Author: cjmichael14

Hello! I’m Carolyn, word nerd & bookworm, (so says my B.A. in English Lit), wife of 10 years, mom of 6 and 1.5 years, newly converted homeschool mom (former elementary reading, math, and spelling teacher), and Usborne Books & More enthusiast turned consultant!! This blog serves two purposes: 1) I use it to share with YOU all the ways I’ve LOVED using my UBAM books for homeschooling and 2) It helps ME remember all the ways I’ve LOVED using my UBAM books for homeschooling for when #2 is ready to start!! On this blog I intend to share with you UBAM homeschool essentials, lesson plans, teaching resources and projects I’ve created, and more! Check out my latest posts to hear what Usborne Books & More books could be most useful to you!!

Talk About Trouble: Chapter 2

What mesmerizes me about the book of Job is that it turns out human theology, human reasoning, human religion has stayed almost entirely the same in the thousands of years since this literary masterpiece was written. I could have written entire passages of this book myself, though not as eloquently, because I have felt them. I know exactly how these people feel. I have experiences, moments in my life, that I can attach these words to, and they FIT. Thousands of years of surface changes later – changes of technology, fashion, government, trends, languages, foods, and lifestyles – and the thoughts and feelings of humans remain unchanged. That’s why I am enamored by old literature. We are more alike with the people of the past than we will ever know.

I’m still not talking about Job. But his wife… well. She is definitely relatable.

Sometimes we forget that Job did not suffer all these tragedies alone. There’s another character in this story who just got caught in the crosshairs, unfortunate human collateral, and she serves as a contrast to show how most of us would have responded under similar circumstances. The “control” of the experiment, if you will: Job’s wife. At the beginning of chapter one, Job’s wife was a wealthy woman with ten healthy, happy children and the kindest, most generous husband in all the land. By the end of chapter one, she was destitute and bereft, and that wasn’t even enough for the Accuser. Job lost everything he had (except, notably, his wife, who seems to have been protected under the umbrella of “don’t harm him physically” – after all, “the two shall become one flesh”), and still, the Accuser claimed he only passed the first experiment because it wasn’t a good enough test.

Satan replied to the Lord, “Skin for skin! A man will give up everything he has to save his life. But reach out and take away his health, and he will surely curse you to your face!” (Job 2:4-5)

So Job is tested again in a way that challenges our understanding of fairness. Job would later describe his affliction in these unpleasantly descriptive terms:

My body is covered with maggots and scabs.
    My skin breaks open, oozing with pus. (Job 7:5)

Lest we should think his illness a mild one – it wasn’t.

It is so easy to look at Job’s wife and judge her for what she says to him. This is literally her only moment that is preserved for all of history to judge – and it is her absolute lowest. It is so easy to forget that this woman is traumatized and grieving, in shock, and watching the best man she’s ever known suffer the agony of these horrific sores. His flesh is literally rotting. She loves him, I am convinced she must given who he is, and she is watching him live painfully and die slowly. What would I say to my own husband, who I love completely, in this moment? I would be desperate to stop his suffering, and I believe she is also a desperate woman. Desperate women are prone to saying wrong and foolish things, that’s true. I have been a desperate woman, too. And wow would I hate to be remembered as nothing but my lowest moment.

So remember that’s where she is when she says –

His wife said to him, “Are you still trying to maintain your integrity? Curse God and die.” (Job 2:8)

And so we arrive at the second pinch point of the story. Again, Job is faced with a choice, and in about 15 seconds, after he makes that choice, all of heaven is going to know who he is – for certain this time. That’s how long it takes to make a choice that makes or breaks us. I have always marveled at how long the consequences can last for a decision that takes so little time to make. These knee-jerk reaction choices we make come from within us and reveal us like nothing else does. I crumple when I think of some that I have made, and I know it’s only by the blood of Jesus this weak-hearted woman can be saved.

But Job says (and this is why I think Job’s wife was really all right most of the time – he talks to her like she’s briefly lost her mind, which indicates to me this was outside her ordinary behavior):

But Job replied, “You talk like a foolish woman. Should we accept only good things from the hand of God and never anything bad?” So in all this, Job said nothing wrong. (Job 2:10)

All of this happens in only the first two of forty-two chapters. What does this tell us about the literary work we are about to read? This tells us that the circumstances of Job’s life right now are not the story. They are only the backstory, the catalyst, the setting; the real plot happens in the midst of them. The story is the reckoning that comes after. The story is how these men try to understand what has befallen him. The story is the hearts that are revealed – changed – grown.

Enter: the three antagonists – errr, friends. I mean friends.

When three of Job’s friends heard of the tragedy he had suffered, they got together and traveled from their homes to comfort and console him. (Job 2:11)

I like to think they really had the best intentions. It says so right there – they came to comfort and console him! But wow, did that shot go wide. Made a few of those kind of shots myself, in fact.

But more about wide shots to come.

Talk About Trouble: Chapter 1

I have always been mesmerized by the book of Job. It was the first book of the Bible I ever started trying to read by myself, when I was about 8 and had just gotten my first ever little pink Precious Moments Bible. I picked it, I think, because the name was easy to read. Except I mispronounced it, like every child does the first time, and I’m sure when I told my mother what I was reading she found that endearing. I remember she said to me, “The book of Job can be kind of hard to understand.” Misunderstanding her, I said, “I understand it!” I thought she meant the words were hard to read. But of course, she was speaking theologically. And she was right!

