The Watcher

“I Loathe my life: I would not live forever. Let me alone, for my days are a breath. What are human beings that You make so much of them, that You set Your mind on them, visit them every morning, test them every moment? Will You not look away from me for a while, let me alone until I swallow my own spittle?”
Job 7:16-19


It can be a fearful thing, living under the gaze of the almighty maker of all things. The omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent I AM is too much for us to bear.

". . .And He said 'I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and I will show mercy to whom I will show mercy. But,' He said, 'you cannot see My face; for no one shall see Me and live.' "
Exodus 33:19-20

This is the creator. The Big Bang that excites physicists so much is the very breath of God. He said “Let there be” and there it was! (All praise His name!) Creator of the universe. Uni-verse = one word. His word. The word. The Living Word. And He still holds it all together (John 1:3).

So Job, struggling to understand the WHY, wants out from under His gaze. He has lost everything that is dear to him. If only he could hide, to crawl away from this intense scrutiny, and die.

But he is too completely the LORD’s servant. He knows that God is watching. He would take his own life to make the pain stop, but he cannot die under that powerful gaze.

King David sings in praise: “. . .What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him?” (Psalm 8:4) Why do you love us so?

Job moans in despair: “What are human beings that You make so much of them, that You set Your mind on them, visit them every morning, test them every moment?” (Job 7:17)

Job’s torment is so great. “. . .I will speak in the anguish of my spirit; I will complain in the bitterness of my soul. . . When I say ‘My bed will comfort me, my couch will ease my complaint,’ then You scare me with dreams and terrify me with visions, so that I would choose strangling and death rather than this body” (Job 7:11-15).

When my son Willy died I was haunted by nightmares filled with blood and death, guilt and self blame, of past and future hurts.

I imagine Job dreaming of his employees bleeding in the fields, his children gasping for breath as their nostrils clog with debris, the fallen walls squeezing the air from their lungs, dust settling upon their open eyes. His dreams are disturbed by the weeping sores of his skin, his life is all ashes. And when he awakes he looks up at the slowly drifting clouds and knows the He is watching. He is watching!

“Do You have eyes of flesh? Do You see as humans see?” (Job 10:4) He is pleading. How can a loving God allow such pain? He cannot live with it. He cannot die. It is intolerable.

Job is trapped. He knows that the LORD is just, fair, righteous. He also knows that he is innocent of any great sin. Job is trapped in the trap that all men faced before Christ. He is under The Law.

There is a saying: “Forgiveness is for Christians. Guilt is for the Jews.” For Job and those of his age, there is no recourse under The Law. Prayers and sacrifices, obedience and humility before our maker are all we can offer.

Today there is another option. This is one that makes it bearable to be under the eye of the almighty. In fact, we count upon it.

“’I tell you, my friends, do not fear those who kill the body, and after that can do nothing more. But I will warn you whom to fear: fear Him who, after he has killed, has authority to cast into Hell. Yes, I tell you, fear Him! Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? Yet not one of them is forgotten in God’s sight. But even the hairs on your head are all counted. Do not be afraid; you are of more value than sparrows.’” Luke 12:4-7

God is an intent watcher. And more. He loves us. He desires us to choose Him for a relationship. We have free will. We are designed to make choices. And we have appetites that we wish to fulfill that tend us toward poor choices. He waits for us to choose Him (Rev. 3:20).

Poor Job lived on the other side of the cross. The side where a relationship with Yahweh is tainted by our inherent failures.

Life on Earth is temptation. We will fall into it. If nothing else, we will fall to some form of selfishness. We want to be praised, honored, regarded, considered, consulted, loved, respected.

We are a curious mixture of traits. We have a spiritual nature that seeks God. We cherish beauty and goodness. We marvel and appreciate. Something lifts within us when we turn our heart and mind to higher things.

We have a physical side that has much in common with the other living things on this world. We hunger for food, for resources, for sex, for control.

We have the capacity for discernment. We have an intellect to make choices, and to implement those choices. To plan, to maneuver, to accumulate, to devise, to deceive. To focus on blood or rainbows, wars or friendships, tortures or healings.

We have an animal nature that hungers. A spiritual nature that delights. A mental nature that decides.

Why do we have these traits? How can they benefit Him? The LORD has spiritual beings who were created to serve him, to praise Him. Beings who have been doing so for thousands, perhaps billions of years. Why would He create us, creatures who are so flawed?

