For you bless the righteous, O LORD;
Psalm 5:12, NRSV
You cover them with favor as with a shield.
Archives For Scripture
image courtesy clement127 @ flickr
As holidays go, Columbus Day has often felt like a strange celebration. For me, though, Columbus Day has become something of an annual reminder of this truth:
We can make our plans, but the LORD determines our steps (Proverbs 16:9, NLT).
Whether you think of columbus as hero, villain, or some hybrid of the two, the story of his journey and ‘discovery’ seems like a great reminder of how we can plan a course and destination for ourselves…only to find other circumstances being used to bring us to an unanticipated new world of possibility and adventure–something far different than we may have initially imagined.
My prayer for my family and for the teams I get to be part of is that we would be found trusting the Holy Spirit to determine our steps; that we would look upon life’s unexpected detours as divine opportunities for adventure which just might redefine the way we see the world and our place in it.
This is what the LORD says, he who made the earth, the LORD who formed it and established it–the LORD is his name: Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know.
- image: Mark Brannan @ Flickr
But go and learn what this means, “I desire mercy, not sacrifice.” (Mt. 9:13, NIV)
These words of Jesus to the religious elite who were called to bring the people of Israel nearer to God and his ways (and tried to do so in a clumsy way that focused on legalistic observance more than righteous freedom) can almost seem like a well-deserved slam against these same religious leaders. But the context indicates something more like a loving directive rather than cold correction from Jesus.
He gives this religious group time to learn the meaning of what he has said. And later—the very next time we see interaction with this same group, there’s disappointment that they have not taken to heart his loving directive: If you had known what these words mean, “I desire mercy, not sacrifice,” you would not have condemned the innocent.” (Mt. 12:7, NIV)
What I love about these interactions is that Jesus himself doesn’t immediately move toward condemnation or open rebuke, but mercifully gives time to those who should know better to have a paradigm shift. They don’t, and it results in them beginning to to pursue the destruction of the one come to rescue them.
This interaction has me thinking:
An inheritance claimed too soon will not be blessed in the end.
~ Proverbs 20:21
This truth is played out so often in us when we expect a journey’s worth of respect, experience, and influence at the beginning of that journey. When we expect to be given what ought to be earned in any respect, we claim an inheritance before it’s ours and seldom does that have the flavor of blessing we had anticipated.
The inherent challenge in something like this is that it demands a long view perspective–what do we want at the end of our inheritance? Of our life? Our vocation? Blessing comes not in claiming or demanding now what is ours anyway; inheritance is something given, in trust, by another. Blessing comes in the faithfulness and trusting necessary for life in the in-between.
In the waiting is a place of blessing.
