Lorrie Spinney

Category: Scripture

  • This Isaac?

    Thousands of years ago a man was told to kill his son.

    And this matters to you and me.

    The man was Abraham and it was God – our God, the same one – who told him to kill his son. That’s why it matters.

    The son was Isaac, and most of us know the story. We know that Isaac was a miracle child. God had promised him to Abraham and Sarah and then waited over twenty years – twenty years! – to deliver on the promise.

    And Sarah was already old when the twenty years started.

    By the time Isaac was born she was long past fertile. She was long done. As the bible so succinctly puts it, “her womb was dead.”

    But that’s no problem for God. In another bible story, He started with a walking stick: Aaron’s staff. It was long gone from the tree yet God grew buds, then flowers, then almonds from that dead stick.

    In the same way He grew Isaac from Sarah’s dead womb.

    And there was more. Isaac was not only promised, but he was a promise. God had promised Abraham that through Isaac, Abraham would be given a multitude of descendants.

    The story almost loses me here because I don’t get what is so great about a multitude of descendants.

    But I think it’s a bit like if God said to us, “Your life matters. It is so important to what I am doing in the world that generations upon generations of people will know you and know that through you they are blessed.”

    Anyway, that’s what Isaac meant to Abraham and – so Abraham thought – to God.

    Then God told him to kill Isaac.

    Can you imagine?

    Honestly, it would seem as though God had come unhinged.

    “This Isaac? God, you want me to kill this Isaac? The one you grew from death? The one you promised so much about?”

    And, in a smaller voice, “The one I love so much?”

    But Abraham does it.

    He does it!

    How?

    By faith.

    Faith? In God? The God who has completely reneged on everything He said? The God who has become so strangely, unrecognizably, horrible?

    But you see that’s what faith is.

    It’s not just believing that God exists. It’s believing that He’s good.

    I’m going to say that again: faith doesn’t just believe that God exists. It believes that He’s good.

    Sometimes, He really doesn’t seem so. It’s almost as though He tries to be difficult.

    I think He does.

    It’s like muscle-building for our faith.

    So, when God seems not good to us, even … horrible, then let’s turn our faces toward Him and walk. Let’s obey though it cost our dearest treasure. Let’s believe, against all the evidence and against all reason, that He is good.

    Let’s muscle up our faith.

    Oh, did I forget to mention?

    In the end, God didn’t let Abraham kill Isaac.

    He’s not actually like that.

     

     

     

  • What Jesus Wants

    I love what the New Living Translation does with this verse:

    He gave his life to free us from every kind of sin, to cleanse us, and to make us his very own people, totally committed to doing good deeds.

    (Titus 2:14, emphasis mine)

    He wants us free from every kind of sin and ‘want’ is too weak a word. He died to free us from every kind of sin.

    And the thing is: sin sucks.

    We get it wrong when we think of sin as all-the-bright-shiny-things-that-I-really-want-but-God-won’t-let-me-have. It is those things but only for a moment – the moment just before we get them. Ultimately, and far more importantly, sin is all the things that keep us miserable.

    Those relational problems you hate? Their roots, deep down in the dirt somewhere, are sin. I know this because love doesn’t damage relationships (though it might end a damaging relationship); so whatever is causing the hurt comes from something other than love. And in a relationship: where love stops, sin begins. There is actually nothing in the middle.

    That fear? Oh, this is a big one for me – fear is sin. Did you know that? Fear opposes faith. It has no place in God’s kingdom. Have you ever thought to repent from fear?

    Addictions, obsessions, meanness, impatience, doubt, anxiety; even boredom is a kind of sin.

    Loneliness too, can be; since it can deny the love and presence of God.

    Guilt itself – the kind that doesn’t lead to forgiveness, the kind that acts as if Christ’s death isn’t enough – that sort of debilitating guilt is sin.

    And this is good news.

    It’s great news, because it means that Jesus hates these things as much as we do – more. He died to free us from all of it – every kind – to free us and to cleanse us. He wants it gone. And there’s more.

    He wants us for Himself. All. His. Very. Own.

    “Totally committed to doing good deeds.”

    The only way I will ever be totally that, is if I am totally filled with the Spirit of Jesus and then – oh, then! – I will also be full of all kinds of good things, things like love and joy and peace. No wonder they will spill out in good deeds.

    He wants this for us.

    He let Himself be tortured and killed so we could have this.

    Yes but – I can hear your argument – yes but, still here I am, not full of love, joy and peace; not free of every kind of sin. How do I make sense of all this in light of the reality of my experience?

    See, that’s the wrong question. The question should be: how do I make sense of my experience in light of the reality of these things?

    That one is an excellent question.

    I can’t answer it for you.

    But keep asking, because it will bring you where you need to go.

    In fact, ask Him.

     

     

     

  • Hi

    I’ve read that I should introduce myself and my blog, so you can decide whether or not you want to read it. So here:

    Malcolm Gladwell’s book, The Tipping Point, says we become experts after doing something for 10,000 hours. That’s a lot of time and I’m not sure I’ve done any single thing that much; but reading the bible might come close.

    I started reading it daily when I was 12 years old and I doubt I’ve missed more than 20 days in my whole life. I am 51 as I write this.

    Granted, for the first many years ‘reading’ meant plopping it open, reading one or two verses, then closing it. Now, I use the One Year Bible and have read it through every year for the past 7 years.

    I love the bible.

    I have used it as prayer while I sobbed out my broken heart. I have laughed with it. I have raged at it; and I have wept while it pierced me with joy.

    I believe it’s more than a book. It is an instrument God uses to speak to me, to us. It’s not His only instrument, but it is one of His favorites.

    It’s a big book – huge – and terribly cryptic. It has to be because it is the master key to all of life for all people over all time. It is the Author’s notes to the universe.

    So even if I had read it for 10,000 hours, I wouldn’t be an expert.

    But I have learned some things.

    I’ve learned that God is incredibly smart.

    He can take one life and do magic in it, while also using that life to make magic in a vast tapestry of lives. He can work in powerful but intimate ways in Abraham’s life – ways that are, to Abraham, profound and intensely personal – and at the same time, by the same work, be deliberately creating metaphors for you and me.

    God can do that. And while doing all that He also writes it down, using the very limited understanding of men and women who never have the benefit of the whole picture.

    That’s how He gives us His book; and it is probably what I will blog about most.

    I want you to know that I believe the Bible is God’s book to me, to us, to everyone. I believe it is absolutely, irrevocably true, even though not every word is meant to be taken literally. I believe that if we will read it humbly, openly, and thoughtfully, God will lead us to Himself and we will find that He is all we ever wanted.

    That is probably the most important thing about me.

    But I want to tell you this, too: writing is how I figure things out, and I have lots to figure out. Sometimes I can’t move until I figure things out. So I write to learn; and sharing what I learn gives me joy.

    So I blog.