Month: September 2024

Categories
Religious

Letting Go of Anger

“Let go of anger and leave rage behind! Don’t get upset—it will only lead to evil.”

Psalm 37:8 (Common English Bible)

“No man can think clearly when his fists are clenched,” writes George Jean Nathan.[i] We need to reach no further than personal experience to accept the truth of those words. Anger destabilizes and diminishes our capacity to make sound judgments. Chances are strong that many of the worst choices you’ve ever made occurred in moments of anger. Family disagreements result in family estrangements. Differences in political ideology result in poorly spoken words that magnify simple differences into vitriol—even cruelty toward another. Bad behavior flows from hearts that we once never imagined had such capacity. Anger becomes a palatable emotion that gathers strength unto itself as a tropical storm organizes into the destructive force of a hurricane. The teacher of the Psalms is correct—anger that isn’t released in a healthy manner leads to evil.

Here in Psalm 37, the people of God are angry. The source of the anger are people experiencing success though they do not honor God; do not follow the way of the Lord. It is a spiritual predicament very present today. When keeping the faith becomes difficult and honoring God requires a level of discipline and restraint and personal sacrifice, others ignore God and advance, even prosper in all their endeavors. Fairness seems absent. The result is a stumbling into frustration and destructive anger. We are bewildered by the incongruence of the equation of life: the faithful struggle and the faithless thrive. Mark Twain’s words are instructive, “Anger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured.”[ii] What is unfortunate, argues Travis Bradberry, is that this knowledge is rarely enough to help people keep their anger in check.[iii]

The teacher in this Psalm is asking God’s people to place their frustration and anger into God’s hands. After all, God’s hands have been shown again and again to be really good hands. These are the hands that separated the sea for Israel to pass through when they were pursued by the armies of Egypt. These are the hands that fed Israel for forty years in the wilderness. These are the hands that continue to direct the people in the way of faith and obedience.  Our hands are insufficient, certainly not sufficient for such a range of volatile emotions. Such provocation results in a mood that is unpleasant, uncertain, and destructive. The teacher knows that. So, the teacher urges that we do not allow anger to overtake us but to wait for what the Lord will finally do. Here is a lesson that Israel will learn again and again.

Psalm 37 invites the people of God to another way. It is finally the way of trust in God. Then, we are persuaded to hold to this other way—to clench this other way rather than to clench anger. Certainly, there will be moments when we will seek to take back into our own hands the anger stirred by injustice and hatred in this broken world. These will be moments when we fool ourselves into believing we would be better stewards of what is just and right than God. God’s hands are even large enough for such foolishness. And they are patient hands. Waiting for us to discover again that such anger in our hands become an irritant to our own sense of well-being. It is then that the great teacher asks us once again to hand the anger back to God. Once we are clear that this is where it belongs, we become less worrisome and more expectant of the wonder that God will reveal.

Joy,

[i] Mark Goulston and Philip Goldberg, Get Out of Your Own Way: Practical Lessons for Conquering Procrastination, Fear, Envy, Neediness, Guilt, and More. (A TarcherPerigee Book: New York, New York, 1996) 25.

[ii] Travis Bradberry, Emotional Intelligence Habits: Change Your Habits, Change Your Life. (TalentSmartEQ: San Diego, 2023) 157.

[iii] IBID, 157.

Categories
Religious

Summons to Gratitude

The following meditation is from Dr. Doug Hood’s upcoming book, A Month of Prayer & Gratitude: Five-Minute Meditations for a Deeper Experience of Gratitude.

“Truly God is good to Israel, to those who are pure of heart.”

Psalm 73:1 (Common English Bible)

The creation story of Genesis summons God’s people to gratitude. The Lord took Adam, the first man of God’s creation, and placed him in the Garden of Eden to farm and take care of it. Additionally, Adam is invited to “Eat your fill from all of the garden’s trees.” (Genesis 2:16b). Yet God’s abundance did not end with an orchard. God realized that being well-fed isn’t enough. God declared it was not good for Adam to be alone. So, God fashioned a woman and brought the woman to Adam, who embraced her as his wife. Together, they would share in the goodness and abundance of God. For this, Adam and his wife were created. For this, Adam and his wife were summoned to gratitude, and in this gratitude, they would find their happiness. Gratitude is how we measure what is made available to us, however much or little it may be. It is a spirit that positively shapes us and folds us into a life of faith.

The Seventy-third Psalm celebrates this summons with a ringing declaration, “Truly God is good to Israel, to those who are pure in heart.” But as the psalmist continues to write, we discover that gratitude had nearly been lost for a moment. Immediately after the bold declaration of the first verse, there is a confession that the psalmist’s feet had almost stumbled. The cause is quickly identified: human eyes turned away from what God is providing to look upon the prosperity of another. Comparison is measured between what we have and what another enjoys. The result of this comparison is a perceived imbalance—the other has more! Jealously poisons the heart, and bitterness, or anger, or both presses against a heart once pure. This sight of another’s prosperity created a sickness of heart and fueled a cynical spirit. And the psalmist’s feet nearly stumble beneath.

