal life. Yet, I think we are missing something in the now if this is the only tool we use to cope. Israel was instructed to build monuments to remember who God is and what God had done for them. My dear friend Joyce, her husband, her son, and her daughter-in-law have shared monuments of Scriptures that have seen them through this painful time. One monument Joyce shared was a verse that a mutual friend had preached on years ago proclaiming God upholds us with His right hand. When he preached on the verse, it impacted her so much she wrote about it in her journal and she was able to go back to that verse and hang on to it in this season of hard. The last few months I’ve experienced loss and been surrounded by pain to a point I’ve been overwhelmed. A friend reminded me it comes with the territory of being in the business of loving others-my grief has become tinged by thankfulness even in the hard.

I've been thinking about specific monuments God has given to me, many of which came through seeking God in the process of healing from past emotional pain. One of those monuments occurred after a counselor friend asked me to choose a word to describe how I viewed myself. Without hesitation I told her, “Invisible!” Several months later I was praying with a prayer director who told me she sensed God wanted me to renounce something she had never come across before. I asked her what it was and she said, “God wants you to renounce the spirit of invisibility.” I had not told her about feeling invisible and became overwhelmed at God’s goodness in revealing this to her so I could be set free from a stronghold. Shortly after the prayer time, I came across Hagar’s story. After becoming pregnant by her mistress’ husband, Hagar developed an attitude and was sent away by the slighted, bitter Sarah. Alone in the desert where life was hard, she sat down and wept. She was all alone or so she thought. God met her there in the hard of her being used, her loneliness, her invisibility, and her rejection. In an act of worship, she ascribed to God, the name El Roi, which means “The God who Sees!” This means He is also the God who sees me…even in the hard!

This name for God has so many implications for us. He sees little ones abandoned by their parents physically and/or emotionally. He sees little ones whose spirits are crushed by abusive words spoken by caretakers or bullies. He sees little ones being pounded by those who are supposed to nurture them. He sees girls and boys trying to scrub away the shame of perverted people who violated them. He sees girls trafficked by their parents and girls taken off the street by pimps and shipped to who knows where-to be used to death. He sees those displaced by natural disasters--tidal waves, hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, floods, and landslides. He sees families struggling to understand why loved ones were killed violently by angry people they don’t even know. He sees those struggling with flashbacks and anxiety in the aftermath of violence and abuse. He sees the parents watching children struggling with horrific illnesses and painful syndromes no one can explain or heal. He sees families wracked by addictions, infertile women sitting through sermons for moms on Mother’s Day, and women fighting down a mountain of shame for babies they chose to abort and moms who did everything they could to carry their children but couldn’t. He sees tiny babies that fit in the palm of a hand fighting to live the life God created them to live and the parents pleading for Him to grow little ones out of the womb too soon. He sees parents weeping as they bury babies in tiny coffins and parents who’ve buried, not just one child, but two, three, or more. He sees people struggling with depression so deep and dark they grasp desperately for hope and the families left in the chaos created by an unpredictable world of mental illness. He sees parents and grandparents standing before flag-draped coffins as well as soldiers coming back physically and emotionally scarred for life. He sees families burying loved ones taken by accidents too soon, families facing the ugly truth that suicide has forever marked their family with deep pain. He sees families standing over hospital beds to say goodbye and those who are too late to say or hear a last, “I love you!” He sees little ones orphaned as well as those of us who are learning to live as adult orphans. EL Roi! The God who SEES! He Sees! He Sees! He Sees! Oh, how I love that name!

God isn’t just in the mountain tops, He is in the hard. We know that because God is the El Roi--the God who sees. He is also the God who creatively acts. Many of His names reveal to us His actions in response to what He sees! In response to the pain He saw His people in He came to love by taking on flesh and rubbing shoulders with people just like us--people who were in bondage to sin, in bondage to deep pain, and those with overwhelming needs no person on earth could fill. He died a cruel, unjust death-suspended between Heaven and Earth-so our shame, guilt, and ugly sin could be placed on Him. He died so His unending grace, peace, goodness, and love could be poured out upon us. He bore unspeakable abuse so we could know He, too, has experienced the hard and know He understands our pain in the hard!

In the moments, I'm overwhelmed by what I see others going through, by what they've survived, by what I know they will face in the future, or by what I am experiencing, I can look to the truth that God is the God who sees, who loves, and who acts in ways I am only beginning to understand. I remind myself that the cross preceded the empty grave and the hope that the resurrection brings. I remind myself that the cross preceded the gift of the Comforter who leads us to repentance, gives us supernatural strength to overcome sin, helps us endure the hard, and gives moments of connection to the wounded Savior that heals hearts and instills hope and peace. 

