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Blessings for Those who Dwell with God and Pass Through Dry Valleys

In the previous blog, we looked how very sweet God’s presence is and how very much the writer of the Psalm longed for it. At the end of verse 3, however, the Psalmist begins to make a shift in his focus – turning from the dwelling place itself to created beings dwelling near God. In verse 3, he looks longingly at the swallow who is privileged to make her nest near God’s altar. Let’s see how verse 4 continues:

Blessed are those who dwell in your house;
they are ever praising you.
Psalm 85:4

The shift is complete as the Psalmist turns to those who dwell in God’s house. He says “they are ever praising God.” Are you praising God, friend? If not, perhaps you are not dwelling in God’s house. Perhaps you are only visiting occasionally. The Psalmist says those who dwell in God’s house – who inhabit it, who live there – are ever (always) praising Him.

I am convicted because I recognize the truth and the reality of that statement. When I am dwelling with and in God, my focus isn’t on the problems of my life, but I become full of confidence in my God to deal with those problems for me.

A Journey of the Heart
Verse 5 describes two conditions which lead to us being blessed by God. “He blessed are those who…” That means we are and will be blessed if we meet the “those who” conditions. Let’s look at them.

Blessed are those whose strength is in you,
who have set their hearts on pilgrimage.
Psalm 85:5

We are blessed when our strength is in God. Just a few sentences ago I wrote that “When I am dwelling with and in God, my focus isn’t on the problems of my life, but I become full of confidence in my God to deal with those problems for me.” Such confidence gives me strength – He becomes my strength when I dwell in Him. And I am blessed.

I find the wording of the second half of the verse to be a bit curious. The word pilgrimage would better be amplified to mean “pathway, thoroughfare or course toward God.” So another way to translate this part of the verse would be “Those who have set their hearts on God’s path are blessed.” Notice it doesn’t say those who have set their feet on God’s path are blessed, but those who have set their hearts on God’s path. It is a heart journey to God, not a foot journey. God is and always has been after our hearts – your heart and my heart. Our feet will follow our heart.

He blesses those who have set their heart to follow Him.

The Valley of Dry Places and Tears
Having just written that those who have set their hearts on a journey toward God (or God’s dwelling place), the Psalmist again makes a big of a shift. He begins to discuss difficulties we’ll face along the journey.

As they pass through the Valley of Baca,
they make it a place of springs;
the autumn rains also cover it with pools.
Psalm 85:6

Some translations render verse six as the “Valley of Weeping.” Baca means both “weeping” and “balsam tree.” The balsam tree is a tree which flourishes only in very dry, arid ground. So this “Valley of Baca” might also be called the “Valley of Dry Places and Tears.” The Psalmist says that as those who have set their hearts on God’s path pass through the Valley of Dry Places and Tears, tears will no lo longer fall from our eyes, they will spring forth like new life from the ground and they will fall from the heavens!

I love that imagery! The Valley of Dry Places and Tears will become a place of life-giving springs and refreshing rain-water pools. Oh, Lord, may we know your refreshment and life when our journey takes us through the Valley of Weeping. May our hearts be set on You, Lord, when we walk through the Valley of Dry Places.

There’s another key phrase in the verse: “pass through.” We are passing through the valley, because we are on the pilgrimage, the pathway, the journey toward God. May we ever remember that we are passing through the valley, we are not dwelling there. We are dwelling in the House of the Lord. Don’t dwell in the Valley of Weeping – don’t live in your despair. Dwell in the House of the Lord. Live in the love and knowledge of the Lord God Almighty. That is the place of blessings. God doesn’t bless dwelling in the Valley of Dry Places and Tears. He does bless passing through it, though.

I hope you see the difference between dwelling in Baca and passing through it. I preached this series of blogs once, and the title of my message was “Where are you living?” We choose where we live – let’s choose God’s dwelling place, not the Valley of Dry Places and Tears. We can only live in one place at a time. We may own multiple homes, but we’re only living in one at a time. Live in God’s dwelling place while you pass through the difficult times in your life.

