Steadfast Love

Another thought journal post:

What have I thought of this past week’s lessons?  To be totally honest, I haven’t thought a whole lot about them during the normal course of my day.  Between going home and going to the lake, this has been the least program-focused week so far.  But that does not mean that I’ve been unaffected by what I’ve been learning.

In chapter three of Counsel from the Cross, we are exhorted to be overwhelmed by the steadfast love of God.  Being home let me see how much human love encourages and strengthens me.  How much more then should God’s love?  And yet, allowing me the chance to be home was one way that God showed me His love.  Then, Friday and Saturday, I was at Possum Kingdom Lake with my boss and her family.  There, I was enabled to revel in the beauty of God’s creation.  Add to that the glorious weather this weekend!  I have been acutely aware of God’s magnificent love and the many ways He deigns to show Himself to me.  I know that when I am tired, I am less likely to see His wonders than I am when rested but I hope that I will be enabled to look for His graciousness even through exhaustion.

As I’m writing this, I realize how we’ve seen the exact same thing—God’s love—in our lessons and projects this week too.  God didn’t destroy Adam and Eve and start over.  He actually promised blessing to them!  And despite Abraham’s folly, He made promise after promise of blessing to him.  It’s not as if what I’m seeing is anything new; I’m just seeing a little more of what God has been showing me all along.  Black is my sin, but bright is the light of His grace that burns it away.  His steadfast love isn’t something that He just shows me either.  He started back in the garden and has continued throughout time.  He is “…The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands…” (Ex 3:6b-7a) and will be for all time.

Retreat, Forgiveness, and Sin

Last weekend we went on our first retreat to Selah Ranch.  It was a really good time.  We had sessions Friday evening, Saturday morning and evening, and Sonday morning but had all of Saturday afternoon and the evenings to do whatever we wanted.  Selah Ranch is a lovely place near Mt. Vernon, TX.  It has some open ranch land and a fair bit of wooded areas.  We go back in October and I’ll try to get some pictures then.  I forgot this time around.

Friday evening’s entertainment consisted of a “Miss Selah” contest.  Only we skipped everything but the speeches.  Each person had to speak for thirty (30) seconds on a random topic.  Simple enough, I’ll grant you.  But the catch was that everyone else in the room had a water bottle.  Any poor grammar, long pauses, “um,” “uh,” “like,” “you know,” or something similar meant you got sprayed.  My topic was Michael Jackson.  Unfortunately, I don’t know anything about him other than he is dead, was a singer, and was very, very weird.  I managed pretty well through that part of the speech.  Then I didn’t know what to say next and the squirting commenced.  I quickly changed topics to that of knowing what your speech is supposed to be about.  That lasted the final fifteen seconds or so.

We also played a version of the “fruit game” where instead of a fruit everyone had a sign or signal that they had to pass silently about the circle while the middle person tried to figure out who was trying to signal.  There were a few glitches when people lost track of who was signing or thought they’d been signaled when it was an accidental movement.  Highly amusing.

Saturday we went golf-carting.  A bit like four-wheeling in a golf cart.  That was a blast.  My cart went cross-country a lot because we were in the back and kept trying to catch up (they kindly waited for me to get my shoes on before they took off).  We hit some serious bumps and ended up dragging branches along underneath our cart even when we got back on the road.  Two other girls traded out driving while we were in the woods and then I drove on the clear ground.  We lost a rider while I was driving.  I was just chasing the other carts trying to catch up and then I heard someone behind me say “We lost Andrea.”  Seems that we had hit a large bump and she just flew off instead of trying to hold on.  So we backtracked and picked her up again before setting out on the mad chase.

On a more serious note, I really enjoyed listening to our speaker, Susan Banks.  She spent a lot of time discussing not only what living in faith, repentance, and forgiveness looks like, but also what it doesn’t look like.  It’s almost easier for me to identify what those should be like when I know what they aren’t.  And it’s definitely easier to see the areas in which I do not measure up to God’s standard.  Where I sin.  I’m still struggling with figuring out how I apply all of what she said though.  Now that I know what forgiveness is not, and what it is, how do I live it out?  That I do not yet know or understand.  It’s easy to sit and listen to someone talk about forgiveness.  It is hard to actually forgive.  I know I cannot do it of my own strength, but what does forgiving out of God’s strength look like?  How do I manage that?

