Whispering our prayers

“It’s after midnight. The two youngest children are sleeping. You sneak out, dig up your Bible and bring it back inside. The curtains are pulled and very, very softly do you read to your wife and 16-year-old son. You’ve only recently shared the gospel with him. Now he’s old enough and wise enough not to accidentally betray you. Of course, he didn’t understand the gospel at first, but you’re teaching him. You’ve been praying for years that he’d be ready.”

“You read the Bible in the dark, you pray, the words are hardly audible. Do you sing in whispers? When you’re in a bold mood.”

“The Secret and Surprising Ways Christians Pray in North Korea” (from Open Doors, Secret and Surprising October 25, 2018)

Our fellowship has observed the International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church (IDOPPC) for over twenty years. While several advocacy groups like Open Doors (OD) and The Voice of the Martyrs (VOM) provide inserts, power points and video material to help a pastor facilitate this gathering, the main thing is that Christians here, who are free to gather and pray and worship to their heart's content without any fear of reprisal by either their neighbors or local government officials take time to pray for their brothers and sisters in Christ in other parts of the globe who persist in Christian faith despite it being culturally unpopular, illegal and, in some places, downright dangerous.

In this year's observance I had Olivia, a sixth grader, begin our time of prayer by reading the story of Peter's incarceration found in Acts 12. Herod, feeling the approval of his subjects for beheading James, brother of John and apostle of Jesus, has Peter arrested. His plan is to do him in the next day. Meanwhile, fearing for Peter's life, the "church prayed strenuously" (12:6, The Message). God answered their concerted prayers in a remarkable way: he sent an angel to break Peter out of Herod's prison. Though they had prayed for just this very thing, it took a while before they could believe their eyes when Peter stood in the middle of their gathering. The point for all of us is that we need to labor in prayer for those imprisoned on behalf of Jesus. Frankly, a lot of us while good at laboring aren't very good at laboring in prayer.

Ji Hyeon A, a North Korean defector, was forced to have an abortion
without anesthesia because of her faith prior to her defection

We then watched two short videos about the life of the faithful in North Korea. Given it's reputation, it should not be a surprise to us to learn that life is extremely challenging for believers there. To confess Christ as Lord is literally to risk life imprisonment at a labor camp or be killed by a North Korean hit squad. As a segue to our time of intercession I had LeAnne, one of our young moms, read Jesus' words found in John 15. On the night that he himself was betrayed by a dear friend he grimly reminded the disciples, "If you find the godless world is hating you, remember it got its start hating me. If you lived on the world’s terms, the world would love you as one of its own. But since I picked you to live on God’s terms and no longer on the world’s terms, the world is going to hate you"  (vv. 18-19). Jesus didn't want us to be disillusioned when the things that happened to him happened to us. Through the centuries and up to the present day Christians have suffered economic deprivation, incarceration, torture and death on account of the faith. But if these things happened to our Shepherd without shame, it would be naive of any of us to think we would receive better treatment simply because we live in a modern world.

North Korea is physically and spiritually in darkness

At Refuge, we do our Sunday-morning praying in a few different ways. Every Sunday the altar is open and people are encouraged to come forward during the course of worship and, if they are able, kneel to receive prayer. At least half of the Sundays in a given year we practice “open mic”-praying. As worship is concluding there is a mic on the floor where people are encouraged – and at times literally “volunteered” - to come to the mic and pray for one of the individuals or ministries listed on a prayer insert in our bulletin. But on the rest of the Sundays we break into “prayer circles”, groups of 5-7 people who are then encouraged to spend time praying for each other. (Honestly, if I put the matter to a vote, the prayer circle format would win every time against the open mic one such is the fear that people have of speaking publicly, even among friends.)

At this year's IDOPPC gathering, having listened to the Scriptures

and having watched the testimonials of a few Christians who have endured persecution in North Korea we were ready to begin interceding for them. I asked them to break into prayer circles and with the help of an insert provided by VOM spend time praying for the faithful but to do so while whispering. As a rule we are not shouters here despite the fact that a good many of us consider ourselves Pentecostals. Even at our most jubilant we keep things to a dull roar. But in honor of those who have to whisper their prayers regularly for their own safety, we spent about twenty minutes whispering ours. Speaking for myself and a few others there was something emotionally moving as I listened to the corporate murmuring of our fellowship praying concertedly for those we will never meet this side of eternity.

