This is Redemption: The Greatest Need

"[God] will make [Israel's] wilderness like Eden, and her desert like the garden of the Lord...." Isaiah 51:3b
"So the Lord blessed the latter end of Job more than the beginning...." Job 42:12a
"And He that sat upon the throne said, 'Behold, I make all things new....'" Revelation 21:5a

Redemption is restoration, and restoration is the greatest of human needs. Though the unbelieving man or woman may be a bit fuzzy on the particulars, there is nonetheless an underlying uneasiness within the human race, a restless certainty that all is not well. Now, two things need to be said about that last sentence: (1) This is not abstract psychology; it is a rugged fact of humanity: to be human is to know that something is wrong. Perhaps one does not know exactly what, how, or in what way things are wrong, but they know there is something wrong. (2) This is not stating the obvious. People may say, "Sure the world is messed up; just look at the news," and they are right. However, that people know that something is wrong does not merely mean that they know that bad things happen; it means they have a disturbing feeling that things are wrong, that at rock bottom all things (good, bad, and neutral) are wrong, damaged, abnormal, not the way it ought to be. It is not just bad things that feel wrong, but all things that feel wrong, including ourselves. Whatever or whoever has been wronged and it whatever way, it is the greatest human desire that things be rectified and reconciled.
God satisfies this greatest of human needs by telling us in his factual, propositional, revealed Word exactly what went wrong and how it can be fixed, i.e., the Fall and the Cross: a real, space-time evil that mankind perpetrated and thus inherited; and a real, space-time solution that God instituted and mankind can either accept or reject. Acceptance means restoration: of man to man, man to himself, and man to God. Rejection means...well, nothing. Things stay the same, i.e., things stay wrong; and mankind is left unsatisfied.

"Our greatest need, oh God,
Our greatest need is You,
With us; us back to You.
Our greatest need, oh God
Is Immanuel..."
-Jon Vowell

"You are a child of mine..."

"Hearken to me, ye that pursue righteousness, ye that seek the Lord: look unto the rock from whence ye are hewn, and to the hole of the pit from whence ye are digged." Isaiah 51:1

The immediate context here is God reminding Israel that they are His through Abraham (vs. 2). The broader context has God reminding us that we are His through Christ (Galatians 3:7-9, 14, 16, 22, 26, 29). If you find yourself in distress and despair, God says, "Remember where you come from; remember whose child you are." Despair sets in when you forget who you are and Whose you are. You are a child of God, His chosen beloved. No matter what your circumstances, He only has your best, because He works all circumstances for our good (Roman 8:28).
Its sounds rather underwhelming that we are God's children, but we forget it constantly. We run aground on something, anything, and we become instant atheist (just add trials), with no lineage or groundwork outside of our own confused selves. It is therefore as refreshing as cold water in a desert to be reminded that you are God's and He is yours. In times of darkness, "look unto the rock from whence ye are hewn," i.e., the Rock of Ages, the infinite-personal triune God who is there.

"You are a child of mine,
Born of my own design.
And you bear the heart
Of life..."
(Mark Schultz)
-Jon Vowell

To Build a Fire

"Who is among you that fears the Lord, that obeys the voice of His servant, that walks in darkness and has no light? Let him trust in the name of the Lord, and rely upon his God. Behold, all ye that kindle a fire, that encircle yourselves about with sparks: walk in the light of your fire and the sparks that ye have kindled. This shall ye have of mine hand: ye shall lie down in sorrow." Isaiah 50:10-11

The principle found here (and Proverbs 3:5, 6) is the simplest thing and yet the hardest thing. Whether you are lost (and the "darkness" is spiritual darkness), or you are a child of God (and the "darkness" is the shadow of His hand), the only sure way is the way that trusts God and God alone. All other ways, all attempts to "kindle a fire," to create a man-made light for your darkness, will end in despair. All attempts to rescue yourself are futile; the only true light in the dark is God, the only true trust is the one that rests in Him.
Whatever darkness you are going through (and there is always some somewhere), avoiding kindling a fire. God asks that you go through the darkness to Himself, not park and make camp. God is the ever-present fireside, and that is the paradox: He is the one with you leading you to Himself. He is your guidance and destination; in Him alone is light and rest. All other fires are sinking sand.

