Grace Over Grit

  • January 4, 2022
  • /
  • John Tillman

Scripture Focus: Job 4.5-6
5 But now trouble comes to you, and you are discouraged; 
it strikes you, and you are dismayed. 
6 Should not your piety be your confidence 
and your blameless ways your hope? 

Reflection: Grace Over Grit
By John Tillman

Change is in the air in early January. Resolve. Renewal. Rededication. 

These are all helpful and healthful in many ways. We can often affect physical, financial, and moral change with just some determination, grit, and stick-to-itiveness. But how do we treat ourselves and others when things fail or fail to produce the results we expect?

When the pious face problems, pride tells us we are being wronged. We may have a harder time accepting the situation. We’ve worked too hard for this to happen, haven’t we?

The wicked expect no “rest” (Isaiah 48.22; 57.20-21) but the righteous do. What happens when the peace and rest which the righteous expect is disturbed? This is the question Job’s narrative pokes at. 

Seeing Job’s situation, his friend, Eliphaz assured Job that God was still good and that “piety” and “blameless” ways should give Job hope. He was half right.

Eliphaz and Job’s other friends will end up giving Job some terrible commentary and bad takes about his situation. (Look for more about that from Erin tomorrow.) They start as Eliphaz does, by assuring Job that if he was truly blameless then all would be well. They will end up accusing him, saying his suffering must be punishment for a sin he is concealing. I’m convinced that most of what they said came from a motivation of fear. They were looking for assurance that, “This can’t happen to me.” 

If Job, the most righteous person they knew, could experience these things, then what hope did they have? What security could they hold on to? What comfort could they take, even in their current situation of blessing?

Eliphaz is right that God is good. His error, and ours, comes in turning around and putting hope and faith in other, more tangible things. God is good, as long as I have… fill-in-the-blank.

Whatever we might fill that blank in with, Job lost it. If it happened to Job, it can happen to us. Job looked like a failure to his friends but in his suffering he was faithfully following God. We need to have faith not in our grit or our gains but in God’s grace. God’s grace is sufficient. Our grit is not.

When we see sufferers like Job, we need to remember that God’s grace may be more powerfully at work in them than we can see.

Divine Hours Prayer: The Refrain for the Morning Lessons
Our help is in the Name of the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth. — Psalm 124.8

– From The Divine Hours: Prayers for Autumn and Wintertime by Phyllis Tickle.

Today’s Readings
Job 4 (Listen – 2:06) 
Psalm 7-8 (Listen – 2:58)

From John: In this new year, we are tweaking our reading plan. We will still read all of the same books as are typically in our “even year” plan. However, we will read them in a roughly chronological order. We will not jump around from book to book (many books are written in overlapping times) but we will read them in an order that is as close to chronological order without breaking the books up. Readers have expressed interest in this and we are looking forward to seeing scriptures fall at new times of the year and becoming more familiar with how the writers of scripture depended on one another and finding new connections as we read in this manner. We will work on a graphic of the new reading plans over the next couple of months and will provide it when it is available. Thank you for your readership and for your prayer and financial support! Happy New Year!

Read more about Fruitful in Suffering
We can be fruitful in the land of our suffering, not by our own cleverness, craft, or scheming, but by the Holy Spirit.

Fruitful in Suffering

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New Days Begin in the Dark

  • January 3, 2022
  • /
  • John Tillman

Scripture Focus: Job 3.25-27
      25 What I feared has come upon me; 
         what I dreaded has happened to me. 
      26 I have no peace, no quietness; 
         I have no rest, but only turmoil.” 

Psalm 6.3-6
      3 My soul is in deep anguish. 
         How long, LORD, how long? 
      4 Turn, LORD, and deliver me; 
         save me because of your unfailing love. 
      5 Among the dead no one proclaims your name. 
         Who praises you from the grave? 
      6 I am worn out from my groaning. 
         All night long I flood my bed with weeping 
         and drench my couch with tears. 

Reflection: New Days Begin in the Dark
By John Tillman

As Job mourns what he has lost, he curses the day of his birth. He avoids cursing God but he curses the day of his creation and he alludes to creation events.