While I prayed in our prayer circle Daniel 2 came to mind. Nebuchadnezzar, sitting on his throne in Babylon, is troubled by a dream that both terrifies and perplexes him. Unable to make heads or tails of it he summons his wise men and demands they not only they interpret his dream but tell him what he saw (an impossible act). While whining with proper court decorum just how impossible a thing their sovereign has just commanded, a young Hebrew man and one of the exiles from Jerusalem is brought before him and incredibly tells Nebuchadnezzar just what he's asking for to a T.

The king, Daniel states matter-of-factly, saw a towering statue of a man made up of all kinds of alloys but ultimately as tall and impressive as it was in one moment it was destroyed completely.

“While you were looking at this statue, a stone cut out of a mountain by an invisible hand hit the statue, smashing its iron-ceramic feet. Then the whole thing fell to pieces—iron, tile, bronze, silver, and gold, smashed to bits. It was like scraps of old newspapers in a vacant lot in a hot dry summer, blown every which way by the wind, scattered to oblivion. But the stone that hit the statue became a huge mountain, dominating the horizon.” (vv. 34-35, Msg).

As Daniel continues with the interpretation he informs the king that every different part of the statue is a kingdom of the world that becomes increasingly more brittle in its consistency as it descends to the toes.

“But throughout the history of these kingdoms, the God of heaven

will be building a kingdom that will never be destroyed, nor will this kingdom ever fall under the domination of another. In the end it will crush the other kingdoms and finish them off and come through it all standing strong and eternal. It will be like the stone cut from the mountain by the invisible hand that crushed the iron, the bronze, the ceramic, the silver, and the gold. The great God has let the king know what will happen in the years to come.” (vv. 44-45)

The present ruling powers – powers like China, North Korea, Iran, and other places where Christians must whisper their prayers lest they be found out – as absolute as they seem today in their dominance will one day be blown away. That thought helped me to whisper a little louder my “Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done.”

We wrapped up our time of whispering prayer by singing softly Chris Tomlin's song How Great Is Our God. There is something powerful when we quietly affirm together that whatever king or dictator or world leader would like to believe, his little kingdom is going to be ultimately replaced - crushed, really - by God's kingdom  which is coming in its fullness at the end of days.

To lead us back into worship, I had Olivia's older sister, Emily, a freshman in high school, read to us the story of Paul and Silas' imprisonment in Philippi as found in Acts 16. Despite being locked up for no good reason, despite being black and blue from the beating they had received, at midnight they chose to sing a "robust" hymn to God. A "robust" hymn is a hymn sung with gusto (which, admittedly, is not our strong suit either). But we must, as Paula, Olivia and Emily's mother, reminded all of us, because we can. 

Admittedly, if we personally knew some of those folks the intensity of our prayers would be greater. But there's the rub. While going about their daily lives and seeking to share the gospel with their friends and neighbors, they have to do so subtly and with great care. But God hears our whispers as much as our shouts and I have to believe that what we whispered here in our sanctuary a week or so ago, God heard loud and clear in this throne room and dispatched his angels to do comfort and empower those who continue to remain faithful to him.

Finding our way forward by looking backward

Count your blessings, name them one by one,Count your blessings, see what God has done!
Count your blessings, name them one by one,
Count your many blessings, see what God has done.

- from “Count Your Blessings” by Johnson Oatman, Jr

Johnson Oatman, Jr, while a licensed Methodist preacher, made his living selling life insurance. But his real claim to fame was in writing gospel music. In fact, by the time he died in 1922, he had written over three thousand hymns including The Hallelujah Side, Higher Ground, and Count Your Blessings. If 20 the Countdown Magazine had been around in 1897 Count Your Blessings would have been on it so popular was it then. To listen to it now, however, it seems so quaint and “old-folksy”. But if you could push the mute button on the gospel tune (which seems so antiquated to our ears so prone to hearing soulish angst these days) and just muse over the words, there is much to glean here:

When upon life’s billows you are tempest-tossed,
When you are discouraged, thinking all is lost,
Count your many blessings, name them one by one,
And it will surprise you what the Lord has done.

Hilda was a dear lady I used to visit on Friday afternoons in my early years of ministry in Chetek. She lived at the local nursing home and during our visits from time to time she would regale me with stories of hers and her late husband's life together and recount how God had provided for them again and again during the dark days of the Depression. It was Hilda who first taught me this song (I didn't grow up in a Gospel church; I grew up Lutheran and I don't think our pastors or our organist had ever heard of it).

While I'm not sure, Oatman may have been inspired to write his song after reading Psalm 77. At the beginning, the psalmist affirms loud and clear that he doesn't just call out to God; he yells and when he yells he does so "at the top of my lungs” (v.1, The Message). The result of all is yelling is that “God hears him.”