Last Monday night when Tommy Nelson was talking about Genesis 4-5, I was struck by the fact that Enoch and Lamech lived at about the same time.  And Noah was only a few generations later.  I’ve known what the Bible says about the earth being sinful beyond compare at the time of Noah, but realizing that Lamech was around about that time lets me see a bit more of the defiance toward God that was happening then.  And it astounds me how different Cain’s line and Seth’s line were.  One believed God and the other, well, didn’t.

The biggest “Oh” moments though, came when we were going through Genesis 3 and listing all the things that were cursed because of Adam’s sin.  Some of them were obvious, like the ground and cattle.  Then we came to the “your seed” and “her seed.”  “Your seed” I’ve always just attributed to Satan.  But it’s not.  It’s us.  Prior to Christ, before salvation, we are called “children of wrath” (Eph 2:3) and sons of the devil (John 8:44).  Thus we, humanity, are Satan’s seed.  Not a pleasant thought.

The antidote to that, of course, is “her seed” which is Christ.  I knew that.  But it never registered that it was right then, at the fall, that Christ was cursed for us.  “Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us (for it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree’)” (Gal 3:13).  But it began before that, back in Eden.  As Tommy Nelson put it, “Adam sinned and God hit Jesus.”

That phrase has been echoing through my mind since I heard it.  It makes sin so much more personal when put that way.  “Brittanie sinned and God hit Jesus.”  He didn’t hit me.  I cannot grasp the depth behind it.  “It was my sin that held Him there [to the cross]” runs one song we sang at the retreat.  I sinned and God released His wrath on Jesus instead of me.  It’s almost scary.  But I think it should be, in a way.  I need to be scared by the reality of the awfulness of my sin toward God.  We all do.

Heart Idols

Thursday last we spent some time discussing "heart idols."  That is, the root sin behind the visible sins.  The example of a visible sin used in the lesson was gossip.  Yes, it is wrong, but why are you gossiping in the first place?  What do you crave or hope to gain by gossiping instead of looking to God?  As an exercise, we were asked to determine common surface sins and try to identify the heart idol behind them.  But then, rather than dwelling on the sin, we were to turn and glorify God for His ability to satisfy whatever desire we may have.  The paragraphs below are my "Thought Journal" for the week reflecting my mind as I try to figure out exactly how to complete the assignment.


I don’t quite know what to call my “heart idol.” Safety and security perhaps? Yet it seems as though we are asked to determine in what we find those. I’m not certain. Perhaps in rhythm? In structure? Or is it a form of control idolism? I can’t quite figure it out. Maybe I should go with calling it the idol of familiarity. When I’m troubled, I retreat to the familiar—my family, my room, my books. It is in those that I find my comfort I think. Sometimes, I turn to the Bible for comfort and assurance, but most often, I think I shove off my unease and retreat to another world where my problems don’t exist instead of taking them to the Solver of Problems.

For that is what God is. I know it in my head, but how do I act on it? How do I abandon my defenses against the world and watch Him take them over? God is unchanging. He is the most familiar of all—and yet, I think I have grown so very familiar with His presence that I discount it altogether. I need to be aware of His steadfastness and unchanging nature but also to be in awe of it. I am a fickle, change-full creature. He is unswerving and permanent.

The Idol Factory article [by C. J. Mahaney] was intriguing and challenging. I am amazed at how much there is about heart idolatry in the Bible. I have often thought myself “safe” from that particular sin most of the time. Now I see it is not so. The summary of Martin Luther’s quote in Article Six of GCL is particularly pressing to me. “[. . .] every sin is in some way a breaking of the first commandment [. . .]” (p. 40). If I sin—correction, when I sin—it is because I put something else before God. Something I wanted more than Him. I don’t quite know how to think about that yet. I’ve never tried before.

I was told at the beginning that this class would make me more aware of my sin than I’ve ever been. It has. I was also told it would make me more aware of God’s glory. It has that as well.

"Marry a Zombie"

Tommy Nelson, pastor of Denton Bible came in and taught last Monday. It was really good stuff. Over the next few Monday nights he’s going to be teaching through the first eleven books of Genesis. I took six pages of notes on just the first two chapters—and filled in over half of my margins in my Bible.

The coolest thing he pointed out was all in the first sentence of the Bible. Genesis 1:1. A verse I memorized ages ago but never realized just how much that one sentence says. As a writer, I’m thoroughly impressed by how much is jammed in there. Allow me to demonstrate.

The Verse: “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” Simple, yes? But there is more than meets the eye.

