Love-Based Relationship

Last night as a family we watched a film we hadn't seen for over a decade:  How To Train Your Dragon.  Hiccup is a young lad who aspires to be a dragon slayer but doesn't seem to fit in with the other Vikings of the village.  This is especially true concerning his brave and brutish father.  Hiccup was more apt to try to befriend dragons rather than kill them.  He is a constant source of embarrassment to his father, who at one point says to him:  "You're not my son."

About 15 minutes later in the film, however, Stoic the Vast's opinion of Hiccup changed due to his brave exploits:  "I'm proud to call you my son," his father beamed.  "It seems they share a performance-based relationship," I said aloud.  The son was always working to earn the approval of his father, and the father exuded bitterness at perceived failures yet pride for apparent success.  Stoic viewed Hiccup in light of his failure or success, whether he was able to meet or exceed expectations he had for his son.  Sadly, I don't think the dynamics of their relationship are unique.  Performance-based relationships are more common than we might think.

One thing for which I am grateful is God's gracious acceptance of flawed people because He loves them--not because they have measured up to His immaculate standard.  In my personal experience with corporations and workplaces it was always very much, "What have you done for me lately?" rather than trust and mutual respect.  Any favour was a thinly veiled "You Owe Me" rather than "Well done."  Isn't it amazing that we owe God for everything, yet He never once says "You owe me?"  The wise realise we owe Him our lives, all we possess, and can only credit Him for the amazing future He has in store for us.  Just because we can't measure up doesn't mean working to please Him isn't worth it.  We are called to wisely respond to the everlasting love He has extended to us, humbled to be His chosen, adopted child.

With God we are not in a performance-based relationship, yet at the same time faithful servants will be rewarded accordingly.  He entrusts more to those who are faithful in the little things.  Instead of despising the days of small things, we are to be faithful unto the LORD who has provided all things by grace.  Every day is a good day to praise and honour God, the One who has accepted us and is pleased to call us His own even when we fail and fall.  What peace, rest, and comfort is ours by the mercy and grace of God.  God is not proud of us but pleased with us, for ours is a relationship based on love, not performance.

Divine Foreshadowing

Foreshadowing is an effective technique in quality film making.  It can take the form of subtle details included towards the beginning of the film which have relevance later.  These intentional clues suggest or point to a future event.  One example which comes to mind is the wedding in the movie The Deer Hunter:  if the bride and groom take a sip of wine and do not spill any, it means good luck.  When I saw the camera zoom in on a couple of drops hitting the white wedding dress, I knew things weren't going to go well.  The next sequence thrusts the viewer into a shocking sequence during the Vietnam War.

Whilst reading this week I came upon a Bible verse which foreshadows what God foreknew.  After Samson told Delilah God was the source of his miraculous strength, and if his hair was cut he would be weak as any other man, she had it done.  When she called out to Samson the Philistines were upon him, he expected to draw upon his supernatural strength at other times.  But he did not know the Holy Spirit had left him, and was easily overcome.  Judges 16:21 says, "Then the Philistines took him and put out his eyes, and brought him down to Gaza. They bound him with bronze fetters, and he became a grinder in the prison."  Samson was cast into darkness without hope, but the following verse gives a glimmer of hope:  "However, the hair of his head began to grow again after it had been shaven."

In his affliction Samson would turn eyes of faith to God.  He was blinded, bound, and enslaved, but Samson's hair began to grow:  there was hope of restoration to fellowship with and strength from God to overcome his enemies.  Samson had been a judge in Israel for 20 years, but when he pressed on the supporting pillars of the house with all his might he killed more Philistines in one moment then he had in the 20 previous years combined.  The sun rising in the east reminds us of God's mercies which are new every morning, rainbows remind us of the covenant God has made to never again destroy the earth with water, and the regrowth of hair points to a new opportunity to seek God and His strength.

Revival and renewal is daily and seasonal in the world, and by God's grace a continual need in our lives He is faithful to meet.  Samson's hair was shaved and the covenant with God broken, but his hair began to grow again after it was shaved.  Even when we are guilty as sin, there is hope for us if we turn to God in humble repentance and faith.  All hope is not lost if we have God, for the joy of the LORD is our strength.  The resurrected Jesus Christ is awesome foreshadowing of people being raised to new life ultimately in glory for all who trust in Him.