But then he explains why he can say this so certainly. His life was a mess, "an open wound that wouldn't heal". He speaks of wringing his hands in duress and being "awake all night - not a wink of sleep" so distraught is he. Awash in melancholy he strums his "lute all through the night, wondering" how to get his life together (vv. 2-6).

In short, the kind of funk he describes is a form of depression that has him so low that he bitterly complains, "Just my luck...The High God goes out of business just the moment I need him" (v. 10). Many of us can identify with him. Life can be pretty overwhelming sometimes and our circumstances can speak a lie to us that, if we allow ourselves, we may swallow hook, line and sinker: "God is not here. He is absent. In fact, maybe there isn't anything to this thing we call faith at all."

But about half-way through his lament, he finds a way forward by

looking backward:

Once again I’ll go over what God has done,
    lay out on the table the ancient wonders;
I’ll ponder all the things you’ve accomplished,
    and give a long, loving look at your acts. (vv. 11-12)

Yes, life has him down - and seemingly, out for the count. But he starts reflecting on God's acts in the past, reflecting on how God has worked on behalf of God's people in difficult days before and finds the hope he needs to rise above the despair that has him in a stranglehold. As he muses upon their history with God – the sea being pushed back in order that the people can make their escape from the chasing Egyptian army, God doing the same thing to the River Jordan at flood stage a generation later in order that they may pass into the land on dry ground – and suddenly a rush of adrenaline hits him:

O God! Your way is holy!
    No god is great like God!

You’re the God who makes things happen;
    you showed everyone what you can do— (vv. 13-14)

For many years running now our fellowship celebrates a day we

call “ThanksBRINGING”. It's a gathering in early November before the high holy days of gun deer season kick in. It's a service all about sharing thanks. The chairs are arranged in an oval so we can look at each other and after a few songs sung just to help everyone transition from life to sanctuary the main act of worship begins. The stories begin - stories of God's provision, God's comfort, God's help – and as people share their personal journeys in it we are reminded yet again that while life is messy, and at times, discombobulating God is good and He is faithful.

We are mostly introverts here (myself and few others excluded) so it usually takes a bit for the stories to percolate but eventually after over an hour or so I feel compelled to shut it down in order that we might finish at the table. The big loaf of bread and regular sized cups await us at the center of the sanctuary (for this gathering there is no piece of cracker and plastic shot glass of grape juice for communion; we're going to feast!). Families and couples come to the table for the elements and then return to their seats and share communion together.

Thomas is a refugee and a pastor from South Sudan

This year unexpectedly we had a family of refugees from South Sudan with us at the gathering. They are friends of a couple who worships regularly at our fellowship and while currently residing in North Dakota were in town for the weekend. Both Thomas and his wife, Joyce, shared stories in the gathering that morning of God's provision and safety in their lives. Also in the gathering was Elisardo, a temporary worker from Costa Rica, working at the rafter factory across the street from Refuge along with one of his co-workers, Pablo, from Belize.

Immediately following the gathering, we set up tables in the

Elisardo prays

sanctuary, get all the food out and sit down to an honest to goodness turkey dinner with all the fixings. Since we are The Refuge International I always like to ask guests from other countries (which we receive more than you would expect being so far up here in the woods) to pray in their native dialect as a way to “seed the atmosphere” and create a desire to pray for the nations here (who are closer to us than we care to admit). So I asked Pastor Thomas to pray over our meal and he led in Arabic for an extended time (clearly it was way more than “Lord, bless our meal together”). But since Eli was with us I asked him to pray as well and he led an equally lengthy prayer in Spanish. Our meal was deeply blessed and then we all sat down together in the presence of the Lord and enjoyed good fellowship along with good food, too.

Some years for ThanksBRINGING someone volunteers to serve as a recorder who writes what is shared so that when we need to be reminded we can turn to the book of testimony and recall how God has answered prayer and provided what we needed for the different seasons of our lives. Unfortunately, it didn't happen this year which is too bad because we heard some pretty good stories. If there is anything I took away from this year's gathering is that whether it is a hard season we are going through or a discouraging one we need to remind ourselves that God is with us and therefore we should not be afraid. Just like he led the people through the Sinai, hostile and forbidding thought it was, still today He leads his people “like a flock of sheep” (v. 20).

So, amid the conflict whether great or small,
Do not be discouraged, God is over all;
Count your many blessings, angels will attend,
Help and comfort give you to your journey’s end.

Get up and pray! Some thoughts about last night's prayer meeting

9 Then God said to Jonah, “What right do you have to get angry about this shade tree?”

Jonah said, “Plenty of right. It’s made me angry enough to die!”

