Last week, my husband asked one of those questions of his that really get me thinking–the sort that sounds straightforward but isn’t. He said, “What’s the purpose of praise?”

Now, I already knew that things like the psalms and even our modern praise and worship songs never stir my hubby’s heart like they do other people’s. That’s just not how he’s made. Which in turn lends him an interesting perspective on it and makes him question whether the POINT is to be moved by it…or something else entirely? Why does God command us to praise? For us? For Him?

This past week I was plotting out a new biblical fiction story I’ll be writing for Guideposts’ Ordinary Women of the Bible line of novels, and the question he asked must have still been lingering in the back of my mind, because I found that emerging as the primary theme, rather unexpectedly, of my fictional retelling of Naaman’s handmaiden.

What is the purpose of praise? Is it to rouse emotions? Does it have some effect on God? We’re told that our praise is like sweet incense to Him, but does a pleasant smell have a big purpose? Are we told to praise God because HE needs us to…because WE need us to…because OTHERS need us to? This was the heart of the discussion David and I had.

I don’t personally believe the charge to praise Him, to worship Him, to thank Him for everything is for God’s benefit at all. If you have evidence otherwise, please feel free to correct me, LOL. But God isn’t, I think, bound by emotions like we are. He isn’t so easily moved one way or the other by circumstances or words.

I think that we praise Him for US. For ourselves–those doing the praising; and for others–those who hear us. So I want to take a few minutes to look at those options.

First and foremost, I think songs or words of praise are meant to remind us of a few very important things: that God is God, that God is good, that God IS above all, despite all. That no matter our circumstances, His nature doesn’t change. And so, by singing or reciting or whispering words that affirm this, we’re reminding our own changeable hearts and minds and emotions that there is a Rock on which we stand. We realign our thinking and feeling. Some of my sweetest moments of praise have been between no one but me and my Maker, my Master. They’ve been moments of awe, when I remember and reflect not just on what He’s DONE, but on Who He Is.

And this private praise is important. Whatever shape it may take–maybe you sing songs, maybe you write down your thoughts, maybe you quietly pray, maybe you simply think about Him–this praise of Him leads your heart to worship Him. But I do also believe there’s another purpose to those words, and they require them to be spoken or sung aloud, in the hearing of others.

Because those words also bear testimony to Who He Is and what He’s done. Have you ever noticed how many of the psalms are a recounting of history? The exodus, for example? Or specific events in the life of the psalmist, whether it be David or another? I will admit that as someone who grew up in church, I occasionally skimmed over the “historical” ones because they were, well, boring. (Hides face.) I already knew the story. I didn’t want to hear it again, so I’d go on to the next psalm that spoke of dejection and hope, sorrow and Joy, darkness and light.

But I was doing it wrong, LOL. Or at least not appreciating fully the purpose of those songs. Because in a day when the primary way of teaching was through recitation, these are powerful, important tools. These songs are the way the next generation is told of His might and power. These songs are the way strangers learn of who the God of Israel is and what sets Him apart from the Baalim or the gods of Egypt. These songs are testimony.

In my fictional story, I decided to make my heroine a singer, someone who has always taken great Joy is singing the hymns of praise. But when she’s captured by Syrians and finds herself serving in Naaman’s house, she doesn’t at first know if she should continue singing. But it’s who she is, and soon her songs start coming forth again. Songs of praise and witness to her God. Songs that change the household. That change Naaman. That inspire them to believe in the God of Israel instead of Rimmon. Her songs convict, teach, and inspire.

And that, I think, is the true purpose of praise. Not just to get our emotions in a frenzy or put a catchy tune in our heads that we won’t be able to knock out of it for days to come–but to put His words in our heart, so that those hearts remember always to incline to Him. And then to remind or teach those around us too.

He doesn’t tell us to praise for HIS sake–He tells us to praise for OURS. And, perhaps even more…for THEIRS.

It’s Holy Week. My favorite week of the year. Most of my friends and family are Christmas diehards, but us? My husband and I have always preferred Resurrection Day and the week leading up to it. The week when the focus isn’t on gifts but on sacrifice.

This year, everything looks so different, doesn’t it? A couple of months ago when talking about what we’d do this week, we were considering things like finding a Good Friday service at another local church, since ours doesn’t have one. My husband was joking (or dreaming, perhaps, LOL) about flying to Europe to see a live performance of Bach’s St. Matthew’s Passion in Bach’s hometown. We were planning our usual Messianic Passover Seder meal for tonight, our Sunrise Service for Sunday.

