A Strong Tower

Imagine you find yourself outside in the woods during a thunderstorm. Lightning strikes the sky, thunder echoes around, rain pounds the ground you step on. You desperately want shelter, a safe place to protect you from the tempestuous elements.

Like getting caught outside in a thunderstorm, life circumstances can sometimes leave us feeling afraid, anxious, alone. I feel this way as I help my mom during her chemotherapy treatment. As I write this she has not had a good week. Many days she has barely made it out of bed and to the couch. She fights to get food in as she wrestles with waves of nausea and dizziness. As I assist her I feel helpless. I cannot do what I most want which is to heal her and make this cancerous storm go away. I feel unsure about what the future holds. Is there something more I can do to help? Will this chemo work? Can she handle another round? 

All of this has left me feeling spent. Perhaps you too feel worn, worried or wearied by life events. Maybe like me you have a loved one fighting an illness such as cancer. Or maybe your marriage is breaking, or your child is struggling and you're unsure how to help, or you suffer from chronic pain and yearn for relief. Whatever present storms of life we may be enduring, there is a place we can take refuge.

Perfectly timed by God, this week I came across these words of Solomon, “The name of the LORD is a strong tower; the righteous runs into it and is safe” (Prov 18:10). That is, they draw strength and comfort from the person of God, from His personal, intimate, loyal love. Often when I’m worn out from life events I long to have strong arms to collapse into, for someone to embrace me with safety, protection and a place I can rest. This is the idea of running into the strong tower that is God.

Perhaps, like me, though you wonder what it looks like to seek shelter in the unseen God. The psalmist David gives us insight when he writes, “Trust in Him at all times, O people; pour out your heart before Him; God is a refuge for us” (Ps 62:8). We make God our hiding place when we, in great trust, cry out to Him, emptying our burdens in prayer.

I think of Hannah who so poured out her heart to God that Eli, the priest, thought she was drunk (1 Sam 1:9-15). Hannah longed to have a child, but was barren. Though she had a wonderful husband, her greatest desire went unfulfilled, while her rival, her husband’s other wife, bore child after child. So she went to God in prayer and let herself fall apart in His presence. With her whole being she pleaded with God, desperate, weeping before Him.

In Hannah’s storm of childlessness, God was her strong tower. He can be ours too. Whether your storm is also an unfulfilled longing, or financial uncertainty, an illness, a tough job situation, a prodigal child, or a broken marriage, pour out your heart to Him. Tell Him all, the fear, the worry, the confusion, the disappointment, the frustration. Finding refuge in God doesn’t necessarily mean the turbulent conditions will stop. But it does mean we have a safe place to hide throughout the storm.

Lifting Our Gaze This Week: Ideas For Application

• Get time alone with God and let Him know all that is on your heart. Don’t hold back. Share what worries you, scares you, angers you, burdens you, consumes you. If you’re unsure of all that is in on your heart, try journaling first, writing down all the emotions you feel or issues you're facing. Choose one you want to start with and go from there.
• Pick a song that really draws you to the presence of God. Reflectively listen to it, allowing the words to reach down to your heart, lifting your eyes upward to Jesus. Here are a few that move me to rest and worship:  
• This We Know
• Sinking Deep
• Until These Tears Are Gone
• You Hold It All Together
• Path of Sorrow
• Look up and meditate on the following texts that discuss God as our strong tower and refuge.
• Psalm 18
• Psalm 42
• Psalm 46
• Matthew 11:28-30
• John 16:33
• 2 Corinthians 1:3-11
• 1 Peter 5:7

The Heart of Forgiveness: Forgiving With Joy

When someone wrongs me, whether it’s something slight like a driver cutting me off in traffic or something severe like a break in relationship, I want back what was taken. I don’t naturally enjoy forgiving people. I often would rather not show mercy at all. I want back my pride, the ease of friendship, a good reputation, the opportunity to succeed, the promise of love. And often I would like a little interest too, like a dinner, flowers, a kind note of apology.

When I pause and read what I’ve just written, I don’t like it. I wish I had written, “I love to forgive! Cut me off in traffic, and I will bless you! I overflow with grace!” Instead I struggle to set people free who owe me, especially if the debt is deep. I feel the pull between the old me who demands retribution and the new me who longs to love like God.

And I don’t think I’m alone. I think all of us, as broken humanity, struggle to have a heart that actually delights to forgive. Who wants to joyfully grant grace to the parent who was never there? Or the co-worker who betrayed you? The husband who left? The friend who turned on you? The prodigal child who ran away? While we may know we ought to forgive, our hearts seem to resist doing so.

Even Peter, a disciple of Jesus, felt something similar. Having heard Jesus previously teach that he should forgive he presses Him asking, “Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me and I forgive him? Up to seven times” (Matt 18:21)? Surely there is a limit, and Peter wants to know exactly how many times he has to forgive. 

While Peter probably assumed the number seven was gracious, Jesus responds, “I do not say to you, up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven” (Matt 18:22). In answering this way, Jesus unveils Peter’s heart. He reveals that Peter’s motive to forgive is not love but duty. 