There is an interesting phenomenon, that happens as we pass through the Valley of Dry Places and Tears. Baca means both “weeping” and “balsam tree.” I wondered what a balsam tree looked like, thinking perhaps it might be something like our weeping willow trees. Not even close. In the En Gedi region of Israel, they are spiny plants that grow in dry, arid places. However, they “produced valuable and highly sought-after cosmetics, perfumes and medicinal substances. Their value was of such great economic importance that wars were fought for their possession, as when Mark Anthony conquered the Dead Sea area for Cleopatra.” [From http://www.holidayinisrael.com/ViewPage.asp?lid=1&pid=362]

Hmmm. Do you see where I’m going? The time we spend passing through the Valley of Dry Places and Tears can be a place in which God develops in us beautiful things – qualities that makes us more like Christ (can there be anything more beautiful?) and that He will use to bring healing in our lives and the lives of others. Hallelujah! If the plant is a physical illustration of what God does, it means that He uses our sorrows. They are not wasted.

Strength to Strength
Verse 7 assures us that the balsam tree is, in fact, an illustration of the way God works.

They go from strength to strength,
till each appears before God in Zion.
Psalm 85:7

Those who are dwelling in God’s house and who are journeying through the Valley of Dry Places and Tears go from strength to strength. Notice that our starting point isn’t the Valley of Weeping or the House of Blues. It’s the dwelling place of God – and we’ve already established that His dwelling place is filled with His sweet peace presence.

What a faithful God we serve, who turns our dry places and our tears into greater strength! There is also that promise in the second half of the verse – going from strength to strength until each of us appears before God. Hallelujah!

Friend, let me encourage you not to dwell in your dry places and not to dwell in your place of tears. Journey through them with your focus on the Lord and your confidence in Him. He will bring you into a new place of strength. He is that faithful and He is that good!

In our next blog, we’ll finish this meditation on Psalm 85, but for now and the next few days, let me encourage you to meditate on this portion of the Psalm and be blessed.

By guest blogger Phil Hovatter

The fifteenth chapter of the book of Second Kings tells the brief and odd story of the reign of King Azariah of Judah. This man (whose name means “God has helped”) was king of Judah. That’s a pretty significant job. He reigned for 52 years. That’s a very significant amount of time. And yet the book of Kings summarizes his entire life in just seven short verses.

So what does Second Kings tell us about King Azariah?

• He was the son of king Amaziah, one of the “good” kings of Judah
• His mother Jecoliah was from Jerusalem. (We can presume from this that Azariah’s dad had married a nice Jewish girl instead of hooking up with a pagan princess for political reasons.)
• He became king when he was just 16 years old
• He reigned for a long time – 52 years
• He “did what was right in the eyes of the Lord,” which is to say that he promoted observance to the Mosaic Law and proper worship of Yahweh
• He didn’t remove the “high places” in Judah, where the people offered incense to pagan gods
• And here’s the kicker: “The Lord afflicted the king with leprosy until the day he died, and he lived in a separate house.”
  2 Kings 15:5 (NIV)

Disney gave us the Lion King. God gave Judah the Leper King.

This is one of those passages that makes me scratch my head and wonder what the heck is going on here. Azariah was a good king, the son of another good king. Good kings were in short supply in those days (much as they are in ours). God allowed him to stay in power for over half a century. And yet Scripture is very definite about giving credit to the Lord for afflicting Azariah with leprosy.

Why would God do such a thing? What (if anything) can we learn from this?

First and foremost, bad things happen to good people.
Entire books have been written on this subject, some of them seeking to tap into the ways and wisdom of God, others being total nonsense. But the fact remains that in this fallen world, even “good” people will have to endure some degree of difficulty and trying circumstances.

Everything that the Psalms declare about the Lord being our rock, our fortress, our high tower, our shield, our defender, and our hedge of protection is true. But read the Psalms carefully. All those titles are ascribed to God by people who were facing the worst personal circumstances. It’s from within those times and places of difficulty that we see that the Lord is all of these things for us, and more.

