What if I ask God for the wrong thing?

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Romans 8:26

In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. 

Jesus seemed to love awkward conversations. In John’s gospel Nicodemus opens up his Jesus interview with a big compliment – still a popular tactic today. He starts with “We know You’re kind of a big deal,” right out of Carnegie’s playbook. But Jesus does not attempt to “win friends or influence people.”  Instead He answers with “You can’t see God’s work unless you’re into His new obstetrics.” You can imagine Nicodemus practically pulling his hair out. It sounds like a response out of left field, like two different conversations are happening. Because of how awkward the convo is, some interpreters read the Nicodemus story and say it’s just a cut and paste job. They imagine some ancient editor had a bunch of conversational snippets he heard and then did a hack job editing them. They don’t think John is reporting to us a real conversation. They’re wrong. Such folks don’t know the Scriptures or the power of God. They don’t get it.

When I read how the Holy Spirit groans, I feel I understand. The convo in prayer I’m having with God isn’t necessarily the same convo the Spirit’s having. For instance, we’re praying stuff like “I need a car, a new job, keep my parents happy, healing for my aunt’s cancer, sorry about spending the tithe, don’t let my kids get hurt, etc.” All the while the Spirit’s saying things like “May this child live in Me, help her look constantly at the Son, may he know what “it is finished” means when Jesus said it, may she run from lust like she’s running from gunfire, give him power to forgive those folks who blew off his party, fill her with love for the kids when they don’t call, may he never fall away, etc.” Paul is telling us those conversations never ever miss each other. My prayers may bump around and buzz like a fat summer fly in the living room, but God never fails to neatly and easily snatch them in love, like He’s the karate kid with eternal chopsticks. Just like that!

Jesus and the Holy Spirit simply cut to the quick. Right for the jugular. No funny business and no messing around. I don’t have to go to God and be clever, I don’t have to even be right, I just have to go. When I run out of words – when my uncontrolled emotions, wandering thoughts, and outright panic get to the end of language, that’s when He’s just starting. And neither my ignorance nor my stupidity, however great they are, have ever confused my Father. Not once. He is that good of a listener. Pray to Him now, and do not fear what bewilders you about your future, your heart, our times, or San Francisco. He is not bewildered. He is not unsure about your desires. That’s as bad as flat earth nonsense – irrational and foolish. Ask! Plead! Show up at His throne awkwardly stumbling and mumbling, and let the Holy Spirit groan on. As one great preacher said, “God can pick sense out of confused prayer.” I can give the sure testimony, He has done that for me all my life – you didn’t think all those many answers I’ve gotten were because I’m clever and know just what to say, do you? That’s not why at all. Praise Him! Amen!

 

All fall down

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Ezekiel 1:28     

Like the appearance of a rainbow in the clouds on a rainy day, so was the radiance around Him. This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord. When I saw it, I fell facedown, and I heard the voice of one speaking.

 

They’re always falling down. When folks meet God in the bible, they don’t usually stay standing. It isn’t like the pop near death stories you hear today, where folks tell us about meeting God – usually with bright friendly lights, pastels, and good feelings. Not really stuff to knock you off your feet. Not like the molten metal in the prophet’s vision, with the deafening soundtrack blaring, majestic multifaced minions zipping around, the twinkle of sapphire beneath a throne garlanded with rainbows. No wonder prophets always fall down. Ezekiel’s vision is especially compelling. You can try translating it, but good luck. The tortured syntax and halting vague language is challenging to scholars. It reveals how this vision truly overwhelmed him, and the sense of his confusion – the sheer magnitude of sensory input makes description difficult. Then there’s the subject matter itself. We’re at the very limits of human language. Ezekiel’s descriptions repeat “it was something like,” as if he’s grasping for the right words. There just isn’t a thesaurus that’s ever been written that’s going to help.

 

But I wonder. He fell down. I suspect Ezekiel’s problems are bigger than just being floored. I think he can’t get his theology around what he’s seeing. The Pentateuch, the first 5 books of the Old Testament, were his bible. Moses was his prophet, the one he studied and read, and Moses was told “no man sees My face and lives.” Moses even asked to see God, and God told him no. He was only permitted a glimpse of His “after effects.” So you’ve got to figure, Ezekiel knows full well he’s seeing and describing something all men are forbidden to see. Ever. God is terrifyingly holy. Man is horrifyingly unclean. It’s a practical, biblical, and theological problem – you get a glimpse of God, you’re toast. So you’ve got to figure Ezekiel doesn’t just fall down. He throws himself down, hitting the dirt like a soldier hearing a mortar whistling in the air. What Ezekiel doesn’t know yet, what’s implied in this impossible vision, is that God intended to be completely visible one day. In Jesus. Which means the eye of sinful man will see His glory. In Jesus. Which means falling down is always followed by how He picks you up. In Jesus.