With His response Jesus contrasts Peter’s stingy heart with God’s gracious heart. Unlike us, God does delight to forgive. Paul writes “For it was the Father’s good pleasure for all the fullness to dwell in Him, and through Him to reconcile all things to Himself, having made peace through the blood of His cross” (Col 1:19, 20b). Pardoning those who wronged Him brings God joy. And, as His children, He desires that we have hearts like His that don’t find forgiveness a burdensome task but a joyful opportunity (Eph 4:32). 

But this does not make forgiveness easy or painless. Though God delighted to forgive us, the rebel race of image bearers, doing so cost Him. He would never experience Adam and Eve choosing Him instead of the fruit. He would never get back all the times you and I could have reflected His glory but chose our own instead. In deciding to forgive us, God bore the loss and paid the payment for our sins through the death of His Son (Col 2:13, 14). This is a cost greater than we will ever know.

And it is because Jesus has borne the sin of the world, paying off not only our debt but the debt of those who wronged us, we can move toward others with mercy. But we know our hearts. We know the pain of being overlooked, left out, ignored, betrayed, abandoned. And it just doesn’t feel right to grant mercy when we have hurt like that. Something, perhaps, we should do, but definitely not what we want to do. So how can we develop a heart that, like our gracious God, wants to forgive those who have wronged us? 

While there are certainly other practices we can and should employ, I believe we ought to begin with prayer. Think of someone who has wronged you in some way, whether a neighbor, friend, colleague, boss, family member, and practice praying the following: 

• Pray for a heart that delights in forgiving (Ezek 36:26). It is our hearts that desperately need changing, for it is from our hearts our motives and actions flow.
• Pray for the person who wronged you, hurt you, stole from you (Matt 5:44). Don’t just pray for revenge, but try interceding for them as you would a friend. 
• Pray and meditate on the great mercy God had on you. Ponder the depth of your sin and the extent to which God has shown you grace. For those who are forgiven much love much (Lk 7:47).

Think now of how our families would be impacted if we happily gave grace for the joy of restored relationship. Or how our work places might be impacted if we willingly let go of grudges. Or how marriages might strengthen with such security in mercy. Imagine what kind of light Christians could shine if we become people who delight to forgive.

Switching Hopes

If you want to read a book of the Bible that promises health and wealth and everything else, don’t read 1 Peter. It wouldn’t surprise me if prosperity gospel preachers have torn this book from their Bibles. See, Peter writes to struggling and stressed believers to encourage them, but he does so in a way we might not think.

First, let me ask you something. When you encounter unpleasant circumstances in your life, what sort of encouragement or advice do you receive? To pray more? Read Scripture? Get busy doing other things? In my dark times, I’ve been comforted through all these. And they are right and good ways to offer support. The Bible tells us we ought to seek God’s help, to trust His promises, and busy ourselves with kingdom work.

But as I read Peter’s first letter to these suffering Christians, “distressed by various trials” (1:6), I find a different sort of encouragement. Like we experience, these hardships may have included sickness, broken relationships, financial insecurity, unfulfilled longings, persecution, family discord, natural disasters. So does Peter admonish them to start praying that God will deliver them and bring a blessing instead? Does he quote Jeremiah 29:11 and tell them God has something better just around the corner? Not exactly. Instead he focuses his readers on something else altogether.

Throughout his letter, Peter urges believers to change hopes. That is, he wants them to cease focusing on their circumstances on earth, merely longing for better things here. He exhorts them, saying, “fix your hope completely on the grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ” (1:13). No longer zooming in on the temporary distressing events, they should direct their gaze toward the eternal inheritance to come, that “which is imperishable and undefiled and will not fade away, reserved in heaven for you” (1:4).

It is possible then to experience lasting joy throughout singleness, sickness, divorce, chronic pain, joblessness. But we must shift focus, from the momentary to the lasting, from the broken to the renewed, from the present grief to the future glory. And as we do, this switching of hopes will not only provide strength to endure, but will continually fill us with great joy, strengthen and refine our faith, and enable us to love more deeply.

So in the midst of hardship keep praying, hold fast to God’s Word, and do good deeds, all the while letting your heart hope in your future inheritance. Let your thoughts run wild wondering what heaven will look like, what you will feel in the physical presence of Jesus, and to know you will never again experience any form of stress or sin or sorrow. For we most assuredly will one day see our Savior face to face (Rev 21:3, 22:4) and dwell in a land where “there will no longer be any death; there will no longer be any mourning, or crying or pain” (Rev 21:4).

Lifting Our Gaze This Week: Ideas for Application

• Read Randy Alcorn’s book Heaven in which he examines what the Bible has to say about the topic and dreams about what it might look like. Or consider picking up his devotional, 50 Days of Heaven: Reflections That Bring Eternity To Light.
• Look up and meditate on the following Bible verses discussing our inheritance: Isaiah 60:18-22, Ezekiel 36:33-36, John 14:1-3, 1 Corinthians 15:35-58, 2 Corinthians 4:16-5:8, Revelation 21-22.
• Journal about what you think heaven will be like. Talk with God about what you’re looking forward to, unsure of, curious about. Jot down what you’re most excited about doing, seeing, experiencing.