10-11 God said, “What’s this? How is it that you can change your feelings from pleasure to anger overnight about a mere shade tree that you did nothing to get? You neither planted nor watered it. It grew up one night and died the next night. So, why can’t I likewise change what I feel about Nineveh from anger to pleasure, this big city of more than 120,000 childlike people who don’t yet know right from wrong, to say nothing of all the innocent animals?” Jonah 4:9-11, The Message

Once a month a handful of people from our fellowship gathers on a Sunday evening to wait upon the Lord for an hour. While anyone can come to these gatherings it's never more than a handful and why that is I couldn't say (although I have my opinions). The format is simple. We sit quietly by ourselves for the first half hour or so and seek to listen to his voice. Then during the second half hour we gather in “the couch corner” of the sanctuary and share what verse of Scripture, images, or impressions that have come to mind while we have quietly sat before the Lord. Often a certain theme emerges in the sharing and then we seek to pray “into” that theme together. It's not a perfect science but frequently we feel “led” by the Spirit to pray in a certain manner.

Last night as I knelt at the altar Jonah 4:9-11 came directly to mind. Jonah, of course, is the reluctant prophet. He's the guy who didn't want to go to Nineveh and warn them of the judgment that was coming. After some divine arm-twisting that occurs in the belly of a whale he grudgingly obeys God's command. Peeved at having to deliver God's warning to one of the enemies of his nation, he marches into the main square of Nineveh and like Luther nailing his 95 Theses upon the door of the Wittenburg Church declares: “In forty days Nineveh will be smashed” (3:4, Msg). That's it or at least all that Jonah said that he shared with these uncircumcised pagans. He then marches out of town and sits on a hill and waits for the fire to fall.

But these Ninevehites do something surprising. They don't scorn or mock Jonah. They listen to him. They get serious with God. They repent for their sins. They are, as we like to say now, all in.

“The people of Nineveh listened, and trusted God. They proclaimed a citywide fast and dressed in burlap to show their repentance. Everyone did it—rich and poor, famous and obscure, leaders and followers.” (3:5)

Well, this is awkward

Their response is so complete and so sincere that God changes his mind. “On second thought, I'm not going destroy their city” (3:10)

You would think that this kind of response is enough to summon a chorus of Hallelujahs from Jonah. Instead by the end of his short story he is sitting in a sulk mad at God for changing his mind. In fact, we learn why he's so peeved is that he anticipated such a response. He knows enough of God's heart to know that the only reason Yahweh would send him there was so that these people could get another chance.

4 1-2 Jonah was furious. He lost his temper. He yelled at God, “God! I knew it—when I was back home, I knew this was going to happen! That’s why I ran off to Tarshish! I knew you were sheer grace and mercy, not easily angered, rich in love, and ready at the drop of a hat to turn your plans of punishment into a program of forgiveness!”

"Dang."

When the story began God is angry with Nineveh for its practice and reputation for wickedness. Like Marvel's Thing Yahweh says to anyone who may be listening, “It's clobberin' time.” But at the end of the story, the people of Nineveh have repented in sackcloth and ashes and now God is angry with his prophet who should know better. If, as he said, he knew that God was “sheer grace and mercy, not easily angered, rich in love, and ready at the drop of a hat to turn your plans of punishment into a program of forgiveness” why should he be stewing over the salvation of 120,000 people who spiritually speaking don't know what they don't know?

After awhile another verse came to mind. Jesus used parables, hyperbole, dialogue, Scripture references to persuade his fellow Jewish countrymen to believe what he was telling them. He always seems in control of the conversation, engaged but not overly argumentative. But in Matthew 23 the water flows over the dam. Jesus' frustration with the obstinacy of the religious establishment leads him to pronounce seven “woes” upon them. I certainly don't believe he “lost it” with them but I'm sure he didn't say these things with a smile. At the end of his litany he says this,

“Jerusalem! Jerusalem! Murderer of prophets! Killer of the ones who brought you God’s news! How often I’ve ached to embrace your children, the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you wouldn’t let me.” (23:37-38, Msg).

He should look angrier

In Jonah's story, an entire city of spiritually ignorant people humble themselves because of a one-sentence sermon delivered by a guy who didn't even want to be there. At this moment, Jesus speaks to the spiritual gatekeepers of his nation expressing God's great heart to draw them to himself as a hen gathers her chicks but they are tone-deaf to his plea. “Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Whatever. We're not listening. No thank you. We don't want any.” In his next breath he pronounces the judgment that will visit them within a generation for their hardheartedness (v. 39).

