Progress
My tears have been my food by day and by night, while they say to me all the day, “Where is your God?” Psalm 42:3
By Day And By Night – It seems as if followers of YHWH often do battle on two fronts at the same time. On the one hand, we confront the world and its arrogant self-sufficiency. There is the constant challenge to live distinctively, be the magnet that God intends us to be, and at the same time, restore righteousness in places where the Enemy has a temporary but significant stronghold. On the other hand, despite our panting after the Lord, we often find our bread is baked with tears. YHWH confronts us too. His standards are exceedingly high. Holiness does not come naturally to men. More than a few times we wonder why He remains silent in the midst of our struggles on His behalf and for His people. Here’s what we need to remember. This is normal!
Reading the Psalms reminds us that the up and down experience of life among the thistles and thorns is normal. Right now it is yomam valaila (day and night) toil. A broken world does not provide perfect results, at least not all the time. A lot of life is lived in divine silence. That’s why it’s not possible to believe based on God’s present, visible involvement. We need to look beyond the human horizon. We follow a God who declares His steadfastness and justice even when we can’t see it. Our God is the hope-God, the God who demonstrates His sovereignty and then asks us to remember when He did show His hand. We live according to those sporadic encounters, not asking for a daily portion of divine obviousness, but expressing eternal gratitude when we receive it.
“Give us this day” expresses reliance on the character of the One who would never provide a stone or a serpent when bread is called for. But it is also a declaration of hope – that God is gracious, merciful and compassionate. It is the proclamation that today His hesed (lovingkindness) outweighs His judgment, even if our nourishment is seasoned with salty tears.
Pharaoh derided Moses with the question, “Who is this God?” Today opponents echo the enemies of the psalmist with “Where is this God?” We can answer the first question. This is YHWH, God of Israel, El Shaddai, the only God. But we have a bit more trouble with the second question. It’s hard to explain where God is when we see genocide, ecological disaster, virulent corruption and moral degradation. That’s when we need a strong view of the depravity of Man and the patience of God. That’s when we need a theology of hope. Our bread might be salty this morning, but God has not abandoned His world or His people. His hand works secretly in the affairs of men. It is disclosed to the eyes of the faithful – to the ones who persevere. Perhaps we look too hard for the miraculous interventions. Perhaps we are blind to His invisible sustaining actions because we have forgotten the meaning of hope.
Topical Index: day and night, hope, Psalm 42:3
“More than a few times we wonder why He remains silent in the midst of our struggles on His behalf and for His people. Here’s what we need to remember. This is normal!”
This is such a great reminder! When God seems silent, it’s so easy for me to forget that I’m not the only one who has had these moments. Remember! More and more that seems to be the theme I need to focus on. I remember Abraham waiting 25 years for Isaac; I remember Daniel waiting 9 (I think) years in prison to be lifted up; I remember David waiting many years to become king of Israel as God promised; I remember Hannah and Ruth with Naomi, and Jacob for Rachel, even Yeshua who waited 31-years (I think) to start his ministry. If God “talked” all the time, I’d never learn to trust Him in the raging silence of chaos. I’d never learn to remember and walk in faithfulness to His lovingkindness. And I would never be driven to seek Him day and night, tearfully and desperately, emptying all my desires so He can come and fill me again with His dreams and His strength.
It’s not my favorite time, but it’s nice to be reminded that it’s normal. 🙂
Thanks!
“This is normal!” Yes Skip…”This is normal!” Timely reminder, wonderful encouragement…Thanks!
The famous opening statement of Vince Lombardi (the famous coach for the Green Packers) was: “Gentlemen, this is a football.”
Here is my “opening line” today- “you cannot “see” G-d, He is invisible.” Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory for ever and ever. Amen (1 Timothy 1.7)
Here is the “closing line” today- “We live by what we hear, not by what we see.” -So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. (2 Corinthians 4.18) Hey!– “what are you lookin’ at?”
David, was sure nuff’ and emotional creature. (that’s a good thing!) He was a poet and a musician and lest we forget..- a man after G-d’s own heart. (who also is a “poet” and a “musician!”) – way cool!
Our infinitely creative (unseen) ever present (yes, right here, right now), Elohim. Our Emmanuel- “G-d, with us!” A very present Help in time of need. (I’ll call you if I need you- our genie in a bottle..-NOT!!)
No, no and no. He is YHWH- the ever present ONE. Just ask Jonah- where are you going to “escape” Him? – yeah, go ahead and think about it. Selah.
The day and the night are both alike unto Him. He has no problem “seeing” in the dark. Hannah named Him – El Roi- “the G-d who sees.” “Thou LORD, seest me.” -Does He ever. (and the amazing part is, He loves me anyway! (another Selah?)
Today, our Father, let us realize and recognize, whether here or there, You are “with us” and You are “for us!” We will worship You, our eternal G-d, and be careful to give unto You, our Elohim,- the glory due unto Hashem. Breath upon us, this day, that we may live to serve You, and to love one another. In the name of the ONE who intercedes for us. Amen.
