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Posts Tagged ‘prophet’

Do We Want To Know?

Posted in Ordinary Time, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on October 7, 2014| Leave a Comment »

prophesyProphecy, predictions, and fortune telling: do we really want to know?

Amaziah said to Amos, “You who see things, go, run away to the land of Judah, eat your bread there, and prophesy there; but never again prophesy at Bethel, for it is the king’s holy place and his royal house.” [Amos 7:12-13, CEB]

We check with the local meteorologist/weatherman every day; we are obsessed with knowing the weather forecast. Most people have it on the home screens of their cell phone. Will it rain? Will it snow? Will my life be changed by either? Nope.

We say we want to know but then, if it’s not what we want to hear, we speak against it. Chance of rain today, 53%  Oh, please don’t rain, I want weathermanto take a run or a bike ride or a walk or go out in my boat. Tomorrow, warm and sunny with only 3% chance of rain. Of course, the day I have to work indoors, it’s going to be a beautiful day. Yada, yada, yada.

And if the message is particularly grim, the messenger’s credibility is immediately suspect.

Originally, predictors about our world’s atmosphere called it “global warming,” but then the naysayers used every snow storm as an example to the contrary, as though their local snowstorm can counter the scientific evidence that our planet is warmer than ever. So, the analysts switched up the label and now use “climate change” to speak to the future. All the same, very few want to hear this prophecy. Like Amaziah, they say, go somewhere else to tell your tale, we’re all just fine here.

fortune tellingAre you curious about your own immediate future? How many fortune tellers grace our city streets? In some areas, they proliferate more than others (New Orleans has a high number of soothsayers on every corner in the French Quarter and Bourbon Street). Is it a game or do we really want to know? Do we believe these strangers have access to the string of our future? Or do we hope for a tantalizingly dark handsome stranger to be in our stars? Something or someone we can keep a look out for.

Not long ago, I finished listening to a new sci-fi fantasy book, Flight of the Silvers by Daniel Price (first in a series, of course). The book has some issues, but I love the way it digs into the idea of time, both future and past as well as alternate lives and worlds, seemingly existing side by side. It’s pretty exquisite world building. For one of the characters, it’s Groundhog Day on steroids, but he doesn’t become a nicer and nicer person, he just kills people sooner to get it over with, etc. He is doing his best to manipulate the present and the future.

We are all manipulating our futures by the decisions we make today and living out the decisions we made yesterday.

There is an exercise in which you can do a review of your past and snip out the pieces that you would (if your could) remove from your past. It’s illuminating actually because few of us can do it. Why? Because every snip would change today and the now becomes too similar to the unknown future we struggle with each day. Would I like to snip out my bi-polar mother? Sure. But then, I would not be in the United States because it was her extreme personality that under girded our emigration.

Why did God provide prophets in the first place? And then, why did they disappear after the coming of Christ?

milk and honeyIn the Old Testament, it’s as thought God acted like a Father, giving fair warning about the consequences of certain choices. There were a lot of “if you do this or that–expect this result.” God tried to lay out the benefits, a land flowing with milk and honey, and yet, it was never enough. Once acquired, the people rejoiced, but it wasn’t long before the land was treated like a entitlement and not a gift. And so, God tried a different tactic, and provided one last prophet, one last shepherd, one last message.

Unfortunately, despite knowing and reading and seeing how things have gone in the past, we continue to make the same mistakes. God says: Accept the Spirit of Christ and “heaven” is a given grace. Follow Christ and live differently, sacrificially, in love and forgiveness and the world will unfold in a completely different way, an incomparable future. And yet, despite the prophesied future, we choose idols instead. We choose our immediate desires over a promised future.

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Samson’s Secret

Posted in Lent, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on April 12, 2014| 1 Comment »

Painting by Solomon Joseph Solomon (1860-1927)

Painting by Solomon Joseph Solomon (1860-1927)

Samson had everything he needed to serve and lead. He was called from childhood, from the day he was born. He was a Nazirite: dedicated to God. But these gifts made him prideful. He lost sight of the true source of his strength.

“Samson fell in love with a woman named Delilah. The rulers of the Philistines confronted her and said to her, ‘Seduce him and find out what gives him such great strength and what we can do to overpower him.’ . . . “ [CEB, Judges 16:4-7a]

Did Samson make a mistake falling in love with the “wrong” woman? Apparently women were his weakness even more than his hair.

