March 14--Why God Meddles with You, and Why You Want Him To

Ever feel like God is picking on you?  These passages say why he meddles, and it's a reason you'll be glad to hear:  Numbers 21, Luke 1:26-56, Psalm 58, Proverbs 11:10-11.

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Eve reads her Bible journal aloud on this episode.

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Transcript

Numbers 21

Luke 1:26-56

Psalm 58, Prayer, Proverbs 11:10-11

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March 14 Why God Medd With You and Why You Want Him To I Won't Be Reading the Scripture references For those Please Check the Written Post My grandfather was a dentist orthodontist in Nashville during the depression. He accepted payments of all kinds, including live chickens and fresh produce. He practiced in the days before Novicane. He gave out sugar loaded double bubble to children after checkups. Understandably my mother was obsessed with teeth cleaning and straightening. I was urged repeatedly to brush my teeth every morning. I wore chin strap contraption at night to rein in what must have looked to her like an alarming chin burgeoning between my mouth and neck. All that to say her meticulous attention to my teeth bordered on being OCD, though these were the days before OCD was invented. I just thought she was crazy. I would hurry through my bacon and eggs to get out the door and on my bike to school before she got up, just so I could avoid the teeth brushing shakedown. A few times she surprised me on my way down the driveway with the news that my tattletale toothbrush was dry when she, bleary eyed, had felt it. Those were the mornings I got spanked for lying because she'd ask, did you brush? Before confronting me with what she'd found out surlocking. I'd pedal back and walk the shame trail to the bathroom and then wait for it in my bedroom. She had real reason to be concerned. I once had twelve cavities in one dentist visit, but the problem wasn't brushing. The problem was the regular sack of penny candy I ate from the nearby gas station, an occasional sneak away that became a habit paid for with stolen coins from her wallet. The thing about meticulous mouth care all one's life, because even after I left home I continued it myself, is this. I still have all my own teeth. I don't have to wear dentures or bridges like my grandparents did. I rarely have cavities. I can chew my own meat, think of it. I'm grateful now that mamma meddled with me even if it did make me a fiend about flossing. Getting up in someone's mouth because you love her turned out to be a good thing. Today's passages say more about a love like this does for us. The Old Testament chapter is Numbers twenty one. They're not happy campers. This new generation of Israelites is irritable and cross, complaining about God and Moses again just like their parents did, and it's for the same triumvirate of troubles. We're not in Egypt anymore, we have no decent food, we have no water. They have to take a detour around the land of Edom because the king has said he'd wage war if they didn't, and rather than fight their own relatives, Edom's founding ancestor was Esau, who was brother to Jacob, the founding ancestor of Israel. They comply and take the long way round rather than cut through it. Evidently it's the harder way too, and these Israelites don't stuff their disgust on the journey. They're loud and mouthy about it, blaming God and Moses. God hears them and sends snakes to bite them. Some die, yikes. God has put up with a lot of pushback from these people ever since rescuing them from Egypt, and though he's infinitely patient, he doesn't coddle them. It's time to deal with their habit of believing their own lies about him, which are the same lies their parents told, because the truth is God's kindness has brought them out of Egypt and cared for them in the desert, but they keep imagining he's got it in for them. He's provided food and water regularly and miraculously, but they keep believing it's never enough, it's not tasty, it's not even sparkling. Wah wan wah. So rather than reason with those who are inventing their own fiction, God brings them up short with a reminder that he's God and He's listening. Snakes slither among them, taking out the worst of the whiners, I'm guessing, and they get the message God sends loudly and clearly repent. And miracle of miracles they do. They come to Moses and admit they've sinned, and they ask him to pray that God would take away the snakes. God says for Moses to make a snake from fiery copper and mount it on top of a flagpole so that everyone who's bitten and looks at it will live. So he does, and they do. It's such a simple saving, really. Just a look is all it took. Just a glance at this symbol of God saving and presto, they're healed on the spot, alive and whole and good to go. The apostle John makes the connection between this saving snake and Jesus when he writes, just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, end quote. Why lifted up exactly? So that everyone who believes in him can have life just the way those who looked at the snake lived. The most famous verse John ever wrote comes just after this one about Jesus being lifted up, quote, for God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. It was for their life, not for their death that God sent the snakes and gave them good reason to look to him. God could have let them hang on to their bad attitudes and bad beliefs, but God's love won't leave us where he finds us, wallowing and ruined. Love