I think that’s why Job has ever since been my favorite book of the Bible, although it’s not something I like to say. It sounds arrogant. It sounds like I’m saying I identify with the main character; that I, too, feel righteous and wronged. Quite the opposite, my dears, quite the opposite. I find Eliphaz the Temanite and Zophar the Naamathite far more relatable. I wish I was more like Job, but he’s absolutely baffling. I’ve returned to the book several times over the years, puzzling over the back-and-forth conversation, trying to understand what was so wrong about what Eliphaz and Zophar had to say. Why were they rebuked? I wondered. Weren’t they defending God’s justice as they had always known it? Aren’t their arguments echoed in other places – in the Psalms, in Kings and Chronicles, in Exodus, in the gospels and epistles? Doesn’t Job himself echo what they have to say? Where is the divergence of their beliefs and the truth?

Job is my favorite book because it is so nuanced, so unflattering to me, so difficult for me to wrap my head around. There is something here – it may not be something easy and it may not be something pleasant, but this little book is important, so I cherish it. In it, I find my errors. There is some mysterious truth in these pages I desperately want to understand. The heart of God is here, and I want it.

So yesterday I started reading Job again. I thought I’d just read a little, maybe a little more each day. No one else was home, a rare quiet moment for me, so I read it out loud. I feel like it hit differently that way. The emotion of the characters began to hum, to jump out of the pages. This is how the book was probably first recorded, orally, and how it is meant to be heard. It is one of those stories older than even the written word itself: some part of it dies on the page, I think, but speaking it revives it. The more I read, the more compelled I was to keep reading, to understand what on earth these people are saying. I read the whole book, 42 chapters. It upended my plans for the day, but I could not let it go. What did they say that God rebuked them? So many of their arguments are voices to my own beliefs, past and present. And God rebukes them:

After the Lord had finished speaking to Job, he said to Eliphaz the Temanite: “I am angry with you and your two friends, for you have not spoken accurately about me, as my servant Job has. So take seven bulls and seven rams and go to my servant Job and offer a burnt offering for yourselves. My servant Job will pray for you, and I will accept his prayer on your behalf. I will not treat you as you deserve, for you have not spoken accurately about me, as my servant Job has.” (Job 42:7-8)

His rebuke seems wholly unconnected to their arguments in my mind. Clearly my mind is wrong. I do not like to be wrong about God; it scares me. So I dig in harder, ask the God who is never wrong to open this mystery to me. Help me, Holy Spirit, to understand things you said to men so much wiser than me!

To understand the end, we go back to the beginning.

The book of Job begins by setting the scene for a complex set of poetical, philosophical soliloquys that compare and contrast the widely held theological beliefs of the time. It asks a “what if” question, the basis of all fine literature: what if Job does not get what he wants? Does his faith, does his righteousness dissipate if he does not get his reward for it? Will the good cease to be good if justice ceases to appear just?

I don’t know a lot about a lot of things in this world, but I know something about stories. I come at everything in this world from that angle because it’s the only one I’ve got: I’m not a theologian, I’m not a historian. I’m not a scientist, an engineer, or a mathematician. I’m a word nerd story lover with an obsessive streak and a keyboard. Sorry if you’re getting tired of it, but it’s what I’ve got. This is something storytellers say in the story-making world that I carry with me into Job: “Plot reveals character.” I’ve probably said it here before. We read, we listen, we absorb stories not because we really care about exactly what happens, but because we care about how the characters will respond to what happens. We care about what it reveals about who they are. The Bible is, in my eyes, the finest piece of literature in existence in this way; it lays out the pattern clearly to show us how God has written, not fiction, but all of nature and history to reveal character – his and ours. Like a pair of good glasses that bring the world back into focus, the Bible sharpens the edges of what has happened in our past to allow us to see our God and ourselves, maybe for the first time, clearly.

Then the Lord asked Satan, “Have you noticed my servant Job? He is the finest man in all the earth. He is blameless—a man of complete integrity. He fears God and stays away from evil.” (Job 1:8)

This is where Job begins: God and the Accuser are discussing who Job really is. God claims there is no one on earth as righteous as Job. The Accuser says, “You get out what you put in, God. He’s only good because you’ve given him good things.”

Satan replied to the Lord, “Yes, but Job has good reason to fear God. You have always put a wall of protection around him and his home and his property. You have made him prosper in everything he does. Look how rich he is! But reach out and take away everything he has, and he will surely curse you to your face!” (Job 1:9-11)

God, being the scientist that he is, allows this hypothesis to be tested. He knows what the result will be. But knowing that others will eventually reach the same upside-down conclusion, ready to demonstrate once and for all the error of the claim, he allows the scientific method to reveal it.

Here is the scientific question: is goodness a result of gratification only, or does it exist independently? Separated from its reward, will Job’s righteousness cease to exist? Why does he do what he does?

What – in short – is Job’s motivation?

The Accuser thinks it is health and wealth, external goodness that manifests by internal goodness – material possessions, comfort, success, honor, ease and plenty – if you would just give us all what we want, Lord, we all would be as good as Job. (Go on, tell me you’ve never heard that argument.) If, then, Job’s actions get him what he wants, only if they get him what he wants, he will continue doing them.

But God thinks there is something more. God thinks there is another reason Job does what he does. God thinks Job’s motivation is anchored in something firmer: conviction in God’s existence and consequent right to do as he chooses, and complete, pure, unshakeable trust in his Master God. Job, simply put, has real faith. Faith not in the circumstantial outcome, but in the character of God.

