The Day Between

January Joy

I’ve been feeling troubled lately, thinking negative thoughts.  Worrying about things I can’t control and not liking the way other people behave is bringing me down.  I’m not particularly enjoying winter this year either, although it has been mild, and there is nothing to complain about.  Somehow winter and my mood appear to be related.  It is funny how a dark cloud of sour discontent can settle on a person.

I really should be happy – many things are right in my life.  Plenty of people have seen a whole lot more trouble than I have.  Disappointments and challenges are a part of life, after all.  They come and go like our seasons.  Is it reasonable to want to be exempt from the experience?  Changing seasons can be a beautiful thing.  Spring flowers, the color green, summer sunshine, blue skies, autumn colors, windy days, fresh falling snow, larger-than-life snowflakes – variety is truly the spice of life, right?  In order to embrace one season, we must let go of another.  Nonetheless, I’m finding this particular season of winter in my life annoying.

 

            A winter of the soul can certainly be a drag.  Of the four seasons winter really gets a bad rap.  Of course, it is the season that brings us cars that won’t start and once-sane-people-who-no-longer-know-how-to-drive-because-it’s-snowing-itis.  Frozen locks, broken pipes, slippery sliding car accidents bring unplanned expenses, frustration and scheduling mishaps.  One can’t forget the shattered domestic tranquility due to thermostat wars, icy sheets and cold feet.  Yes, winter has its down side.  Why can’t every season include blue skies, seventy degrees and an abundance of flowers?  Why can't our stories always end well?  It seems understandable that folks would rather be in Florida than Illinois in January and February.  However not everyone gets to enjoy warm, sunny Florida in the winter.  Some of us get to experience our winter of discontent in frigid, windy, cranky Chicago…or in a desert.

            In the book of Deuteronomy, Moses rehearses for the Israelites their history and laws before he dies:

 

Now Israel, what does the Lord require from you, but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all His ways and love Him, and to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to keep the Lord’s commandments and His statutes which I am commanding you today for your good?

Behold, to the Lord your God belong heaven and the highest heavens, the earth and all that is in it…

So circumcise your heart, and stiffen your neck no longer.  For the Lord your God is the God of gods, and the Lord of lords, the great, the mighty, and the awesome God who does not show partiality nor take a bribe…

You shall fear the Lord your God; you shall serve Him and cling to Him, and you shall swear by His name.  He is your praise and He is your God, who has done these great and awesome things… (from Deuteronomy 10:12-22).

            It’s good to think of Moses’ audience when reading his words in Deuteronomy.  These are literally the children of Israel, the children of those that God rescued from slavery in Egypt.  The children that saw their parents die in the wilderness because of their rebellion and unbelief.  What would it be like to wander around in a desert for forty years because of someone else’s sin?  Would any of them be resentful, bitter, asking ‘why me’?  They experienced a lot of ups and downs in that desert for forty years.  However, their experiences didn’t release them from their calling or the expectation God had for them.

            The passage above tells them to put God first, to do what He says, and to love and serve Him with everything they are and have.  It tells them to do this because He’s God and they are not.  He really does have the whole world in His hands, and He can do what He wants with it.  He deserves that kind of devotion, because He has done great and awesome things in general for the world and for them in particular.  Moreover He promises to continue to do those things.  He is the great King – above all other kings.  He is absolutely worthy of the devotion He demands.

            The passage also tells them to get over themselves, ‘circumcise your hearts and stiffen your neck no longer.’  That is quite a phrase!  It speaks of a cutting away of what seems like a vital part of oneself, but is really only a little extra skin.  How often do we feel the need to hold on to something that is just as useless?  It is also a willful action on their part – circumcising a heart and unstiffening a neck is their choice.  He is not going to do it for them.  He wants them to submit to His authority and rule, cling to him like their life depends on it (it does), and rely on Him.  He is faithful.  He is powerful.  He has proven Himself reliable.  Regardless, He allows them to choose who they will serve.

Don’t try to dismiss this as Old Testament teaching for the Jews either, because the author of Hebrews further illuminates what the experience of those children has to do with us:

For you have not come to a mountain that can be touched and to a blazing fire, and to darkness and gloom and whirlwind, and to the blast of a trumpet and the sound of words which sound was such that those who heard begged that no further word be spoken to them.  For they could not bear the command, “If even a beast touches the mountain, it will be stoned.”  And so terrible was the sight, that Moses said, “I am full of fear and trembling.”  But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to myriads of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the Judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood, which speaks better than the blood of Abel.

See to it that you do not refuse Him who is speaking.  For if those did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth, much less will we escape who turn away from Him who warns from heaven.  And His voice shook the earth then, but now He has promised, saying, “Yet once more I will shake not only the earth, but also the heaven.”  This expression, “Yet once more,” denotes the removing of those things which can be shaken, as of created things, so that those things which cannot be shaken may remain.  Therefore, since we receive a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us show gratitude, by which we may offer to God an acceptable service with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire (Hebrews 12:18-29).

            This seems to me to be pretty much the same warning for the people of God in Jesus Christ.  Circumstances be what they are in the winter of our discontent, we need to be filled with gratitude for what Jesus has done for us and His kingdom which cannot be shaken.  Again, it is our choice to offer acceptable service with reverence and awe or to wallow in our sour discontent.  We cannot afford to forget that our God is a consuming fire.  

     Let Him burn up that ice in our hearts.