"Longing for Egypt"

Today as I prayed over my church, there was a phrase that burdened my heart, “We’re longing for Egypt.” And my prayers were filled with pleas that the Lord would show us mercy and turn our eyes to Him that we would not look back, long back or go back to where we have been, but that we would continue to move forward toward where He desires us to be. God has been doing many things within our Body. Obviously I don’t know them all, but can tell you of one thing that applies to this particular prayer and the thoughts following. God is doing a deep work right now: He’s healing deep wounds; He’s freeing us from deep sins; He’s opening up the deep, locked places of our souls. And it is ugly, and it is painful, and it is scary and at times it is dreadfully slow going...and the results of His finished work will be GLORIOUS! 

Do you understand now why we have the “longing for Egypt” that we see in the Israelites as they journeyed to the promised land? But why would we want our modern day Egypts? Are they really worth returning to?
 

In Exodus, we see several descriptions of the environment and situations of the children of Israel while in Egypt.: 


Exodus 1:8-13 Now there arose a new king over Egypt, who did not know Joseph. And he said to his people, "Behold, the people of Israel are too many and too mighty for us. Come, let us deal shrewdly with them, lest they multiply, and, if war breaks out, they join our enemies and fight against us and escape from the land." Therefore they set taskmasters over them to afflict them with heavy burdens. They built for Pharaoh...And the Egyptians...ruthlessly made the people of Israel work as slaves and made their lives bitter with hard service, in mortar and brick, and in all kinds of work in the field. In all their work they ruthlessly made them work as slaves.

 
Things were not good in Egypt. This description in Exodus is where their slavery BEGAN, it was followed by increasingly violent and cruel endeavors as Pharaoh failed in his attempts to subdue and crush God’s people. For example, he started killing the infants as they were being born, and after God began to command that he release the Israelites, Pharaoh began to place unreasonable labor demands on them (such as making bricks without providing the materials). Things were not good in Egypt; the people were enslaved, oppressed, cruelly treated and in despair.
 

And yet, when God gave them freedom, bringing them out of Egypt and into the desert on their way to the land and abundance He had promised them, there were many times along the way, in the center of various trials and hardships of the journey, where they lamented that they had left Egypt and longed to go back. So quickly they forgot.
 

Today as I considered this longing for Egypt, something else came to my mind:


Hebrews 11:24-26 By faith Moses, when he was grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, choosing rather to be mistreated with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin. He considered the reproach of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking to the reward.

 
I thought about Moses. As an infant who had escaped being murdered at his birth, Moses was taken in by Pharaoh’s daughter and raised as her own. He grew up in the palaces of Egypt, surrounded by all the good the Egypt could muster. He lived the privileged life of an honored Egyptian. Egypt for Moses was a place of freedom and abundance, treasure and pleasure. And he chose to walk away from it all.
 

If there was anyone with reason to long for Egypt, surely it was Moses. Moses knew the best that Egypt had to offer. There is just something profound about the fact that God used Moses to lead His people out.
 

Whether they be pleasures or pains, all in this world is fleeting, it is only Christ that is eternal. May we not long for our Egypts, but may we long for Christ.
 

Luke 9:62 Jesus said to him, "No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God." 

Lord, be merciful to us.

The Voice

The Lord gave me Psalm 29 the last month leading up to the AIDS Awareness Event week, and I found it to be the source that fueled many of my prayers throughout. I love this Psalm. Seriously. Talk about a beautifully articulated declaration of the Lord’s power, authority, majesty, glory and worth. As I read it, my heart crescendos with the Psalmists to such an extent that by the time I near the end, my heart burst as it joins the cry of “Glory” that fills His temple is response to observing Him. This Psalm is filled with such rich truths, and I wanted to try my best to share with you what I see spoken to me of God within these short verses.

Ascribe to the Lord, O heavenly beings,
ascribe to the Lord glory and strength.
Ascribe to the Lord the glory due His name;
worship the Lord in the splendor of holiness.