In this book of Job, Satan stands before the LORD as a sort of prosecuting attorney. He is making the case that even this very good man would fail the LORD if things were not so good. Satan wants a warrant from the divine court to set up a sting operation. To prove that love is something God has paid Job to do. God believes that it is in Job’s nature to honor and love and worship regardless of circumstances.

It’s a wondrous gift when someone chooses to love us.

Could it be that when He created us that Satan argued that we are unworthy? Unworthy of His love, unworthy of spiritual gifts, unworthy of eternity? Could it be that the story of humankind is set against a backdrop of a spiritual debate?

For a moment consider that Satan may have felt slighted by our creation (or the plan of it). Satan may have felt that the LORD was wrong in including creatures that sweat, and grunt, and hunger into the spiritual club. That we have no place alongside cherubim, and seraphim, and archangels, and powers, and dominions, and principalities. We do not deserve to be so cherished.

Perhaps the events of human history are under the watchful eyes of the LORD and Satan because we are the Job story. That tale begins with the creation of Man, with his flaws, and a temptation. It also begins with a relationship. Man and the LORD.

Adam walked with Him. “They heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden at the time of the evening breeze, and the man and the woman hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God. . .” Genesis 3:8

They hide because of more than mere shame. Prior to this they were face to face with Him. They could be in His very presence. Adam was with Eve when she chose wrongly. He failed her and himself. And then they were fundamentally different creatures. Creatures that indulge their baser appetites. They were human.

“’But,’ He said, ‘you cannot see My face; for no one shall see Me and live’” (Exodus 33:20). Part of the reason the first couple hid was simple self-preservation.

So He is watching. Has been all along. Sometimes that is a dreadful thing. It means that if we are in tune with that truth we cannot do anything without being aware of Him.

It is also a wondrous thing. He is aware of every sparrow, but He loves us.

Satan was so sure of the inherent corruption of being human, that the mixture of animal needs and desires with a divine nature, a soul, that he bet it all. He thought that even God incarnate could be tempted while in the form of a man (Matthew 4:1).

So where is our victory for Him in what we do? It is love. Love for each other, love for our creator. When we love we beat the odds. When we praise Him we tally another victory on the side of the LORD. And when we love Him despite the difficulties we face, it is a special triumph over the forces of darkness.

Satan is whispering to us to give up, to despair, to curse God and die. He tells us that we are unworthy, that we are cursed, that we are mayflies burning out our lives in futile desires, we have no hope in deserving His love.

Ah, he is very good at mixing lies and half truths. We are unworthy. We are selfish and animalistic and base. We are crude caricatures of divinity. But that is what is so marvelous! We wade chest deep in the muck of human frailty. But when we stand on our toes, we can lift our hearts above the primordial soup of our desires so that our hearts are pushed above the gunk of mortal existence. We can look upward and love. We raise our hands out of the sloppy mess and lift them in praise. And when we hold up our gratitude to him, especially when the offering itself is painful, we show that the spark of divinity that He has given each of us, that the LORD of creation lives within that heart temporarily above the ooze, we achieve a victory for more than ourselves.

It is a victory over darkness.

So, those of you who struggle, those of you who are hurt, those of you who are beaten and bruised and afflicted and are damaged goods, PRAISE HIM! In praising your creator who loves you more deeply, more fully than we can possibly understand, you claim a victory for Him that proves that love is the strength that binds the universe together.

Praise Him from whom all blessings flow!

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The Steadying Hand

There is a flip side to the whisper in the dark. There seems to be an opponent, a force of good that counter-balances evil. Are we pawns in some spiritual chess match? I don’t think so. Despite the paradox of an omniscient divinity who knows all that will happen, there is clear evidence of free will. The pawns can march cross the black and white squares without the pressure of the players’ hands.

The book of Job begins with Satan arguing that the Lord’s servant is good only because he has it good. The Lord permits the testing of Job’s faith (twice) and the reader is carried along to watch how the businessman of Uz handles the outrageous pain he receives.

Job loses his property, his business, and his children. His wife and friends accuse him of some great sin. He proclaims that he has done no great sin, at least not in his adult life, to warrant such treatment. He is an honest businessman, and carefully follows the spiritual laws of his faith. He worships the Lord without reservation. He prays for his children regularly, just in case. He is a man "blameless and upright; he feared God and shunned evil."

He stands between two forces, the Lord and Satan, and tries to understand why he is where he is. He cannot see the hands of Satan in his life, but he is deeply hurt by them. He wonders, is this the Lord’s doing? For what reason? That is Job’s plaintive cry: “why?!”