"Only Light of the world,
Drown out all other lights
Like candles before the Dawn..."
-Jon Vowell

Is He Near?

"He is near that justifieth me; who will contend with me? Let us stand together; who is my accuser? Let him come near to me." Isaiah 50:8

The habit of self-justification is diabolical because it is one of the shades of massive unbelief. All unbelief follows the standard formula of a life centered on yourself. God is not even considered a factor; we take our lives into our own hands (and at our own risk). Consequently, we alone are to solve our own problems (because there is no one else); and when we justify ourselves, we have summarily excused God from the throne of our lives and parked our confused carcasses their instead. Only God can justify, because only He sees all, and thus only He can be absolutely objective and just. Self-justification is merely another form of pride, which is merely another form of unbelief, i.e., a life centered on self and not God.
When our reality includes God, however, we will (amongst other things) care nothing for what men say about us; we will care nothing for our rights, our way, our self. All that we have and are is placed in God's hands, and we relinquish all say in the matter (which is really the acknowledgment that we had no say in the matter in the first place). None can nay-say the one whose life is centered on God, because (1) God will always lead that one rightly, and (2) the God-centered one is blissfully unaware of himself, his cares, his rights; therefore, he cares very little about the mockery, scorn, and misunderstandings of others.
"He is near that justifieth me." Do you live in the light of that truth, or are you obsessed with yourself. When God is near, when God is your abiding reality, then and only then are all things well and at peace.

"When God is near,
All the world seems far away.
How can I stray, how can I falter,
When I know my God is near?"
(anonymous song)
-Jon Vowell

Faith as Courage

"For the Lord God will help me; therefore shall I not be confounded, therefore have I set my face like a flint, and I know that I shall not be ashamed." Isaiah 50:7

All courage is based on the knowledge of the unseen: the unseen skill, the unseen friend, the unseen ledge, the unseen hope; and faith is the courage that bases itself on the knowledge of God. I do not believe that we see faith as a kind of courage; perhaps as a kind of lunacy, but not boldness or strength of character, and that is a shame. All courage is lunacy to everyone except the one who is being courageous; only cowards call the brave insane.

Perhaps if we Western Christians saw faith as a kind of courage (and not a kind of irrationality), it would fair better against our innate pragmatism and empiricism. It would perhaps also combat the so called "feminization of the Church" by energizing Christian men (what would reach a man's heart: faith as lunacy or inspid sweetness, or faith as courage?). When our faith, our courage, is based on the knowledge of the unseen God Who is there, on "the Lord God" who "will help me," then and only then are we the ones who can "set [our] face like a flint." The courageous man, the faithful man, is unswayed in his action, because he alone sees what others cannot, accounts for what others do not. People call such men mad; may we all be struck by such madness.

"Is it madness to trust
In the Lord of all?
Lunacy to grasp at
The Eternal Hand?
Is it crazy to be brave...?"

-Jon Vowell

The Way of the Man of Sorrows

"I gave my back to the smiters, and my cheeks to them that plucked off my beard; I hid not my face from shame and spitting." Isaiah 50:6

The majority of God's children (mainly in the West) do not contain the rugged masculinity of Jesus Christ; they do not possess the backbone of the man of sorrows. Courage is when a person goes to their breaking point and does not break, and there is a breaking point that Jesus met and passed many times, a breaking point that we crumble with self-pity over--humiliation. From the Incarnation (Philippians 2:7, 8), to Gethsemane (Luke 22:42), to the passion of the Cross, Christ's life was marked as one of abject humiliation, of the Highest willingly being made the lowest. Have we lost the courage of the man of sorrows, the courage to rest in God at the price of humiliation before men?
"Because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hates you." (John 15:19) Are you prepared for the mock and scorn of the child of God? Are you prepared to be considered some horrible, alien thing in the eyes of men? Or are you prepared to be the friend of this world? Being friends with the world is easy because it cost nothing except your soul; nothing you hold dear and everything that is dear. God asks that you rest your soul in His hands and let all other things be humiliated: your pride, your rights, your self, your sin. You shun humiliation at your own risk.