I love that this Psalm starts with an exhortation to acknowledge the Lord and to accredit Him with the realities of His character; to come before the Lord with a pure heart and from this state of wholeness, offer Him worship while clothed in “the splendor [beauty in NKJV] of holiness.” This is a good place to start a prayer, a reminder of WHO we in fact are praying to.

The voice of the Lord is over the waters;
the God of glory thunders,
the Lord, over many waters.
The voice of the Lord is powerful;
the voice of the Lord is full of majesty.

The first thing I see here is that we are dealing with the voice of the Lord, not His hand, not His presence, not His silent outworking, but His voice. It is a voice that is FULL, it is authoritative, it is the same voice that SPOKE creation into being, and it is the voice of the ONE who is over all.

The voice of the Lord breaks the cedars;
the Lord breaks the cedars of Lebanon.

Cedars of Lebanon were timbers of immense, solid, study strength; they were the best materials that men could harvest. These cedars were used to build Solomon’s Temple. They symbolize the strong things in this world.

This voice is able to break the strong things in this world. Whether it be walls or sanctuaries...or hearts or wills. There is nothing that is of strength or stability or hardness that can withstand the sound of this voice. This voice can burst apart bonds, shatter the doors of bronze, break in two the bars of iron (Psalm 107) and cause immense mountains to physically shake (Exodus 19). Whoa.

He makes Lebanon to skip like a calf,
and Sirion like a young wild ox.

The voice of God spurs things into motion. He cause the things He wishes to move, to move. Selah. Can you feel why this Psalm has comforted my soul? Praise the Lord.

The voice of the Lord flashes forth flames of fire.

These flames consume...burning until only what is eternal remains. And these flames produce the sparks that light our lamps. Selah.

The voice of the Lord shakes the wilderness;
the Lord shakes the wilderness of Kadesh.

When I think of the wilderness, I think of a place that is dry and arid, where the sun has baked things until what was once movable is much too hard, a place that is uninhabited by both people and plants, a place of unbearable heat and silence.

The voice of God shakes the wilderness. I feel this is the promise to wake up what has too long been asleep, still and silent; to shake what is hard and barren and dry.

The voice of the Lord makes the deer give birth

The voice of the Lord brings forth life.
The voice of the Lord brings forth life.
The voice of the Lord brings forth life.

and strips the forest bare,

The sound of this voice humbles and reveals. Here is truth: If we do not listen to the quiet voice as it speaks to us now, we will be brought to our knees eventually when it resounds around us at the return of our King.

and in His temple all cry, “Glory!”

What can be said in response to hearing this Voice speak with such power? What can be said in response to this incredible display of authority and promise? What can be said by those who observe our mighty God is action?
“Glory!” from our knees.
“GLORY!” with our hands upraised.
“Glory,” as we lie prostrate before His throne.
He is glorious, and glorious to behold.

The Lord sits enthroned over the flood;
the Lord sits enthroned as king forever.

A flood is a thing of devastation; it comes and destroys what is in its path, it shows no mercy or partiality in who it touches, it takes and breaks, it leaves behind a path of confusion, chaos, filth and decay, it is a terrible thing to look on its aftermath.

The AIDS Crisis is a flood. And God is still King. He still reigns even over this flood. And from the lips of an HIV+ orphan, “He can use even this for His glory.”

May the Lord give strength to His people!
May the Lord bless His people with peace!

Amen.

"Come as close as you/You want"

I encountered a Misty Edwards’ song the other day with the title “Come as Close as You Want.” I didn’t listen to it until after I had mused on its title for awhile.

My first thought when I heard this invitation, “Come as close as you want,” was to consider the voice of God inviting us into His presence. What an incredible, breath-taking statement of desire; for the God of ALL to want us near Himself. Whoa. And with the beauty of this articulated longing came the lament that though the Lord perseveres in His invitation to us, His voice is oftentimes ignored.

Into my mind came verses like these:
Isaiah 65:1-3a “I was ready to be sought by those who did not ask for Me; I was ready to be found by those who did not seek Me. I said, “Here am I, here am I,” to a nation that was not called by My name. I spread out my hands all the day to a rebellious people, who walk in a way that is not good, following their own devices; a people who provoke Me to My face continually...”