I have seen some creepy things now and then that make me wonder about what is slithering in the shadows. But there are also flashes of light as well.


December 18, 1992

Willy has been dead for three days. His funeral is tomorrow. The child I had dreamt of, the child who was entrusted to me, the child who was IN MY CARE, died with a whimper and a sigh. There is a terrible scream pulsing out of my chest that makes it hard to comfort my wife. My heart seems to be some sharp jagged thing that continually slices at me from within.

We haven’t hardly slept since it happened. We walk woodenly through our days, accepting the cards, flowers, and phone calls, with eyes that are red and alternating between a watery film that makes it hard to see and a dryness that makes the eyelids scratch.

We can’t keep going on like this. If we continue without sleep much longer we will become very ill. After exacting a promise from my wife that she would not abuse it we go to Kaiser Permanente to get something that will let us sleep.

It is a 30 minute drive to the medical center, where we stand like zombies for 20 minutes before someone notices us, and gets us what we need. We walk like marionettes to the car and head home.

It is a dreadful night. There is a storm pounding the roads. The wipers are on full speed and still I can only catch a flash of the road with its blinking white line as I thread the weaving highway above the river toward home. I’m only going 45, but occasionally I can feel the car hydroplane. I’m gripping the wheel hard enough to make my hands cramp.

“Look out!. . .” Brenda starts to say.

I saw it also. For a moment there was someone in the road ahead of us. But then he was gone.

“I saw it too,” I tell her. "There was someone there, wasn’t there?!”

She looks at me unsurely. She is doubting what she saw.

I’m glancing over at her every few seconds to gauge how she is doing when it happens again. I see her eyes widen for a moment and I jerk my attention forward.

In the brief moments when the wipers have cleared away the sheet of water sliding over the windshield I see someone running along the road ahead of us. He is perhaps 20 feet ahead of the car, running along the fog line between us and the guard rail, racing along the river on our right. His arms are pumping up and down with powerful ease. His feet are flashing down through my headlights into the splashing rain.

I glance at my speedometer. It is hovering about one third of the way between the softly glowing numbers of 40 and 50.

I look up again. There is no one in sight.

I reach over and take Brenda’s hand. I know we are going to be all right.

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March, 1972

I’m with a couple of friends and we are at brother Michael’s house. It is a tiny little house divided in two. The left side is a wedding dress shop. Brother Michael lives in the right half. His front room is filled with vegetables and stale bread he has gleaned from grocery stores to feed the poor, and gospel tracts. He drives an old beat up Datsun pick up truck and sleeps on a fold up cot in the kitchen. Years later I learn that he was once a very wealthy man who gave away all his possessions to the needy. Now his eyes twinkle through his cataracts at the teens who want to distribute his pamphlets.

He is giving us SO MUCH STUFF! Handfuls of those old Jack Chick comic book tracts, Campus Crusade’s “The Four Spiritual Laws,” and such. I had a box filled with little red booklets. They are two by two and a half inches:

Personal
Bible
Verses
COMFORT
ASSURANCE
SALVATION

My friend Jeff’s car is parked across the street. I run out to it. I'm emerging between the parked cars and a car is heading toward me at about 30 mph, perhaps ten feet away. No time to race ahead, or to turn back. I'm about to be hit.

I feel hands on my shoulders. Big hands. The fingers stretch down my chest like they are the size of bananas. I can feel the large thumbs touching each other below my shoulder blades. And I'm flying back in the air, the way I had just come.

I land with a thud on the sidewalk, the car sweeps past, making.

I look around. There is no one. No one anywhere. My legs stretch across the sidewalk, pointing toward the street. I'm still clutching the box of pamphlets.

I stand up, unhurt, and walk slowly back into the house.

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11:30 p.m., July 31, 2005

I’m standing on the bumper of a pickup truck that is swerving down the street. My house, my wife, are receding at 40 mph. The truck squeals down a side street, and somehow my feet stay on the bumper, my hands on the tailgate, almost as if I am being steadied.

The truck slows. I jump off. The strange ride ends.

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I know it was dangerous. (And I know that what I did was stupid.) But there was something about it that made me feel safe. Somehow I knew I wasn’t going to be really hurt.

I was surprised, certainly. I was a little embarrassed (I was standing there, alone on that street in my boxer shorts). But I felt that I was safe.

The entire series of events that night had the feeling that there was some sort of force field about us, like something from Forbidden Planet. The monster was not going to get through the shielding.