 

So guess what’s happening in heaven, in John’s Revelation vision hundreds of years later? Everyone is still falling down. So what I don’t get, as we stand here between the vision of Ezekiel in 586 BC and the vision of the end of time, is how come we’re all standing so tall? Half of us are eager to take a stand on big issues and the other half are just standing around being casual about God. We all need a theology of falling down! This is real gospel prayer. This is whole person repentance. This is faceplant worship. If you grasp the greatness of God, down you go. If you perceive the criminal you are in your heart, down you go. If you grasp with joy the wonder of our Savior, down you go. He is the Savior who was knocked down by murder and three days later stood alive again on the earth. And that’s what I pray now for San Francisco, for our generation, and for our time. That He would knock us down as only He can, just so He could stand us up like only He will. Before the Father, in His Son, and by the Holy Spirit we ask. Amen.

Word watching

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Jeremiah 1:11

And the word of the I Am came to me, saying “Jeremiah, what do you see?” And I said “I see an almond branch.” Then the I Am said to me, “You have seen well, for I am watching over My word to perform it.”

 

There’s wordplay in this vision from Jeremiah. God asks the prophet what he sees, so there must’ve been an almond tree in front of him at the time. “Almond” sounds like “watching” in Hebrew. So technically that means that God is making a pun, which not only elevates the status of wordplay humor to the divine, but sets you on alert that He’s making a point. Jeremiah is looking at an almond tree, and there’s two reasons you look at a tree like that. To enjoy how pretty it is when it blooms and to see if there’s something getting ready to eat. The second reason is far more popular among almond farmers. Hear God say “that’s how I watch My word” – like a farmer working his crops.

But it’s actually a more jarring image than that – God is saying that stuff happens because He is paying attention to it. Think on that. If it’s written in His almanac, you can count on it as a personal guarantee. It’s not merely predicting something is going to happen and telling the future. His word is alive with power and His Person. It germinates with that much certainty. Our Father and God is a farmer watching over His prize crop, and that prize crop is your bible and every promise in it. He’s cultivating and attending to every syllable like it’s a prize winning flower. It isn’t merely data and He isn’t watching because He’s curious. We tend to abstract providence and sovereignty as doctrines impersonal and impenetrable. We worry over the kids, wonder if our career is stalled, and panic at night about our debts. We treat our faith like a patch over our unraveling lives, when we’ve been invited into so much living and expectant joy.

So get up and go get your bible. Go and see, go and read it, go and tell yourself what it says. All of the promises great and small are personal. There are no impersonal promises, because there is no impersonal God to make them. He plans all His Yes blossoms for you in love. Picture this God, attentively scrutinizing, checking each flower of His promise for fruit, watching every moment in your life to see it bud. Hear God ask, “What do you see?” Let’s tell Him we have seen the season and fruit of our forgiveness, our rescue in Jesus’ blood. And let’s ask for a new harvest of His promises! So He can say to this generation “see, I am watching over My word to perform it.” May a church be planted in San Francisco because of that promise! May revival spread in our time because of that promise! May Christ be praised because of that promise! Then we can say to this generation: just watch our great Father farmer, He watches, prunes, tends, and waters like a helicopter mom. He’s looking for a harvest of blessings and promises in us – to see His Word blooming with joy into our lives. Even so, let it be as You speak it in us, Lord Jesus. Amen!

The strange turns of life

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Ecclesiastes 7:13

Consider the work of God. Can anyone make straight what He has made crooked?

 

The switchbacks can feel endless as you trudge up the trails in Yosemite. The path twists you into a vision of the falls, cascading light tumbling through rainbows, and then you’re just looking at your feet again. “I’m getting old,” I keep saying to my shoes and legs, answering the complaints of muscle and knees. But it’s just so crooked. The path is as crooked as a mobster’s heart. It can’t be straightened out. But you realize it’s a good thing that you’ve got these switchbacks as you hike along. You couldn’t just barrel up Yosemite falls the way the crow flies. The walls are too treacherous and the heights are a quick death. So you plod. And there’s a reward for all that plodding. Some of the greatest natural beauty of our Father’s creation is there for gawking praise. My life is like this hike. I’m bewildered at times by a path that jumps in strange directions. It’s not one I always know or recognize. I keep wondering all along the way, “How much further is it? How long will this take?” If I wander from the path I’m liable to stumble into destruction. So I keep going. Occasionally a vista opens up. I see the sovereign God wildly answering prayer. The plans and purposes of eternity seem to open in dizzying panoramic wisdom. My soul relearns “all is well, and all matter of things shall be well.” And then I’m looking at my feet again. The calendar meetings are scheduled, Sunday mornings begin early, pay the bills on Mondays, etc. Life grinds again into a crooked winding road of disappointments, disillusionments, and despair. I picture Solomon pondering, a look of tired worldliness and boredom in his eyes, a tinge of regret and longing as he sighs out his question. I sometimes wonder if God let him see the coming Savior. Because that’s the real answer. Which is itself amazing – that rhetorical questions even have answers! But there it is at the cross. Nothing in creation’s history was as dark and crooked as Calvary. There aren’t any switchbacks more dirty than the torture, betrayal, and execution of the Son. But He walked them, and in His murder makes them straight. He is the One who can make straight everything that’s so bent. Christ is Solomon’s answer, telling us to listen because “One greater than Solomon is here.” So I want to praise Him all of my days, and when my days are done I want to praise Him some more. Pray with me that God will pour out His grace, Spirit, and power to somehow “straighten” (ha!!) what seems so hopelessly deformed in me, my city, and this whole generation.