It occurred to me that both verses reveal that when it comes to spiritually dead or deaf people God's arms are wide open. He is, as Jonah testified to, “sheer grace and mercy”. He is that mother hen who wants nothing more to draw her chicks back under the protection of her wing. The people who don't know a thing – who “don't know right from wrong” (Jonah 4:11) – listen and respond. The people who know it all – who certainly cannot claim spiritual ignorance – act as if they are entitled to God's deliverance when, in fact, they are headed to a rendezvous with destiny.

Randy is one of our elders at Refuge and a very thoughtful man. He reads a lot and ponders the ways of God. His contribution to our discussion was this passage from Romans 13

“Don’t run up debts, except for the huge debt of love you owe each other. When you love others, you complete what the law has been after all along. The law code—don’t sleep with another person’s spouse, don’t take someone’s life, don’t take what isn’t yours, don’t always be wanting what you don’t have, and any other “don’t” you can think of—finally adds up to this: Love other people as well as you do yourself. You can’t go wrong when you love others. When you add up everything in the law code, the sum total is love.”

“But make sure that you don’t get so absorbed and exhausted in taking care of all your day-by-day obligations that you lose track of the time and doze off, oblivious to God. The night is about over, dawn is about to break. Be up and awake to what God is doing! God is putting the finishing touches on the salvation work he began when we first believed. We can’t afford to waste a minute, must not squander these precious daylight hours in frivolity and indulgence, in sleeping around and dissipation, in bickering and grabbing everything in sight. Get out of bed and get dressed! Don’t loiter and linger, waiting until the very last minute. Dress yourselves in Christ, and be up and about!” (Romans 3:8-14, The Message)

This text, in my mind, was the exclamation point that the Holy Spirit was placing upon our hearts last night. Pray! We must pray and intercede for our neighbors, the city we call home, the state and country we live in, the world we share with so many others. We can't tell ourselves that “God's gonna do whatever he's gonna do” when in fact he partners with us to stand before him (ala Abraham in Genesis 18) and plead for those we care about – and for those we don't care about but should. To not respond to the Holy Spirit's voice is to be guilty of wasting time and laying around when we should be dressing ourselves “in Christ and be up and about.”

And so we did pray together and will continue to do so because somehow or another our prayers matter to "the Judge of all the earth" (Gen 18) and he waits for us to call on him.

Not enough rocks (a pastoral response to the problem of evil)

“If God is God why would he allow me to be adopted into a family that would raise me to do terrible things?”

I was recently asked this by a former inmate of the Barron County Jail. He was adopted when he was three years old and according to him when he got older his adopted father forced him to do some pretty perverse things that now in his 50s he has great shame about. Why, he asked me, would God allow that? Why would God, he inferred, stand by and let that happen?

As a pastor of a small rural congregation, I don't sit around contemplating a good apologetic for God and the problem of evil. It's not that I have not encountered evil in my nearly twenty-eight years of pastoral ministry. I certainly have. I've buried a young woman who died of cancer way before her time and another who suffered from mental illness and later shot herself. My work as a volunteer for both our local food shelf and with the Salvation Army has brought me up close and personal to the ugliness that poverty can create in families and individuals. My service at the Barron County Jail as a chaplain has taught me the reality and power of generational sin. No, I may not live in the 'hood but in these idyllic woods in which we live sin abounds and scars and works havoc in people's lives.

Many years ago our neighbor's son was tragically killed in a car accident. Raised in the Baptist church, he had not been a part of fellowship for several years and at the time of his death he was living with his girlfriend in another community. He wasn't drunk. It was simple negligence on his part. He didn't look twice before he entered the median of the highway before a truck slammed into his car killing him instantly. It was, literally, an accident. At his funeral my neighbor's pastor said, “It was all part of a greater plan”, that God “allowed this to happen” and that even though we mourn we are comforted because “he's with the Lord now because when he was at Bible camp as a teen he had made his profession of faith.” I've never asked his mother if those words brought her comfort but admittedly sitting out in the congregation that morning my first thought was, “Are you saying that God willed for this kid to be killed by a truck?” To be fair, I'm not sure what I would have said if I had been the one presiding at that gathering but I'm pretty sure it wouldn't be to opine that his death by truck was part of some greater plan of God's. Maybe at times like that it's better to be a Calvinist.

When we're born we don't start at zero. That is to say that none of us are a 'blank slate' when we come into this world. We are a born into a family, for better or for worse, that depending on the health of that family we will be nurtured or we will be corrupted. A few months back I sat in PV 1 at the jail listening to a 38-year-old guy I'll call CJ tell his story. He was a crack baby which means he was screwed even before he was born. The womb is supposed to be one of the safest places on earth but in his case his own mother caused him to be an addict long before he took his first breath. His father was no better and was long gone by the time CJ was a toddler. His mother was incapable of raising him (later dying of an overdose) and so he was brought up in the foster care system bounced around from one family to another. Somewhere along the way he became a user and then later a dealer. At the time of our conversation he was looking at the potential of over two decades of incarceration for his crimes.