There is only one way to test this. They must separate the man from the reward. For the sake of clarification, for the sake of revelation, to silence the Accuser and all who would follow in his thinking, for the good of even us who would read it forever after, for a depth of just, perfect reasons beyond these, beyond what our human minds can even hold – God allows Job to be tested.

This is where we first trip.

Is this just? God allows Job to be tested. God allows Jesus to be killed. Who is this terrifying God, and what does it mean to serve him?

Job stood up and tore his robe in grief. Then he shaved his head and fell to the ground to worship. He said,

“I came naked from my mother’s womb,
    and I will be naked when I leave.
The Lord gave me what I had,
    and the Lord has taken it away.
Praise the name of the Lord!” (Job 1:20-21)

Don’t worry. This is the pinnacle of literature, the story we wait on baited breath to hear. All will be told in due time.

Talk About Trouble: Intro

On this frigid January morning when I arrived to drop my daughter off at school, the staff and volunteers weren’t ready for us. At the designated drop off time, the cones were still on their dollies, the vests were still hung, and no one was there to greet or check in our students. The line of cars wrapped around the parking lot, waiting.

The question loomed in front of us all: what do we do now?

Little do we know how much our responses to the hiccups in our day reveal about our characters. Little do we know how far most of our responses are from God’s hopes.

A boy got out of the car in front of us, one of my daughter’s classmates. He’s twelve. I know because she went to his birthday party a month ago. He had a coat, but no hat or gloves, and the moment he stepped out of the car he already looked cold. He jogged across the parking lot as we all speculated where he was going. Was he going to tell them his mom had to get to work, could they please hurry up? Was he in desperate need of a bathroom?

“He’s probably going to help,” my daughter, who knows him, said.

Sure enough, a moment later, he reappeared in a vest and started helping set up cones. It’s not his job. It’s never been his job. No one else was doing it. No one asked him to do it. No one expected him to do it. He did not come prepared to do it. But he saw others struggling to accomplish the work, for whatever reason, and it was within his power to help – so he helped.

What can we bring to the Lord?
    Should we bring him burnt offerings?
Should we bow before God Most High
    with offerings of yearling calves?
Should we offer him thousands of rams
    and ten thousand rivers of olive oil?
Should we sacrifice our firstborn children
    to pay for our sins?

No, O people, the Lord has told you what is good,
    and this is what he requires of you:
to do what is right, to love mercy,
    and to walk humbly with your God.

Micah 6:8

And it struck me, thunder and all – that’s what Job means. That’s the difference between righteousness and its knockoff, hypocrisy. The difference between the real God and his countless imitations. Righteous men do not stop to think what they can gain by right action; God does not stop to think what reward he will receive for his goodness. He acts good because he is good. Job acted righteously because he was righteous. They need no reward to continue acting the same because it is what they are. The rewards they receive are only joy added to the joy of acting according to their being.

It’s all about motivation. I say it all the time, so I’ll say it again: it’s all about motivation!

What moves me to act the way that I act? What moves God to act the way that he acts? What is our motivation?

That is the question. (Sorry, Hamlet.) The answer to it reveals what is so well buried by our actions, by our accomplishments, by our outward appearances: our hearts. The revelation, purification, and reconciliation of our hearts with God’s heart is his ultimate purpose, the good thing his good heart wants to accomplish because he is good.

So, he allows us to be tested to reveal what we are made of. And one of the clearest ways to reveal our hearts is how we respond to trouble: our own, and that of those around us.

This morning, I saw a twelve year old boy meet God’s hopes for us all: when others struggled with the weight they carried, he did not mock, disdain, or complain about their weakness. He did not wait to find out they had a good reason before he would help. He did not stand in superiority over them and demand they meet some unrealistic, unhuman standard of strength, believing he could do better in their place. He was not entitled to their work or critical of their failure. He did not consider why they were late and whether or not they deserved to suffer the consequences of it. He just zipped up his coat, got out of the car, and helped.

So let’s talk some more about trouble. Let’s talk about Job. Let me talk about what I found.

Power Made Perfect

When I was little, we spent a good amount of time at the Christian bookstore. I loved the little knickknacks they sold there; delicate teacups and wall hangings with Bible verses on them, holographic bookmarks, name cards with name meanings and verses, pens and erasers and journals and gum and whatever little baubles they could slap a verse or clever saying on and call it “inspirational.” I bought a magnet once that had a puppy leaning sleepily on a dumbbell and saying, “If it can’t be easier, Lord, help me to be stronger.” For a long time, I thought that attitude sounded pretty holy.

I have lived around strong enough people in my life to know I am far from the strongest of people. I am the youngest in my family: weakest. I am the girl among the boys: weakest. I am the shy one: weak. The quiet one: weak. The bookish one: weak. Weak, weak, weak.

As an adult, I wrestle with less obvious kinds of weakness every day. I am the disorganized one: weak. The time blind one: weak. “Irresponsible,” people who grow frustrated with my weakness say. “Childish. Lazy.” And I hear what they don’t say: weak.

I hate watching nature documentaries because I see what happens to the weak in a world full of stronger things. I’m not a fool. I know I’m the one the predator targets. I know I’m not the one who wins the fight.

God and I have had many a discussion about my weakness. They tend to go like this: “God, why did you make me so weak? If it can’t be easier, Lord, help me to be stronger! I need to be STRONG!”

And God says: “My grace is sufficient for you, my power made perfect in weakness. Why do you need to be strong?”1

And I say, “But God. People are angry at me. They’re angry at me for being a burden, for being so weak that I tax their strength. I ask too much of them. I need to be stronger! I need to pull my weight.”