"Make me a son of Your Love:
Purged pure and whole,
All of life redeemed,
All of life centered on You..."
-Jon Vowell

We Cannot Escape

"Thus saith the Lord, 'Where is the bill of your mother's divorcement, whom I have put away? Or which of my creditors is it to whom I have sold you? Behold, for your iniquities have ye sold yourselves, and for your transgressions is your mother put away.'" Isaiah 50:1

The consequences of sinful choices are not arbitrary assignments from God, but rather absolute facts. God never causes evil in a direct sense (see here for an explanation of Isaiah 45:7); He simply allows the natural consequences of sin to play out. What we desire is what God will give us: if we desire Himself, he will give us Himself; if we desire sin and death, then He will give us sin and death. That a man reaps what he sows (Galatians 6:7) is an immutable law of reality; we cannot escape it.
That the wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23) is another immutable law that we cannot escape. It is not that Sin could of had any wage but God rather rudely decided that it would be death; Sin's very nature is such that it can have no other consequence but death, and not even God Himself can change that. When you reject God, you choose Sin; when you reject life, you choose death. There is no other way it can be.
We must defiantly buck against the childish nonsense that blames evil on God. Evil is the direct result of only one thing: the Fall. Adam fell, and as such evil now abides within man and within creation (see I Corinthians 15:21, 22 & Romans 8:19-22). God dealt with evil (i.e., Sin) on the Cross; but if we reject that redemption, then, like all evil choices, the consequences will be devastating and our own fault.

"We are the fools,
You are the Wise;
And only a fool
Blames His own foolishness
On the Wise..."
-Jon Vowell

The Waiting

"Zion said, 'The Lord hath forsaken me, and my Lord hath forgotten me.' [...] Thus saith the Lord God, [...] 'They shall not be ashamed that wait for me.'" Isaiah 49:14, 23b

There is a terrible and burning restlessness that rises within us whenever we must pass through the "waiting," i.e., a period of our lives when (as far as we can see) nothing is happening. It is during these seasons that God will seem hard and cruel. In the moments of stillness and silence, when all seems eternally "paused," when there is neither a mount of transfiguration nor demon possessed valley, just plain flat lands as far as the eye can see, it is then that doubt comes. Doubt does not come from triumph or trials; it comes in the waiting. No one doubts God while resting on the mountain top or passing through the fire; His presence and hand our clearly obvious. It is when all is still like a cold winter night that we doubt. Caught between what was and what's to come, we find ourselves paralyzed in what is, and we wonder if what's to come is really coming, or if we ever were in God's thoughts at all.
Nothing shakes us like sitting and waiting. The Apostle Peter would have much rather taken an ear off and faced the consequences than sit back and watch the death of the Messiah. He had to wait, however, and so do we. If you cannot trust and cling to God when all is stillness and silence, how then will you cling to Him when what's to come finally does come? You desire that God takes you to the "important" things; are you desiring God in the midst of menial things? You want to spread the gospel like fire; can you wash your brother's feet with water? As Mr. Chambers put it once, "If we do not do the running steadily in the little ways, we shall do nothing in the crisis." How can God take you through the firestorm if you perish at the task of given a cup of cold water to the least of these? You want to mount up like an eagle; can you even walk and not faint?
Never resent the waiting. Never get distracted in wondering when "things" will "happen." Things are always happening, whether you recognize them or not. The waiting is crucial because it is when the storm is away and the waters calm that you can soak before God. Is your time of waiting filled with God-soaking or self-sulking? You will never have the waiting back when it is gone; other times of waiting will come, but that waiting is no more. Once things "happen," once you are in the thick, God help you if you find in the midst of the crisis that you wasted the waiting that He gave you. When God leads you out of the wilderness and into Canaan, it is time for war, and how you handle yourself in battle is directly contingent upon how you handled yourself in the wilderness. While in the tents of the barren wild, were you preparing for Canaan, or were you sulking in self-pity? Were you spending the waiting sharpening your sword, or were you letting it rust? May God help us to center every moment, both the menial and the monumental, on Him.