As I listened to his story I was struck by the fact that though we were only sitting across the table from one another a great chasm of life experiences separated us. I was born into a nuclear family where both my parents were committed to their faith and to one another. I was born on a Friday which means by the following Sunday I was in church and no doubt baptized soon after. My parents loved me, provided for me, disciplined me when I needed it, made sure I went to school and church regular as clockwork. We went on family vacations and from time to time Dairy Queen on a Sunday night in the summertime. That's what I mean when I say we don't all start at zero. Compared to CJ, I was born at +50. Compared to me, CJ was born at -25. I was set up to succeed in life whereas he was set up to fail. Why me and not him? How is it that I was fortunate to be born into a good family while CJ a bad one (and the guy mentioned at the beginning of this post as well)?

Honestly, I don't know. But while listening to CJ's story I was reminded (again!) how fortunate and blessed I have been in being raised in the family I was. I won't for a second attribute my circumstances to luck and his to bad luck. “Sucks to be you” would be horrible commentary on CJ's condition. But mysteries abound in the life of faith and frankly most of the time I know better than to offer an opinion as to why bad things happen to good people – and, for that matter, bad. The thing theologically referred to as the Fall is enough answer for me. God created a perfect world and his original plan was to fill it with free-will agents who would willingly choose him. But that plan involved risk that those same free-will agents would choose to not follow him. And thus we have the command:

“You can eat from any tree in the garden, except from the Tree-of-Knowledge-of-Good-and-Evil. Don’t eat from it. The moment you eat from that tree, you’re dead.” (Gen 2:16-17, Msg)

Of course, we know how that ended and thus we inherited the world we chose now full of sin and disease and heartbreak and death. We wanted to run the show ourselves – to be our own bosses – and the rest is history – and how sad that history has been at times. That some people live their whole lives relatively untouched by the world's sorrows I attribute to God's goodness. That others seem to experience trouble unlooked for or undeserved I'll attribute to man's propensity to lash out at his neighbor, the work of corrupted structures like government or just part of the reality of how “the rain falls on the just and the unjust” (Matt 5). As someone reminded me once, “We're not living in the Garden of Eden, you know. We're not even next door to it.”

...there is a distinction between the “pastoral”...problem of people

struggling to make sense of suffering and evil in their lives and the lives of others close to them, and the philosophical problem of showing the congruence (or at least compatibility) of the existence of evil with the existence, power, and goodness of God. These are not the same problem... William Hasker in God and the Problem of Evil: Five Views (p. 151)

I agree. Most of the people who come to me with their questions (when they do come at all) aren't really looking for me to give them a good answer when, in truth, good answers don't abound. They just want to be heard and have their pastor acknowledge that sometimes the math in life doesn't add up. I have learned to tread carefully in the presence of suffering. Pat answers won't do. And frankly, I don't usually feel like I have to defend God. He's a big God and he can defend himself if he needs to. Instead I try and mimic Job's posture who in the face of divine rebuke contritely responded, “I babbled on about things far beyond me, made small talk about wonders way over my head.” (Job 42). So, I simply try to listen and be a representative of the God who is Immanuel, “God-In-It-with-Us.” It provokes me to silently pray the biblical prayer, “How long, O Lord, how long?” while at the same time it reminds me something that Forrest Gump once said, “Sometimes, I guess there's just not enough rocks.”

Driving all the way to Chicago to hear a good word

“Then the word of God came to him: 'So Elijah, what are you doing here?'”

1 Kings 19:9, The Message

Elijah was by anybody's definition a spiritual Avenger in the times he lived in. Case in point would be the 'Clash on Mount Carmel' where he single-handedly faced down wicked Queen Jezebel's regiment of prophets of Baal and – with God's help – did it with style. Isaiah had once prayed, “Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down,...” (Isaiah 64:1ff). I wonder if he had Elijah's victory on the mountain in mind when he had prayed thus? In any case, after that slam dunk knockout he becomes Public Enemy Number One. You would think his victory would fill him with bravado. Instead, his resolve melts like snow in May and he high tails it out of Dodge. He runs south, way south. He runs until he can't run any more and then crawls under the shade of some scraggly tree out in the Negev hoping for death to find him. However, God's got other plans. After being ministered to by an angel, he then walks “forty days and nights” (1 Kings 19:8) until at long last he reaches Horeb, the mountain of God where once upon a time Moses received the law of the Lord. He crawls into a cave to rest and while sleeping the word of the Lord comes to him,

“So, Elijah, what are you doing here?”