Remember that “Azariah” means “God has helped.” That was the name his Mama gave him. He could have asked to be called by something else that denied that sentiment if he didn’t believe it. You might remember in the book of Ruth that Naomi (“pleasant”) asked people to call her Mara (“bitter”) when the chips were down for her. Her circumstances weren’t pleasant at all and she didn’t want a name that denied her reality. Azariah could have done the same thing, but he didn’t. And in fact, Azariah is known by another name in Scripture. Later on in the same chapter of Second Kings, the writer refers to him as King Uzziah. This name is also used of him by the prophet Isaiah in chapter 6 of his book, where he says that he had his vision of God on His throne in the year that King Uzziah died. “Uzziah” means “my power is Yahweh.”

The Leper King of Judah didn’t wallow in self-pity or accuse God of being unloving or unfair to him. He let God be God and he went on about the business of being king despite his leprosy.

Another lesson we might learn from this passage is that bad circumstances don’t necessarily disqualify us from significant service to God.
The Lord intentionally afflicted King Azariah with leprosy, but He didn’t remove him from the throne. If you’ve read the gospels you have some idea of what the lifestyle of a leper was and what their standing was in the community. “Unclean! Unclean!” The Leper King had to live in another house, but he still fulfilled the duties and responsibilities of ruler of the nation. His son Jotham served as his go-between so that the people could avoid contact with their diseased king.

A prevalent opinion in Old Testament times that we see even in some passages of the New Testament is that disease and affliction is assumed to be a judgment by God on the sin in a person’s life. “Who sinned? This man or his parents, that he should be born blind?” The entire book of Job was given by God to dispel this false notion that calamity only comes as a judgment on sin. Job was the most godly and righteous man of his time, and yet God allowed horrible catastrophes to afflict him.

Afflictions will test your faith, but they don’t mean that you have been disqualified for service.

Lastly, afflictions don’t have to diminish your fruitfulness. In fact, they might enhance them.
While Second Kings gives a very brief sketch of the life of King Azariah, the book of Second Chronicles goes into considerably more detail. The Leper King, forced to live in seclusion from his people, had an illustrious career as king:

He rebuilt the defenses of Jerusalem, modernized the army, and retook Gath. He pushed the borders of Judah to the southern extent of David’s empire, and fortified them. He rebuilt Ezion-geber, the Red Sea port, and got the mines of the Arabah working again, These accomplishments gave him copper products to exchange with lands to the southeast and with Tyre, and trade all through the region flourished. Agricultural lands were developed, and as a result, Judah experienced prosperity unparalleled since Solomon’s day.
New Commentary on the Whole Bible: Old Testament

This is just speculation on my part, but perhaps his seclusion allowed him to focus more on governing the nation and less on the distractions that come from being king. I heard a story recently on Moody Radio about a man who, as a child, was afflicted with a dangerous brain tumor. The tumor was surgically removed, but it destroyed his sense of smell. When he grew up, he became a missionary to a third world country, ministering to people who lived in a garbage dump. The smell was so horrible that no one else ever went there to work with the people who lived there. His affliction uniquely qualified him to be fruitful in ministry to these poorest of the poor.

And let’s not forget Joni Eareckson Tada, a promising high school athlete who severed her spinal cord in a diving accident and became a quadriplegic. God has used her and her affliction to minister to handicapped people around the world. Would she ever have taken this path without first becoming a quadriplegic herself?

So what about you? What sort of adversity or calamity are you facing in your life? Could it be that God is allowing it so that He can work something in you or through you that wouldn’t likely happen if it weren’t for the difficult situation you find yourself in now? We’re called to be witnesses for the gospel and ambassadors for Christ wherever He puts us. How can God use your lousy circumstances to bring about something of eternal value and beauty?

King Azariah could say unequivocally that “God has helped” and “my power is Yahweh,” despite his own personal affliction. He remained faithful and fruitful despite suffering from a catastrophic disease. The Leper King of Judah is one dude that I really look forward to meeting.

Being a Doctor Must be Strange!
I think being a doctor must be quite strange – in order to bring healing, the MD almost always has to damage perfectly healthy body parts. I’ve had healthy skin and muscles cut through to reach areas that require healing. I’ve had perfectly good bones drilled through so they could be connected to broken ones. (Do aspiring doctors really dream about using power tools?) In all cases, my body has developed scar tissue as a part of the healing process. I also have my share of scars from much more minor injuries sustained throughout my life.