True, there is no evidence, even of my own senses, that indicated anything paranormal, supernatural, or spiritual, but the sense of calm was almost palpable.

The Lord does not coerce us to follow him. But he forbids His opponent to coerce us as well. He places restrictions on Satan.

“The LORD said to Satan, ‘Very well, then, everything he has is in your hands, but on the man himself do not lay a finger.’"
Job 1:12

There are unseen things around us. There are temptations that come to us as if in a whisper, and there are fears that spring at us from the shadows. We can keep those fears away with a strong rebuke in His name. But sometimes something else steps between us and danger and says “but on the man himself do not lay a finger.”

The latest theories about how our universe is put together describe a reality that contains more than the four dimensions that we experience. They are unsure how many (eleven? more?). Perhaps there are spiritual laws that are truly physical laws in realms we cannot discern.

Whatever the truth may be, I believe that there are forces of good at work. Forces that lend a steady hand, that sing louder than the whispers in the the dark.

All Screwed Up

Then the LORD said to Satan, "Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil. And he still maintains his integrity, though you incited me against him to ruin him without any reason."

"Skin for skin!" Satan replied. "A man will give all he has for his own life. But stretch out your hand and strike his flesh and bones, and he will surely curse you to your face."

The LORD said to Satan, "Very well, then, he is in your hands; but you must spare his life." Job 2:3-6


Why do people suffer? Is it some big bet between God and Satan or is there more to it? Here is a little essay I have written on how messed up life can be and wondering if there is a point:

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Everything is all screwed up. Everything is perfect.

The last couple of months there has been a series of events that have screwed everything up. My child was playing with fire. Soon we were watching flames leaping from our church. Our church family has been forgiving, loving, and caring but we are going through big emotional, psychological, parental, financial, and legal challenges (optimisticly). My wife and my two sons are seeing counselors. Our dog broke through a french door, resulting in blood on floors, walls, and furniture throughout the house (he’s fine). I ran out one night to investigate a beating in front of our home, and found myself on a fast-paced ride on the back of a pickup.

I have torn the muscles in my lower back, and it is difficult to move. My psoriasis has flared up to the point where I am swelling, peeling, cracking, and splitting all over. In the past three weeks my hair has suddenly found itself more at home on the floor of the shower than on my head, and so I got, for the first time, a sunburn on the top of my head. I just learned that an old injury has gotten to the point where my shoulder muscle is in danger of slipping off the bone (I am doing exercises to strengthen the surrounding muscles). We have had a series of unexpected expenses and financially we have just about given up the idea that we can keep from going deeper into debt. Our emotions are pendulums swinging wildly between depression and hope, relief and anxiety (fortunately my wife and I usually counterbalance each other). Emotionally, physically, legally, and financially it is all screwed up.

But everything is perfect. Often there is a great sense of peace (it’s beyond logic, I know). Throughout these events there has been a sense of purpose and power and protection. I know that I (we) will be ok. No, we’ll be great!

Take for example the strange ride a few weeks ago. I was flying down the rode, hanging onto the back of a pickup truck, while waking up (I was asleep less than 60 seconds before).

My wife had yelled that someone was getting beaten in front of our home. I sprang from bed, ran outside. Gang members were jumping into the back of a pickup. I ran to see if someone was being hurt. The truck sped off while I was peering into its bed. I jumped up and on instead of up and off. I found myself gripping that tailgate as the truck swerved back and forth to throw me off (those swerves only kept the two youths in the back from reaching me). After squealing around a corner and racing down a quiet street they come to a stop. I stepped off, hands open, high. A squeel of tires and it was off again. I stood there, contemplating the receding truck, in my Sponge Bob Square Pants boxer shorts, listening to a dog bark in the distance. I felt no fear at all.

A little later my wife and I, while waiting for the police, found ourselves bumping into another gang member. He was searching for his friend (the recipient of the beating) and was carrying something spear-like.

“What’s that you’ve got?” my wife demanded. She took away the metal fence post. She even scolded him about his need to smoke and not being in bed where he would be safe.

We felt completely safe. And we were, I am certain. Yes, it was stupid to do what I did. It was dangerous. They could have had guns, or knives, or simply used their fists. I could have simply fallen off of that truck at 40 mph and been seriously injured, or killed. But throughout the incident I felt safe, even amused. It was a part of a series of events that should have demoralized us.