Personally, I would expect a better greeting from the Lord for this guardian of the Law. I would think a 'well done' or an 'atta-boy' or 'thank you for standing with me' would be a far better way to greet his exhausted servant. But no. He gets a, 'What are you doing here, Elijah?' as in 'Why are you here and not up there defending Me and doing my work?' To wit I say, Come on, man. He's tired. He's emotionally spent. He's been an outlaw for God for such a long time and that's all he gets? “So Elijah, now tell me, what are you doing here?” Frankly, it's a bit harsh. If that's how it went down, God's sure got a funny way of encouraging his servants.

FCA Convention Night #1

A month ago I attended the national convention of the association that our fellowship belongs to held this year in Chicago. Early on in my ministry in Chetek I was able to attend this gathering annually but our fellowship's resources have been pretty tight for a number of years now. What's more, the convention is always during track season guaranteeing if I go that I miss a full week of practice and meets. So I haven't attended one since 2008 when it was held in Minneapolis. But this year, seeing it was back in the Midwest, I felt like I had to go. Unlike Elijah in so many ways I do identify with that moment he drags himself into the cave on Horeb feeling discouraged and in need of a good word to sustain him. So I drove to Chicago with the hope that God was going to speak such a word to me.

Honestly, this has been a season of tough sledding in our ministry in Chetek. It's not that we have been experiencing conflict with our leadership team. We haven't. In fact, we have enjoyed a wonderful sense of unity in our midst for several years now. It's not that we have experienced some huge defections either. For a small fellowship, we have a good percentage of disciples serving in various capacities. So what's made this season so tough? Here are three things that come to mind:

For starters, one of our elders – and one of my dearest friends – has gone missing.

Without divulging particulars suffice to say he has become consumed with his work. He's a farmer and the ag industry in this

Longstreet needed this man in the fray

country is the worst it's been in a generation. He's trying to keep the family farm afloat and that pretty much robs him of energy and attention he used to be able to expend at our fellowship. We all feel he and his wife's absence from regular worship and the other things that go on around here. What Confederate Lt. General James Longstreet once said about one of his generals, Gen. George Pickett, sums up perfectly how I feel about this missing elder of ours, “I don't like being without Pickett. It's like going into battle with one boot on.” I feel his absence keenly.

Like a slowly collapsing bag, over the past five months people have left.

One left because he was offended at what he perceived was our lack of spiritual commitment. Another left (with her two children) 'feeling led' to begin attending another fellowship 15 miles north of here. What makes that loss more keen is that she once had been core. Yet another took a job in a neighboring county and therefore moved away. And another core couple have been slowly fading out for reasons they attribute to work schedules. These are, on the main, par for the course. Who of us in ministry hasn't experienced these kinds of shifts in the makeup of the fellowship we are responsible for? But the long and short of it is that on any given Sunday there are a lot more empty chairs in our sanctuary than we have been accustomed to.

Supposedly 'regular attendance' among evangelical Christians these days is 1 Sunday out of 4.

I don't recall which poll generated that finding and where I heard it quoted first but if that is so it certainly has been playing out at Refuge these past few months. The new 'normal' seems to be 30-35 average weekly attendance where 50-60 used to be the norm. Fair or not it's those dang Millennials that seem to be the primary culprits of fitting corporate worship into their schedules (as opposed to fitting their schedule around corporate worship).

The Lord specifically told King David never to count the fighting men to remind him that the sustenance and protection of the kingdom did not reside in his ability to marshal the troops and send them out to fight. In the same way, I shouldn't be counting heads in order to find my confidence as a leader but admittedly I have. Besides, less people attached to our fellowship means less resources both financial and human and taking all these other factors into account has left me feeling insecure and wanting to read the 'tea-leaves' of my circumstances. Maybe it's me? Maybe God has been trying to tell me I'm done for some time now and I've just been tone deaf to his voice?

Hollis had a good word for all of us

This was my state of mind as I pulled into the convention center on Chicago's far-southwestern side on Tuesday afternoon. The only thing I brought with me to the daily gatherings and the nightly services was my journal in hopes I would catch a 'word' that spoke to my current situation – a text, a Scripture, shoot, even a “thus saith the Lord” would do. Over the course of four days I heard some good messages, heard some wise counsel and engaged in more than a few poignant conversations with fellow ministerial colleagues and friends.

Convention is way more than hearing messages.
It's about connecting with friends.