There’s one scar on my hand that makes me smile every time I see it because it’s a reminder of a wonderful vacation I had in Cozumel. On the first day, though, I brushed my hand across the back of a wicker chair and scratched it. Why I still have a scar from what I really don’t remember as much of an injury, I don’t know, but it helps me remember the vacation wonderful fondly.

My Elbow Story
I also have a scar on my arm that represents a thoroughly unpleasant experience – I shattered my elbow about fifteen years ago. That was one of those times the doctor had to cut through perfectly healthy skin and muscle and drill holes in healthy bone to secure pieces of bone together. It’s a pretty big and obvious scar. Yet in the midst of the very painful recover, I experienced God more strongly than I ever have in my life. The scar is a reminder of that time, and also of the miracle He did in healing the elbow well beyond what several doctors said it would heal.

To me, these two scars are like the stones that the Israelites would pile up as a remembrance of something the Lord has done.

When my elbow was healing, I had to massage the incision area several times a day to keep scar tissue from forming inside. The scar tissue was hard and would restrict my future movement if I didn’t break it up as it was forming. It hurt to massage the sensitive skin and muscles. It wasn’t pleasant feeling the hard scar tissue under my skin as I rubbed it. The injury was too fresh in my mind, and the whole process made me want to cringe. After a couple of months, I had healed a great deal, but there seemed to be some scar tissue that no amount of massaging would soften. I went to a revival and healing meeting at a local church one night. After being prayed for, I felt the muscles in my arm relax and the scar tissue under the incision noticeably and significantly lessened. God had supernaturally massaged my arm and disintegrated most of the remaining scar tissue. What a gracious God He is!

Emotional and Spiritual Scars
Scars don’t just develop from our physical injuries. Emotional and spiritual pain and injury also causes scars, and these can be just as unsightly as our physical scars. More seriously, just like physical scars, they can restrict our future movement, ministry and freedom in Christ. And just like our physical scars, they don’t soften and break up on their own. They require the gentle massaging that comes through reading God’s Word, listening to the promptings of the Holy Spirit, and allowing the Lord Himself to step into our pain.

I am confident that God would like to work miracles in all the scarred areas of our life, if we’ll only let Him massage them a bit. When those areas are too fresh, we cringe from His touch, but He is patient. If we stay close to Him and open to His leading, He brings the subject up again and again until we’re ready to let Him do the deeper massage to break up hard tissue that obstructs our movement. It is for freedom that He has set us free (Galatians 5:1) – part of that freedom comes from willingly submitting to His gentle hand to work out the scar tissue in our lives.

Our emotional and spiritual scars also become like the stones the Israelites piled up as remembrances of what the Lord has done – both for us and for the Lord. We remember His graciousness and His healing power. He remembers our willingness to step into the line of fire, our perseverance through difficult times and circumstances, and our submission to His gentle hand of healing. I believe our healed scars are part of what makes us beautiful to the Lord. It is the battle-weary saint who captures the eye of her beloved.

Will you take a few moments today to ask God what scar tissue He would like to massage and heal? Wholeness is a wonderful thing and worth the pain that brings healing.

I pray peace and gentle massages in your healing journey today.

Well, if you’re reading through the Bible, you’ll eventually come to the book of James. That’s where we are in our Resting at the River’s Edge readings. My reaction to the news – sigh. So many people seem to love the book of James. I’m not particularly one of them. Don’t get me wrong. I do like it…but I don’t always like it. Those first few verses – seems like they’ve been quoted and taught so many times, but the teachings always seem to come across as wishful thinking to me – you know – “wouldn’t it be great if we did this?” kind of teachings.

It seems cowardly to avoid the passage, though, so I thought I’d dig a little on my own. I did what I often do – looked up the key words. I found some interesting things that helped me with the passage.

First, two translations of the passage, then I’m going to break it down and eventually put it back together.

²Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, ³because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. ⁴Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.
James 1:2-4, New International Version (NIV)

²My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, ³knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. ⁴But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.
James 1:2-4, New King James Version (NKJV)

“Consider/count it all/pure joy”
While I typically prefer the NIV translation over the NKJV, in this case, I think the NIV does the passage a disservice. The Greek word translated “consider/count” is actually a very strong word. “Consider” doesn’t seem to carry the command or authority that the Greek word actually encompasses. When I read “consider it pure joy,” I think of a philosopher musing about the beauty of the white puffy clouds in a beautiful blue sky. The context here is more of “decide that you will respond in joy” – it is a command to be joyful, not an invitation to muse about being joyful.

I used to think that “consider it all joy” meant “consider everything that happens (i.e., all of it) joy.” Actually, the word translated “all” means (conveniently) “all,” but is translated “pure” in the NIV because it modifies the word joy. In other words, James is telling his readers to count the trials as “all joy” or complete joy. Much different perspective. It’s not saying to consider it all joy, it’s saying to consider it all joy. Hmmm. Complete joy. Maybe I need to know more about that word joy.

“Joy” – here’s where the greatest change in my perspective comes in. I’ve never thought of myself as being very good at the joy in the midst of trials part. I’ve heard the teaching about the difference between being joyful and happy, but I really haven’t grasped them deep inside – intellectually, yes; practically, no. Looking at the definition of the Greek word helps me here. One of the first definitions of the word translated “joy” is “calm delight.” I like that. I can be calm and I can delight, by faith, in what God is doing and will do. “Calm delight” and “joy” seem like two radically different concepts to me. When my husband had his heart attack, I experienced calm delight. In the midst of a rocking worship service, I experience joy. The Greek word encompasses both meanings. I had never heard the former.

“whenever you face trials of many kinds because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance/produces patience”
The word for trials/temptations is interesting – it literally means “a putting to proof.” I love it – our trials are our opportunity to prove our faith.

Hang on – it gets more exciting!

The word used for testing here means “a testing; by implication trustworthiness.” Did you catch that? Your opportunity to prove your faith is accomplished through opportunities to be trustworthy or show our trustworthiness. It’s not about painfully enduring trials, it’s about being given opportunities for proving or demonstrating my faith by showing the character of God to the world.

And doing so, develops or produces (accomplishes is another definition) perseverance or patience. The words mean “hopeful endurance or constancy, patient waiting.” Again, not painful endurance, but hopeful endurance and patient waiting. That sounds to me a lot like “calm delight.”

Of course, the passage ends with the wonderful promise this hopeful endurance or patient waiting brings us into maturity, completeness, not lacking anything. What a wonderful promise!

The Sandy Hovatter interpretation of James 1:2-4 reads like this:

Respond in calm delight when you face trials because they are opportunities to prove your faith and to show your trustworthiness. These opportunities produce in you a quality or spirit of hopeful endurance and patient waiting. That calm delight and patient waiting brings you into maturity, so that you are fully complete and do not lack anything. (my interpretation of James 1:2-4)

I can get excited about that.

Calm delight – Lord, with Your help, I can see myself doing that
Trustworthiness – Lord, what a privilege to prove my faithfulness to You. I know that I will fail, sometimes, but I can look forward to opportunities to learn to trust You even more.
Hopeful endurance – When I have to endure, I want it to be in hope, Lord.
Mature, complete, not lacking anything – Lord, it is my destiny in You. Thank You!

While reading about the making of the Tabernacle this week, I began to wonder what it would have been like to actually be making the curtains, the frames, the bronze clasps, gold lampstand or any other element. How much care would I have taken? How many do-overs would be required – stitches pulled out, clasps thrown back into the fire to begin again – before I finished something to God’s exact specifications and worthy of His dwelling place? I thought about the holiness – the hushed awe, the uniqueness – that would embody the acts of creating the elements of the Tabernacle.

I imagined women sitting together sewing “curtains of finely twisted linen and blue, purple and scarlet yarn, with cherubim worked into them” (Exodus 26:1). The room is filled with holy reverence because this curtain – THIS curtain – would surround the Most Holy God – the great and wonderful I AM. I imagined hammering pure gold to create the atonement cover and the cherubim that were to hover over it. What image was God giving them as they hammered out the faces on the cheribum?