And He says, “The strong ought to bear with the failings of the weak, and not to please themselves. Blessed are those who have regard for the weak. I chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. Why do you need to be strong?”2

And I say, “But Lord, Your word says, “Be strong and courageous.”3 I need to be strong. I need to be strong so I can help the weak.”

And He says, “Be strong in me, and in MY mighty power. My power is made perfect in weakness. You have the strength to help the weak; you have Me. Why do you need to be strong?”4

And then I start to really think about his question. Why do I need to be strong? So I can take care of myself. So I won’t need help. So I can be impressive, not disdained. So I won’t be vulnerable. So I won’t be hurt anymore. So I will be safe.

And He whispers, “So you won’t need Me.”

And that’s it, isn’t it. I want to be strong so I can be independent from God. I want to be what He is so I don’t need Him.

And I feel His heart go quiet and sad. Because not only is He strong, He wants to be strong for me. He wants to give me the gift of His strength. He wants to show me His love this way. And I keep insisting that’s not enough for me. What an ungrateful way to treat a gift of love.

And what of this: what if God has allowed me to be weak to reveal the hearts of the strong? What if I am a challenge, a question: What if you were the strongest one? That may be the hardest test a soul can take. What would you do in God’s shoes? My weakness asks the strong. What would you do with His power? Will you spend your strength for yourself, or use it instead on me? How many strong people have flunked the test of the weak! Look at the cruelty splattered across the pages of human history, across our cities, in our streets, in even our homes, from one side of the world to the other and back again. What if my weakness exposes others’ wickedness so that humankind can repent – confess – be healed! What if it makes us marvel all the more at God, strongest of us all, who is never, ever cruel.

And God whispers, “Will you help them see Me? Will you be weak?”

All right, Lord. If my weakness reveals Your glory, then if it can’t be easier, be strong for me. If it can’t be easier, be my stronghold, my refuge, my strength! If it can’t be easier, then Christ’s power rest on me. Mine will be the witness of the weak.

Even the weakness of God is greater than man’s strength!5

“This is what the Lord says:

“Let not the wise boast of their wisdom
    or the strong boast of their strength
    or the rich boast of their riches,
but let the one who boasts boast about this:
    that they have the understanding to know me,
that I am the Lord, who exercises kindness,
    justice and righteousness on earth,
    for in these I delight,”
declares the Lord.” Jeremiah 9:23-24

  1. 2 Corinthians 12:9 ↩︎
  2. Romans 15:1, Psalm 41:1, 1 Corinthians 1:27 ↩︎
  3. Joshua 1:9 ↩︎
  4. Ephesians 6:10, 2 Corinthians 2:19 ↩︎
  5. 1 Corinthians 1:25 ↩︎

Denying the Undeniable God

“Then the Lord gave these instructions to Moses: “Order the Israelites to turn back and camp by Pi-hahiroth between Migdol and the sea. Camp there along the shore, across from Baal-zephon. Then Pharaoh will think, ‘The Israelites are confused. They are trapped in the wilderness!’ And once again I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, and he will chase after you. I have planned this in order to display my glory through Pharaoh and his whole army. After this the Egyptians will know that I am the Lord!” So the Israelites camped there as they were told.” Exodus 14:1-4

My heart squeezes sadly a little every time I hear the Lord say, “Then they will know that I am the Lord!” Do you hear it? Can you hear it in His voice? His desire to be known by the people of his own creation is intense, real, heartrending. Do you ever wonder why he has to go to such great lengths to get people’s attention, to reveal himself? And do you ever read this repetitive phrase – “Then they will know that I am the Lord” – and wonder… but will they?

Because if there is any one power humans have in excess, it is denial.

Look at what God did in Egypt prior to this chapter. He turned off the sun. He turned an entire river into blood. He wrecked their livestock with hail, their produce with bugs, their health with boils, their futures with the death of EVERY firstborn son in Egypt. And yet – Pharaoh, who had been convinced for a moment that he was dealing with a powerful God, once again, changed. his. mind. And came after God’s people, again.

On the one hand, I can’t wrap my head around this point: God turned off the sun, and Pharaoh still didn’t get who he was dealing with. On the other hand, I’ve seen miracles too. I know how hard I’ve prayed for them, and I know it was God who came through. And yet… was it? Was it really? Or did I just get lucky that one time, or did I just work harder than I had before, or was it doctors or politicians or my family or… actually ME who really made it happen? When God uses human hands to meet my needs in miraculous ways… to whom does the credit really belong?

Chances are good that when things go my way, I’m going to find a way to convince myself it was my own doing.

Oof. But it’s true.

So how, then, am I ever going to know who God is when I keep attributing his actions to myself?

Oof.

Well. Human denial can go a lot farther than it should. But it has its (extreme) limits, too, I hope.

Sometimes, to teach us denying humans the undeniable goodness and power of the God we serve, he has to make it really, really obvious.

Sea-splitting obvious.

So he lets us get trapped in a vulnerable location. He himself commands us to go there. He actually tells us to set up camp at Pi-Hahiroth, fully knowing how vulnerable a location it is, knowing that Pharaoh will think we are confused, and knowing he is the only, only Being in all of creation that could pull off what he’s about to do.