On the very first night the speaker – a pastor turned stand-up comedian/Christian entertainer – shared from Genesis 42. In the passage, Jacob's sons are appealing to him to allow Benjamin to return with them to Egypt so that they may appease the prime minister who makes seeing their youngest brother a part of the deal to acquire more grain. When Jacob hears the terms he complains to his sons, “You have deprived me of my children. Joseph is no more and Simeon is no more, and now you want to take Benjamin. Everything is against me!” (v. 36). His point: A lot of times we don't see things from God's point of view. Unbeknownst to Jacob he is soon to be a part of a grand reunion of all his sons as soon as Joseph reveals who he is. What appears to be against us may, in fact, be working out to be something very good for us. Which is why we need to seek “God's eye-view” of things in our life and ministry.

The very next day at morning devotions another pastor-friend

Here's another former roommate that I hadn't
sat down and spoke with for over twenty or more years

shared from Jeremiah 6:16 reminding us that God, indeed, wants to speak with us. Inspired by the text his counsel was simple, “Listen. Look. Ask. And then obey.” He concluded with something not original but I really like: “I've never heard God's voice but I know what it sounds like.”

Looking through my journal today I am reminded that all through that week I was writing snippets of good counsel and wise Scriptural advice that I heard. As I opened up to a few good friends and shared my life with them I received what you would expect to receive – encouragement, a pat on the back and a reminder that I am not the only pastor struggling with the issues that seem to be facing us here.

In the cave, Elijah was instructed to go out upon the mountain and prepare himself as “the Lord is about to pass by” (1 Kings 19:11, NIV). Perhaps it was the very place or in close proximity to the cleft of the rock where God had hid Moses seven hundred or more years earlier following the fiasco with the golden calf just before he passed by (see Exodus 34). But whether at that place or another there he stands waiting in expectation of the Lord's imminent visitation. And then this:

“A hurricane wind ripped through the mountains and shattered the rocks before God, but God wasn’t to be found in the wind; after the wind an earthquake, but God wasn’t in the earthquake; and after the earthquake fire, but God wasn’t in the fire; and after the fire a gentle and quiet whisper.”

“When Elijah heard the quiet voice, he muffled his face with his great cloak, went to the mouth of the cave, and stood there. A quiet voice asked, 'So Elijah, now tell me, what are you doing here?' Elijah said it again, 'I’ve been working my heart out for God, the God-of-the-Angel-Armies, because the people of Israel have abandoned your covenant, destroyed your places of worship, and murdered your prophets. I’m the only one left, and now they’re trying to kill me.'” (1 Kings 19:11-14, Msg)

I think it's a legitimate complaint. He's been working hard and living on the run without a lot to show for his efforts. As far as he can see there has not been a whole-sale turning back to God among his countrymen. Ahab and Jezebel still rule in Samaria and while she's lost a whole company of her prophets, the people continue to flock to the religious sites at Bethel and Dan. He feels like he's fighting for a lost cause.

Of course, he's not. As bad as things are things are never as bad as they appear. God gives his dejected prophet some tasks to do (like return to the fray and appoint a successor) and then reminds him, that even though it feels like he's standing alone there are in fact, many remaining in Israel who “have not bowed down to Baal and whose mouths have not kissed him.” (v. 18, NIV).

During the long drive home on Friday, as I reflected on all that I heard both corporately and personally, I felt that God had spoken to me. Not audibly and yet directly. Not dramatically and yet certainly. No whistles, no bells. No vision or ecstatic prophecy. While it wasn't a life-changing word – e.g., 'Go to Africa' or 'Come and be our pastor “over here”' - it was definitely a life-sustaining word. And it simply was: “Keep going. Keep going. Keep going.”

Chicago seems like a long way to go from here to hear a word that you could just as well as hear from any of my pastor-friends at Chetek Cafe. But sometimes you have to go far to hear something that's a whisper's length away. Here's how I put it in my journal: “...in lieu of not knowing any differently I must keep going [in Chetek] trusting that You are with me and will be with me.” And that's what I call a good word.

“Don’t be misled: No one makes a fool of God. What a person plants, he will harvest. The person who plants selfishness, ignoring the needs of others—ignoring God!—harvests a crop of weeds. All he’ll have to show for his life is weeds! But the one who plants in response to God, letting God’s Spirit do the growth work in him, harvests a crop of real life, eternal life.

“So let’s not allow ourselves to get fatigued doing good. At the right time we will harvest a good crop if we don’t give up, or quit.” (Galatians 6:7-9, Msg)

So, chin up. Keep going. Don't give up. And carry on until the journey's end.