The physical, the financial, the emotional drain on our family recently has been rough, but there has been frequent times where we have felt loved and safe in the midst of these difficulties. I understand that it doesn’t make sense. Still, it is true.

I believe that dark forces have wanted to do my family harm. And those forces have been prevented by the prayers of many who care about us. The amusement comes from the incongruity of it all. Picture a malevolent being, thousands, perhaps billions of years old. Seeking to do harm, but is thwarted by an overweight middle aged guy smiling with chagrin in his boxer shorts on a dark suburban street.

For those who are skeptical about prayer let me pause to say, I understand. I can only claim that my experiences have shown that the petitions of myself and others have had a real effect. I love science, but there is a huge blind spot in the scientific paradigm. Science is based on the premise that things are repeatable and measurable and therefore the imperical proofs it offers come with strings attached. I agree that most of what we see around us in the universe is observable, measurable, and often repeatable. But not everything. There are unique events that cannot be subject to verification.

So, dear reader, you have three choices here.
1. Accept my point, at least for the sake of my argument.
2. Reject the point and either read on out of curiosity or quit reading now.
3. Experiment with prayer yourself.

Before any of this began I had been praying a particular prayer for three months. It was about Jesus as our shepherd. I prayed this prayer by writing out the words in tiny letters on a wall in such a way so that when one steps back it is an image of Jesus carrying a sheep. He is the good shepherd, willing to stand between the wolf and His flock. But we are to be obedient. That is our role. We are to follow Him, regardless of how rocky the path is currently. We are to trust that He knows where He is leading us. And that is what I am doing. Wherever He leads, I will follow.

So why the tough spots at all? Consider: we are eternal beings. I will continue long after this overweight, aging shell with the skin problems and receding hairline fails. What kind of creature will I be then? I’m not sure. But I believe that mortal experiences will effect large changes in how I approach eternity.

For example, the death of my first child is the most difficult event of my life. I would NEVER choose such a trial. It was painful, debilitating, and damaged me in deep ways. But out of it I have grown spiritually. What does that look like? It will be different for different folks, but for me it meant getting more out of reading the Bible, more out of my time in prayer. My empathy toward suffering is far greater. My compassion for others has grown. My desire to grow has grown. I believe I am better at helping others through difficult times. Most importantly, I feel closer to God. If you would like to know more about this experience and that type of interaction with God, you might read the first posting found on this blog: “A Starting Point”.

So that is where I am now. In a tough spot. Everything screwed up. But at peace. I feel protected (though I will not test my invulnerability). I believe that no matter the situation, I am under the guidance of someone wiser, someone greater, and it will be all right. I am growing and all growth is painful.

Everything is perfect.

The Whisper in the Dark

"A word was secretly brought to me, my ears caught a whisper of it. Amid disquieting dreams in the night, when deep sleep falls on men, fear and trembling seized me and made all my bones shake. A spirit glided past my face, and the hair on my body stood on end. It stopped, but I could not tell what it was. A form stood before my eyes, and I heard a hushed voice:

'Can a mortal be more righteous than God? Can a man be more pure than his Maker? If God places no trust in his servants, if he charges his angels with error, how much more those who live in houses of clay, whose foundations are in the dust, who are crushed more readily than a moth!” -- Eliphaz the Temanite (Job’s friend)
-- Job 4:12-18

I approach this posting with trepidation. Is there a force of evil in the world? Is there a supreme boogie man who is out to get us? To get me? Might I attract his attention? I don’t like the idea at all and I tend to push the idea aside. Perhaps I’m a little like the Cowardly Lion. If I don’t believe in spooks they will leave me alone. But I do believe in spooks, I do, I do.

Most of the world believes in God. Christians believe in a personal God, a creator who knows each of us, and cares for each of us. Most christians believe in Satan, but perhaps not a personal Satan. Is there a dark side to the universe or are we projecting our own failings onto a convenient myth, avoiding responsibility. (Then the LORD God said to the woman, "What is this you have done?" The woman said, "The serpent deceived me, and I ate." Genesis 3:31) Perhaps what we call Satan is nothing more than a personification of our own failings.

Perhaps not.

There is evil in the world. True evil. Annie R., the woman who brought our children out of Haiti, told us of some things she saw while rescuing those war orphans. She told us about the night procession carrying an infant to a sacrifice. (She called in several favors to leave Haiti with that child.) She told us about gangs roaming the streets of Carrefour at night and their executions of “street rats” (she counted over a 150 bodies on a walk two weeks after the military coup). There is a saying in Haiti that "children are like dogs, worth nothing." They are thrown away. Literally. People abandon their children at the dumps. Annie pulled some children out of the rolling garbage beneath the heavy equipment.