Instead, we’re all going to be home. Using online meeting technology to gather with our church family for that Seder meal tonight. Listening to the Passion in our living room tomorrow. Running any services online as we’ve been doing for the past few weeks. And I find myself wondering–how will the change in routine change my understanding?

This year, everything looks so different . . . but that can be a good thing. It’s when there’s a change, a disruption, an upheaval that we can often see things in a new light. As I listen to other families muse about what life looks like for them in the last few weeks, I admit to grinning sometimes–because suddenly everyone’s life looks a lot like my normal one. Work, school, cooking, meetings–they’re all happening from home. That’s not to say I don’t feel empathy for those who are struggling with balancing these things–I struggle with it too! But I’m also praying that everyone experiences new levels of connection with their families.

Last week, I took a day to write (as I often do) at our office (which is empty unless I or my husband go over for a day, so no fear of sharing germs with anyone!). When I got home, we had dinner, did our evening devotional, etc. It looked, I realized, like a normal day for most families, with everyone doing their own things during the day. And as I was going about my evening chores, I had this realization: on those days when I’m not home all day, I miss the connection with my husband and kids. I might be more productive, but I’m less nourished on a heart level. Which in turn led me to renew my prayers for all my friends and family and readers, that this unusual time of sheltering in place would be one not of frustration but of deepening connection. Sure, there will be moments of getting on each other’s nerves. But I pray that even more, there will be moments of hearts meeting on new levels.

And I’m praying the same thing happens as we celebrate Holy Week at home this year. That somehow, through the isolation and change in routine, new Truths about His ultimate sacrifice, His ultimate victory, His ultimate glory will flood my soul. That when forced to do things in a new way, I’ll also see things in a new way.

I pray that a quieter version of events will silence some of the noise that always creeps in and bathe my spirit with His song.

I pray that this year, Holy Week will be all about the HOLY in our house. Not about eggs or dinners or rushing to get to church on time. But about dwelling in Him. Walking the path, the via delorosa, with Him. Suffering with Him. Rising to new life with Him.

This year, everything looks so different . . . but the most important things haven’t changed. He still loves us so much that He gave His life for us. He still rose from the grave. He’s still sitting at the right hand of the Father. And His Spirit is still with us, dwelling in us, leading us and guiding us. Even when our feet are keeping us in one place.

What are you doing this year to compensate for the quarantine? In place of family dinners, Easter egg hunts, or services at your church, are you doing anything new and special? I’d love to hear about it!

Holy Week will soon be upon us ~ my favorite week of the year. Better, in my opinion, than Christmas, where it’s so easy to focus on the physical traditions instead of the miracle. Because this week is all about the miracle. The miracle that rewrote history, restored us to God, brought eternity to us all.

Holy Week will soon be upon us, and so I’m starting to think about what that means. Especially this year, when normal traditions have been, er, interrupted. Last weekend, one of the verses my dad read was from Luke 9:23-24.

23 Then He said to them all, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me. 24 For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will save it. (NKJV)

There are four occasions recorded in the New Testament where Jesus gives this instruction: Matthew 16:24, Mark 8:34, Mark 10:21, and this one in Luke. Three of those four are the same conversation, delivered to the disciples very near His telling them about His own death and resurrection. The one in Mark 10 is in the conversation with the rich young ruler. 

I remember being very struck by this upon doing a study of the cross years ago–because while obviously Jesus could well know the very means by which He would die, it’s still rather striking that He would talk about it so particularly before it happens, right? That He would use as an illustration the very thing that would take on such significance for Christians throughout history. And more, that He would talk about it as something those who follow Him must do.

But that’s exactly what He says. For those who wish to follow Him, we must do a few things. Deny ourselves. Take up our cross. Follow. Put Him above our own lives, our own families, our own dreams. Be willing, day by day and month by month, to move toward our own destruction if it means building His kingdom.

The passage I quoted above in Luke is the only one that adds “daily,” but I found it an interesting addition. Because it hammered home that following Him is not a one-time decision. Giving up everything isn’t a burden we accept once. Sacrificing our will to His isn’t a quick, easily-endured discomfort.

It’s something we have to make the conscious effort to do EVERY DAY.