In the beginning=Time
God=the preexistent, prime mover
Created=movement, something started (specifically, the Hebrew word “bara” indicates making something from nothing)
Heavens=space
Earth=matter

So that first sentence says that before there was time, there was a preexistent, prime mover (God) who began time and then proceeded to form space and matter from nothing. That sounds nice enough but when you list all the philosophies that one sentence debunks it is rather impressive.

Atheisim—there is no God
Agnosticism—no idea if there’s a god or not
Materialism—matter is eternal
Polytheism—many gods
Humanism—man is chief
Liberalism—God evolves according to the intelligence of the people
Dualism—two equal and opposite powers
Pantheism—everything is god
Naturalism—creation is divinity
Evolution—stuff came about over time
Henotheism—like the religions of Rome and Greece
Deism—a disconnected God

In one sentence! God lays the foundation for everything in that one first sentence. I’m still “geeking out” about that.

Oh, and the whole “Marry a zombie” thing? Tommy Nelson was talking about how we girls needed to marry a “nail pierced man,” that is, one who can say with confidence that they have been crucified with Christ and therefore no longer live (Gal 2:20). So marry the living dead. :-)

The Older Brother

The first time I heard someone say we needed to repent of our good deeds as well as our sin, I was highly skeptical. It is true, I thought, that before salvation we are told that all our righteousness is as filthy rags (Is 64:6). But Revelation tells us that in the end we are clothed in linen, clean and white which are the righteous acts of the saints (Rev 19:8). And really, it doesn’t make sense to be coming to God saying “I’m sorry God, I did something good today” when we are told that we are created for good works (Eph 2:10).

I think I was on the wrong track.

I was thinking of the righteous acts that we perform through the power of God. We definitely don’t need to repent of those. But we do need to repent of our self-righteousness. Big difference. Monday night we watched a video called “Prodigal God” that brought this home. (Note: Prodigal can also mean bountiful or lavish, not just wasteful)

In the parable of the Prodigal Son, we all know how the younger son was in the wrong. In asking for his share of the inheritance (1/3), he was saying he wished his father dead. He wanted his father’s stuff without the father, to use the words from the film. Shockingly, the father gives it to him, selling his land so the son can get what he wants. In the end, we know the younger son comes back and is welcomed by the father. Yay! But that isn’t really the end.

See, there’s another player in the story. The older son. He’s the good kid, the one who always did what the father told him to do. The one who now stands to inherit everything left to the father. We know he was being a bit of a snob when he refuses to go in to the party being thrown for the younger son. But his problems go deeper than that.

The simple fact that the older son stayed at home when the younger son took off showed in him the same attitude as the younger. He wanted the father’s stuff without the father. Apparently, part of the reason the oldest sons received double the inheritance of their younger siblings was to enable them to keep the family together. Therefore, the older should have gone after the younger endeavoring to bring him back at whatever cost. He didn’t. He just stayed at home and played the good child. Then when his brother shows up and dad throws a huge party, he pitches a fit at the money—his money, he thinks—being spent on this fool of a brother. He feels that he had earned the right because of his good deeds.

I’m the older brother. I’ve always been the good child, the one who doesn’t cause a stir, who does what she’s supposed to do. I haven’t been a sinner like them. And so, I often feel entitled to God’s mercy. Not that I’ve ever admitted it to myself before. But I think there is a root of pride that needs to be dug up.

And then there’s the other side to the story. On one hand there is the way in which we can identify with either the older or younger brother’s sin and see God as the father that goes out to both to bring them back in. On the other hand, there is a way in which we are all like the younger son who spurned the father in pursuit of his own pleasure. But where the so-called prodigal son’s older brother stayed at home, our Older Brother went out after us and paid the ultimate price—His life—to bring us back. That is love.


Another subject for the night was the interaction between the Law and the Cross. Essentially, it came down to how the Law drives us to despair in our own righteousness and to throw ourselves on Christ as our only hope. In turn, Christ’s abundant, steadfast love and unmitigated power inspires us to follow the Law out of love for Him and through His power.

A funny quote from the night came from our leader, Jean when mentioning how we often think we can't do what God wants us to do.  Roughly it was like this:

Me:  Please no, God!  It'll kill me to do that!
God:  How convenient.  You're supposed to die to yourself

There was more to ithe night's discussions but it was the older/younger brother dynamic that stuck with me after the night was over and so I give to you my thoughts on that aspect of the lessons.