Not so soft

I loved the psalm I read today. It has a wonderfully rounded picture of God. As much as I like picturing God as my friend, and as real as God's friendship is to me, "friend" is an indadequate description of who God is. Psalm 50 says:


"Our God shall come, and shall not keep silent;
A fire shall devour before HIm,
And it shall be very tempestuous
all around Him....
Call upon Me in the day of trouble;
I will deliver you, and you shall
glorify Me."

and later

"But to the wicked God says;
What right have you to decalre my statutues,
Or take My covenant in your mouth,
Seeing you hate instruction
And cast My words behind you?...

Now consider this, you who forget God,
Lest I tear you in pieces,
And there be none to deliver:
Whoever offers praise glorifies Me;
And to him who orders his conduct aright
I will show the salvation of God."

That's a lot of text for one blog entry, but I loved it too much to cut it down any more. It seems a bit of an odd, harsh text to love, I know, but here's the thing: If I see a parent who is continually lenient with their child and when their child is acting up they just give chance after chance, I would consider that person a poor parent. How ridiculous of me to expect less of God! Love, real love, involves passion and justice. With so much evil in the world, I could only worship a God who intends to do something about that evil. I worship an amazing God of all consuming love. So much love that God cannot leave evil alone, but must act and must instruct and teach those who will learn, by whatever means necessary. I am so thankful for a powerful God.

Hum drum Majesty...

Every morning (well, I try every morning) I read a Psalm and a story from the Gospels. Todays Psalm was Psalm 47:

"God has gone up with a shout,
The Lord with the sound of a
trumpet.
Sing praises to God, sing praises!"
Psalm 47:5-6

Beautiful, inspiring, right? This morning, for me, not so much. My 3 yr old was up off and on for 1 hr after bedtime and then again between 2 and 4 am! For what? Wonderful reasons like "Roux's not very comfortable, can you come fluff Roux's pillow?" Seriously, kid?!? I want to "fluff" something right now. Grrr.

Today I face a day of incredible normality. Breakfast, clean up, get dressed, run errands, etc. And I'm exhausted. It's all oh so...normal. I'm not feeling the incredible majesty of God this morning. The best emotion I can muster is "blah".

I know that recognizing God's majesty isn't an emotion, and I want that majesty in my life today, even in the blah-ness of it. I really do. I sure hope God doesn't go on "feelings" because I'm sure not feeling it.

Is it ironic that the section I'm at in the gospel portion of my devotions started with "Take heed that you do not despise one of these little ones..." (Matthew 18:10)? Huh...

Truthiness

So yesterday my 3 yr old and I had a long discussion in the car about some complicated piece of theology that I try to put in kid-terms. This actually happens a lot. Lately it's been along the lines of "if God didn't create germs, where did they come from?" So, how to explain Sin and "The Fall" to a 3 yr old...

After a few failed attempts, I finally came up with an explanation that he was happy with. Adam and Eve stopped listening to God, so bad things happened. When we listen to God, good things happen. This makes sense to him. I, however, struggle.

I recognize that I need to present these things on a level that he can understand, yet I struggle when I know I'm not really telling him the truth. Bad things happen all the time, even when we do listen to God. Again, I'm not going to try to impress this on him, yet I feel what is almost a moral dilemma that I am somehow brainwashing him by giving everything a rosy-glow and not giving him a true understanding of the amazing, wonderful challenge it is to follow God in the midst of bad things.

I don't really have an ending for this thought. It's just one that comes up a lot. How to lead my children in to a truth-filled, full relationship with God as they grow. I think this will be a life-long struggle.