Whether performing the delicate work of embroidery, the movements of controlled strength required to hammer the gold, or the hard physical work necessary for framing the Tabernacle, I imagined the expressions of the workers to be intent – intent on getting it just right, intent on the purpose for which their elements would be used. Often, when I am intently concentrating on something, others tell me that my expression looks stern, almost angry. I don’t imagine that the expressions of these workers would be so stern or angry. Rather, they would be so full of awe that it would shine through and even the most detailed or demanding task would not mar the holiness of their countenance.

Even before I had thought through all of this, God reminded me that I am His dwelling place.

Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit lives in you? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him; for God’s temple is sacred, and you are that temple.
1 Corinthians 3:16-17

Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body.
1 Corinthians 6:19-20

I was challenged afresh by these thoughts in two ways:

To view my life as the dwelling place of God – to live always aware that the Spirit of God lives in me. God’s temple is sacred and I am that temple.

To view all the various circumstances in my life from the perspective of the Lord’s temple being built in me. In other words, some element of the Lord’s Tabernacle, His dwelling place is being created in me – I am being shaped, sewn, fired, hammered, etc., into the perfect element of the Tabernacle that God determined and designed me to be. As I imagined the act of creating the various elements of the Old Testament Tabernacle to be embodied with holiness – can my life be any different? God is creating me as one of the elements in His New Testament Tabernacle – the Church, and the whole process has an indwelling holiness. This is described in 1 Peter 2:

As you come to him, the living Stone — rejected by men but chosen by God and precious to him — you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
1 Peter 2:4-5

When I don’t see this in my circumstances, I am simply being blind to it. As such, I am challenged to treat the circumstances in my life (especially the difficult circumstances) as holy moments – moments when I can work with the Almighty Builder/Transformer, to create the Tabernacle where He will dwell. How awesome is that?

Lord, fill my spirit with awe and wonder as I meet each circumstance this week, this month and this year. Help me to always remember that we are building Your dwelling place.

This morning as I looked at our Resting at the River’s Edge reading schedule for December, it finally hit me…2009 is almost over! Last year the Thanksgiving and Christmas season came in with a quiet, holy anticipation. I so enjoyed it. Yes, the season got busy, but because it had been ushered in so majestically (not by me, by the Lord working in my heart) the entire season had a holiness or a Christ-filled sense about it. I’ve been waiting for that holy anticipation this year. It hasn’t happened (yet).

So as I pondered over our reading schedule for the remainder of 2009 (I’ll post it later this week), it finally hit me – the year is coming to a close. The wonder of Christmas hasn’t hit me yet, but the end of the year seems imminent. What a year it has been! Perhaps this pondering is especially appropriate for this Thanksgiving week. I hope you’ll indulge me as I look back at 2009.

To start, I thought I’d go to my pre-2009 blog. I didn’t remember what I had written, so I went looking and found a blog titled Trusting God in 2009. Without meaning to brag, I have to say that I was so blessed by reading the blog. Not because it was well written or incredibly insightful, but because God used it to allow me to see:

• that what I had written was God working in me to prepare me for the year to come; and
• that God had enabled me to live out the blog.

The blog was an encouragement for all of us to put our trust in God, not in ourselves or the economy or anything else on this earth, and it ended with Psalm 20, in which David prays for God to meet us in our times of need and to give us the desires of our hearts.

As I read the blog, I was reminded about the times in 2009 when I was enabled to trust God:

• When my husband had a major heart attack in February, I was able to trust God for Phil’s life and health. I am continually thankful that I am not a widow. And I am incredibly thankful that God enabled me to trust Him throughout the process.
• When we had little or no income throughout the year, I was able to trust God for His provision and over our finances. Our business has been exceedingly slow this year and Phil missed quite a bit of work with his heart attack. Yet God has somehow made it possible for us to pay our bills. He has a way of stretching money when there is no money to stretch! And He has enabled me to know that He will provide and I truly haven’t worried about the issue.
• When all the smaller things in life happened throughout the year – you know, all those little issues that work their way in between major challenges – God has been so very faithful and has enabled me to trust Him. Not perfectly all the time, but when looking back over the year, I can give thanks for seeing Him strengthen my faith! He has set my feet upon a rock and I have not been moved. What a great God we serve!