Got to add a quick p.s. to this today: Pharoah asked the second greatest question in all of the Bible-, one that we should ask ourselves: “Who is the LORD that I should obey (shema) Him? -(Selah #3!)
Here is my “opening line” today- “you cannot “see” G-d, He is invisible.”
Here is the “closing line” today- “We live by what we hear, not by what we see.”
Hi Carl,
While what you say above is probably theologically correct, it does not “ring true” to me.
I rarely hear from God but tend to see signs of God virtually everywhere I go.
For example, yesterday morning my friends Michele and David invited me to see their daughter and son in law’s new house in Pacifica.
The address was 711 “Corona” and the freeway exit was 47.
It was the Sabbath.
Our old Jewish friend Steve from grad school in literature, now a lawyer, was the real estate agent.
It has been said that the Hebrews saw the One and Only One God as having His exclusive throne as the “Keter” (Corona/Crown) of all existence.
And as I understand it, Keter is the root of “Stephen” in Hebrew.
Both Steve and Michele’s daughter Vanessa coincidentally attended Columbia in NY as undergrads.
Vanessa, now an artist/teacher, enthusiatically showed me her artwork, which was really quite good.
It contained many signs and symbols of Hebrew mysticism, but she was not aware of their source.
The house was a beautiful old two story in the hills with views of the beach and the mountains.
So when Steve arrived I said “wow you’ve really outdone yourself; what a bargain, and what a lucky address.”
Steve said, “yeah, thank heaven for 7/11.”
To him, who is able to keep you from falling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy-to the only God, our Savior, be glory, majesty, power and authority through Jesus Christ out LORD, before all ages, now and forevermore! AMEN! Jude 24-25
We did not save, redeem, rescue ourselves, God did that! He opened our blinded eyes, removed the hearts stone cold from rebellion and sin, gave us a new heart filled with His power and therefore by the mercy and grace He, and I repeat, HE gave, we go forward for His purpose. No matter what comes our way or whether all around us goes south, our compass is always pointing north toward Him. Praise the Eternal One for keeping us.
Skip,
These offerings are incredibly edifying and faith-stretching! Thank you!
Shalom,
[It’s hard to explain where God is when we see genocide, ecological disaster, virulent corruption and moral degradation. That’s when we need a strong view of the depravity of Man and the patience of God. That’s when we need a theology of hope.]
Skip … I can agree up to a certain point that we might have difficulty in making our case that “G_D is actively at work in this world”! Yet when we look back at history through the perspective of The WORD … what do we see?
Oh yes we see the history of G_D intervening … we see the mighty signs and wonders … but we also see the consequences of a fallen creation … war, hate, pain, suffering, etc. What we see is the fallen state of man-kind who remains separated from G_D. My point is that what we see today is not new! … BUT … we also see The G_D of Israel continuing to work wonders for HIS chosen people. Just ask those who seek her destruction on a daily basis. You know we are not too far removed from some major signs and wonders … do we grasp these miracles and cling to them as we do the “crossing of the sea” or the “fall of Jericho?”
I think far too often people look for miracles from the King of Israel that are not going to happen! People look for miracles to be freely dispensed to nations that are not Israel … to people who are not Israelites!
I might also take issue with this notion of a theology of hope! Nope … I say we deliver a message of hope that is experienced based. We should all be able to bring the presence and proof of G_D to anyone who asks … “where is G_D?” I know for me that faith has moved the mountain … that pile of stone that was my heart and that pillar of rock which stiffened my neck continually … for years. These are the signs and wonders of faith and hope. I was born blind and now I can see! I was deaf and now I can hear! I was captive and now He has set me free from the bondage of this world! I was frightened always of “what will be” and now I fear only G_D! I once was a child of darkness and now I walk in HIS light!
A theology of hope … frankly I hear too much about signs and wonders personally. All we hear coming out of the churches are “words of prophecy” … or about signs that persons “have the gift” … etc. It seems to me that many are scrambling to “prove the existence and presence of G_D in their lives” …
Yeshua (as always) was right on the money … if we can’t explain the temporal things of this world correctly how can we possibly explain the things of Heaven! If I can’t witness from a position of submission and obedience to The Way then I suppose all that I have to make my case would be theology!
We should all be able to bring the presence and proof of G_D to anyone who asks … “where is G_D?”
Hi Drew,
I don’t think there is any proof that God exists.
But I think we should all be able to bring the presence of God into our lives.
“Seek and ye shall find” tends to be especially applicable when loved ones are born or die.
Michael,
This thinking is your prerogative! And I would only add the following comments in closing:
If the presence of G_D in our lives is not something that can be proven … i.e. this presence manifests as nothing different then olam hazeh for instance … then I would question if G_D is present at all!
Beyond this … The Word reveals that G_D declares in advance the things to be and to come … specifically so that HIS faithfulness, power and glory are revealed.
The Greek test of proof is not relevant to me.
Hi Drew,
First let’s distinguish between the two types of Olam as I understand it:
– Olam Haze (this world)
– Olam Haba (the world to come)
Drew: If the presence of G_D in our lives is not something that can be proven
Mike: If you think you can prove the existence of God, then you should listen to Skip’s intro to hermenuetics.