Maybe we live in this life with the hard so we can learn to thirst for the completion promised when we are face to face with Jesus where pain, suffering, and the constant tug of sin on our hearts is once and for all removed. Maybe we live in this life where the hard is not removed so those of us who know the Savior can be used by Him to be His eyes and His ears to a world of people who have lost their way in the hard. We live in the hard so the message that His Resurrections speaks of hope and power and joy is more readily received by the hurting. We can rest in the promise of His return and the promise of life eternal, which tells us the hard in this life is all the hard there is. I will remember the monuments He has given me personally and I will cling to the truth of who He is and know He sees me all the time--even in the hard!

God Dwelt Among Us

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God…And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory. Glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.”
John 1:1,14

The account of the baby in the manger evokes warm fuzzy feelings. I can picture in my mind the starry night, the angels singing, and the shepherds coming to worship the newborn king. Though they came by faith to worship Him, they found what appeared to be a very ordinary baby. He had no halo of light surrounding His tiny head as Christmas cards often portray. They came because they believed God’s promises and were expecting a King. At Christmas it is so easy to get wrapped up in traditions and enjoy the warm fuzzy manger story and lose sight of the significance of Jesus’ birth and all of its significance.

The above verses are about the significance of His birth. They talk of the incarnation of God, which means God came into the world and took on the flesh of a vulnerable human being. He was born to a woman not much different than us. He had to learn to walk, talk, sing, read, and write and worked as an apprentice in His step-father’s shop. He experienced hunger, thirst, exhaustion, concern, and ambivalence. He faced the uncertainties and struggles that characterize our lives as we live in a fallen world.

Jesus grew up with imperfect parents and had imperfect siblings who at times accused Him of being crazy. He suffered the sting of rejection. He knew what it felt like to be misunderstood. He dealt with the frustration of entrapment as people tried to manipulate Him to say things they wanted Him to say. He had people question the goodness of His character. He had imperfect friends who promised to stick to Him like glue until the end. Yet, they soon fell asleep when He needed their prayers the most. All but one scattered like scared sheep when He was arrested. The one who remained watched from afar and denied his relationship with the One who had called him friend, not just once but three times.

It’s hard to believe God, Himself, was victimized when He came to earth by prejudice, injustice, hatred, and rejection. Yet, He was. He suffered a horrible death on the cross. He felt deserted as the weight of my sin and yours was placed on Him. He understands what it feels like to have God the Father so near, and yet feel so far away. He came as a man to suffer for us. As a man, He even understood what it feels like to be limited, because He set aside His infinite glory to live on earth and rub shoulders with people like you and me. And the God-man’s pain had an early start as people sought to kill Him while He was still a baby. It lasted until the day that He died.

His incarnation tells us some important things.

It tells us God is not a distant God who set this world in motion and then stepped back to watch it from a far. That means a lot when we struggle with the painful events we do not understand.

It tells us He is not aloof from the ambivalence He experienced like we are when we are faced with temptation to do life our own way.

It tells us He understand the fear we feel in facing our struggle with pride and self-sufficiency to learn to depend on Him when we find the journey to which He has called us difficult.

His incarnation also tells us He has experienced every emotion we have felt, including the pain too deep for words expressed by silent screams and the joy so intense skin erupts in goose bumps and tears stream down cheeks.

He understands loneliness we feel during transitions in life as well as the need to get away and be alone.

He understands the fear we feel of letting go of crutches to which we cling as we wrestle with the truth that we are truly safe resting in His grip.

He understands the sorrow we feel as we grieve the losses of loved ones, of dreams, and of broken relationships as He carries the sorrow of the whole world on His back.

Most importantly the incarnation tells us that the painful things we experience are not just a bunch of random events, they are a part of a beautiful redemption story being penned by His own hand.

The incarnation tells us there was never a time He wasn’t present. There was never a time we weren't loved unconditionally, irrevocably, and passionately.

As we think about the night the Christ Child was born, let's not forget it was the night the Mighty God, the Wonderful Counselor, the everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace came down and clothed Himself in humanity that we might know Him, know His power, experience His love, and be filled with His everlasting peace.

Prayer: Father, I envy the shepherds who witnessed the angel choir and then bowed before the newborn King. Thank you so much for sending your Son to earth. To be honest, I have trouble wrapping my mind around the incarnation. How Christ could be both God and Man is incomprehensible, yet the significance of it is staggering. Thank you for telling us in your word that Christ is a faithful high priest and that we can come boldly to Him and He responds to us as a sympathetic priest who understands even the feelings of our infirmities. You are Sovereign and You are Holy. You are good in all your ways. Amen.