I was also reminded of God’s great goodness to me. He has given me a desire of my heart this year when He enabled me to complete my Master’s degree and be ordained.

Life is busy for me right now, and I’m guessing it’s busy for you. May I encourage you to take time and remember where you were last year at this time and all that God has done for you in the past year? It’s a great way to prepare for Thanksgiving.

As I shared with Phil God’s goodness in preparing me for 2009 by urging me to trust Him, I had tears running down my face.  I was rejoicing at God’s goodness when I said “and I was able to do that! Undoubtedly one of the most difficult years of my life, and as we near the end, I can say ‘I trusted God in 2009!”

Phil looked at me and said “Let’s do it again in 2010!” (I love having a husband who always challenges me to grow in ways that God wants me to grow!)

Will you join us? I know it’s an early invitation, but let’s agree today to trust God in 2010! He’s shown Himself faithful and trustworthy and good. As for me and my house, we’re going to trust the Lord. We hope you’ll join us!

Every so often my perspective gets out of whack. I begin to forget how blessed I am. Maybe a better way to put it is that I have a hard time remembering that I am blessed, or why or how I’m blessed. You know those times. Life pushes in hard, and you really want to stand firm and you want to continue in the joy of the Lord, but you just can’t seem to remember how you are blessed. You know that God’s Word says you’re blessed and you have set your mind to believe it, but there’s just too much junk in front of your eyes to see the blessings.

Let me take you to a simple verse: 

Blessed is the man
whose sin the Lord will never count against him.
          Romans 4:8

Hallelujah! No matter how bad your day is going, if you have asked God to forgive you and trust in Christ as your Savior, your sins are forgiven and the Lord will never count them against you. We deserve God’s wrath, but instead, He chooses to give us His love. What a phenomenal exchange!

I am blessed. And during those times when I can’t think of any other reason that I might say I’m blessed, this one is overwhelmingly enough.

Today is my husband’s birthday. The day his mom struggled then knew the joy of having her fourth (and last) child. The day he cried his first audible (to humans) cry. More likely than not, the day I was conceived. Since I was born 9 months to the day after Phil was born, we often say that God created me especially for him as a gift to him on his true birth day.

I think it would more accurately be said (from my perspective) that the Lord who knew me even before I was conceived was working, even before I was conceived, to create the perfect husband for me.

 I wrote this tribute in 2008, but was reluctant to publish it in my blog because it seemed so self serving. This year, I am rejecting that notion for several reasons.

• Phil has been a fantastic example of a godly husband throughout our marriage. If reading this helps any man become a better husband to his wife, that is a worthwhile use of this space.
• Our culture is awash with women who do not choose to honor their husbands. If this blog encourages a single wife to honor her husband today, it is a worthwhile use of this space.
• This tribute gives a glimpse of a life lived for Christ and a marriage committed to Christ. There will always be difficult times to work through and doing so together is one of the joys of marriage.

With that being said, here is my tribute to the greatest man on earth!

Phil –

Thank you for loving me. For seeing in me more than I could ever see in myself. For showing me God’s unconditional love. It seems that no matter how much I fall short, you love me. And without heaping negativity on me in any form, you urge me to become better than I am.

Thank you for being my cheerleader, loving me the way God created me and encouraging me to  be me when others have said “no, you can’t.”

Thank you for making up for my weaknesses (like not cooking or cleaning much), covering them with your actions, demonstrating your love for me.

Thank you for putting our future ahead of our past and our present. For always knowing that God had more for us, even when I slid toward doubt.

Thank you for introducing me to God. For your tenacious faith in the midst of my anti-faith. For your patience and perseverance until the Holy Spirit to change my heart.

Thank you for pursuing God in good times and bad. For all you’ve taught me as we study together or prepare to teach others together. What a blessing to be a study partner with you! You enrich my relationship with God.

