March 31--What You Can Give Up, so You Can Take a Load Off

Where do you turn when life is unsteady, overwhelming, exasperating? Today's passages point to a legal high you can't overdose on:  Deuteronomy 16-17, Luke 9:1-27, Psalm 72, Proverbs 12:7-8.  

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Eve reads her Bible journal aloud on this episode.

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Transcript

Deuteronomy 16-17

Luke 9:1-27

Psalm 72, Prayer, Proverbs 12:7-8

SPEAKER_00 0:00

March 31. What you can give up so you can take a load off. I won't be reading the scripture references for those. Please check the written post. It was soggy and gray. Thunderclouds loomed while Hamilton County had two hour school delays. March had come in with a roar and was leaving the exact same way. I picked up my grandson for school that morning, a sacred privilege, but he wasn't his usual chatty. How was your weekend? I asked him. He didn't say much. I wondered about a matter he'd mentioned recently and brought it up. Any change? No, he said, looking out the window. Earlier this month we camped at his favorite place in the woods to celebrate his birthday. He built a fire and we ate beans and rice and drank chai tea, all favorites. He told me something he wasn't happy about, so we prayed for God to change it or to change him or to do both, since you never know exactly what needs to happen, but of course God does. So in the car I told him a story. Once a king was facing a fierce enemy. He didn't know how his army could win, but he knew God could do anything. So when the king marched out to face their foes, he put the town's praise band up front. They led the army, singing and shouting praises for the victory God was about to give them because God said he would, and they believed him. When they got to where their enemies had gathered they found them already dead. They'd gotten confused and killed each other. The battle was won, and it happened when the band began praising and singing, believing what God said. Oak, God fights for you and me too, and he always does what's good for us. Let's trust him so much that we praise him ahead of time for how he'll answer us. So we did. The day was still stormy afterwards. The sky was a study of billowing grays, but the calm in the car was palpable and the mood lifted. We talked about golf and getting his driver's permit in two years. When I dropped him off, he kissed me right on the mouth. Thanks, ma'am, he said. Love you. Praise and celebration are game changers, mood switchers, gloom chasers. Together they're the magic pill you can pull out and take any time you like. We need to give up praise so we can take a load off. The Old Testament chapters are Deuteronomy sixteen to seventeen. In the grind of daily living and in what can feel like the doldrums of worship, it's easy to forget God's design for us to enjoy Him and to enjoy others because there are so many other things clamoring for attention, the kids who need tending, the job that needs working, the relationship you can't manage, the tasks that keep interfering. But on one day and seven plus three other weeks off throughout the year, God commanded Israel to come to Him and worship, to sit back and put their feet up, to remember the saving He's done, and to relish the good life He's giving them because God loves a good party and praise is part of it. Praising and celebrating are God's idea. He invented eating and drinking and enjoying the company of others around a table. He knows how much we need this ritual of gathering and worshiping, feasting and fellowshipping in his presence. It would have been tempting to forget that fact and focus on the offerings and sacrifices in the Old Testament as a kind of payback to God for messing up during the week. But God tells Israel He doesn't need their offerings, they're not for His benefit, He doesn't get hungry. What does He want with the blood of bulls and goats anyway? The entire animal or amount of grain, oil or wine was offered to God, and the priest and Levites got their cuts, but the rest was returned to the person who brought it and was eaten right there at God's house, a backyard barbecued for everybody. Worship always ended with a festive meal of meat, bread, oil, and wine. This is something easy to miss and all the instructions about which animals to offer and when and how, but this is one of the most basic things to know about Old Testament worship, how it benefited Israel by feeding them and how it delighted them by giving them time off to celebrate. God loves a good party as is evidenced by these words in the first fifteen verses of chapter sixteen. God delivered you holiday. Don't work, feast. God has blessed you, rejoice, observe the feast, rejoice at your festival, celebrate the feast to God. Your God has been blessing you. What were they celebrating? In the case of offering a sacrifice for sin, they celebrated the joy of having a restored relationship with God. In the case of offering a sacrifice to commemorate a vow, they celebrated the chance of feeling closer to Him. Praising God flowed out of that celebration spirit. And just in case we miss the point God's making, he repeats it again at the end of the chapter, quote, really celebrate so that your joy will be complete, end quote. In simplest terms, the offerings in