Drew: If this presence manifests as nothing different then olam hazeh for instance, then I would question if G_D is present at all!
Mike: I did not say this presence manifests as nothing different than olam hazeh for instance.
Mike: To quote Bono:
I believe in the Kingdom Come
Then all the colours will bleed into one
Mike: But I also choose to see God’s presence in this world and to interpret what is given to me as gifts from God; signs of his will.
It seems that if Michael and Drew would define the words “proof” and decide whether experience, or phenomenological evidence, can be admitted as “proof”, then maybe they would be “seeing” the same things.
God may choose NOT to use the terminology that we or the scientific community uses. He is not obliged to use our terms. Perhaps, what we “see” naturally IS proof, and perhaps it is OUR understanding of the nature of “proof” is the thing that needs adjustment.
Thanks for the clarification, Cheryl. Contemporary culture, based as it is in scientific naturalism, denies evidence that does not fit the stringent requires of a Baconian metaphysics. Of course, there are enormous problems with this truncated view of the experienced world, as every scientist who goes home to his children must admit. Life is not compressed into repeatable tests. As Heschel points out, our experience of the world is made up of events and they are, by nature, unrepeatable, exactly what the Baconian mechanics denies of verifiable truth. But no one has any problem living in a world of experiences that are impossible to repeat and test. it is the paradigm on scientific naturalism that is out of touch with the experienced concept of Truth, not the other way around. To “prove” the existence of God while being restricted to Bacon view of evidence is a category mistake. It is the concept of “proof” that needs adjustment, not the evidence for a designed universe. I am sure that careful articulation of the ideas of proof, evidence and experience would demonstrate that any reasonable person musts admit life without designed order is simply incoherent.
Hi Cheryl,
There is a good movie called Proof about a supernatural relationship between a father and daughter.
If one had this type of experience one would probably not need any further proof, right?
But there is no scientific proof for the existence of God or for psychic phenomenon for that matter.
And there is no proof that would hold up in a court of law as far as I know.
In terms of phenomenological evidence, I’m not sure what that would be, but I would imagine a phenomenologist like Jean Paul Sartre could have refuted it.
As I recall Sartre, who was an atheist, argued rather persuasively that the very need to prove God’s existence was a form of “bad faith.”
Roughly the equivalent of trying to prove that our consciousness is “something,” rather than what it is: “nothing” but freedom to choose.
I think your understanding of “scientific” proof is too shallow. A good number of well-know physicists and mathematicians conclude that the complexity of information found within the structure of the universe is indeed evidence of a Designer (in spite of Hume’s insufficient objection). Furthermore, phenomenological evidence, like the life-experience of millions of believers, puts Sartre to shame. His view of faith and of the life-experience of ordinary human beings presupposes an elitist attitude that only the French could endure. You have unnecessarily restricted “scientific” to the Baconian model, and as most philosophers of science will quickly point out, that model fails to actually prove the existence of science or anything else. Its dependency on verification theory and induction has serious logical fallacies in relation to “proof” and has been pretty much abandoned since the Positivists (see the critique of T. S. Kuhn). Phenomenology (not Sartre’s bastardization of it) expresses substantial evidence for a divine being (but not necessarily the God of Scripture), evidence that cannot simply be swept away by an arbitrary definition of what is a “fact.”
Hi Michael,
I think what I am trying to get at here is that you are being ambiguous or equivocating (I won’t speculate on motive) in using the word “proof”. There are many types of Proof.
According to the definition on Dictionary.com the word Proof has the following entries:
1. evidence sufficient to establish a thing as true, or to produce belief in its truth.
2. anything serving as such evidence: What proof do you have?
3. the act of testing or making trial of anything; test; trial: to put a thing to the proof.
4. the establishment of the truth of anything; demonstration.
5. Law . (in judicial proceedings) evidence having probative weight.
6. the effect of evidence in convincing the mind.
7. an arithmetical operation serving to check the correctness of a calculation.
8. Mathematics, Logic . a sequence of steps, statements, or demonstrations that leads to a valid conclusion.
9. a test to determine the quality, durability, etc., of materials used in manufacture.
In your response to me, you have used several synonyms for proof that are ALL contained in one of these definitions. For example, in your first few sentences you used
A. Phenomenological proof (Experience) (Definition 6)
B. Logical Proof (additional facts to back up an argument) (Definition 1)
C. Scientific Proof (facts needed to support the hypothesis) (Definition 3)
D. Legal Proof (evidence to support a legal case for verdict) (Definition 5)
All of these definitions use the same word, PROOF. So if you are going to show them as somehow different, you will have to define that difference, and you cannot use the word being defined in the definition.
So, while you think there is a difference between “proof” and “experience” what you are actually arguing are two definitions of the same concept, or two sides of the same coin.
What I was trying to say is that when people speak of something that has multiple meanings, they have to define the terms precisely or risk not communicating at all.
So which proof are you talking about, when you say proof?