The Land is Extraordinary

Twelve Scouts (to Moses): We checked out the land, just as you’d instructed us to do, and here’s what we discovered: It is rich, very rich. One could say that it flows with milk and honey; and look, here is some of its fruit. The land is highly desirable, but the people who already live there are really strong. Their cities are enormous and fortified. What’s more, we saw the Anakites there. In the Negev, there are Amalekites; and in the high hill country are Hittites, Jebusites, and Amorites. As for the seacoast, Canaanites live there and along the Jordan River too.-Numbers 13:27-29 (The Voice)

In Numbers 13, we learn that Moses sent scouts to search out the promised land. These twelve men went and learned about where God was sending them. When they came back, they told Moses and the rest of the Israelites, "the land is truly amazing. It is lush and beautiful and plentiful, but...BUT...the people who live there are really strong. They're huge." Caleb, one of the scouts said, "let's go! we should go in right away and take it over." The rest of the dejected scouts replied, "No way. We can't do it. The people who are already there are two strong for us." (13:31). 

As the story continues in Numbers 14, we find that the Israelites are groaning and weeping. They are hopeless. They told Moses and one another, "it would be better if we were dead. It would be better if we just went back to Egypt." And again Joshua and Caleb responded and said, "the land is extraordinary! the best ever! Let's go." 

As believers, we still do this, don't we? We see the beauty of the promises of God, yet we become more concerned that we can not overcome the strongholds. We look at the threats and think, "I might as well be dead. I might as well just go back to a life of misery." 

Friends, though there are strongholds to overcome, let's go! The land is extraordinary!

Book Review: Let Hope In by Pete Wilson

Pete Wilson, pastor of Cross Point Church in Nashville, Tennessee wants his readers to rediscover hope and he believes that hope is a choice, or rather the result of a series of choices. He structured the book, Let Hope In (2013) around four choices: choosing to transform instead of transfer, choosing to be okay with not being okay, choosing to trust rather than to please, and choosing to free people rather than hurt them.

The basic message of the book is that Wilson wants people to rediscover the hope of the gospel. Somewhere along the way, the message of Christianity has gotten twisted and his desire is that his readers would find their hope in Christ. There is an early focus on addressing shame, which in turn gives way to hope and freedom.  Later in the book, he makes the point that hurt people, hurt people and free people, free people. He wants people to leave the hurt at the cross and rediscover the freedom in Christ.

On the whole, I loved this book. Wilson is a great story teller who has a gift for weaving biblical truths with compelling narrative. He makes the reader believe that he has lived and experienced the things that he writes about.

In the first chapter, he shared a slogan that they have adopted at their church, “Everyone is welcome, because nobody is perfect, but anything is possible.” I appreciated how Wilson helped the reader to see that it is okay to be imperfect. In fact, in our humanity, we are imperfect, he merely calls us to recognize it. From that point, we can move forward. Tied with our hiding is the notion of shame, which is all too often ignored in the church. He rightly desires the church to be a place where it is safe to talk about brokenness and shame and find hope in the gospel. We should be a confessional community who point one another toward Christ and his forgiveness. I have been working my way through several of Larry Crabb’s books and there are certain parallels with his work, which I believe is a good thing, because both authors rethink Christian community.

Wilson landed where I hoped I would. Once we admit our brokenness, it ultimately should lead us to gratitude, grace, and freedom. This is a gospel saturated book. Wilson clearly wanted his readers to see the beauty of Jesus in the midst of our fallenness. I believe he succeeded.

If I had one complaint about the book, it wasn’t always clear to me that he was following the same thread through the book. There were times when I was not sure how one chapter linked to the previous. On the whole, he wove together several threads into a wonderful tapestry, but sometimes, I couldn’t see it.

I would strongly recommend this book. The publisher has provided you with a complimentary copy of this book or advanced reading copy through BookSneeze®

Three healings

Have you ever noticed what a large part of Jesus' earthly ministry was focused on healing? The blind received sight, the deaf heard, demons were cast out, and the dead were raised. Over and over again, He healed. In Mark 2, we read of Jesus healing many. "That evening, at sundown they brought to him all who were sick or oppressed by demons. And the city was gathered together at the door" (v. 32-33).

