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“Every Possible Fig Leaf” Removed

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By Larry Short

One of the favorite parts of my week is sitting in the hot tub each Sunday night with Jason Comerford. Sometimes we watch wild animals come out of the quiet forest. This week we listened as a nearby fir tree made an enormous “crack” and plunged to the ground with a thunderous crash. In the midst of relative isolation, we enjoy hot water and good fellowship, we pray for each other and our church, and we ask God lots of questions.

And the question that has been most frequently on our minds and hearts in recent months is this: Where is God working in the midst of all this pain and chaos? What is He doing?

I read a blog this week by a pastor and writer I enjoy named John Myer. He asked that exact same question. And he used a set of Where’s Waldo? drawings to provide a possible answer.

First, here’s a Where’s Waldo? drawing from 2019:

How long did you have to look before you found Waldo? I confess I STILL haven’t. (I blame bad eyesight, LOL!)

And now here’s the 2020 social distancing edition:

            (Image credit: Times Free Press)

THAT was a lot easier, wasn’t it?

What’s the difference between the two drawings? Obviously the 2019 edition had a lot of noise: visual distractions, lots going on, lots of people. (We might now look back with a sigh—THOSE were the days!)

But in the 2020 edition, those distractions have been mostly removed. We enter a meadow near a forest in a state of solitude. Waldo is much more obvious once the distractions are gone, once the decks are cleared.

Myers made this very uncomfortable observation:

From the spiritual standpoint, God has cleared the decks.  There’s very little church stuff left to camouflage Him.  The only things left are you, the Bible, and those Christians you meet with.  Gone are the pageants, the events, the programs, and every possible fig leaf. (Bareknuckle Bible)

The “fig leaf” part really got to me. Darlene and I had a fig tree once. Fig leaves are scratchy, itchy, awkward, and very uncomfortable. They are of course what Adam and Eve applied as they sought (unsuccessfully) to hide their sin and shame from the God with Whom they had previously fellowshipped in the Garden. (In His mercy and grace, God of course gave them much more comfortable coverings, made of leather—costly as they were in terms of some poor, innocent animal’s blood.)

God calls us to the exact opposite of this scenario: “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.“ Jeremiah 29:13

In the Garden, after Adam and Eve sinned, they stopped seeking and started hiding. God in His grace and mercy sought them out instead. And He has done this with each and every one of us. “God demonstrates His own love toward us in this While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). God’s seeking was done on the cross. Christ’s blood became the covering for our sin and shame.

Now that we are forgiven, now that we have no more need of fig leaves, God desires us to seek Him. And He PROMISES us that if we do so with all our heart, we will find Him!

What has this got to do with COVID-19 and social isolation, the risk of possibly debilitating or mortal illness, loss of employment or retirement funds, the departure of many of our sports and entertainment choices, and the sudden evaporation of most if not all our previous trappings of doing church?

You may already see that the answer to this question lies in the two contrasting Where’s Waldo? drawings above. Peel away the distractions, remove the fig leaves, and God is far more easily found.

But, have we been looking? Or do we instead seek to embrace new fig leaves—to create new distractions with which to repopulate the Waldo drawing that is our world?

Are we complaining about our new normal and asking God to restore our previous comforts? Or are we seeking Him with all our hearts TODAY? Now is the time when, perhaps, He will be most easily found. If we would only seek.

Jeremiah challenges me, time and again, when my fig leaves are removed and I feel uncomfortably exposed, to claim God’s promise: “You will seek Me and find Me when you seek Me with all your heart.”

Will you join me in this, as my brother or sister in Christ?

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Intentional living

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by Brian Sharpe

Intentional living is tough. It is easy to make plans…it is hard to carry them out. In life we are thrown many curve balls that take us out of our routine and often messes with our intentionality. Even good things can take us away from intentional living.

