July 6-When You're Feeling Adrift, Try This

On a day when I couldn't get my bearings, my Bible gave me the words I needed to bear up.  They reminded me who is intimately, sovereignly, and lovingly there for me:  1 Chronicles 3-4, Acts 24, Psalm 4, Proverbs 18:18-19.

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Eve reads her Bible journal aloud on this episode.

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Transcript

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July 6. When you're feeling adrift, try this. I won't be reading the scripture references. For those, please check the written post. I was in the mountains of North Carolina in the cozy vacation home of a generous friend. Seven rocking chairs kept company on the front porch. The view of the surrounding mountains was uncluttered by other houses and included millions of trees on rising peaks near and far. This was what I'd come to see. But on the first full day it was overcast. Fog had settled so deep there was nothing but gray soup outside those windows. At this house of highest elevation at the end of the street, everywhere I looked, not even one peak of one peak. It was disorienting, unsettling. I wanted to close the blinds so I didn't keep watching for the mountains and feeling disappointed. I knew they were there, but not being able to see them set me adrift. I was already feeling discombobulated that day in general, since I wasn't at home doing my usual thing. Different sights, different sounds, different feels surrounded me. I was scrambling to find somewhere solid to stand. Today's passages came along just when I needed them.

1 Chronicles 3-4

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The Old Testament chapters are first Chronicles three to four. These chapters are hard to appreciate, except for David who takes up the first nine verses of chapter three. They include lists of names of people long gone and ungoogleable, so we can't learn anything about most of them. I pause to ponder why God includes them in the Bible, and I came up with three maybe obvious things about the God who documents them. One, God knows everybody. These unknown folks aren't unknown to him. He knows who they were and how they lived and why he included them. For whatever reason, it pleased him to jot their names down so we'd read them all these thousands of years later. two God doesn't forget anybody. He's made sure these people's names are remembered, even if most of their stories are lost. He even included a list of the names of the Edomite kings who'd been Israel's enemies as far back as that birthright business between Jacob and Esau. three, God's not like us. He doesn't play favorites or hold grudges or wring his hands wondering why nobody turns out right. For reasons unknown to us, he memorializes the names of all kinds of people, the faithful and the faithless, the straightforward and the shifty, the righteous and the renegade, and he doesn't make notes in the margins about who's who or what's what either. And while most of what I read in first Chronicles was just name after name, there was also a snippet of a story about Jabez, who was quote, a better man than his brothers, end quote. When he asked for God's blessing, and by blessing he meant large tracts of land and personal protection, God gave him what he asked for. Easy as that. Even before Jesus came and made having a personal relationship with God a known thing, Jabez already understood the basics. He lived honorably. He asked for God's help, and he got it. I didn't learn a whole lot from the lists of names in these chapters about how to live, but I did learn something about who God is, how he likes to keep records, how he sees the big picture and knows just how we're all related, how he engaged in one man's life and blessed him because he asked for it. God isn't off somewhere, unattached and aloof. He's not cavorting through clouds in his winged chariot, unaware of what's happening in our various places on earth. He's connected, he's involved, he's with us. He knows the stories behind all the names on these pages after all. Want proof? Look at Jabez, whose ask of God became God's gift to him of both prosperity and peace. God even recorded Jabez's birth story for us, and this is a remarkable thing to me because I don't even know my own birth story, but it encouraged me when I realized that God knows it. It was a found thing to feel, an intimate thing on a day when I felt lost in the Black Mountains. Apart from enjoying my daughter and her little family, which was why I came to North Carolina, I was struggling with more than twenty five bug bites. I'm allergic to mosquitoes, and those bites had grown big as half dollars. I'm also used to having a task list to knock out at my house, not time to rest and relax. What I wanted in these surroundings was a magic reset button to push to feel like myself. I was a lump on a log, and I couldn't find my way off, and I struggled for the words to tell God about it. But God knew if he knew about Jabez's painful birth, it wasn't a hard stretch to believe that he also knew about me and my wonkiness, whether or not I got what was going on. God did. I felt a little better believing it. And the next thought was even better. I didn't have to figure myself out. Even if I did, I didn't have the power to set me right. But Jesus came to save, didn't he? Well, sometimes I needed him to save me from myself. It was then when I remembered Jesus is my magic reset. And with the pressure off to fix me, suddenly I felt like taking a bike ride. I didn't have to mope around waiting for the sun to come out and those mountain peaks to show back up. So I found socks and shoes and laced up, and when I did, lo and behold, the fog began bottoming out and those mountain tops rose right where they'd been before. The sun burned through the haze, the sky blewed. Fog still lay heavy in the bottoms, but the peaks became visible and were oh so relieving. Regardless of my perception, those mountains hadn't moved. Regardless of how I felt, God hadn't moved either. God was still God for me, and he not only knew my birth story, he knew my conception story too. Talk about intimate. Lighthearted at last, I went out for my bike ride. When you're feeling adrift, try remembering that your personal God has got you. The New Testament