Picture it: the people are trapped, completely trapped, between Pharaoh’s army, the most advanced, well-fed, well-funded human army in the world, and the sea. Not the sort of thing that can be forded or swum across, you feel me. No bridges. No boats. No way around. No way out. TRAPPED. With their weak and vulnerable loved ones. With their elderly, their sick, their pregnant women, their children. And beginning to fondly remember their nice cozy (slave) beds in Egypt… because the fact of the matter is, they were about to die out there, in the wilderness. Everything they had feared, every fear that had kept them too scared to leave Egypt until now, until they courageously chose to trust God and head into the wilderness, believing he wouldn’t let it happen, that he would take care of them, that all these horrible things humans had experienced in the wilderness before would not happen to them – well. It was happening, all of it was happening. They were out of their own strength, running on empty, depleted, exhausted, done for. And they knew it. Surrender and suffer, or don’t and die. These were the choices that were within their power.

And that’s it, isn’t it? Never do we ever consider choices outside our own power. We can’t make it work, so surely God can’t either, amiright? I mean, it’s just math. It’s just science. It’s just reality. Some things just. can’t. happen.

“Then the Lord said to Moses, “Why are you crying out to me? Tell the people to get moving! Pick up your staff and raise your hand over the sea. Divide the water so the Israelites can walk through the middle of the sea on dry ground.” Exodus 14:15-16

I’m sorry, divide the what now? What do you mean why are we crying out to you?? Get moving WHERE?? Divide the WHAT. NOW. Have you ever tried to cut water in half? I don’t mean pour one cup of water into several containers, I mean grab a knife and try to cut the water – with a knife. Divide the water. Sure, yeah, why didn’t I think of that.

There are just some things even the most ignorant of us know cannot happen. It does not exist.

But God did it.

And in that moment… they knew. The whole world, for a moment, knew.

I know where I’m trapped in my life. I know the corner I’m backed into, and I know that everything I’ve tried to do to get out of it has failed. I know where I am – I’m camped at Pi-Hahiroth, between Migdol and the sea. The location is vulnerable, and the enemy is – gleefully – coming to take advantage of my folly. There is no escape.

…Or is there?

Lord, rip open the water in front of me. Walk me through it, and let it drown my enemy. I know you’re coming. Let the denying world be silenced and stand in awe and reverence. Be undeniable. You are God.

May we, forever, know it.

I Don’t Know

For the account of Thomas, Skeptic turned Believer, read John 20:24-29

“I don’t know, but my big brother knows.”

When I was very little, this was my answer to every question. He was two years older than me, talked nonstop, and, my tiny self was very sure, knew the answer to every question ever posed by mankind. Why bother asking me when you could just ask him?

Sometimes – okay, most of the time – I did know the answer, or at least I was pretty sure I did. Okay I thought I did? But – the moment the question was actually posed – the moment someone turned their eyes on me, quiet little me who so carefully avoided them – in that moment, when my shy little mind went white with panic, I was never sure. Maybe “I don’t know” was a cop out answer. Maybe “I don’t know” was really “I’m afraid to say.” Maybe. I use that qualifying “I might be wrong” word now instead. Maybe.

Maybe that is why my heart uncurls a little when I read about Thomas. Maybe I recognize the voice that said, “I will believe it when I see it,” because I don’t know what to believe. Actually, now that you mention it, now that you ask the question, I am so unsure. I mean, I want to believe it. I want to believe it so badly I am afraid to believe it because it is just too good to be true – and what is it people are always saying: “If it seems too good to be true, it probably is.”

Imagine Thomas’s life with me: the noise. The noise in Jerusalem after Jesus died. The city is bursting, full of tourists who came to celebrate Passover, the biggest event of the year. Bursting with noise. On every street corner, in the alleys, behind every closed door, people are talking about it, and they all have something different to say. “That Jesus man, the one who healed people, they say he tried to overthrow Caesar,” “no, they say he claimed to be the son of God,” “blasphemer,” “usurper,” “killed by the Romans,” “lawbreaker,” “zealot,” “terrorist.” The rumors are ugly – and personal. Thomas had spent years following this man, but he had spent more following the people who murdered him. These people, the ones who killed him, they had spent decades, had dedicated their lives, to this one, holy task: understanding the Scriptures and revealing God’s will to the people. What if – no, really think – what if Thomas had gotten it wrong?

Nothing went the way he expected, the way any of them expected. Jesus was supposed to be their king, their rescuer, their Messiah who saved them from the Romans. They had the heavy weight of their bullies around their necks, and surely Messiah would not want to see God’s people brought low. Surely Messiah wanted what they wanted. Surely Messiah wanted them to be free of their oppressors!

And he did. Oh, he did. He said he did. Didn’t he say he did? He wanted them to be free of the sin that shackled them, free of the worry that distracted them, free of the diseases of their souls. But he didn’t say much about the Romans, except – “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and give to God what is God’s.”

He could calm a storm at sea. He could raise the dead. He could feed thousands of people with one small lunch. And he said, “Let Caesar have his money”?? It did not make sense. He had SO. MUCH. POWER. Why wouldn’t he use it to save them??

And then. And THEN. He did the most unexpected thing of all.

He. DIED.

If any of them had had the kind of power that let Jesus raise people from the dead, we can be sure of one thing: they would have used it to NOT DIE. But Jesus – who had that power – made a different choice. He brought others back from death. But he himself charged right into it. He let himself die. There was no other way to understand it because Thomas had seen his power for himself. He was there. He saw it all. And it didn’t make sense. Why would he let himself die when his people still needed saving?