Recently Tomina and I went on vacation. While on vacation we wanted to make sure we didn’t take a vacation from being intentional so we talked through what we would like to do on this vacation to keep being intentional. I have a friend who has been an unbelievable model of intentionality with his family. He went away with his wife and while they were away for their anniversary they read a book together, they studied the same passage in the bible for devotions and they walked through some goal setting. Remembering this, that was what I talked to Tomina about. Tomina looked at me and said “Thanks for leading.” Men that was an amazing feeling to feel for what seemed to be the first time like I was leading my family well.

Well, we read “Radical Together,” which was a great book. We also studied Hebrews. Those were the easy things to do. The setting of family goals seemed to be the hard part. We finally did it, but it wasn’t till the 18 hour car ride home. Now that the goals are set we need to keep them in the forefront of our minds, so that they can be accomplished.

I write this to encourage men and families to take time to get away from the norm, not to just get away, but to get away and reflect, plan and set goals as a family. We don’t just become the people God wants us to be without a consistent refocusing time where we make sure we and our families are on the right trajectory. It is way too easy to think that we are living for God without asking God if we are living for him. When we take time away and seek him, he will reveal who he wants us to be and who he wants your family to be.

Jesus modeled this throughout the gospels. Jesus would leave the crowds. He would leave the disciples. He would go off to be alone with the father. It is something we need to do. Vacation is a great time to do it because we are away from the everyday demands of life.

My challenge to you between now and the end of the year is to get away for a day and seek God and ask him what are some things he wants to do in you and your family in 2012.

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On wasting time …

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By Larry Short

Because I had a lovely a four-day vacation last week, I have been thinking about a recent blog from one of my favorite technology writers, Seth Godin: “Wasting Time Is Not a Waste.”

Basically Seth defines (with tongue in cheek, I’m sure) “wasted time” as any time that’s not directly devoted to productivity (working). And then he says, while we certainly can “waste time” poorly, it is so much better to “waste time” well.

Wasting time well (which is not a waste!) is measured, Seth says, by the extent to which our investment of “wasted time”: 1) brings us needed rest, 2) brings us important discovery, or 3) brings us joy.

I like that! It also got me to thinking about a biblical view of “wasted time.” From the very beginning, God ordained a cyclical 24-hour period of rest for we weak and frail human beings who don’t know any better (and that’s apparently all of us), and He called it “Sabbath.” In Sabbath, we were obviously to rest, that was a fundamental part of the fourth commandment as revealed in Exodus 20:8-11 …

 8 “Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is a sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns. 11 For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.

The impetus for the Sabbath was resting from our work, while resting in God’s work. Jewish scholars took the “resting from our work” part very seriously and exhibited great pains in defining exactly what “rest” meant. But there is so much more when it comes to the “rest” we should observe as Sabbath. There were also elements of discovery … and if you dig deeper, elements of joy!

Over and over again in Exodus, the Sabbath is referred to as a day “holy unto the Lord.” Ch. 31:16 says the Sabbath was to be “celebrated.” It was an occasion for joy, even in the midst of “denying yourself” (Lev. 6:31). And a denial of self, in Scripture, is always portrayed (as Stan alluded to on Sunday) as a refocusing from self to others. First and foremost, denial of self means refocusing upon God.

This is why the Jews attended synagogue on the Sabbath. Lev. 23:3 calls it “a day of sacred assembly,” a day in which to show reverence for the Tabernacle or the Temple as God’s dwelling place. Discovery of who God was and how to draw near to Him, in the sacred assembly, was a part of the “rest” that God required, a refocusing upon the person and work of God (and off of ourselves and our own desires).

Such discovery of God results in joy, as Jesus assured us in John 17 when (in the midst of His greatest trial) He prayed that we would experience His fullness of joy.

So, I think Seth hits it right on the head. If vacations are simply wasting time in empty pursuits of self-gratification and “entertainment,” then they are truly a waste. But if during your vacation you can truly get rested up, engage upon a discovery of who God is and who we are in right relation to Him, and experience as a result the joy that knowing God and loving Christ brings to our hearts, such “wasted time” is far from a waste!

For more reflections from Larry, subscribe to his blogs:

  • The Crimson Worm (http://CrimsonWorm.org)
  • ShBlog (http://ShBlog.org/)

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