The antidote to this sickness, to this cynicism, is then announced: The psalmist went into the sanctuary of God. Eyes were directed away from another, and their prosperity to see God once again. In prayer, in reading the Bible, and in worship, we are reminded once again that we deserve nothing. Yet, in God’s grace, we have. We may have little or much, as the apostle Paul declares in one of his letters, but we have. Eyes directed back to God returns to us a true perspective—to view life, as it were, through the eyes of God. In the creation story of Genesis, Adam is placed in an orchard. Yet, careful attention to the story reveals that Adam is not to eat of one tree. Though this detail holds rich theological implications, let this one thing be understood: we were never created to have it all. Eyes turned away from God strive for much. But eyes turned toward God release gratitude for what we already have.

The Bible’s summons to gratitude does not minimize the pain of loss and disappointment. Each is experienced during life, though some may experience both in greater measure than others. There are people who have longed to marry and never do. Others have wrestled with the loss of marriage, either through divorce or the death of a spouse. Health challenges or the loss of a child challenge the maintenance of a robust faith. The apostle Paul speaks of an unnamed “thorn in the flesh” and asks God on three occasions that God remove this pain from him. God does not. What is important is that Paul turns his attention from his struggle to focus on something beyond himself—the building of the church. Paul demonstrates that experiencing gratitude is possible only when one can direct attention from what one lacks to the presence of God. And God promised Paul that God’s grace continued to abide.

Joy,

Categories
Religious

Borrowing Time for Prayer

The following is from Dr. Doug Hood’s upcoming book, “A Month of Prayer & Gratitude: Five-Minute Meditations for a Deeper Experience of Gratitude.”

“Jesus was telling them a parable about their need to pray continuously and not to be discouraged.”

Luke 18:1(Common English Bible)

Near the beginning of my present ministry, I placed a brass plaque on the pulpit, positioned just above the Bible. It reads, “The pulpit must be the grave of all human words” by Edward Thurneysen. We don’t come to worship for human advice. If we did, a church service would be no different than a TED Talk. I need to be reminded each week that people come not for an expression of my opinion; they come for the Word of God. Here in this teaching from Luke’s Gospel, Jesus is telling a parable about an opportunity to pray continuously. Jesus believed in prayer. Jesus prayed often. Jesus now wants us to know that prayer is nothing less than approaching the presence of an infinitely holy God. It is an invitation received from God. We must sense the gravity of that invitation and not be relaxed about prayer. Thought, preparation, and intentionality are a more responsible response to God’s invitation to prayer.

A shared difficulty with this approach to prayer is sheer busyness. A man I admire in my present congregation once told me that Jesus’ invitation for regular, daily prayer was a “tall ask.” He owned a business with nearly nine hundred employees. Regular demands upon him rarely left time for reading the Bible, a helpful daily meditation, and prayer. I sympathized and tried to understand. Yet, I also hear that God’s claim upon us—God’s claim upon the life of my friend—isn’t negotiable. Jesus asks that we pray continuously. That isn’t advice from the pastor. It isn’t the opinion of a human. It is all Jesus. A hit-or-miss casualness toward prayer is simply unacceptable. Close attention to Jesus’ life discloses that Jesus remained busy healing, teaching, and proclaiming God’s Kingdom. It would be an interesting debate between my friend and Jesus, which one of them worked harder.

What my friend failed to grasp is that the time borrowed for reading Scripture, a brief meditation, and prayer will not be lost from his work. The poise, steadiness, and increased wisdom granted from time with God each morning will be recompensed to him many times over. That great leader of the early church, Martin Luther, understood this. “Luther habitually prayed for three hours each day.”[1] There is simply no substitute for the value added to each day after being steadied and strengthened by God. Bruce Larson, a Presbyterian pastor of another generation, once spoke at a conference I attended on the value of prayer in his life. He said that if he missed a day of prayer, he noticed the difference. If he missed several days of prayer, his family noticed the difference. If he missed three days, his friends noticed the difference. If he missed for a week, his congregation noticed a difference. Bryant Kirkland shared in a sermon before the faculty and students of Princeton Theological Seminary something he once found on the wall of an army chapel. It said, “Nothing happens here unless you want it to.”[2] Naturally, the question for each of us is, what do we want to happen by prayer? What Jesus found in prayer was less a power to effect miracles and more a presence—God’s presence—that brought in generous measures of strength in weakness, encouragement in discouragement, and inspiration to reach for greater heights. More, Jesus found someone who would never abandon him. Anne Frank wrote that she was prompted to keep a diary simply because, “I don’t have a friend.”[3] Jesus doesn’t want that to be our story. Rather, Jesus desires to introduce to us, through prayer, a God who not only desires to draw close to us but will create in us a transformative story. Confidently, Jesus asks, “Pray continuously and not be discouraged.”

