My Spirit Grows Faint

I am overwhelmed 

When I remember God, then I am disturbed (moan, murmur, growl, cry aloud); When I sigh (complain), then my spirit grows faint (feeble, weak, overwhelmed). Psalm 77:3 (NASB) 

My heart desolate   

… my spirit grows faint (feeble, weak, overwhelmed) within me; my heart within me is dismayed (desolate, appalled, stunned, devastated). Psalm 143:4 

Yet! 

When my spirit grows faint (feeble, weak, overwhelmed) within me, it is you who know (make known, declare, cause me to know, reveal to me) my way. Psalm 142:3a 

You show me the Way 

From the ends of the earth I call to you, I call as my heart grows faint (feeble, weak, overwhelmed); lead me (guide me, bring me) to the rock that is (raised up, lifted up, exalted) higher than I. Psalm 61:2 

You lead me to the Rock that is higher 

You guide me to the Rock that is lifted up 

You bring me to the Rock who is exalted 

And when I am lifted up on the cross, I will draw everyone to myself. John 12:32 

And being found in appearance as a man, 
    he humbled himself 
    by becoming obedient to death— 
        even death on a cross! 

Therefore God exalted him to the highest place 
    and gave him the name that is above every name … Philippians 2:8-9 

I was overwhelmed and you answered me 

Jesus answered, “I am the way …” John 14:6 

“Follow me.” 

Image, original oil painting by Jack Bair. All rights reserved.

The Lamp

Haughty eyes and a proud heart, the lamp of the wicked, are sin! (Proverbs 21:4)   

This is one of those verses that it’s easy to just skip over thinking, “Well that’s not me.” But then, I would be just fulfilling the verse wouldn’t I? So I decided to take a closer look. And it’s not what I thought.

The Hebrew word for “lamp” in this verse actually means untilled or fallow ground. I think this verse means that the proud have not plowed up, examined, their ways or thinking, therefore they are in the sin of pride. That is one of the things that our lamp is supposed to do – illumine our wrong thinking and doing. Jesus said:   

The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are good (single, clear, sound, whole, folded together), your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are bad (diseased, derelict, blind, evil, wicked), your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness! Matthew 6:22-23   

What does that mean: single, clear, sound, whole, folded together? That Greek word is haplous and comes from a root word that means “to plait, braid, weave together.” Woven together with what?   

There are two words in Hebrew for hoping or waiting. Qavah, which means “to bind together (perhaps by twisting),” and tiqvah, which means “literally, a cord (as an attachment).” Could Jesus have meant that if we are hoping and waiting on God (woven together into a single cord, attached to God heart to heart) our lamp or eye is good?   

Another thing, in Numbers 8:2 the Lord gives instructions for setting up the Temple (remember we are the Temple of the Holy Spirit now). He says to set up the Lampstand so that it continually shines “in front” or across the room and illumines the table of the Bread of the Presence. Our lamp, our eyes always upon Jesus, the Bread of Life, God With Us, the Word.   

When Jesus talks about the eye as the lamp of the body here in Matthew, and in Luke 11:33-36, it is in the middle of pointing out a lot of wrong thinking – being a hypocrite, caring about what people think, setting your heart on treasure, serving/loving money, worrying, lack of faith in God, being legalistic but not obeying God’s commands.    

Wrong thinking is when you are not woven together with (or abiding in) the Lord, therefore you don’t have the mind of Christ. You have not allowed the Lord to plough up your hard, stony ground. The light within you is darkness. It is no longer shining on the Bread of the Presence, on the Word of Life, but on yourself. That is why haughty eyes and a proud heart is a lamp of the wicked, a dark lamp. A person with haughty and proud thinking would never shine the light of the Word on any wrong ways but would imagine they are right in whatever they think or do. It is revealing that it says five times in Proverbs that the way of a person can seem right to them but be wrong.   

The way of a fool is right in his own opinion, but the one who listens to advice is wise. (Proverbs 12:15)   

There is a way that seems right to a person, but its end is the way that leads to death. (Proverbs 14:12)   

All a person’s ways seem right in his own opinion, but the Lord evaluates the motives. (Proverbs 16:2)   

There is a way that seems right to a person, but its end is the way that leads to death. (Proverbs 16:25)   

All of a person’s ways seem right in his own opinion, but the Lord evaluates the motives. (Proverbs 21:2)   

I know I am mixing a lot of metaphors here, but we need to humbly surrender to being woven together with Him, heart and soul and mind and strength. We need to let the Light of God shine on our wrong thinking and plough up our hard hearts. That we might know him. That we might be like him – a light in a dark world. 