the Old Testament were a way to say I've sinned and I need forgiveness, or it was a way to say thank you. The feasting afterwards was God's way of saying all is forgiven, or you're welcome now, let's party. The only thing required of his people was having a repentant or thankful heart, symbolized in the offerings and sacrifices they brought. God provided everything else, including the meat on the spit and the wine and the bread. It's an enactment of what happens in the famous prodigal son story. The people say the son's I'm undeserving part with their offerings, and God says the father's part, here's my robe for your rags, wear my ring, now what'll it be, lamb or veal? Because in that story God doesn't emphasize the woe is me of coming back to him. The son hardly has a chance to say his part about not being worthy of the father because the father's so eager to move on and get to his part, which is rejoicing over the son's return and celebrating it with him. I can't help but think of Jesus' first miracle of turning water into wine at the wedding in Cana. He did it because the host was in a pinch, but he overprovided the wine. The water pots held twenty to thirty gallons each, which equaled enough wine to make this party last all night, and maybe the newlyweds had enough afterwards to sell the extra. God doesn't skimp on party supplies. He tells us to really celebrate. God and Jesus is all about the absolute joy of restored relationship between us and him, and he goes all out to celebrate it with us. God wants our meals and Sundays and weddings and days off to be regular occasions of exaltation, of exuberance, even of dancing and singing and praising, because being in relationship with Him and with one another is what life's all about, and being restored to Him time and time again is the very best reason to celebrate there is. Sin doesn't win. Our mistakes don't pile up and tip the scale into God's disfavor. He keeps short accounts, he wipes our slates clean, he brings out the bleach and scrubs us up, he tosses mistakes into the sea, he marks our bill paid, and then he says, Come dance with me. The longing of every heart is to be loved by God, to be in his good graces, to be pleasing and seen and accepted and validated by the one who made us and delights in us like this. This is what Jesus died to give us, a continual, inexhaustible supply of forgiveness and grace, a lifetime pass into God's presence where he says, You are my beloved, let's get this party started. If that doesn't pull you out of a funk and onto the dance floor, I don't know what will. You can give up praise so you can take a load off. Note I mention the prodigal son story a lot because it's the best one there is for showing the welcome and forgiveness of the Father for not much from the Son. The New Testament passage is Luke nine to twenty seven. Jesus tells his disciples he will suffer, and if they follow him they will too, but they don't have to be afraid of it. In fact, he says, quote, don't run from suffering, embrace it. Follow me and I'll show you how, end quote. But it's not an ascetic's life Jesus calls us to. Suffering is a doorway into deeper relationship with Him, not an end in and of itself. It's another way to experience His fellowship, His comfort, His glory, quote. We share in His sufferings that we may also share in His glory, end quote. Jesus says it's also the way to find your truest self, quote. Self sacrifice is the way, my way to finding yourself, your true self, end quote. If managed God's way, suffering is the door into more with Jesus and more of yourself, not less. If that doesn't give you a new perspective, I don't know what will, you can give up your old self so you can find a new self in Jesus. From Psalm seventy two. Solomon's Psalm must have been written in his early years before his wealth and wives and war machine distract him from loving God first and best. In a nutshell he tells God's people to praise and bless God because he's worthy and quote, all earth brims with his glory, end quote. The praise here feels fresh and heartfelt, and King Saul finds plenty of reasons to lay it on thick. I'm sad to remember that later he succumbs to sexual addiction, greed and idolatry, losing his wisdom and mind right along with his golden reputation. Staying the course doesn't happen by accident. Faith doesn't work on autopilot. It's a deliberate daily choice to do what God says, to love him best, to praise him for all that he is. Praise is our party ticket and an indicator that we're looking to God and not itself. It's an automatic time off from our troubles, like a lift from Zoloft, only without the side effects, and it takes us where the party with God never stops. If that's not day changing news, I don't know what is. You can give up praise so you can lift off prayer. God troubles swirled early, and I needed this reminder about praise today. Thank you that I don't have to wait until you fix things to do it. I can praise like it's already coming because it is such a load off. In Jesus' name, so be it. From Proverbs 12, 7 to 8. The lives of bad folks fall apart while the lives of good ones hold together. A wise person finds honor while the fool finds humiliation. Passages in Deuteronomy, Luke, Psalms, and Proverbs are selected for today in the yearly Bible. This is Eve Debartalaban roebuck.