Acts 24

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chapter is Acts twenty four. Paul's been arrested on trumped up charges and gets his day in court. Governor Felix, the presiding judge, knows these charges are bogus, but he wants to suck up to the Jewish opposition. So rather than ruling, he leaves Paul in prison for two years. Paul's gotta feel disheartened, locked up and wondering about this sudden shift in his calling. Rather than speaking and serving and starting churches, he's stuck in jail with his friends coming in and out and serving him. It's gotta be discouraging. So what does Paul do while he's sidelined and sitting around? He tells the story of Jesus to everyone who will listen, and many of them are men in King Herod's administration. Then he goes to Rome to face these same charges and is under house arrest for another two years. While there he writes letters to some of the churches he started, letters that have become part of the New Testament, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, and Philemon, the world has benefited ever since. These letters wouldn't have been written had Paul been free to come and go as usual. He couldn't have known what God was doing by getting him arrested and confining his ministry. But he takes it in stride. Paul doesn't wither, he thrives. When his life takes an unexpected turn into prison, he could have let the confusion get to him, but he doesn't. He trusts God with it. In his letter to the Philippians he says that his message of Jesus was made clear to everyone, even to the palace guards who rotated their duty to watch him, and most of the believers in Rome were made bolder because of his chains to spread the gospel rather than were afraid to speak of it. Trusting God with your situation isn't wishful thinking, it's a sure thing, as sure as knowing there's still mountains in place when the sky is soupy, as sure as knowing God is aware and always working for you, even when you can't see what he's doing. It's hugely comforting to know deep down where I need to know it that God is God and I am not, and that he's not rocked by how I feel like I am. He's solid, he's the mountain, the fortress, the strong tower. His plans and purposes stand regardless of anyone or anything. And when I forget, he opens up his words and gives me faith to believe them. When you're feeling adrift, try remembering your

Psalm 4, Prayer, Proverbs 18:18-19

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sovereign God has got you. From Psalm four. The Psalmist writes The Lord will hear when I call to him, end quote. And he doesn't say my call has to be about life and death. It can be for any old reason at all. What's more when I call, I get back, quote, more than enough, more joy in one ordinary day, end quote, because God is the one who answers me. He's the one who puts my life back together. And when the pressure is off of me and on him to put me together, I get to put my feet up and the joy comes flooding. Nothing like a free ride, because God's already paid for it. When you're feeling adrift, try remembering your life-changing God has got you. Prayer. God, thank you for the fog and what it forced me to work through. Thank you for finding me and reminding me who you are for me, my high mountain hideaway. In Jesus' name, so be it. From Proverbs 18, 18 to 19. When a decision is weighty, don't be afraid to toss the dice to keep the peace. Some opponents can't be won, and arguments will lock them up tighter. Passages in First Chronicles, Acts, Psalms, and Proverbs are selected for today in the yearly Bible. This is Eve de Bartelaban, Roebuck.