Joy,

[1] Buttrick, George A. Prayer, New York: Cokesbury, 1942, 265.

[2] Kirkland, Bryant, God’s Gifts, the Princeton Seminary Bulletin, Volume VII, Number 3, 1986, 268.

[3] Frank, Anne. Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl, New York: Anchor, 2001, 6.

Categories
Religious

Mark Twain’s Favorite Word

Dr. Thomas K. Tewell wrote the following meditation to be featured in Dr. Doug Hood’s upcoming book, A Month of Prayer and Gratitude: Five-Minute Meditations for a Deeper Experience of Gratitude.

“Rejoice always. Pray continually. Give thanks in every situation because this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.”

1 Thessalonians 5:16–18 (Common English Bible)

When Mark Twain was the most well-known and respected writer in the United States, he was paid $5 for every word he wrote. Someone sent him a note that said, “Dear Mr. Twain, please send me your best word,” and enclosed a $5 bill in the envelope. Mark Twain sent back a one-word response . . . “Thanks!”

Thanks really was Mark Twain’s favorite word!

In the passage from 1 Thessalonians 5, the Apostle Paul encourages us to give thanks in all circumstances. Notice that Paul didn’t say, “Give thanks for all circumstances!” The reason we give thanks is that God is with us in all circumstances! We give thanks that the same God who raised Jesus from the dead, and who guided us in the past, will guide us in the future. We give thanks that we are not alone as we face challenging situations . . . God is with us! Even when we feel that God has abandoned us, and we think that God has forgotten about us . . . God is with us! It is important to open our eyes and focus on God and not on the circumstances! This is especially true when the circumstances seem overwhelming!

This was the case in the 1630s in Germany when the Thirty Years’s War was raging throughout Europe. The walled city of Eilenberg, Germany, was so overrun with refugees, wounded soldiers, and unsanitary conditions that infection and pestilence broke out in waves and spread uncontrollably. In the year 1636, the Plague hit! That was when a thirty-one-year-old minister and a native of Eilenberg, Rev Martin Rinkart was assigned by the Lutheran Bishop to serve the Lutheran parish in his hometown. He was the only minister who survived the Plague! So, he served the parish churches throughout the city as a solo ministry! Imagine the load that he carried in those years! And as one who grew up there, Martin knew most of the citizens of Eilenberg who were dying. There were so many deaths in the city that Rev. Rinkart led as many as ten funerals and memorial services every few days!

During this bleak period, Rinkart did not focus on the tragedy of the circumstances . . . he got up every morning and he focused on God! He focused on what God was doing. How do I know? In 1636, Rinkart wrote one of the great hymns of our faith. “Now Thank We All Our God,” that focused on Mark Twain’s best word . . . “thanks!” Rinkart focused on the presence of God and the love and support of the congregations in those tumultuous times and not on the tragic deaths or the circumstances. The first two stanzas bear witness to a God who remained steadfast in a time of tragedy and unanswered questions.

Stanza 1. Now thank we all our God with heart and hands and voices

Who wondrous things hath done, in whom this world rejoices;

Who from our mothers’ arms hath blessed us on our way

With countless gifts of love, and still is ours today.

Stanza 2. O may this bounteous God through all our life be near us,

With ever joyful hearts and blessed peace to cheer us;

And keep us in God’s grace, and guide us when perplexed,

And free us from all ills in this world and the next![1]

Martin Rinkart was honest enough with his feelings to admit that he was perplexed about the circumstances, and he wondered out loud during his daily prayer and memorial services, “where is God in the midst of this tragedy?” But as he wrestled with God and wondered about God’s presence and God’s seeming absence, Martin’s focus was still on God’s provision of comfort in this life, and eternal life in the next. This hymn is a powerful testimony to Mark Twain’s best word . . . thanks!

I have a dear friend who is a Jewish rabbi. The Rabbi urges his congregation to give thanks for one hundred things every day. And, with a twinkle in his eye, he tells them that if they can’t think of one hundred things for which they are thankful, they should open their eyes. The rabbi is quite right. God is at work in all circumstances. But we don’t see God at work because our focus is on the severity of the circumstances and not on God!

When we ask God to open our eyes, and we start to see God at work, even in overwhelming circumstances, then we will have no problem giving thanks daily for one hundred things! And, when that happens . . . like Mark Twain, thanks will become our best word, too! May it be so!

Joy,

[1] Rinkart, Martin. “Now Thank We All Our God”, 1636.