"When you're waiting
Through the still times,
Don't let the static bring you down;
For all things, great and small,
Menial and monumental,
Move to Empyrean Love.
Dance in that Love,
And live..."
-Jon Vowell

"If you would have all that God is..."

"Then thou shalt say in thine heart, 'Who hath begotten these for me, seeing I have lost my children and am desolate, a captive, and wandering to and fro? Who hath brought up these? Behold, I was left alone; these, where had they been?' Thus saith the Lord...they shall not be ashamed that wait for me." Isaiah 49:21-23

Israel, like Job, had lost everything; but apparently, like Job, they would receive it all again in abundance. There was just one condition: wait for God, and oh how they have waited! Through captivities and dominions and silences and sufferings and assaults and attacks of every kind, they wait for the redemption of God's people. If they would have it, they must wait for Him.
Too few of us truly "wait for" God, because we have no idea what it really entails. We desire the fullness of God; but if we want such glory, we must pass through the desolation. There are ties that must be broken, fellowships that must be severed, trials that must be endured, plans that must be dropped, dreams and desires that must crash to the ground, habits that must be kicked, clarity that must be obscured. It will be grueling, but if you cannot pass through the desolation, then what good are you? You are not fit for the glory that you seek. If, in wanting to become like Christ, you cannot endure the "fellowship of His sufferings," how then can you endure the "power of His resurrection" (Philippians 3:10)?
I dare say that we want all the blessings of knowing God but none of the hardships and heartaches. We would take the life of Christ if only we could avoid the Cross (avoiding misunderstandings with family and the religious elite would be nice too). We desire God like Joseph did, but we would rather get right to being Egypt's prime minister and avoid being betrayed by our brothers, scandalized by our employers, cast unjustly into prison, and forgotten by those we show kindness to. It is, however, not to be.
If you would have all that God is, then you must go wherever He is and follow wherever He leads, through fire and flood, through dungeons and thrones, through failures and triumphs, through joys and sorrows, through pleasures and pains. If we desire anything other than God (even good and noble things), then we will balk at His wooing, and settle for a lesser view of Him. If we would be gripped by His ever tender and ever stern hand, however, we must be willing to go where He goes, even from the heights of heaven to the depths of hell, remembering always that He is ours and we are His, and He is with us always (Isaiah 43:1b, 2).

"Through the fire and the flames
You carry me unto Yourself,
No turning back,
No turning back..."
-Jon Vowell

The Common Sense above Common Sense

"But Zion said, 'The Lord hath forsaken me, and my Lord hath forgotten me.' Can a woman forget her nursing child, and not have compassion on the son of her womb? Yea, they may forget, but I will not forget thee. Behold, I have engraved thee upon the palms of my hands; thy walls are continually before me." Isaiah 49: 14-16

It is not at all difficult to doubt God's love, to doubt His goodness; it takes no strength of character, no boldness of will. It is the easiest thing to do, chiefly because common sense facts are constantly shouting against God all the time. What Zion said (vs. 14) was fully based on common sense facts: Jerusalem was actually destroyed, and its inhabitants were actually all taken captive. Those were not hypothetical scenarios; they actually happened in time and space.
Christians must realize (and utilize) the common sense that is above common sense, i.e., the common sense of faith, the common sense that reckons two more facts in its thinking: (1) God is real and (2) God is good. Human common sense sees only the destroyed walls; the common sense of faith sees that the walls "are continually before" the eyes of God, that he is forever blazing aware of the current situation. Human common sense sees only the desolate and forsaken city; the common sense of faith hears God say, "I will not forget thee" with a remembrance even greater than a mother has for the child that she is nursing.
The enemy will always point you to your real, actual, space-time circumstances and happenings; God will always point you to Himself, the Happening at the center of all happenings. Even more so, He will point you to the real, actual, space-time circumstance and happening that is the Cross, the place where He permanently engraved you upon His hands, and His feet, and His side. If ever you easily doubt the love and goodness of your Father, look upon those wounds and hear Him say, "I will not forget thee; your life is continually before me."

"Upon Your hands
My name is engraved in Red.
If ever I doubt You,
Let me feel those wounds
And believe..."
-Jon Vowell