Delilah wasn’t the first time a woman betrayed him. Read Judges 14 where his Philistine wife [unnamed] beguiled him for the answer to a wedding riddle and told her relatives. That treachery ended badly with Samson taking revenge both in killing thirty random Philistine men and later destroying a number of his enemies’ fields and crops. The Philistines feared and hated Samson. And yet for the next twenty years, he continued to win victories with his strength alone.

Then Delilah, yet another Philistine woman, came into the picture. Her village elders offered her great sums of money for the secret of Samson’s strength. And so she double crossed Samson. Why couldn’t he see what she was doing? Why couldn’t he remember how it went the first time? Did he actually trust Delilah? I don’t think so. Pride consumed him. He could not imagine that God would allow him to be defeated. That lesson came hard when he was taken, blinded, and put to labor in prison, reduced to a stock animal grinding grain. He told Delilah the “secret” of his strength. But really, the secret was the hand of God. The hair was a symbol of the covenant.

Do I know the real secret? Or I have I fallen into Samson’s folly?

God has given us all gifts, strengths, and abilities. Certainly, God has given much to me but I take most of it for granted: my comfortable life, my health, my stage presence, my writing, my adopted children, my energy, my passion and enthusiasm, my long-standing marriage, my home, my job, my church; the list goes on and on. I am too comfortable I think. My gifts have become a norm like Samson’s long hair. As a result, I have lost my vision and gratitude for them and their purpose in my life.

“Much will be demanded from everyone who has been given much, and from the one who has been entrusted with much, even more will be asked.” [Luke 12:48b]

Art by Cheryl Ward

Art by Cheryl Ward

Forgive me O God, for I have sinned in my plenty, fearful of less, but holding on too tightly to the cornucopia.

I remember, back in the high days of the Toronto Blessing (1994) when people were “catching the fire” and manifesting all kinds of strange behaviors (of course, lives were changed as well – I have no bone to pick with that revival experience), one of the popular phrases/prayers was to say, “more” Lord. They were asking for more of God, I know, but looking back, it also feels a bit narcissistic: give “me” more, touch my life, etc.  I suppose the ideal would be that God would give me more so that I might give others more. But I don’t see myself following through on such an arrangement. At least, not so far. There was a time I longed to be used of God in some miraculous way, as a conduit for healing or prophesying or wisdom . But I’m thinking, for the few who gained great popularity in those arenas, most of them went the way of Samson. With great power comes great temptation.

No, I don’t want that either.

I just want to be true to the Presence of God in me, to hold my hands and heart open, to speak truth, to forgive freely, to look and listen without comparing people to myself or to one another, to accept now with gratitude and pray for tomorrow with confident anticipation because God is sovereign. I don’t need to wait for my hair to grow long or my days to number into the seventies or eighties. Samson didn’t need to wait either. It just took him that long to figure it out.

Let this reveal have legs, Lord, and roots. Nourish my soul with your Breath. Today and always.

 

 

 

 

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Contempt for the Prophetic?

Posted in Ordinary Time, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on February 15, 2011| 3 Comments »

In today’s world, unless one participates in a charismatic denomination, the idea of the prophetic smacks of the National Enquirer. So, if most people don’t believe in prophecy, isn’t that already contempt? How does a prophet gain credibility?

I Thessalonians 5:20-22
. . . do not treat prophecies with contempt. Test everything. Hold on to the good. Avoid every kind of evil.

Actually, the scriptures speak of the importance of testing what is said by a prophet. All the way back in the Old Testament, it was written, “If what a prophet proclaims in the name of the LORD does not take place or come true, that is a message the LORD has not spoken.” [Deut 18:22a] This appears to be a straightforward test of a prophecy, if it comes to pass, it’s a true prophecy. Of course, that doesn’t help much in the moment, when a prophecy is uttered.

It’s hard to know, actually. I have experienced a kind of fluttering within my personal spirit upon occasion, a sense of truth being spoken, a type of corroboration or affirmation. But, that’s certainly less than definitive. And so, if the prophecy is important, it’s reasonable to consider putting the words to the test.

But I will say right here, testing a prophecy is about as effective as trusting internal flutterings alone. Oh, I suppose one could compare the prophecy to what is already known and determine if it’s sound and grounded in truth. However, it’s in my mind that a genuine prophecy is outside the normal range of reason. Otherwise, it would just be something the smart folks around us could figure out, they’d be able to predict. You know, those people who love statistics and computers, our weathermen and futurists.