There’s a moment when our faith tilts on its axis, when our God makes choices we do not expect and do not understand, when we have to stare it in the face and ask ourselves, truthfully, what – or who – is the object of our faith. Do we have faith in God, or do we have faith in the outcome? Do we believe God is a means to achieve our desired end? Or do we believe that God will achieve His desired end, that His will is better than ours, that He will triumph as He has determined? Do we believe He is good, that what He wills is good, even when His will disagrees with our own? Can we lay down our own will, surrender what we’ve always thought would make us happy, and open our hearts to His suggestion instead?

What if His ‘good’ is not like ours?

What if it’s not success. What if it’s not security. What if it’s not even peace. What if He’s willing to pick a fight with Pharaoh, incite the Egyptian army, flee into the wilderness, and pin Himself between His enemies and an uncrossable sea. Do we still believe He’s good?

What if He’s willing to wander around in the wilderness for forty years, with just enough to get by every day and no savings for the future. No home. No retirement plan. Just a promise that it won’t always be this way.

What if the way into His promises is through a river in flood stage. What if the way to His promises is through another army, and another. What if He’s not afraid to pick fight after fight after fight with people who are cruel, dangerous, and in the wrong. What if the only peace He’s interested in is complete, uncompromising lawfulness. People willing to live in harmony and respect.

Or – worse – what if He’s willing to serve the wicked Egyptians for four hundred years. The arrogant Babylonians. The cruel, bloodthirsty Romans. What if He shrugs and says, “Let Caesar have his money. God wants something better.”

What if He’s not interested in what we think we want, after all. What if He’s got something better in mind, something we have not even begun to imagine, and He whispers a ludicrous trust ME, and then does the exact opposite of what we would have done.

Can I still believe, even then?

Could Thomas, who liked to understand? Could Thomas, who had maybe been taught his whole life that God was a means to Israel’s ends? That Israel cried out to God in their captivity, and He saved them! Again, and again, and again. I’m sure, under the yoke of the Romans, they liked to tell those stories best.

His faith was tilting on its axis. He was being given the choice: believe in the God he wanted, the one he’d always believed in, or believe in the God who wanted HIM, the one with His own mind and His own will and His own impossible, God-sized plan. The one who DIED. Dead. Buried. Gone. Along with all Thomas’s hopes and expectations for Israel’s future, for his own future. All. Gone. And maybe he was already feeling like this faith in Jesus was not like the faith he’d been raised in, like quite the fool for having believed any of it in the first place. Maybe he no longer recognized his own faith; maybe there was noise building up, not just outside, but in his own head.

I don’t know where Thomas was when Jesus appeared to the others. It just says he was not there. He didn’t see it. But when he did come back, because he did come back, they told him the most ludicrous story.

He rose from the dead. We saw Him, and He’s alive!

This one moment has tripped many, many millions of people, the same way it tripped Thomas. He rose from the dead? Seriously. Stop and think about it for a moment. What experience in your lifetime would ever give you any reason to believe that? There were a lot of opinions about Jesus in Jerusalem just then, but of all of them, alive was definitely the most absurd.

But here were the people he had trusted most in the world, the people who had seen everything he had and who knew Jesus the way he did, the people he trusted in the noise – and alive was THEIR story. He stayed with them. He watched, he wondered. But he thought to himself the whole time – Are you sure?

And from all sides, all Thomas could hear was noise.

Do you ever feel that way in this world? I do. The more knowledge we have at our fingertips, the noisier it gets. Anyone can say anything and be heard by millions of people. Misinformation spreads faster than any other virus; sometimes deliberately, sometimes ignorantly, but whatever the case, there it goes, covering the earth in a noise pandemic that deafens everyone who hears it. All I can hear, everywhere I go, is noise.

I can no more easily find the truth on the internet than I could find a specific grain of sand on a beach. It’s there, I’m sure of it. But it would take longer than my life to find it.

Thomas could not find the truth in the ridiculous, deafening noise. It was there, somewhere, he was sure of it. But where? It would have taken longer than his life to find it.

So – the Truth found him.

My soul is uncurling to listen.

The Truth found HIM.

“I am the way, the truth, and the life.” Jesus had said that to him, when Thomas had said he did not know the way to the Father.

So there, in the middle of the noise, in the midst of his confusion, the Truth found him.

Jesus stood before a muddled and deafened Thomas, held out his scarred hands, and said, “Touch them, Thomas. Touch them, because that’s what you said you’d need to do to believe.” And yes, Jesus rebuked his doubt. But he also came back just for him. He also came back to silence all the noise.

So when my soul gets muddled and overwhelmed by the noise of the world, when my mind goes white as a sheet with panic and I am not sure of my answer, I will know who I can ask. Find Me, Jesus the Truth.

I don’t know, but my big God knows.

He is the Truth.

And He is Who I choose to believe.

Come Back, Judas!

I have a question. I’ve been wondering it for a while, asking myself, trying to dig out my own answer. What did you come to Jesus for? What did you expect you would get if you did?

Who says I came to get anything? Perhaps you say, offended. Or, maybe from Sunday school you say – eternal life. That’s all we’re supposed to want, right?

But dig into your heart for a moment, and see what else is there. What drove you out of your own self-reliance into the arms of Christ? Help with your life’s biggest problems? A miracle, maybe, or boundaries that fall in pleasant places, like David’s. Nothing too ambitious, just something – secure. Or maybe an accolade, finally someone saying, “Well done.” Acceptance, perhaps? Somewhere to belong? Relief from the guilt that plagued you, maybe? Did you come for the shelter, to be protected from pain? Were you desperate to avoid hell? Were you looking for heaven, thought you deserved it, and someone told you this was the only way? Or had you already despaired of heaven, already broken your own standards, already knew you needed another way?