Thank you for encouraging and guiding my walk with God. For recommending books you think I should read. For asking me how my spiritual life is going. For praying for and with me.

Thank you for your tender heart and willingness to take risks. What a risk I was 32 years ago! (And maybe still am today!) Thanks for seeing the payoff, even before I did.

Thank you for being my business partner for 21 years and my life partner for 31. What a life! God has been so very good to me!

Thank you for holding me together in the hard times, for celebrating with me in the great times and for making the in-between times more fun that they ought to have been! Thank you for being the fun that balances my seriousness.

Thank you for loving me.

I love you…more than you can ever know, more than I can ever say.

Happy birthday, love.

A Christian who walks by faith accepts all circumstances from God. He thanks God when everything goes good, when everything goes bad, and for the “blues” somewhere in-between. He thanks God whether he feels like it or not.
          Erwin Lutzer

Job had a hard road to walk for a time. If you’re Resting at the River’s Edge with us, this week you’ve read that Job was “blameless and upright; He feared God and shunned evil.” (1:1) He was also quite rich in love and material possessions. The Bible describes him as “the greatest man among all the people of the East.” (1:3)

And then his world fell apart. All his material possessions were lost and his children were killed. Upon hearing the news of each of his losses, he responded like this:

At this, Job got up and tore his robe and shaved his head. Then he fell to the ground in worship and said:
    “Naked I came from my mother’s womb,
    and naked I will depart.
    The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away;
    may the name of the LORD be praised.”
          Job 1:20-21

Oh that I would always respond to all my challenges as Job did! Tearing his robe and shaving his head are a sign of mourning. Job was mourning the loss of his family and lifestyle. But in the midst of the mourning, he is also worshipping the Lord.

Having hope, as those of us who love the Lord do, doesn’t mean that we are impervious to life’s challenges, disappointments and disasters. It also doesn’t mean that we are somehow “above” emotions that are attached to such losses. We experience them just as our unbelieving neighbor does. What it means, however, is that in the midst of our pain, we have another perspective that we pull from the background to the foreground.

When life happens, it pushes itself to the foreground of our lives. It’s in our face, and it seeks to overpower all else. It requires our deliberate act of worship to put it back into its proper place, which is the background from which we live out our faith.

Put yourself into the scene of Job’s life: He hears the news of the loss of his property and the death of his children. It overwhelms him. He demonstrates his mourning by tearing his robe and shaving his head. And then he deliberately puts the things of this life into the background and brings the Lord front and center. He worships God. He falls to the ground in worship. He declares truth.

Do you think it was easy for Job to say “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I will depart. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised.”? I can assure you that it was not. In his emotions, he was crying out in pain. Yet he still knew that the Lord was worthy of worship in the midst of all that life throws at us. He also knew that the way through the pain was to allow the Lord to take center stage in our life – to allow Him to become the foreground and redirect our pain to the background.

Did Job’s life miraculously and suddenly become good again? No, it did not. Did Job’s faith give him answers that satisfied his crying heart? No, it did not. And it may not do those things in our lives, either. God’s ways are beyond our understanding and He is not answerable to us.

When we allow this life to be the foreground from which we live, every bump and bruise, every break and tear, every shattered dream and lost hope, seeks to overwhelm us and take away our joy. But when we deliberately put God in the foreground, those bumps and bruises, those shattered dreams and lost hope are put into perspective. “The Lord gave,” Job said, “and the Lord has taken away.” “Blessed be the name of the Lord.”

The Lord gave and I enjoyed it. I was blessed by the hand of the Lord. Blessed be the name of the Lord.

The Lord has taken away and I will miss it. I will grieve for it. Blessed be the name of the Lord.

In both, the Lord is sovereign. He is in control. We can have peace. We can have rest. My life is not spinning out of control. My life is in the hands of the sovereign God. Your life is not spinning out of control. Your life is in the hands of the sovereign God. Blessed be the name of the Lord.

Friends, may I encourage you to live your life with God in the foreground and allow the things of this world to be the backdrop from which your faith and love of the Lord is displayed. Blessed be the name of the Lord.