There is the evidence of evil on my own sons’ bodies. Isaac’s face is scarred by the burns of hot cashews (a Haitian tradition to ward off were-wolves).

And Jeremiah. His body is still misshapen in so many ways, whether from lack of prenatal care, malnutrition, or abuse, I do not know. Once I cut his hair all off with shears. There are scars and dents all over his poor head. His feet were crushed, the growth plates behind some of his toes are so damaged the toes do not grow.

He was starving when he was found, and he fully expected us to eat in front of him and not share. When we first brought him home he was so excited but suspicious of the bowl of rice in front of him. He had trouble believing it was all for him to eat. He had the biggest grin on his face when we told him that he could eat as much as he wanted. His favorite topic is what he ate last night, what is for dinner tonight, what others are eating, or have eaten.

It makes me angry to think of him starving while others ate. It is evil to do that to a child.

There is ample evidence of evil in the world. Do a google search on Idi Amin, or Saddam Hussein, or Adolf Hitler, or Josef Stalin. Read about Ghengis Khan, or Nero, or the worshippers of Baal. An hour spent researching the evil that men do will lead you to one of three conclusions:

1. Men have a great capacity for evil.
2. There is a force of evil that prompts men to do unspeakable crimes.
3. Or both. Sometimes we choose, and other times we are prompted.

There is ample evidence of good in the world. No other creature can rise to such heights. Ghandi, M.L.K Jr., Mother Theresa, Stephen Biko, and countless others sought to change their societies, regardless of the cost to themselves.

We love. We sacrifice. We appreciate. No other creature appreciates beauty as we do. I have never seen a dog marvel at a rainbow or thrill to a sunset.

“What a piece of work is a man! how noble in reason! how infinite in faculty! in form and moving how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals! And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust?” --Hamlet Act 2 Scene 2

We are capable of great things and evil things. Art and torture. Compassion and cruelty. Generosity and greed.

We can be selfish, destructive, gluttonous, self-righteous. We can justify anything. We are consummate sophists. We paved over paradise and put up a parking lot and complain that there still isn't enough room for our SUVs.

But does that argue for a malevolent force to the universe?

Consider that rainbow for a moment. We have the capacity to enjoy its beauty. There is something within us that lifts at the sight. It is more than an emotional response. It precedes the emotion.

I learned to speed read in high school. I was reading at an astonishing rate with comprehension. I tried it on David Copperfield (by Charles Dickens). There was no emotional punch. The heart is not as quick as the mind. Search yourself and you will find this true. You know that there is a lag between emotional news and the emotion itself. We know the emotion is coming before it arrives. We see the rainbow and some living thing twists in our chests. It is like a thing apart from hearts and lungs and mind that responds. It is our soul.

Now, let us take the opposite example. Sometimes we sense evil just as we sense beauty. Children are often better at this. Do you remember walking into a dark place and feeling something dreadfully wrong there? You know that the place is empty except for you. Yet your heart races as you walk over to the light switch. And it races even faster when you must cross back that dark space when you turn to leave. You are tempted to leave the light on.

My wife felt that recently. During the fire (see previous postings) she and a friend were searching the basement of our church to ensure everyone was out. She was walking down the hall, approaching the place where the fire was burning. She kept calling out for our son, partly to hear her own voice.

She was getting the “heebie jeebies." She was so nervous that when she opened the closet at the end of the hall she half expected a body to fall out. She felt the presence of evil. Her words.

She tells me that when she heard the crackling of the fire it sounded like a chuckle in the dark. She turned up the stairs and saw the flames dancing in the gloom. Our friend ushered her quickly out the nearest door, certainly saving her life. The area soon burst into a fireball.

I have had similar experiences. Times when I was young, times when I lived in a yogic ashram. I shy away from thinking about them. As I write I think, “oh that would be a good illustration for my point, or that other story, or the time that. . .” But I don’t want to think about it. I want to get to the light switch as quickly as possible.

So I guess I’m going to chicken out. I don’t want to think too hard about it. But I believe that many of you reading this have stories that illustrate this point. (Feel free to leave them in a comment.)

It follows then that if we believe in a personal God, we must believe in a personal Satan. Or at least that one of his minions might occasionally drop by to whisper in our ears, just as that voice in the darkness did to Eliphaz.