Job does not want God to “care about” the moment of his birth. This alludes to God “hovering” over the waters which birthed the land. He does not want God to speak light, but to let the darkness overwhelm him. (Job 3.4) He wishes for no stars and no morning light to come. (Job 3.9) He wants time itself to ignore the day, leaving it unrecorded on a calendar. He wishes for creation to be barren and for the chaos monster, Leviathan to be roused. 

Job’s despair led to a desire for deconstruction, uncreation, death. It’s a common thought process. For the past two years, Netflix has created darkly comic documentaries about the year: “Death to 2020” and “Death to 2021” 

Many now mourn, like Job. Loss, violence, and plague have come. Famine of basic necessities has struck countries, like the United States, unused to the slightest inconvenience. Famine of spiritual things also has fallen—a famine of faith, a famine of hope, and a famine of love. 

But the most terrible of these is a famine of love. This is the dark chaos many feel.

A Jewish day does not begin at the stroke of midnight or the rising of the sun but at the sun’s setting. Genesis establishes this pattern: “there was evening and there was morning—the first day.” (Genesis 1.5) It’s a modern development for us to think a new day, or a new year, begins at the stroke of midnight. However, new days do begin in the dark. 

The world began when God hovered over dark chaos and spoke light. Humanity began when God molded earth and breathed life into it. Though like Job, sufferers may wish destruction, unmaking, or death to our pasts, we can be assured that God intends life, light, and hope for us. He will hear and answer our cries.

God does hover, caringly over our dark chaos. He does cause his light to shine on us. He marks our days with stars in the heavens and sends the Morningstar to rise in our hearts. The Holy Spirit guarantees even the darkness of death will succumb to light.

Every good thing the Father of lights has for us will come. Even in the dark.

Divine Hours Prayer: The Call to Prayer
Proclaim with me the greatness of the Lord; let us exalt his name together. — Psalm 34.3

– From The Divine Hours: Prayers for Autumn and Wintertime by Phyllis Tickle.

Today’s Readings
Job 3 (Listen – 2:32) 
Psalm 5-6 (Listen – 2:45)

From John: In this new year, we are tweaking our reading plan. We will still read all of the same books as are typically in our “even year” plan. However, we will read them in a roughly chronological order. We will not jump around from book to book (many books are written in overlapping times) but we will read them in an order that is as close to chronological order without breaking the books up. Readers have expressed interest in this and we are looking forward to seeing scriptures fall at new times of the year and becoming more familiar with how the writers of scripture depended on one another and finding new connections as we read in this manner. We will work on a graphic of the new reading plans over the next couple of months and will provide it when it is available. Thank you for your readership and for your prayer and financial support! Happy New Year!

Read more about Lamenting With Job :: Guided Prayer
With the help of the Holy Spirit lament can swallow up complaining in our lives. Lament is frequent and important in the Bible and should be in our lives.

Lamenting With Job :: Guided Prayer

Read more about A Generational Lament
God accepts the prayer of the despairing and the cries of the frustrated and broken more quickly than the prayers of the proud.

A Generational Lament

New Year, New Adam, New Creation

  • December 31, 2021
  • /
  • John Tillman

Scripture Focus: Revelation 22.3, 17
No longer will there be any curse….The Spirit and the bride say, “Come!” And let the one who hears say, “Come!” Let the one who is thirsty come; and let the one who wishes take the free gift of the water of life.

Reflection: New Year, New Adam, New Creation
By John Tillman

In recent times, many have cursed outgoing years for their sufferings. 2019 was blamed for much. 2020 was blamed for more. 2021 will get its share of curses and blame.

Traditionally, a new year inspires hope. This doesn’t seem as true anymore. When our traumatized culture looks to the new year, anticipation is often tainted with trepidation. It’s easy to see why. When one has been burned so often, warm feelings about the future are fleeting.

Traditional images of New Year celebrations include the old year, personified by an old man, (Sometimes called “Father Time”) and the new year, by a baby. The baby brings the incoming blessings of the new year and the old man carries the old year’s curses to the grave.

Baby New Year represents hope for the future. However, just like 2020 and 2021 failed to prove much better than 2019, a new generation is unlikely to prove much better than the last. We tend to get stuck in the sins of our forefathers rather than free ourselves from them. Short of a miracle, one year, or one generation can’t reverse the mistakes of the past.