Why did you come?

When Jesus walked this earth, people came. People came by the thousands. They came for healing. They came for food. They came for teaching that gave them hope, not just more rules they could not keep. They came because he took care of them, and that was something unexpected in their world. They came because they saw power, and they wanted it for their own ends; they had enemies they wanted to see pay for what they’d done. They came because they had problems, lots of problems, and in him, they saw a fix.

Messiah, the whispers started. Savior. The promised king.

Judas heard their whisperings. He had been chosen by this man, hand-picked. He might have started to imagine things: himself in Jesus’ government, a trusted official, a confidante, an advisor, a friend. Maybe he imagined himself in expensive clothes, eating expensive food, surrounded by servants to do his bidding. Important, his imagination maybe whispered. Rich.

Judas liked money. I get that, I like it sometimes, too. I don’t know where Judas came from that made him believe money would solve all his problems, but from what I’ve experienced, I’m guessing at some point in his life, he struggled to make ends meet; it’s hard to not have enough. Judas liked money. It made him feel good things; powerful, maybe, strong. Safe. He cheerfully took charge of Jesus’ moneybag. He listened to Jesus’ coins clink when he counted them. He collected offerings. He took his cut, whenever it suited him. After all, it was his to take; no one said anything. No one minded. They all agreed; Jesus gave it to him. It was his to take. However he reasoned it, Scripture is clear: Judas was a pilferer. A thief.

Jesus knew all of this. So what did he do? Remove Judas from his duties by force? Ditch him on the side of the road? Cast him out in infamy? No.

He let him fiddle with the money bag.

Jesus knew how much Judas loved money. So he put it right in his hands, and he gave him a choice. For years Judas followed Jesus, saw his miracles, ate at his table, experienced his love. All the while, clink, clink, clink went the moneybag at his hip. He had everything he wanted. He had both – Jesus and money. No choice necessary. But then.

Jesus started to break the rules.

He healed people on the Sabbath day, which was a legal gray area the Jewish leaders had blocked off with caution laws. He told people they had to eat his flesh and drink his blood, which was definitely outside Levitical law. He claimed to be equal with God – uhh. Dude. BIG “do not enter” sign. He broke the laws of nature, too – this was bigger than turning water into wine, making the blind see or the deaf hear, healing lepers, or casting out demons. He stopped a storm. And then he raised the dead. And some well-connected people who really liked laws started to get kinda… upset. Especially when he insulted them. In <gulp> public.

The whispers took a turn to murder. And clink… clink – the moneybag started to get thin, and Judas began to think he’d chosen the wrong team.

That’s when Jesus started talking about dying like it was the plan all along. He who was supposed to be the richest, most powerful king Israel had ever known, took off his outer clothes, wrapped a towel around his waist, and started washing his friends’ feet, telling them to do this for each other when he was gone. Whoa.

That was not what Judas signed up for, folks. What happened to the fame, the glory – the riches? It became glaringly clear that Judas was not going to get what he had come for.

So I will ask again. What did you come to Jesus for? And what will you do… if you don’t get what you thought you would?

What if the church rejects you. What if you stay broken, stay sick. What if you can never do more than make ends meet. What if you lose your job, your house, every last penny in your bank account. What if your loved one still dies too young. What if a fellow churchgoer tells you you’re doing it all wrong. What if your marriage crumbles. What if it’s even a little bit your fault. What if you keep making mistakes with huge consequences, and what if you still have to suffer them. What if your kids mess up. What if they blame you for it. What if people you trust doubt your faith. What if every time you walk through the doors of God’s house, you’re reminded that you’re not enough.

Love, these are not hypotheticals. I’ve seen friends suffer every single one of them. I’ve suffered many of them myself. And I’ve grieved for too many people who left for whichever of the reasons above.

At the very moment Judas was realizing he was not going to get what he had come for, Jesus knelt down – and washed his feet. Until the very last moment when his choice was made, Jesus gave Judas the chance to choose something better. Him. Jesus knew Judas wouldn’t. How insulting it must have been for the God of the universe to watch a man who’d had every chance to get to know Him… choose the short-lived clink of money instead. Do you see it? Do you see how foolish we humans are? How many of us have done the same! And yet, Jesus – at that very moment when Judas was rejecting him, Jesus! chose to wash his betrayer’s feet. The feet that, only minutes later, would carry him out the door to sell Jesus to his enemies. Squeaky clean.

And do you want to know what the most amazing part of this whole story is to me?

I don’t believe it was that choice, that selfish, foolhardy choice, that condemned Judas. I believe that’s what Jesus was telling him when he washed his feet – I am still willing, Judas. I am still willing to wash away your sin.

Because here’s the thing – Judas was not the only disciple to jump ship.

Peter came closer than any of them to understanding. Impetuous Peter with his ADHD habit of blurting out what everyone was thinking and jumping into situations before he stopped to think – Peter came the closest to understanding who Jesus really is. “Even if all the others abandon you, I would NEVER,” Peter ignorantly boasted. That is not the choice dear Peter made. That choice, it turns out, is harder than we think.

In fact, funny you should say that now, Peter. “I assure you,” Jesus told him. “Before the rooster crows,” – only a matter of hours from now – “you will disown me three times.”

Not one. Three.

