promise

Less Popular Perspectives on God’s Call

~ Heather Davis ~ 2 Comments

Then the LORD said to Abram, “Know for certain that your offspring will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs and will be servants there, and they will be afflicted for four hundred years. But I will bring judgment on the nation that they serve, and afterward they shall come out with great possessions. As for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace; you shall be buried in a good old age. And they shall come back here in the fourth generation…” (Genesis 15:13-16, ESV).

Besides the usual seasonal blahs I associate with Tennessee’s grey January weather, I’m coping with a (thus far, blessedly mild) return of a few ME symptoms, a rather barren season of life, and a dose of reality that led to the digital sulks permeating my last post. I feel it critical to state that my own lament, like most of the laments in the Psalms, does not reflect a turning away from God and His goodness, but a pressing into Him even in moments where I can’t see, feel, touch, taste, or otherwise sense His goodness. In my continued Scripture reading and prayer, He reminds me of the less popular truths behind His call.

Bleak seasons are a reminder that God is good because goodness is His nature, not because of what He does or does not do. His goodness has nothing to do with my subjective feelings about either Him or my circumstances.

As I’ve pondered my own understanding of God’s call to write about what He teaches me and His work in my life, it occurred to me how much of my own expectations I added to the call. My sense of failure isn’t God’s fault – it’s mine. He never promised anything; He just gave me a directive.

I embellished it. I see my Western background showing up clearly here.

You see, historical Middle Eastern peoples did not necessarily think of “God’s promises and call to me,” so much as “God’s promise and call to my house (my clan, my family, my people).” It’s a nuance most of us overlook in the hyper-individualistic West, but one worth examining.

When God calls us to do something, He doesn’t necessarily mean we will soon enjoy the fruits of our labors. Indeed, often our lives on earth may end before our cultivated areas bud, much less produces ripened fruit. His plan is much more far-reaching than our feeble little lives; a fact we easily overlook or forget.

We can see this in Abraham’s life. God promised Abraham many things – an heir, the land of Canaan, that all nations of the world would be blessed through him. Still, Abraham waited around 25 years1 between the promise of an heir and the birth of Isaac, the son of the covenant. The only land he owned in Canaan was the cave and field2 of Machpelah where he and Sarah were buried, and the Blessing for all the nations of the world would not come for another 2,000 years or so3.

Then there’s Moses, the lawgiver and the shepherd of Israel through the decades of wilderness wandering. Although his calling was incredible, like many of us, his obedience was less than perfect. His was the privilege of leading God’s people out of Egypt, yet while he was allowed to see the Promised Land from a mountain, he did not set a mortal foot inside its borders4.

There are many other examples – these are just the two that come most readily to mind. It’s not a popular view, but it is important to remember that God’s promises and call do not come with a guarantee of worldly success. They DO come with a promise of His presence, His glory, His purpose, and His goodness.

Sometimes I lose sight of the truth that He is my shield and my great reward. God Himself is the reward, not the fruit of my labors nor the gifts He gives. Just Him. Which is more than I deserve.

Even so, He blesses me in small ways to remind me that His love, while broader in scope than my tiny imagination can cope with, is also quite personal. Today, my King blessed my bird nerdiness with a beautiful surprise right in the middle of my communion with Him.

And I am reminded His ways are not my ways; His thoughts are not my thoughts. I am humbled, content, and grateful to play even a small, invisible part in the work of a Kingdom crossing all barriers of geography, ethnicity, and even time.

When I think of it in those terms, how silly it seems to imagine my part as anything more than a trifling contribution to a magnum opus far beyond any mortal scope.

  1. See Genesis 15:2-4; 16:15-17:1; 18:10; 21:1-5 ↩︎
  2. See Genesis 23:17-20; 25:9-10 ↩︎
  3. Matthew 1 ↩︎
  4. Exodus 34 ↩︎

Choosing Life

~ Heather Davis ~ Leave a comment

Moses was nearing the end of his substantial ministry, preparing to hand leadership off to Joshua, and getting the descendants of Israel ready to take possession of the land promised to Abraham many generations before. In light of his, Moses had just finished reiterating the entire covenant between God and His chosen people so they would go in with a clear understanding of what it looked like to keep their end of the promise. In short, Moses offered them a choice between life and death.

I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore choose life, that you and your offspring may live, loving the LORD your God, obeying his voice and holding fast to him, for he is your life and length of days…
(Deuteronomy 30:19-20)

Note: I highly recommend reading all of Deuteronomy 30, but this is the gist.

Today, of course, believers are under a new covenant promise; a covenant bought and sealed by the priceless blood of the Divine Lamb of God who lived out that perfect obedience to God’s covenant law, laid down His life to pay the penalty for our rebellion, and took His life up again so all who put their trust in the sufficiency of His sacrifice may be set free from slavery to sin.

Because of Jesus and His sacrifice, we are given an opportunity at a new life, being remade in Him. Further, His gift of the Holy Spirit makes it possible for us to choose life. Yet obedience is still necessary for us. Indeed, Jesus equates our love for Him with our obedience to His commands many times in John 14.

Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.”
(John 14:21)

And while it is popular in some circles to say we are “free from the law,” it is more accurate to say we are free from certain specific constraints of the first covenant meant for Israel before the first advent of her Messiah. We are not free to do as we wish; certainly if we belong to Jesus, we are not free to sin but free to escape from sin.

We are still liable to a moral law, one which Jesus actually accentuates rather than diminishes. For example, Jesus not only says we should not commit adultery, but that we should not even look lustfully at another person. He doesn’t just say, “Don’t murder,” but instructs us not to be angry with our brother – in fact, to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us. He calls us not to mere obedience but perfection (see Matthew 5:21-48).

This is what I want to hone in on. When it comes to a modern understanding of sin and obedience, I think we get a little confused. We look at a specific sin and think, “Well, at least it’s a small sin. It’s not something really bad, like murder.”

Or we hold our sin up against cultural norms and think it used to be sin but maybe it isn’t anymore. Perhaps God changed His mind, or maybe humans have progressed in our understanding of sin, or maybe it’s simply outdated to think of certain actions as sinful.

We think we’re comparing good and bad or better and best. But in reality, we are still comparing life and death.

Even though Moses was talking to an ancient people about a specific covenant between their nation and a holy God, the principle of what he says still remains. Brothers and sisters, when we weigh obedience to Christ’s holiness against conformity to our culture, we are still choosing between life and death, blessing and curse.

For the love of the One who gave all so we might have His righteousness, and also because I love and care about your eternal well being, my friends, I implore you: choose life.

On the Altar

~ Heather Davis ~ 14 Comments

When they came to the place of which God had told him, Abraham built the altar there and laid the wood in order and bound Isaac his son and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood.
(Genesis 22:9)

Well friends, I’m back after a protracted blogging hiatus. At least, I’m partially back. There are several competitors for my time these days, most of which occur in my analog life.  But I have missed you and am trying to read a handful of posts each day.

This is a crazy season for our family. My girls are thriving – exploring who they are, growing in faith, and learning some important communication and time-management skills (because, really, this fall has been brutal schedule-wise).  It’s been insane but in a fun and exhilarating way.

Then there’s our prodigal… In his case, this life season is something less than exhilarating. Something much less.

But as I’ve prayed and prayed and prayed for him and for others who resist the Lord’s call to obedience, it’s my own resistance which I’m forced to confront.

Once again, God brings my attention back to the beginning – both the book of Genesis and the genesis of my own faith journey.

Figuratively speaking, I trek in the footsteps of Abraham as he traveled to Moriah along with Isaac, the promised son. For much of my calling is a call to sacrifice.

For perhaps the first time, I find myself more like Abraham on this trip. In the past when my King has called for me to meet with Him in the smoke of a sacrifice, I’ve hesitated. In moments I’m now ashamed of, I’ve even been guilty of begrudging Him the offering He’s asked of me.

Not today.

Today as I step up to the altar, the ashes of the past serve as reminders of the things I’ve burned here before and of what’s become of them.

The ashes of a career lays in the mix; remnants of the time I offered up my aspirations and financial comfort on these old stones. Though I barely knew my Lord back then and believed I would be staying home for 5 or 6 years, experience now superimposes the glory of God over the sooty remains.

I became a homeschool mom. The 5 or 6 year span stretched out into 17 years and counting.

Today I can say, as Abraham once did, “The Lord will provide,” because He has – far more than I would’ve guessed. My sacrifice seemed large at the time, but what God provided in the aftermath is massive. Superfluous even.

So Abraham called the name of that place, “The LORD will provide”; as it is said to this day, “On the mount of the LORD it shall be provided.”
(Genesis 22:14)

Since those early years, God has called me back to the altar from time to time and other remains lay scattered in the dust; charred fragments of my time, my convenience, my preferences, many of my dreams, my sense of control – a whole lot of me, when I think of it.

Not for nothing did the old German preacher, Dietrich Bonhoeffer write, “When Christ calls a man, He bids him come and die.” Much of what Christ called me to sacrifice on this altar is myself. Just as He once did. His immaculate life for me and my grubby little speck of a life for Him. Words can’t do it justice.

Today, I once more stand symbolically where Abraham, my father according to the Promise, once stood literally; feet covered in ash but a heart full of trust. For now I know that anything I offer up in obedience to His call will not die in vain. Either its death is a necessity for the better plan of the All-Knowing God, or He can and will raise it from the dead. I have not only read of this matter in the Book, I have seen it with my own eyes.

This time, I approach with a dual offering.

For the first, I lay down my goals for You, Lord. On this altar I place the writing career I’ve been trying to eke out in my spare time over the last couple of years. Do with it as You will.

And for the most profound, I give you the son of my womb whose name translates, “He gave.” You did give him to us, and you know him better than I ever could. I have done with him all I know to do and he is now nearly a man. And Lord, it grieves me immensely to say he seems to be rejecting You.

I set the life of my son on this altar before You, Lord, trusting that even if I must watch his faith in You die, You are able to raise it up from the dead.

He considered that God was able even to raise him from the dead, from which, figuratively speaking, he did receive him back.
(Hebrews 11:19)

And I wait with eager expectation to see what You will do…