Healthy and Growing

Months ago a large tree was removed from the parkway in front of our house, and a large bare spot was left filled with sand.  It was around that time our neighbour began to prep his lawn for the winter by fertilising it.  I toyed with the idea of feeding my lawn at the time but decided against it.  The area where the tree once stood was mounded and needed to be flattened before installing new turf, and winter wasn't the best time to lay sod (according to my lawn-expert neighbour).  I call him this because the results speak for themselves.  The turf is always green and never will you find a weed in it!

Today I decided to remove some of the dirt to prepare for new sod.  Because I had not fertilised the lawn before winter, every gap in the turf was amazingly filled with many varieties of weeds.  Weeds are most opportunistic.  This practical example demonstrated how the neglect of feeding led to an exponential increase of weeds, and this is true concerning the spiritual life.  The lack of available food caused the turf in my yard to go dormant, and this lack of growth provided an opportunity for weeds to sprout and take over.  When we do not feed often on the Word of God or lack Christian fellowship, our spiritual growth takes a hit.  The best defence for a lawn is a healthy, growing lawn where weeds have no room to take root.  In the same way, efforts to weed out sin without grass which grows leaves gaps weeds ultimately fill.

It is hard work pulling weeds in the hot sun, and unless the space is filled with desirable seed or plants guess what?  The weeds will be back!  If we desire to have a lawn free from weeds it must be fed in the right season, and reading God's Word is always in season for Christians.  Reading and gaining knowledge is not our ultimate end but hearing and obeying the Word of God.  Obedience to Jesus Christ is a key to exponential growth of the fruit of the Spirit in our lives.

God Hears Our Cries

"Then Jonah prayed to the LORD his God from the fish's belly. ² And he said: "I cried out to the LORD because of my affliction, and He answered me. "Out of the belly of Sheol I cried, and You heard my voice."

Jonah 2:1-2

The way God redeems affliction to lead people to seek God is a common theme lately in my Bible reading and study.  Jonah went from sleeping in the belly of a ship to crying out to God in the belly of a great fish.  The belly of the fish was nothing like the comical pictures in children's Bibles complete with a bed and table but a terrifying mixture of absolute darkness, stench, pressure, and inescapable heat.  Strangled by weeds, sweating in discomfort, and gasping for foul air, Jonah had discovered and was trapped in a living hell.

It was in the belly of the beast we read of Jonah praying to God for the first time as a result of his affliction.  He cried unto the LORD and was heard by the God who is gracious, merciful, compassionate, and delights to save.  In the darkness Jonah sought the LORD and his faith was buoyed.  Though he had been in the fish for days, he was convinced somehow, someway he would be released from the prison of flesh.  He said in Jonah 2:8-9, "Those who regard worthless idols forsake their own Mercy. ⁹ But I will sacrifice to You with the voice of thanksgiving; I will pay what I have vowed. Salvation is of the LORD."  The idols of the sailors were incapable of salvation, but God who caused the wind to blow and the sea to rage could silence them.  The God who prepared the fish to swallow Jonah could release him at God's command.  God spoke to the fish and Jonah was vomited upon dry land. (Jonah 2:10)

On a side note, I never considered the large fish likely needed to beach itself to vomit Jonah onto dry land.  It may have provided the first decent view Jonah had of the great fish God prepared to swallow him.  I wonder if the fish just laid there and expired on the sand as Jonah watched, or if it slowly inched back into the water and swam off.  Based upon what happened next in the book I don't believe Jonah would have helped the creature but preferred to sit down to watch it die.  But the dying fish is a great picture of how God will someday destroy Sheol and Death and throw them into the Lake of Fire (Rev. 20:14).

In the darkness Jonah's eyes turned to God, the light of his salvation.  He was granted divine insight:  "Salvation is of the LORD."  How good it is to remember this in our affliction.  When things are prosperous we can forget about God, and when circumstances are hard we work frantically to change them.  But we are in the midst of affliction and there is no hope, eyes of faith seek the LORD.  We ask God to bless us, and there in the belly of a great fish was such a man:  he had an audience with the living God and realised "Salvation is of the LORD."  For days he choked and struggled within that living furnace and in due time God opened Jonah's eyes to the truth.  Praise the LORD He sees our affliction, hears our prayers, and answers with salvation.