The lamp of the LORD searches the spirit of a man; it searches out his inmost being. Proverbs 20:27

Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path. Psalm 119:105

You, O LORD, keep my lamp burning; my God turns my darkness into light. Psalm 18:28  

He guides the humble in what is right and teaches them his way. Psalm 25:9  

God, I invite your searching gaze into my heart. 

Examine me through and through; 

find out everything that may be hidden within me. 

Put me to the test and sift through all my anxious cares. 

 See if there is any path of pain I’m walking on, 

and lead me back to your glorious, everlasting ways— 

the path that brings me back to you.  

Psalm 139:23-24 (The Passion Translation) 

Image of oil lamp by Bee Collins https://flic.kr/p/bSdftM

To the Vanishing Point

Yet I am always (continually, perpetually, constantly, like the daily sacrifice) with you;

you hold (grasp, take hold, seize, take possession of) me by my right hand.

You guide me (guide tenderly, lead me away captive, conduct me along the path) with your counsel (plan, purpose),

and afterwards you will take (get, fetch, lay hold of, seize, acquire, buy, bring, marry, snatch, take away, receive) me into glory.

Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire (delight in, take pleasure in, bend down to) besides you.

My flesh and my heart may fail (be spent, be used up, waste away, be exhausted, come to an end, vanish, perish, be destroyed),

but God

But God!

is the strength (the Rock, refuge) of my heart and my portion (allotment, possession, territory, inheritance) forever (everlastingly, unending future, to the vanishing point, eternally, without end).

Psalm 73:23-26

 

Image in the Public Domain

God is Not Silent

God is not silent. It is the nature of God to speak. The second person of the Holy Trinity is called “The Word.” The Bible is the inevitable outcome of God’s continuous speech. It is the infallible declaration of His mind.– A.W. Tozer

God is always speaking to us. It’s just that most of the time we don’t like what he is saying. “Wait” (ugh!), “Hope” (yet!), “Forgive” (I can’t – or won’t), “Love” (but what if they don’t love back? What if I am hurt, mocked, ignored?). What God has said and says is in his Word – the Word written, and the Word made flesh. But even if you have never read the Bible, he is speaking to you. He is speaking to all of us with that still, small voice. Easy to ignore. Easy to deny. Easy to turn away. Frederick Buechner put it this way:

But he also speaks to us about ourselves, about what he wants us to do and what he wants us to become; and this is the area where I believe that we know so much more about him than we admit even to ourselves, where people hear God speak even if they do not believe in him. A face comes toward us down the street. Do we raise our eyes or do we keep them lowered, passing by in silence? Somebody says something about somebody else, and what he says happens to be not only cruel but also funny, and everybody laughs. Do we laugh too, or do we speak the truth? When a friend has hurt us, do we take pleasure in hating him, because hate has its pleasures as well as love, or do we try to build back some flimsy little bridge?  Sometimes when we are alone, thoughts come swarming into our heads like bees—some of them destructive, ugly, self-defeating thoughts, some of them creative and glad. Which thoughts do we choose to think then, as much as we have the choice? Will we be brave today or a coward today? Not in some big way probably but in some little foolish way, yet brave still.  Will we be honest today or a liar? Just some little pint-sized honesty, but honest still. Will we be a friend or cold as ice today? … And the words that he says, to each of us differently, are be brave . . . be merciful . . . feed my lambs . . . press on toward the goal.[i]

In every little choice we make all day long God is speaking. Do we join in the gossip? Do we turn our eyes away and walk by the pain and the need? Do we hide our brokenness and put on a happy mask? Or do we comfort others with the comfort we have been given. Do we surrender to the cleansing fire of his passionate love for us, or cling stubbornly to self-justification?

God is love. And love continually speaks. It cannot be silent for it has been sent out into the world to accomplish something and it cannot, and will not, and has not failed. His love spoke from the cross and speaks on through eternity. And what is Love saying? “I love you!” “My love is always with you” “Give my love away.”

This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you. John 15:12 (NASB)

“… be brave . . . be merciful . . . feed my lambs . . . press on toward the goal.”

 

 

Image of sound waves from clipart-library.com

[i] Frederick Buechner. The Magnificent Defeat. 1985.

Dodging Traffic

This quote really blessed me today. I have been dodging a lot of traffic lately. Time to take hold of his hand again.