To what purpose? Why would he? What has he to gain? The book of Job provides a hint. There is a force that believes God made a huge mistake in creating us. It argues that all we need is hard times and we will curse His name. That is the bet he had with the LORD. And he believed that even Jesus the Christ could fall to temptation; that the putting on of flesh is so inherently corrupting that even the divinity incarnate would fall to his whispers.

And to some extent it is true. We are easily tempted. We tire, we hunger, we lust and envy and lie and rationalize. We are a self-centered lot that rejects the power behind the rainbow.

Just as there are extremes to human behavior, there are extremes on the spiritual planes. The universe is filled with polarities. Positive and negative magnetic poles. Protons and electrons. The strong atomic and the weak atomic. Credit and debit. Good and evil.

Evil is real. But he does not have free reign. The LORD put clear limits on him in the book of Job. And for those who have turned to face their fears in the darkness between the light switch and the door, we have found that a strong rebuke in His name is a powerful defense.

We are capable of sensing the presence of evil. We are also capable of sensing the presence of good. And we can make choices. This may be a fallen world, but the LORD is near.



His wife said to him, "Are you still holding on to your integrity? Curse God and die!"

He replied, "You are talking like a foolish woman. Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?" -- Job 2:9-10

Does the LORD Care?

“Does it please you to oppress me, to spurn the work of your hands, while you smile on the schemes of the wicked? Do you have eyes of flesh? Do you see as a mortal sees?” -- Job 10:3-4

He can see it all. He weaves the events of our lives together and we do not see how the threads of our existence are tied to all those around us. Sometimes it may feel very lonely to be limited in what we see. Does He know?

It is difficult to see the pictures of children in Haiti making their food for the week from dirt and shortening. It is heart breaking to see into the eyes of a woman holding her dead child after a calm ocean has suddenly turned into a wall of water that sweeps thousands of lives away. It makes me angry to see a man sitting in the heat of an African sun breaking big rocks into little ones, wearing out hammers so he can sell the gravel to the road builders to buy bread. We ask ourselves why.

Brenda is having a very difficult time. It seems that life has treated her roughly. Abused as a child, thrown into the role of a caregiver for her mother before she was a teen. Unable to bear children (her greatest wish). Our first child died (see posting: A Starting Point). The adoption of two war orphans has recently led to new challenges (see the last three postings). Two and a half years sober she is struggling in ways that I do not. Now we are learning to deal with the day to day reality of raising two children who are mentally challenged.

She was nearly killed in that fire (see “Chapter 2”). If she and Norm (one of our church’s elders) had chosen to go through the old sanctuary instead of out the nearest door things would have been very different. The sanctuary did not look dangerous. The flames had gone up the banners in that storage area and were licking along the ceiling, but there did not appear to be any danger beyond that. They did not know that the gases produced from that fire had filled the sanctuary and the temperatures in that vaulted ceiling were approaching a flashback point.


Outside that sanctuary, perhaps 30 feet away, Pastor Tim was trying to turn the fire alarm off. He did not yet know that the fire was real.

At the back of that sanctuary at another door I had just stepped inside calling for one of our children. I saw Tim punch in the code at the alarm. It paused for a moment and then started up again. I stepped into the sanctuary. It was still dark (I couldn’t see the flames behind the door to the storage area).

“Isaac?” I called.

Tim heard Mel, another of our elders, yell.

“Fire! There really is a fire!”

Tim could see through the sanctuary and a side door on the stage the flames in that storage area, and quickly went into his office to call for help.

I didn’t know yet that there was a fire burning on the other side of the door at the end of that room and that the gases above me were heating up to an ignition point. I turned around and went out a side door to see if Isaac was in the parking lot. I found him milling about.

Norm and Brenda exited the door nearest the fire. As they stepped away from the building Norm saw a fireball flash throughout the sanctuary, starting from where they were back to the point where I had just been. Tim says that the air suddenly turned black and he felt pressed down to the floor.

Tim crawled along the hallway, and turned left toward where the door was supposed to be, but he couldn’t see it. Confused, and growing muddled he crawled along in the darkness.

I started toward the side door where Mel and another elder were at the doors toward which Tim was crawling.

Suddenly the door flew open and Tim sailed past the porch, over the steps, and landed in the drive. The smoke blew through the door like the exhaust of a jet. This horizontal column of smoke roared over his head. He stood up, his upper body hidden in the soot and smoke blowing out of the church. Surreally I noticed papers from the office blowing around the parking lot as he staggered to the neighbor’s lawn.