reaches out and with pain if it has to, in order to bring us to our senses and turn us to him. That's what repentance means, a turning. It doesn't mean having it all together first, and it doesn't even require words. When you repent, you deliberately turn from yourself to God, which is a whole different direction than where you were headed. With the eyes of your heart, you look at the only one who can help. All it takes is a look to turn. The prodigal son asked for his inheritance before his father died, which was considered rude in his day as well as in ours, and he squandered it on wild living. When he came to his senses in the pig pen where he was eating, he wised up, he changed direction, he turned, quote, he set out and went back to his father, end quote. That was his moment of repentance. He probably hadn't changed all that much at that point, but one thing he knew, he'd made a mess of his life, so he turned toward his father and went back to him. The father was already looking for his son, and when he saw him coming, he ran to meet him, threw his arms around his neck, put his robe around him, his ring on his finger, and told his servants to fire up the Barbie. What the son didn't get was a lecture or a how could you? The father was simply overjoyed to see him, put a calf on the spit, and celebrated his homecoming. If what God wanted was a look at a snake and a stick to save Israel, for his son simply to show up to fire up the grill and get a party started, a mere look at Jesus to save you and me. Imagine the joy of heaven when we look to God regularly, show up daily, turn to him for everything. The Christian life is so much easier than we make it. It's not about our doing. It's about trusting what Jesus did for us. It's about depending on God to be the Father we need, the Father who is God for us, the Father who forgives freely and never stops celebrating his joy to have us near. Giving life is what God is all about, not tisking us to death. How can we be sure? Because in the very next verse of John three, I read this, quote, for God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him, end quote. God brought judgment on Israel because of their continual grumbling, but he didn't leave them snake bit and dying. His judgment was given to provoke them to turn to him so he could save them. The proper work of judgment, Peterson writes, quote, is to open our hearts, to crack the shell of our self-sufficiency, so that we can experience the inrushing grace of our loving and compassionate God, end quote. While God's kindness leads us to repentance, so does his judgment. Love that lets us wallow in sin isn't love at all. At best it's indifference. It leaves us to ourselves, empty, alone, unmet. This is what barrenness is. But God's love won't let us go it alone quietly. His passion won't take no for an answer. He meddles with us, does whatever it takes until we see our need to surrender, whether it's from biting snakes or relatives or bosses or circumstances. God meddles with you because He loves you. The New Testament passage is Luke 1, 26 to 56. How does Mary respond to God's meddling? With simple faith and trust. When the angel Gabriel visits to tell her she's about to be pregnant before marriage, which is the end of her good reputation humanly speaking, she doesn't lament her loss. She embraces it to be so honored. This is the attitude at one end of the how to handle God's meddling spectrum. While the Israelites whine when God presses them, Mary worships. Her heart knows that everything from God's hand is only and always good, even when it upsets her plans, not to mention the hopes and dreams of her new life with Joseph. I'm guessing Mary and Joseph had to deal with a lot of gossip about Jesus, among other heartaches that his life caused them. But Mary doesn't ask for an easy path. She wants the one God is giving her. She says, quote, let it be with me just as you say, end quote, because her heart is God alive and God ready. Will this be my response when God meddles with me? From Psalm fifty eight. This is a grisly psalm. If you've never had a real and horrific enemy, it's going to sound shocking because by the end David writes about making toasts with his friends using goblets of enemy blood. But keep this in mind as you try to wrap it around these goblets. David doesn't take his enemies out, God does, and he trusts God to do it because David knows that God's justice won't let anybody get away with anything. God cancels the crooks in power who take advantage of the weak. When God brings them down and saves the innocent, it's cause to celebrate, and David rejoices with his righteous friends. God doesn't just meddle with sinners. If they continue to be hard hearted against him, eventually he takes them out. Some of the Israelites died by snake bite after all, but this was their choosing because, quote, whoever was bitten and looked at it would live, end quote. Respond to God's meddling by surrendering to him. Prayer. God, thank you for the way you keep messing with me, reminding me of your love, bringing me up short when I start to wander. Give me a surrendered heart to respond to you. Keep coming after me. In Jesus' name, so be it. From Proverbs 11, 10 to 11. Our towns cheer for two kinds of justice. When good things happen for good people, and when bad things happen for bad ones, the righteous make their city flourish, while the wicked bring disaster. Passages in Numbers, Luke, Psalms, and Proverbs are selected for today in the yearly Bible. This is Eve, Debartle Laban, Robuk.