And it’s supposed to HURT.

We don’t like that, do we? We love the verse that says, “my yoke is easy and my burden light.” These ones that talk about torture and martyrdom and death and pain and war in our own families…yeah, not so much fun. Why in the world would anyone sign up for THAT?

And Jesus makes it even harder. You want to follow? Then you commit fully. You let the dead bury their own dead. You don’t even say goodbye to your family and friends. You just go, because He is right there, but He won’t stay in one place for long. He’s set His face toward Jerusalem, toward His OWN sacrifice, and if you want to be there to witness it, there is no time for farewells.

I don’t think I realized until just that moment that the surrounding verses in Luke, in which Jesus replies to various people who say they want to follow, just not yet, are set just days before the beginning of Holy Week with the triumphal entry. In the other Gospels, the same conversations are put in different places chronologically. So maybe I shouldn’t focus too much on that. But I’m going to let it percolate anyway.

Because those people who chose to stay with father and mother and children and home and land and responsibilities and security…those people who shied away from the unfamiliar and the uncomfortable and the unknowable–they missed something miraculous. They missed witnessing the ultimate Passover Sacrifice. They missed being there for the ultimate triumph of His resurrection.

When He calls us–to whatever He calls us–what do we miss if we hem and haw and look behind us instead of forward, toward Him? What miracles do we not get to participate in?

And then back to my main point. What crosses do we have that we pick up daily? What sacrifices do we make day after day? What decisions do we make to put His above Ours?

It’s not meant to be easy. It’s guaranteed to hurt. So why would we sign up for that? Because the best things in life are only gained through the hard stuff. And unlike the other gods throughout history that demanded a sacrifice for their own pleasure, our Lord takes no Joy from the pain–no, He instead took the pain, lived the pain, embraced the pain for us, in a way we can never do, to show us what perfect love looks like. He doesn’t demand we suffer just so He can laugh at us. No, He instead demands that we remove whatever lies between us and Him. It’s our own fault if we’re holding so tightly to it that the removal hurts. It isn’t the pain of the surgery He wants from us–it’s the result.

Why does He ask us to take up our cross every day? Because putting on the burden of His message reminds us daily of what our true work is. Hard to ignore the cross on your shoulder, right? It’s heavy. But carrying it will make us strong–for Him. And it will show the world that we’re prepared to accept the consequences of our faith. 

Because there was only one reason to carry a cross around–no one did it for fun. It led to one place. One place only. Death.

Life. 

And that’s the beauty. By that cross, He defeated the very thing it signified. And so, when we’re bearing that burden, we’re also carrying that message. In this life, in this Way, there is pain and suffering and isolation and yes, even death. But there’s more than that–there’s more life than we could ever know without it. Joy beyond all happiness. Peace that transcends the wars.

Take up your cross. Not once. Daily. So we don’t miss out on being part of whatever miracles He means to do next.

I’ll never forget the first time I watched Monsters, Inc. with the kids. We’d rented it so were watching it at home. Both of them were pretty small. They laughed in all the right places–and the grabbed hold of my arms and scrambled into my lap at the expected ones too. They–and I–thoroughly enjoyed the movie. But what I remember most isn’t honestly the plot or the names of the characters or anything like that. What I remember most is the bad guy. Or rather, one particular trait of the bad guy.

He could make himself invisible. And that made him terrifying. Because you never knew where he was. What he might be doing. 

It’s the same thing with the Indominus Rex in  Jurassic World, right? The fact that this enormous, vicious creature could hide right out in the open…TERROR. Pure terror.

We always have this idea that if we can perceive it, we can fight it. If we can identify it, we can defeat it. If we can put our finger on it, we can solve it.

But sometimes we can’t…because we can’t.

Too often, though, that’s the kind of enemy we face. It’s true of cancer. It’s true of autoimmune disease. It’s true of viruses. It’s true of termites eating away at your foundation and of mold growing in your attic. The unseen, unperceived, unknowable things are the ones that sneak up on us without warning, slithering about in the dark. And then when they pounce . . .

What? What are we to do? How are we to fight it off?

The invisible enemy is the scariest enemy. I’ve been entirely certain of that ever since I first watched that cute animated movie with my kids. But it’s something I remembered not just because it’s true in storytelling and disease…it’s something I remembered because it’s true in the realm of the Spirit as well.

