Psalm 69:19:

You know my reproach,
   and my shame and my dishonor;
   my foes are all known to you.

David is speaking to God about his enemies. In essence, he’s saying that God knows what they do to him and the pain he undergoes at their hands. He is affirming back to God (and to us) that God’s eyes are on us and he knows what he’s doing.

As I read it tonight though I couldn’t help but read the words a little differently.

The Gospel is thorough, but the comforts of it when not dwelled upon very, very regularly can seem to get lost under the anxiety of life. But I read this passage in a personal manner. God knows not only my circumstances and challenges, but also knows me and all of my deepest, most difficult issues. And yet still, the Gospel is applied to me.

What worldly anxiety can stand up against that?

I always forget. And I cannot afford to. Tonight, Moses reminds me in the midst of his plea to Israel before entering the Promised Land.

Deuteronomy 8:11-17:

Take care lest you forget the LORD your God by not keeping his commandments and his rules and his statutes, which I command you today, lest, when you have eaten and are full and have built good houses and live in them, and when your herds and flocks multiply and your silver and gold is multiplied and all that you have is multiplied, then your heart be lifted up, and you forget the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, who led you through the great and terrifying wilderness, with its fiery serpents and scorpions and thirsty ground where there was no water, who brought you water out of the flinty rock, who fed you in the wilderness with manna that your fathers did not know, that he might humble you and test you, to do you good in the end. Beware lest you say in your heart, ‘My power and the might of my hand have gotten me this wealth.’

I’m apt to praise myself for my accomplishments. And indeed there is a place to be proud of our accomplishments and satisfied with what we’ve accomplished. But, only in its proper place. And that is in a place of remembering the Lord. Who is is and what he does.

It’s the Lord who is patient with us and disciplines us for our good.

Notice what Moses points out when reminding Israel to remember the Lord. The ‘good’ houses they would build and live in, the flocks and the gold and the silver that would ‘multiply’. Their  hearts that would be encouraged and ‘lifted up’ with their good fortune. And he beckons them to remember the tribulations that he brought them through. Not without pain and not without suffering. But by God’s patient and disciplining hand. They were prepared to remember God who is their good.

Who honestly remembers these always? I do not. But I wish to. And my prayers, I hope, will reflect that honest desire.

I’m reading (and loving) Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist. The story centers on a shepherd who has reason to believe that a treasure awaits him at the Egyptian Pyramids. He sets out on a journey for his treasure.

While making his way through the desert, the caravan he is traveling with stops at an oasis and makes camp while a battle is being waged between warring tribes up ahead. At the oasis, he meets, and falls in love with, a girl. But since he must continue toward the pyramids, he stops to tell her that he loves her. He also wishes to explain why.

In response, the girl says something remarkable.

“One is loved because one is loved. No reason is needed for loving.”

I have often struggled with the question of why God would love his creatures. If his love is unconditional and not based on our performance as his children, then his love would seem arbitrary.

Well, perhaps there is a reason God loves us; I could ramble off a few ideas the bible seems to support. But maybe it’s not needed. Maybe no reason is needed for loving.

What kind of a perplexing, yet encouraging promise is this of God’s in Psalm 37:23-24:

The steps of a man are established by the LORD,
   when he delights in his way;
though he fall, he shall not be cast headlong,
   for the LORD upholds his hand.

It’s hard to miss this one.

Though we make choices and our choices fall on our heads, whether they are good or bad, there is a tension between God’s planning and man’s choosing.

Our steps are set out by the Lord. And whether it is passive, or aggressive in nature, they are God’s will. Among those steps will be failures, but they will not be to our detriment, but our progress, our sanctification, ultimately our joy and satisfaction.

This is a promise that I find it necessary to remember—often. For I seem to be in a perpetual state of forgetting.

I was listening to the soundtrack from Where the Wild Things Are, more specifically the track called All is Love from Karen O and the Kids.

“L – O – V – E, It’s a mystery”

The lyric is repeated several times throughout the song and it got me thinking about how really fascinating the reality of ‘love’ is. From a purely rational standpoint, it doesn’t make all that much sense. Now, I know the naturalistic arguments for love. I just think they all sound to me like ditch efforts to explain something profoundly confusing. From my perspective, the practice and experience of love, outside of sexual pursuit, really is quite a mystery.

Why do two good friends care about one another, sometimes regardless of what the other one does, or does not do? Why do two brothers defend one another at the potential loss of their own lives? Why will a mother risk her other children to protect one?

To me, love really is mysterious.

I was just reading a short article on Gajitz.com about a Swiss team of scientists who developed a controlled colony of simple robots. After being introduced into a ‘natural’, evolution-like environment which involved communicating, feeding and mating, the robots eventually learned to lie to one another in order to starve their fellow robots and further their own progress.

All of it compounded to highlight the mesmerizing phenomenon that is human love. Impossible to neglect is the even wilder notion that an immortal, all-powerful, all-knowing God would love creatures of his own imagination that fail even his most basic standards. And a plan, devised by that being, for redemption which involves deep-seated self-sacrifice would then seem absolutely ludicrous.

Yet, this is what we believe and in this we place our faith. And for me, the basic phenomenon of love is an impossible evidence to ignore.

In the book of acts, when Paul was in Philipi preaching the word a woman Lydia heard what he said and believed the word of the Lord. The action of believing was hers—she believed.

But look what the text says. Acts 16:14:

One who heard us was a woman named Lydia, from the city of Thyatira, a seller of purple goods, who was a worshiper of God. The Lord opened her heart to pay attention to what was said by Paul.

Although her actions were her own—she listened—God had distinct responsibility in her believing. That can’t be ignored.

Before God destroyed Sodom, he got Lot out of there. But just read how that actually went down:

As morning dawned, the angels urged Lot, saying, "Up! Take your wife and your two daughters who are here, lest you be swept away in the punishment of the city." But he lingered. So the men seized him and his wife and his two daughters by the hand, the LORD being merciful to him, and they brought him out and set him outside the city.

Lot was given ample warning to get out of the city. But he lingered. He didn’t move quickly enough on his own. So, the angels God sent to do the deed ‘seized’ Lot and they brought them out of harms immediate way.

That is a beautiful picture of God’s grace and patience with his people.