Christians do, however, hope in a miraculous child. Better than a baby new year, Jesus is a new Adam. All creation will be renewed in him. In Jesus, we find a baby who is able to redeem his forefathers, a child who is able to lead reborn children of God, and a king who is able to overturn the wrongs of prior kingdoms.

The old years don’t really deserve cursing but our old selves do. The years weren’t the problem. We were—and are. We have carried out our own curse since Eden, however, God stands ready to reverse it. Neither the year nor those who lived through it are cursed if we are in Christ.

Christ takes our curse in himself and births in us a new self that owes no debt to sin and no death to the grave. The new Adam makes us new creations. Our “old man” is not killed and replaced so much as renewed and reinvigorated with living water that gives life forevermore.

As we enter the new year, rather than curse the past, let us bless the future. Let us drink freely of, and offer to the world “the free gift of the water of life.”

Image: Father Time and Baby New Year from Postcard, 1909 (Public Domain)

Divine Hours Prayer: The Request for Presence
Be pleased, O God, to deliver me; O Lord, make haste to help me. — Psalm 70.1

– From The Divine Hours: Prayers for Autumn and Wintertime by Phyllis Tickle.Today’s Readings
2 Chronicles 36 (Listen – 4:26) 
Revelation 22 (Listen – 3:59)

From John: In this new year, we are tweaking our reading plan. We will still read all of the same books as are typically in our “even year” plan. However, we will read them in a roughly chronological order. We will not jump around from book to book (many books are written in overlapping times) but we will read them in an order that is as close to chronological order without breaking the books up. Readers have expressed interest in this and we are looking forward to seeing scriptures fall at new times of the year and becoming more familiar with how the writers of scripture depended on one another and finding new connections as we read in this manner. We will work on a graphic of the new reading plans over the next couple of months and will provide it when it is available. Thank you for your readership and for your prayer and financial support! Happy New Year!

This Weekend’s Readings
Job 1 (Listen – 3:38) Psalm 1-2 (Listen – 2:05)
Job 2 (Listen – 2:11) Psalm 3-4 (Listen – 1:56)

Read more about Supporting our Work
Your support this year enabled us to bless ministry students with scholarships. One of our student writers, Karen from Saint Louis says, “Getting to know John and some of the guest writers was a great encouragement. The monetary gift was an unexpected cherry on top. Thank you for your support and for your vision to encourage seminary students in our pursuit of God’s calling for our lives.”

Supporting our Work

Read more about The Curse Reversed
In the curse of Eden, God commits himself to a course of intervention on our behalf. The curse is made to be broken.

The Curse Reversed—Readers’ Choice

Ache for Renewal

  • December 30, 2021
  • /
  • John Tillman

Scripture Focus: Revelation 21.5, 6
“I am making everything new!…It is done.”

From John: Little did we know how much we would need renewal from Christ at the end of 2019… This re-edited devotional is a vital reminder that spiritual renewal is powered by Christ and our surrender to him, not our own willpower and work.

Reflection: Ache for Renewal
By John Tillman

We have a constant, longing ache for renewal right down in our souls where we sense Eden’s loss. In Epiphany, we can find the blossoming, the revealing, the renewal that we long for.

This ache is magnified during the days surrounding New Year celebrations. Despite the depth of the ache in our souls, the renewals that we focus on are typically shallow and self-improvement-driven.

We want to change our diets.
We want to change our jobs. (or maybe just our boss…)
We want to lose weight. 
We want to gain knowledge or skills.
We want to stop a bad habit. 
We want to start a good habit.

It is good for us to work better, live better, grow in knowledge, grow in health, take a new career direction, or upgrade the food we eat. Even these surface-level changes typically improve not just ourselves, but the world around us.

We may smile more. We may feel better. We may be better able to live as loving revelations of Christ. But there is also a danger of merely enacting a secular (and selfish) ritual of self-improvement. 

In Christ’s description of exorcism, the ousted demon finds the person he just left clean and empty with plenty of room for even worse spiritual corruption. If we do not deal with the demons at the root of our discontent, then we will only sweep out of our homes last years’ messes, to make room for new and worse in the coming year. The last state of our souls is worse than the first. (Matthew 12.43-45; Luke 11.24-26)

Christ declared to John, “I am making all things new,” then later, “It is done.” It is Christ, who is the author and finisher of our faith (Hebrews 12.2). Christ declared his suffering finished on the cross (John 19.30), and he will eventually declare his renewal of the Earth finished. 