I got to wondering a few years back – what’s the difference between what Peter did and what Judas did? They both threw Jesus under the bus to get what they wanted – Judas, money, Peter, safety. Jesus knew they both would do it, and he made sure they knew he knew. So why do we applaud Peter and call him Apostle, and smear Judas and call him Betrayer?

“And when you have turned back…”

Because Peter came back. Peter, the great sturdy rock himself, swallowed his pride, hung his head in shame, and took the most courageous steps any of us have ever taken. He walked back up to Jesus, after everything was done. After Jesus was crucified, and Peter had done nothing to stop it, nothing to share it, nothing to relieve a single moment of the suffering, but rather abandoned him to save his own skin – after Jesus conquered death and came back to life, no thanks to Peter at all, Peter dared to come back. I wonder sometimes how close he came to making the same choice Judas did. How hard it must have been to show his face! Haven’t I felt that, too? Jesus owed him nothing. But before he took matters into his own hands – before he condemned himself – he came to ask. Just to ask. It’s all he had left to do – one last thread of hope. Three times, Jesus asked Peter to tell him that he loved him. Three times, Peter confirmed that he did. One confirmation for every denial. And Peter, wounded as he was that Jesus had to ask, was restored.

Judas, oh, Judas, I wish you had gone back! I wish you had understood a moment of your history, I wish you had listened to your king, I wish you had waited to see his victory! But Judas could not see it; the clink, clink, clink that had deafened him now so repulsed him that he cast it aside, and he did the same thing with himself. He could not see past his own failings to the redemption that would spring up from them; he destroyed himself in despair for the very mistake that God used to save us all. His pride could not bear to look at his own sin. Oh, Judas! He would have taken you back, too. I believe he would have taken you back; I must believe he would have taken you back. If only you had ASKED!

Was there ever a tragedy greater than this? Inches from restoration, Judas did not ask.

It says Jesus’s heart was greatly troubled. Judas chose to betray him, and that must have been a sting – but I believe it was because he would never come back that Jesus grieved.

Whatever it is you came for, dear one – miracles, safety, power, prosperity – whatever you have done to get it when it became clear Jesus had different plans – dear Judas, come back. Listen – I throw him under the bus probably every day. I do not pretend anymore to know what choices I will make in the heat of the moment because the moment I say I would never, there I go nevering. Jesus knows exactly how weak I am. I asked. You can too.

Ask. Jesus came back for you, too. Please just ask.

Grace to you, my Judas. I love you still, too.

-your Peter friend

Do You Recognize Me?

Then they cursed him and said, “You are his disciple, but we are disciples of Moses! We know God spoke to Moses, but we don’t even know where this man comes from.”

“Why, that’s very strange!” the man replied. “He healed my eyes, and yet you don’t know where he comes from? We know that God doesn’t listen to sinners, but he is ready to hear those who worship him and do his will. Ever since the world began, no one has been able to open the eyes of someone born blind. If this man were not from God, he couldn’t have done it.”

John 9:28-33, NLT

Have you ever seen an acquaintance in the grocery store, at a child’s game or dance performance, at the playground, or somewhere else you don’t usually see them? You get that feeling, that don’t I know you? feeling, but you just can’t place them. They’re out of context. Usually you see them at church, and here they are at a dance recital. Usually they’re at your child’s school, and here they are at the grocery store. Usually they’re at work, and here they are at the playground. Without their context, they look familiar, but… why? It can be hard to recognize people when the setting changes.

The God of Israel hadn’t spoken anything new to the people of Israel in 400 years. They had meticulous records of all He had said to them throughout history, and they combed them over and over again. They had the Temple, the religious ceremonies, the holidays, the symbolic ways they worshiped Him every day. That was the setting they knew Him in.

But it had been a while since they’d seen Him move among them in the grandiose ways they read about, since they’d heard the authority in His voice, and there were plenty among them who’d decided to step in to fill the void. They’d set themselves high above the people, put on the robes, and claimed to have all the answers, to be the path to holiness, to salvation. They tried to wear His shoes, though they could never really fill them.

The question became: Would God’s people recognize the real Him when He came? Or would they choose the men who had painted themselves as gods among them?

Because when He came, He looked nothing like the people wearing the mask that was supposed to look like Him. He spoke nothing like them. He dressed nothing like them. He acted nothing like them. He valued different things. And He had real POWER – power they did not have. Power to feed thousands with a few loaves and a couple of fish. Power to calm storms and raise the dead. Power to restore sight to the blind. Power to forgive sin.

And here, in John 9, is a man born blind seeing, maybe for the first time, the men behind the masks. How do you not recognize Him?? He could not understand. He had been blind all his life, but he could feel what he could not see: power. He knew who had never been able to heal him (everyone else), and he knew who did. Jesus. Carrying the mark of the God he’d always heard about – real power. Why could they who taught the Scriptures not see the main character standing right in front of them?

Because remember, in their impatience as they waited and waited for their God to speak again, they’d started writing their own Scriptures in His stead. They’d started believing their own words as equal to His. And He broke the promises and rules they’d written with His pen. They didn’t recognize Him – because He didn’t look like them.

But a man who’d never seen their faces was hard to fool with their disguises.

This year, as the year ends and a new one begins three weeks from today, I’m wondering how much of what I’ve believed about God I wrote myself with His pen. What promises have I made for Him? What rules did I add to His? When He comes, when He acts, when He shows real power in my life… can I even see it through the God mask I’ve made to wear over my head?

I want to know exactly where this Jesus man comes from when I encounter Him. Lord… I want to see.