John 1:11“He came to His own, but His own people did not receive Him.”

The invitation of the Lord: “Come as close as you want,” He says...”In fact, I even want you to abide IN Me, to be ONE with Me, to KNOW ME as you have been known (John 15).” Accepted or rejected, both sides bring about emotive contemplations.

Then I listened to the song and read the lyrics...this is not the direction Misty Edwards went. She spoke as a person saying to the Lord, “Come as close as You want! (In fact, I even want You to abide IN me, to be ONE with me, I want to KNOW You.)”

Do I say that to the Lord? Do I extend this invitation to my Creator, Savior, King? When I hear the invitation into the presence of God, do I say, “Nah, this is close enough. I am comfortable,” or does my heart reciprocate with a longing, responsive cry, “Come as close as YOU want.”

I was grateful to have considered the title before I heard the song, because I believe this is an invitation to consider from both angles and would encourage you to meditate on these statements:

God to you: Come as close as you want.
You to God: Come as close as You want.

the beauty of humility

humble yourself before the Lord
and He will exalt you
©11-27-11 hannah mclean
1 peter 5:6-7

may i rejoice in my humility
for to be humbled in my eyes
is to be exalted in Yours
to be emptied of me
leads to fullness in You

such beauty
to be known
when life is not of me
but of You

may the distance between You and i
only serve to magnify
the mercy of the One who unites

why should i stand afar
when You extend Yourself to draw me?

do not let me hide away
from the sight of You
for the Light humbles Itself
to exalt the humble

such beauty
to be known
when life is not of me
but of You

Picture: Bound in the presence of freeing Light

This is the picture that the Lord gave me during a time of intercession: A person stood before me, bound from neck to foot in chains; at their feet were heaps of stones, making the ground difficult to navigate; also within arms reach were walls of brick and mortar, unfinished and serving as shoddy, incomplete protective barriers. Around this person shone beautiful, vivid Light; surrounding them, warming them, pouring upon them with all the power to burst apart these bonds. And as I took in this picture, I heard these lamenting words, “Why? Oh why do you stand bound in the presence of freeing Light?!”

----

Your chains clink against each other
grinding in your restricted movements
refusing to go unnoticed.

Around your feet in crumbling heaps
of teetering uncertainty
stones remain
left behind as memorials of ruins.

Carefully laid bricks serve as your harrowing backdrop
shoddy walls with rows of sloppy mortar
patched and decaying with age
revealing fria’bility.

You are a sight to behold
bound from neck to foot
with only your defeated head
limply moving from side to side.

Open your eyes.

Open your eyes!

OPEN YOUR EYES!

You stand in the center
of freeing Light!
Light that shatters chains that bind
crumbles stones of stumbling
shields with immovable perfection where bricks will always fail.

All is provided
surrounding
waiting
shining...

Why?
Oh why do you stay bound
in the presence of freeing Light?

----

John 8:12,31-32,36 When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life...If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free...So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.”

"The greatest time to be alive."

A visiting pastor from Berlin spoke at my church this past month, he said something in his sermon that still rolls around in my mind. The contrast of his words to my typical thoughts is so stark that I appreciate the presence of his words for them to bounce off of.

He said, “This is the greatest time to be alive.” When he looks at the world we are in, he sees the greatness of opportunity and the beauty of new life just longing to spring forth, he sees fields ripe for the harvest and hunger and thirst about to be quenched...and it makes him say, “This is the greatest time to be alive.”

I don’t think I have ever said that, nor can I remember ever actually thinking that. So often I look around me and I lament in tears; I see the momentum of the decay of sin, the wounds of generations that have rejected the Lord, a spiral of darkness that would cause me to despair if I did not have the Savior to cling to. So often I look at the world around me and feel as Solomon speaks in the book of Ecclesiastes 4:1–3 “Again I saw all the oppressions that are done under the sun. And behold, the tears of the oppressed, and they had no one to comfort them! On the side of their oppressors there was power, and there was no one to comfort them. And I thought the dead who are already dead more fortunate than the living who are still alive. But better than both is he who has not yet been and has not seen the evil deeds that are done under the sun.”