We don’t fight against flesh and blood. We fight against powers and principalities and the rulers of darkness of this age. Invisible things. We always fight against invisible things. And while it can seem terribly unfair, terribly terrifying, terribly difficult for us corporeal beings, there’s something we have to remember.

We’re not just fighting an invisible enemy.

We’re serving an invisible God.

I’ve never really seen that in a movie–salvation for the hero coming from an unseen force. An invisible hand sweeping it all away. It probably wouldn’t be satisfying to watch, right? Though we still hope for it in the real world. God, put an end to this! God, stop the bad thing! Why doesn’t He just swoop down and make it right?

And yet . . . and yet we do see salvation coming from an unseen direction all the time. The character you thought was out for the count. The helicopter arriving in the nick of time. Physical things perceived with our eyes and ears and noses.

Kinda like Jesus. He came in the flesh to be our physical salvation. To be the visible answer of our invisible God. He’s done that already, my friends. Triumphing over the ultimate enemy–death. It may still claim our bodies, but it cannot touch our souls. As if we have that certainty, how can fear rule us?

We will always fear what we can’t see. Can’t know. But faith, my friends…faith is as powerful a weapon as any we could ever ask for from the military. Because it too harnesses that Invisible. It is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things unseen.

How do we know God is at work? That His armies are marching against our enemies? Because of faith. If a sneeze is the evidence of a cold–that unseen virus–then faith is the physical manifestation of God Himself. We don’t think of it that way, do we? We tend to think of faith as another not-physical, unseen thing.

But it isn’t. It’s fully visible. Fully physical. It is the substance.

Which means we need to SHOW IT to each other. More, we need to show it to the world. We don’t need to fear the invisible–because we serve the Invisible. And faith is our proof that it works. Now is our time to Shine it forth.

Now is the time to fast. To pray. And to cling to Him and His promises with a visible shield. Faith. It can protect us from the fiery darts. But only if we lift it up before us.

People are selfish.

This isn’t a newsflash. People have always been selfish, and I don’t see that changing any time in the near future. At the core, we’re always looking out for us. Me. My family. They matter most. I’ll do anything I have to do to provide and protect. Right?

I daresay most of us think this way–it’s the way the human brain is wired, frankly. It’s natural. 

But Jesus asks us to give up those natural inclinations when we follow Him. He asks us to put the souls of strangers above the health of our own.

59 Then He said to another, “Follow Me.”
But he said, “Lord, let me first go and bury my father.”
60 Jesus said to him, “Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and preach the kingdom of God.”~ Luke 9:59-60, NKJV

In so many teachings, Jesus is instructing us to change our perspective. On what we define as sin. Of where our hearts should be. Of who we should love. Of how we should love them. Time and again He challenges us to love our neighbor.

Time and again, He and the apostles make it clear that this faith, this trust, this decision to become a slave of Christ means giving up our lives–giving up the ME–for Him.

We’re in a time of trial right now–something that can be said a lot in history on a national or international scale and pretty much always on individual levels. I’ve heard a lot of fellow-Christians saying, “Don’t live in fear!”

And this is #Truth. Don’t live in fear. You don’t have to, because you know that your life isn’t your own. You know that you’re His. There doesn’t need to be fear for these bodies.

But let’s not be ignorant. We can say God has this in His hand, and that too is #Truth. But God had the Black Death in His hand too. He had the Spanish flu. He had every other worldwide pandemic. That doesn’t mean there isn’t going to be suffering and death, of both the faithful and the faithless, the just and the unjust. It simply means that He’s still Lord through it. It doesn’t mean we won’t die. It means if we do, He’ll welcome those who believe in Him with open arms. Yes, He can protect His children from any virus–but we know He doesn’t always choose to. We know it in the statics from past pandemics. We know it by logic. And we know it because we know that He doesn’t define tragedy in the same way we do. Christians can and do die all the time. It’s something we’re not told won’t happen, but which we’re instead told not to fear.

Where, then, is the line between fear and wisdom? 

More, where is the line between living fearlessly and still loving our neighbors?

If you didn’t follow that jump, let’s spend a bit of time on it. You do not have to fear. But what about the older lady next door? What about the stranger on the street? What about the coworker or the delivery man or the clerk? The mom whose child has immunodeficiency? The daughter whose father is in the middle of chemo? Do they have that certainty?