Perhaps the key word here is not the test but the attitude? A prophetic utterance viewed with contempt will rarely find root.

I did check the Greek, as best I am able, and there is a some confusion as to whether the “testing” phrase is about the prophecies or about everything else, that is determining what is good and right vs. what is not. So, perhaps we aren’t supposed to test prophecies alone, but test the world around us.

Others will say that prophecies are not merely predictive, but rather some type of “edification or encouragement.” I think that’s pretty lame. There’s not much danger in doing that, is there? What is there to disregard or disdain?

No, I think it’s all the phrases [20-22] together that have meaning: I cannot hear truth of any kind if I have closed myself off through contempt, either for the speaker or the message. If I have made a decision before the time, then there is no possibility I will hear anything new. In other words, “we hear what we want to hear.”

Also, once we have heard something (anything), we shouldn’t act or react immediately, but let it settle inside. Some testing can be done by comparing the message with what is known, but for what is unknown, it takes a united exploration of those words and ideas with the Holy Spirit. And finally, out of everything spoken, we must hold fast to “good” and truth: once we accept the truth of a prophecy, then we must not let it go. From there comes strength to “avoid evil.”

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Grace Gifts

Posted in Lent, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on March 13, 2010| Leave a Comment »

We have “faculties, talents and qualities” that contribute to our uniqueness. They are gifts. Some of these gifts travel through our family lines, some appear supernaturally, some are discovered after years of disuse, but all are from God and given in grace. Exercising those gifts is a choice.

Romans 12:6-8
Having gifts (faculties, talents, qualities) that differ according to the grace given us, let us use them: [He whose gift is] prophecy . . . practical service . . . teaching . . . encouraging . . . contributing to the needs of others . . . leadership . . . showing mercy . . . . Amplified and NIV combined

Out of this list, I can manifest some of these attributes by sheer will. I can serve others or encourage, I can even contribute to the needs of others and I am working on showing mercy. These are all good things to have and employ. We would all do well to work on these areas of our lives.

Some people are simply gifted with these attributes and the expression of these gifts is instinctive. And yet, lots of the same folks don’t seem to realize they have the gifts and as a result, the gifts are under-used and the community suffers. Maybe it’s because people don’t even realize how important they are to the body of Christ . . . to the koinonia.

Paul specifically noted these gifts and although I’m sure the list is not necessarily exclusive, clearly these attributes are essential to any team or group (Christian or not, I’d say). There is always a need for visionaries (prophesying) while others handle the practicalities. Some must teach while those who struggle need to be encouraged by those who can see future success in anyone. There are those who understand and multiply resources for the good of all and there are those who can see the big picture and put the puzzle pieces together. And in a thriving group, there will be those whose mercy weaves compassion, gentleness, and forgiveness throughout.

What are your gifts? Do you have one or many? What is the gift of the one beside you? What is mine?

Remember, these gifts are given by grace. Whenever grace is involved, it means there is no “worthiness” involved. The gifts are undeserved and cannot be bought or earned. And yet, all are needed for a fully functioning koinonia.

If you are an encourager, then I exhort you to draw forth the natural gifts of those around you. It may be this role that is most essential to building a truly viable community.

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Warnings

Posted in Time Up to Pentecost, tagged , , , , , , , , , on May 11, 2009| Leave a Comment »

Luke 21:11
And there will be great earthquakes in various places, and famines and pestilences; and there will be fearful sights and great signs from heaven.

Jesus, like many of the earlier prophets, spent much of his teaching time warning people of what was to come, from his own death to the end time. I don’t believe the point of his warnings was to generate fear but a desire for change.

Prophets, futurists and fortune tellers alike base their predictions on what has been and what is now. They look at the trajectory. But the future can change if we change! We must pay attention to the warnings and the possibilities and if we want a different future, we must act.

With all of our wars, pestilences, famines, storms, and pollution, our earth’s trajectory is destruction. When looking at that “big picture” it is overwhelming and yes, even frightening. What can I possibly do to change this path?

If people’s hearts can be healed by love, then the earth can be healed in the same way. I know it sounds so corny, but truthfully, if we are not in relationship with our environment as well as our society, caring for them as we care for our own loved ones, who will? Koinonia (community) is not just the people, it’s place.

I am so small in this, but today, I will think on and do the small things that I can. I will bless my neighbor. I will bless my family and I will bless the earth, so lovingly given by God.

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