I see oppressed without a comforter.
I see oppressors without a comforter.
I see wickedness making the lives of the living a place of pain.
And I plead for mercy and for Jesus to come back.

But, while I don’t think this view and plea are bad, I cannot rest in this lament. That is one of the reasons I so appreciate these words, “This is the greatest time to be alive.” The Lord convicted me a while back during a service of this truth, “It is not enough to desire to be with Jesus. You must desire also that EVERYONE would be with Him.”

I know the Comforter, the Hope, the Truth, the Life. When I look at the world around me, I must rejoice in the reality that what often makes me want to despair is really just opportunity for another to know this Comforter, this Hope, this Truth and this Life. I can reach out my hands on His behalf, open my mouth to speak His words and find in those I weep over hope-filled companions to spend eternity with. I get to bring Jesus. With this beauty, how can my heart not resonate with this response, “This is the greatest time to be alive!”

"The doctrines of grace humble a man without degrading him and exalt a man without inflating him." ~ Charles Hodge

I tend to be someone who doesn’t dodge their emotions, but deals with them head on--if I am sad, I sit down and cry it out until the tears are dry; if I am angry, I process what has made me this way to seek the root and remove it, etc.--and then I move on.

But I do not wallow in these emotions alone. I always bring the Word.

I tend to really resonate with Psalms. One of the things I love about them is that they capture the real emotions of a human and show what happens when in those painful places you speak Truth to yourself. In a single Psalm, you find psalmists who, pushed to the point of despair because of their circumstances, after their encounter with the Lord (pouring themselves out before Him and glorying in the Truth of Him) find themselves lifted to their feet with hands upraised in joyful praise. Their circumstances didn’t change, but they did. That is such a wonderful example of the relevance and importance of knowing the Bible, knowing the testimonies and promises inside, and the character of the God who made them.

So, in my sadness yesterday, sitting in the presence of the Lord and bringing to Him my sorrows, I found myself in David’s Psalm 21:1–7:

“O Lord, in Your strength the king rejoices, and in Your salvation how greatly he exults! You have given him his heart’s desire and have not withheld the request of his lips. Selah. For You meet him with rich blessings; You set a crown of fine gold upon his head. He asked life of You; You gave it to him, length of days forever and ever. His glory is great through Your salvation; splendor and majesty You bestow on him. For You make him most blessed forever; You make him glad with the joy of Your presence. For the king trusts in the Lord, and through the steadfast love of the Most High he shall not be moved.”

Do you ever read scripture and feel yourself physically humbled, slowly sinking into your chair with each word as strength leaves your body? This passage does that to me. 

James 4:10 says, “Humble yourselves before the Lord, and He will exalt you.” I am often struck by the realization that in seeing the ways in which He has exalted me, I am increasingly humbled. I mean, look at this verse, it is the declaration of the lavish love, blessing and favor given us by our God! In reminds of these Truths: In Christ, I have been given God’s strength in my helpless weakness (2 Cor 12:9) and salvation in the face of deserved destruction (1 Peter 2:24); in Christ, I am richly blessed with every Spiritual and eternal good thing (Ephesians 1–3); in Christ, I am royalty, to reign with my King (2 Cor 2:11–13); in Christ, God has given me more than I could ever think to ask for (Eph 3:20-21); in Christ, I will stand before the Father blameless and holy (Eph 5:25–27); in Christ, I have a hope while on earth and an eternal inheritance (1 Peter 1:3–5); in Christ, I have fullness of joy (Psalm 16:11), an open invitation into the presence of the Lord (Heb 4:14–16), and the word of a faithful God on which to plant my unsteady feet (Deut 7:9).

So as I came to the Lord, curled up in His arms with tears falling on “the broad expanse of who He is," I read the words declaring His love for me, and my tears turned into those of joyful humility as I bowed to Him in praise. 

I praise You, Lord, that to glory in You is to bask in the beauty of the eternal, which never ceases to overshadow the gloom of all that is temporary. You are more than enough and I praise You.