I am most impressed by the stories of the specific healings. These stories reveal desperation, hope, and faith and teach us about Christ's mercy. We meet real people in these stories.

A leader named Jairus demonstrated desperation in Mark 5. A leader in the synagogue and probably a Pharisee, he should have been skeptical even critical of Jesus, yet when it really mattered, he fell at Christ's feet, "imploring" him to come and lay hands on his daughter, who was "at the point of death." We know that by this point, Christ had already been criticized by the Pharisees (Mark 3), yet he agreed to come along. Along the way, Jesus was interrupted, and word came that it was too late and the daughter had died. Jesus immediately intervened, telling the ruler "do not fear, only believe." Jesus made his way into the crowded house, amidst scoffers who doubted the power of God to heal, even defeat death. Jesus cleared the room and raised the girl, solidifying Jairus's faith.

In the story above, Jesus was interrupted by a woman, a woman who bled constantly for a dozen years. Many doctors tried to help her, running up charges, but she continued to worsen. She was clinging to a thread of hope thinking that if she could just get close enough to Jesus to brush his garment, she would finally be healed. She fought her way through the crowd, inching closer to hope realized and she finally reaches out her arm and brushes his garment. Jesus stopped, in the midst of the crowd pressing in from every side and turned because he perceived that his power went out from him. He asked, "Who touched me?" and she falls fearfully at his feet telling him of her hope. Because of her faith, he heals her as well.

One of the greatest demonstrations of faith in Christ's power to heal is found in Matthew 8. A centurion, a Roman soldier, approaches Christ and asks that his servant be healed. Jesus volunteers to come, but the soldier tells him that he does not expect his presence, only his word, knowing that the power that it holds. Jesus marveled at the faith of the centurion and again we see his healing power.

These stories all provide different views of Christ's power to heal, yet with each person, we see Jesus meeting their needs, granting their requests. What can we learn from these combined stories? With each of these people, faith was at the core. They had hope in Christ's ability to heal. His ability to intervene with conditions where medicine yielded little success--chronic bleeding, paralysis, even death--was profound.

In their faith, Jesus healed. Let it be so with us.

Learned Helplessness

In 1967, Martin Seligman conducted one of the most groundbreaking studies in the history of psychology. He described a phenomenon called learned helplessness, whereby dogs repeatedly exposed to shock with no hope for escape eventually learned to just lay down and whine when shocked, even when escape became possible. Learned helplessness was foundational to modern psychology's understanding of depression.

I had not thought of this term in a long time, but a confluence of factors brought it back to mind. At the end of his excellent book A Praying Life, Paul Miller wrote, "Learned helplessness lurks just underneath the surface of [my] prayer time. I simply can't do life on my own. Without God's intervention, I am completely helpless. I need Jesus" (p. 260). I have experienced learned helplessness very profoundly during the month of October. I was co-directing the capital campaign at church. I was helpless. We were awaiting Tessa's court date, not sure of what the outcome might be. I was helpless. Heather was diagnosed with breast cancer. I was helpless. Amelia, the daughter of some of our dearest friends, lies in the hospital in a grave neurological state. I am helpless.

Helpless, Helpless, Helpless

There is nothing, absolutely nothing, that I can do apart from God. He is my ever constant help in trouble. These recent situations have all helped me to learn that I am indeed helpless, but I am not hopeless. I serve a powerful God who loves me. Though I may not understand why or how, He will work all things out to His glory. May I never forget that in Him, there is hope.

I lift up my eyes to the hills.
From where does my help come?
My help comes from the Lord,
who made heaven and earth.

He will not let your foot be moved;
he who keeps you will not slumber.
Behold, he who keeps Israel
will neither slumber nor sleep.

The Lord is your keeper;
the Lord is your shade on your right hand.
The sun shall not strike you by day,
nor the moon by night.

The Lord will keep you from all evil;
he will keep your life.
The Lord will keep
your going out and your coming in
from this time forth and forevermore.

-The 121st Psalm