The end of the Earth will be, rather than complete destruction, complete reconstruction. The world and everything in it, including us, will be renewed.

So rather than attempt to sweep our own house clean and empty, may we invite Jesus into our mess (Revelation 3.20), and let him do renewing, revealing work within and through us. He has work of renewal for us to join him in now. And he who begins a good work in us will see it through to completion (Philippians 1.6). When he is finished, we will have revealed Him to the world.

Divine Hours Prayer: The Request for Presence
Bow down your ear, O Lord, and answer me…
Keep watch over my life, for I am faithful. — Psalm 86.1-2

– From The Divine Hours: Prayers for Autumn and Wintertime by Phyllis Tickle.

Today’s Readings
2 Chronicles 35 (Listen – 5:25) 
Revelation 21 (Listen – 4:34)

Read more about Supporting our Work
Our readers need your support. A reader from Waco says, “Thank you so much to all of you who support the ministry of the Park Forum…Thank you for blessing the ministry as it blesses people like me.”

Supporting our Work

Read more about We Need Renewal :: Worldwide Prayer
Visit the world again and again with awakenings by your Spirit that will sweep humanity into your Kingdom and bring greater justice and mercy into our homes, communities, and nations.

We Need Renewal :: Worldwide Prayer

Resolutions

  • December 29, 2021
  • /
  • Erin Newton

Scripture Focus: 2 Chronicles 34.23-24, 27
She said to them, “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: Tell the man who sent you to me, ‘This is what the Lord says: I am going to bring disaster on this place and its people… Because your heart was responsive and you humbled yourself before God when you heard what he spoke against this place and its people, and because you humbled yourself before me and tore your robes and wept in my presence, I have heard you, declares the Lord.

Reflection: Resolutions
By Erin Newton

New Year’s is one of my favorite lesser holidays. I love the idea of making new goals. However, some goals will fail miserably within the first month. Other goals I’ll forget I even made. I begin to wonder how I could forget something that once meant so much to me.

Chronicles is a second view of Israel’s history with a slightly different perspective than the books of Kings. We read again about the discovery of the book of the law during the reign of Josiah. The text seems foreign to the king and he needs the expertise and insight from the prophetess Huldah to understand.

We could pause a moment and be encouraged by God’s use of a woman to educate, inform, and interpret God’s word for the king. That is certainly a message for our day. Earlier this year, we reflected on the fact that Josiah responded positively to the rebuke given by the prophetess. (A Responsive Heart) That message continues to be needed as we reflect on our ignorance and reluctance to admit to past sins both private and corporate.

As I look toward the unknown year ahead, I think more about how the word had been forgotten. It was supposed to be read aloud and repeated throughout the year. In time, someone must have forgotten, become lazy, got distracted, was overwhelmed, stopped caring, succumbed to peer pressure, or found any number of reasons to neglect this duty. The few failures spread more and more until the entire community was ignorant.

Diane Langberg, an expert in trauma counseling, once said, “We get there little by little; blind, numb, and not noticing until the horrific seems normal and acceptable” (Suffering and the Heart of God). For the Israelites, they had replaced the worship of God with the worship of other deities and neglected to honor and support their marginalized neighbors. There was widespread injustice and oppression within the community. There was the suppression of true worship in their own hearts.

As we look toward this new year, this is the time to reflect on what you have forgotten in God’s word. The word calls us to pray often, take care of the poor, seek justice, walk humbly, speak truth, and give our lives for others. Let our apathy turn into a renewed covenant. Let the new year be filled with repentant hearts open to the wise counsel of godly women (or men). 

Divine Hours Prayer: The Refrain for the Morning Lessons
I will exalt you, O God my King, and bless your Name forever and ever. — Psalm 145.1

– From The Divine Hours: Prayers for Autumn and Wintertime by Phyllis Tickle.

Today’s Readings
2 Chronicles 34 (Listen – 6:23) 
Revelation 20 (Listen – 2:49)

Read more about Supporting our Work
Our readers need your support. A reader from Connecticut says, “Thank you for giving me a place to turn to for a thoughtful daily message.”

Supporting our Work

Read more about A Responsive Heart
Josiah was 18 years into his reign when he discovered that what he grew up with as normal was angering to the Lord.

A Responsive Heart