Brenda, Norm, Tim, and myself had all been near the sanctuary when those heated gases exploded. Tim was literally on the edge of it.

We stood in the drizzle for a couple of hours while the firefighters worked. Engines from five communities responded. Finally they sent us home.

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That was a very difficult night. Jeremiah’s denials, eventual confession to the police, and his arrest seems like some sort of bad dream. We have been trying to wrap our minds around the idea that our church was so damaged and that we are somehow connected to this terrible thing.

And Brenda is having an especially hard time understanding why we have children who are less than what they might have been.

This is a great surprise to us. We have lied to ourselves about the extent of their disabilities. I think every parent wants their children to be exceptional in other ways. To be scholars and athletes and cheerleaders and class president. But that is a topic for another posting.

Today I wish to look at Brenda’s grief and her question of “why?”

Does God know what it is like for us? Does an omnipresent God see the world as we do? We are limited. We see but one thing at a time. Does that limit make our lives more painful? I think it does. We cannot see all the implications, all the stories of who an event might touch, all ways that we are spared what could have been worse. What we see is the abusing stepfather, the dying child, the nervously smiling boy who does not understand why we are so upset.

Jenny has been the secretary of our church for the past few years. Her husband has been diagnosed with a very serious cancer and given a pastoral position near Sacramento. She sent me an email:

“. . .I wanted to share a beautiful and interesting piece with you. I became acquainted with a shirttail relative about 2 years ago -- my brother-in-law's brother. He had been estranged from his family for many years, but has reconciled and shows up at many family events now. He lives in a hermitage in Sacramento and lives a life of poverty, service, and prayer. He has been a wonderful prayer supporter and encourager through Bob's cancer. His monastic background adds many interesting notes to our evangelical life! I've often copied his emails for Tim -- usually many weighty things to chew on!

I sent an update about Bob to him a couple of weeks ago and mentioned the fire. When he responded he said that the fire confirmed a dream he had had! I quickly wrote back and told him he piqued my curiosity, and asked if he'd please share his dream if he was comfortable with doing so. I received another note from him a few days ago, which included this paragraph:

‘Your curiosity is up! Apologies, did not mean to do this. Dreams & Visions have been part of my life from conception. I have learned to accept them as gifts from the Divine Father. I dreamt several weeks prior to the fire and then just several days before your message of a fire in God's House, an apostle of the Lord was crawling and the Holy Spirit carried him out of a door way. In the beginning the dream showed a [special] young person with fire. The "specialness" is of mental/emotional capacity. There was absent any intent to be destructive or cause damage. In fact this young person & his family has a very special place in Our Father's heart. Our Father was pleased by the unity of His church and community. Life flows from and through the ashes [used for fertilizer in many cultures, that is -- to produce growth and life.]’"

Here is a monk living in solitude 600 miles away and the LORD sends him this message. Since I have been writing about these events in this blog I have been getting messages from people all over the world (the comments on this blog are a few examples).

Perhaps there are benefits to people out there from this. But that does not help us much. Brenda has been so depressed. This event is calling up all sorts of memories emotions for her. (I have been very concerned for her. It frightens me.)

But regardless of what happens to other folks, I can’t help but be most concerned about how this affects us.

I feel steady in my love and affection for my children. I love that boy who nervously smiles at us, uncertain of things because we seem so upset. I love Jeremiah now as always. I will love him even if he must live with me for the rest of my life and he always has the mind of a four year old.

I am concerned about the reality of how we must now supervise Jeremiah. I know things will be difficult, but I also know that He will guide me. It’s been a rough path now and then (now being one of them). But He is my shepherd and I will trust the path that He chooses for me.

Though He is not limited with human eyes, He understands it. Jesus took the form of a man and experienced the mortal life. And he spent that life understanding how we suffer, how we feel, and at every opportunity He stopped to give kind words, comfort, and healing. Even on the cross He stopped to reassure the thief dying beside Him. He knew what it was like to suffer, and He cares about us. What happens to us is small compared to the suffering I see throughout our world.

I believe that life is very short. Consider eternity. What is a hundred or less years in the face of billions? What is unique about this life is the limitations we have on our understanding. Not being able to see the whole picture puts us in the refiner’s fire. What we experience and learn on the spinning glob of dirt in this corner of the universe are mortal experiences, experiences that will shape us for eternity.

Jesus lead on, I will follow.


“But he knows the way that I take; when he has tested me, I will come forth as gold.” -- Job 23:10