So what if your determination to live without fear and live life as normal endangers theirs?

This is the question my family is wrestling with as we determine what lines to draw in these troubling weeks. We don’t fear for us. But we’re not called to think only of us. We’re called to think of them. The people in need of Christ. The people who are at risk. The people who are frightened and without hope.

“Not living in fear” should not mean putting others in danger. Not our fellow believers who are at risk of physical illness, and not the rest of the world whose souls don’t have that certainty in Him.

Love your neighbor.

Love them with encouragement and faithful words and promises of Someone bigger than their fear. But love them too in wisdom and caution and care. Love them with distance when our leaders ask for it, and with praise to God that distance, in this day and age, doesn’t mean being cut off. Let’s be grateful that we can still be in the community through the wonders of technology, and let’s respect the wisdom of the professionals we expect to turn to when something bad does happen.

Let’s stop thinking about how we can keep from giving in to fear…and start thinking about how we can best show love to those around us. Be wise, and think of them. Knowing that if everyone thinks first of their neighbor, that means someone has our backs too.

Only from my Store

Available at your favorite eBook retailer!

We’ve recently decided to read some of the writings of the early church fathers–things that aren’t included in our Bible because they weren’t written by an apostle, but which are still very early. We began with I Clement, written somewhere around 90 AD, from the church of Rome to the church of Corinth, which had gone through a huge upheaval. 

Clement takes a full two chapters to talk about all the Corinthian church had been doing right. They’d been earning the rightful praise of the other churches with their devotion, their giving, their piety, their love. But then…

But then…

Chapter three launches with this:

Every
kind of honour and happiness was bestowed upon you, and then was fulfilled that
which is written, “My beloved ate and drink, and was enlarged and became
fat, and kicked.” Hence flowed emulation and envy, strife and sedition,
persecution and disorder, war and captivity.

We all agreed from the start that the writer probably wasn’t just talking about a physical thing here, right? I mean, sure, the Corinthians were a wealthy people and were known for their appetites for all things corporeal–anything that brought bodily pleasure, including food. But we didn’t think it could be just that. No, this kind of falling away–this kind of WAR within a church–had to have its root in spiritual things. Spiritual conflict. Spiritual problems.

What, though, would it mean to be spiritually fat?

My husband and I were talking about this on our way home from church. Our bodies get fat from eating too much…of the wrong thing. So what is the equivalent for our souls? It isn’t just having too much of the virtuous, right? You can love above and beyond, and it’s not going to damage you. You can be as gentle, good, faithful, peaceful, as you ever could manage, and it’s not going to lead to envy and strive and sedition.

No, this sort of fat is talking about something different. It’s talking about spiritual muscles going flabby with complacency. It’s talking about being full of thoughts of self instead of thoughts of others. It’s talking about getting to that point where you’re so comfortable in where you are that you forget to stretch toward something higher.

That’s when we start comparing ourselves to others. That’s when we start wanting what they have. That’s when we start bickering and fighting among ourselves. That’s when chaos sneaks in. That’s when our churches dissolve into civil war.

But as we were talking about this spiritual fatness, we were also talking through what the alternative would be: spiritual fullness.

I’ll never forget a lesson my French teacher taught us in high school–that when you’ve had enough to eat in France, you don’t ever want to say the equivalent of “I’m full.” That, in fact, means “I’m pregnant.” LOL. Which popped into my mind as I was considering this spiritual fullness.

Because isn’t that a perfect example? Pregnancy isn’t fatness, because it isn’t just your body storing up what it doesn’t in fact need. It’s new life. It’s creation. It’s your body becoming literally full with someone else.

And that is what our spirits should be experiencing. They should be FULL, but not fat. Full of good things. Full of life. Full of fruit. Full of Him. 

This fullness is the state of health. Not scraggly and thin and weak–just like our physical eyes recognize that in someone’s body as unhealthy, so too do our spiritual eyes recognize the same state in our brothers’ and sisters’ souls. But not spiritually fat and engorged and enlarged either–because that means we’re resting on our laurels, growing lazy and complacent, no longer working our spiritual muscles.

We need to strive for that balance. When we are well fed by the Vine, producing good fruit, full of Him, but never content to remain just where we are. Striving always to reach a little farther, stretch a little more, run our race with full commitment.

What do you see when you look at the Church today? Are we spiritually starved…spiritually full…or spiritually fat?