Tag: scripture

Real Hope & Change

jamieahughes4 Comments

I have a love/hate relationship with change. The thrill of self-discovery comes with it, but more often than not, change brings uncertainty and difficulty. For me, the last two weeks have been a combination of the two extremes, both mentally and spiritually.

Several months ago, I began looking for a new place of employment, one where my talents could be put to use in a new field. I came across a posting for the Woodruff Arts Center titled “Director of Educational Outreach” or some such hyperbolic nonsense. Essentially, the job involved working with the Atlanta Youth Symphony Orchestra as a coordinator and public relations specialist. They needed someone with people skills, a good grasp of the English language and written/oral communication, experience working with professionals, parents, and students, and a background in instrumental music among other things. I looked down the laundry list of required qualifications muttering, Check, check, double check, double plus check, to myself, wrote a perfectly tailored cover letter to accompany my curriculum vitae, and sent it in.

For weeks, nothing happened. The job remained on the center’s page, and no one contacted me for further information or to set up an interview. To date, they still haven’t. In all likelihood, they never will.

Needless to say, I was more than a bit nonplussed by this. The only thing that could have put this job more firmly in the perfect category for me would have been if the phrases “must love baseball,” “must be willing to bring pets to work,” and “must be able to perfectly quote films old and new” were listed as preferred qualifications.  So why no call? Like the true resting place of Jimmy Hoffa, the depth of the Masons’ influence over the founding of the United States, or even the true name of the man who put the “bomp” in the “bomp-shoo-bomp-shoo-bomp,” it’s something I’ll never know.

Fast forward a month or so.

I get daily emails from job websites offering me part time blogging gigs for websites like the Examiner or technical writing gigs that I’m missing one qualification for, and I often delete them without exploring the full posting, wasting time that could be spent keeping my head above water in the job I currently have. However, one came through two weeks ago advertising for a copy writing position with In Touch Ministries in Atlanta, Georgia. For those of you who don’t know the name, In Touch is the printing and publishing ministry of Dr. Charles Stanley, the head pastor of First Baptist Church Atlanta. They manage a massive website, publish a monthly magazine, and, in essence, create all the printed matter needed to translate and transmit Dr. Stanley’s message to people around the world.

I read the qualifications for the position and knew that I had to apply. This was why the orchestra gig hadn’t panned out. I desired change, but my first attempt at it had been aimed in the wrong direction. I need to be using my talents not to enlarge myself, but rather to magnify Him. Well, unlike the symphony, In Touch did call, and an interview has taken place. It was a wonderful time for me, to be able to share my testimony and my desire to be used in a way that will allow me to fulfill my ministry, whatever it might be.

Now, I’m being tested. I’m being asked to be patient, something I don’t do very well. (Although, praise God, I’m markedly more patient than I was just a few years ago.) A week has passed, and the elation that came with the thought of moving into a new field in a place where my faith can be nourished and my talents used and honed has been tempered with a cold, hard week of silent days. I’ve carried my phone with me in hopes that I’ll receive the call that beings with the phrase, “Jamie, it’s my pleasure to tell you that….,” but it hasn’t happened yet. I’ve prayed daily asking God that His will be done in this matter if this place is where He wishes me to go next. If not, I’ve also prayed for Him to help me understand why His perfect plan might not include it. The answer will come when He wills it, not a moment before, and as Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers once sagaciously stated it, “The waiting is the hardest part.”

In past years, I would have been tempted to say “God is cruel” or “God doesn’t understand my problems,” but that is so far from the truth that I’m embarrassed to say that I actually once thought it. The truth is that God knows the desires of my heart; He knows me even better than I know myself. Seeking to understand the silence, I went to the book of Psalms.

David’s songs to the Chief Musician vary in subject matter—some praise His mighty works, others beseech him for deliverance from enemies both outside his kingdom and within it, and many celebrate His divine judgments, praising them for their righteousness, mercy, and grace. Portions of three of these divine songs speak peace to my situation and help to settle my soul.

The first is Psalm 144:3-10, which reads:

 LORD, what is man, that You take knowledge of him? Or the son of man, that You are mindful of him? Man is like a breath;
His days are like a passing shadow. Bow down Your heavens, O LORD, and come down; touch the mountains, and they shall smoke. Flash forth lightning and scatter them; shoot out Your arrows and destroy them. Stretch out Your hand from above; rescue me and deliver me out of great waters, from the hand of foreigners, whose mouth speaks lying words, and whose right hand is a right hand of falsehood. I will sing a new song to You, O God; On a harp of ten strings I will sing praises to You, the One who gives salvation to kings, who delivers David His servant from the deadly sword.

This has always been one of my favorite psalms because of verses three and four. David asks an often overlooked, but essential, question—Who is man that You even concern yourself with him and his piddly problems?  In the scope of His creation, we are tiny, a finite speck in the scope of God’s infinity. However, we are also the beings He came down to make. Unlike the heavens and the earth, the sky and sea, and the birds and beasts and creeping things He created, He came down to craft us with His own hands from a lump of lifeless clay and made us in His own image. It is His breath that fills us with life and makes us living souls. He created us for fellowship, and that is why He is mindful of us. It still amazes me that the God who created the universe and the beautiful planet we call home knows of my struggles and seeks to direct my life. I am hardly worthy of such attention, yet He loves me enough to give it. That alone is cause for celebration. This possible new job, so small in the scope of eternity, falls under His purview as well. There’s no cause for concern on my part. He will handle it as surely as He does the changing of the seasons or the conflicts between nations.

David then lists the mighty powers that are God’s, powers that know no limits. It is He who can move a mountain, separate waters, and scatter a seemingly insurmountable foe before His servant. It is God who “gives salvation to kings” and keeps them in His hand. No matter how great our power may be here on Earth, it pales in comparison to that of the Most High. David recognizes it and celebrates it because it frees him from worry, and this why he sings this new song to God.

Psalm 37: 3-8 is focused on trusting God in all things, not only with those things that seem impossible. It reads:

3 Trust in the LORD, and do good;
Dwell in the land, and feed on His faithfulness.
4 Delight yourself also in the LORD,
And He shall give you the desires of your heart.
5 Commit your way to the LORD,
Trust also in Him,
And He shall bring it to pass.
6 He shall bring forth your righteousness as the light,
And your justice as the noonday.
7 Rest in the LORD, and wait patiently for Him;
Do not fret because of him who prospers in his way,
Because of the man who brings wicked schemes to pass.
8 Cease from anger, and forsake wrath;
Do not fret—it only causes harm.

The message David seeks to transmit with this psalm is one of trust and patience. He asserts that we should dwell always in Him, speak to Him about the desires of our hearts, and maintain a constant fellowship with Him. If we give all that we are, our “way” to Him, He will “bring it to pass” in His time. We are not meant to worry or to compare ourselves with those who “profit in [their] way,” which is wicked. I may never be as wealthy or as powerful as those who scheme and who get ahead in this world under their own steam, and that, I’m coming to find, is the best way to be. After all, if I spend all my time and energy worrying about what others have or what I don’t, I run the risk of falling into anger, wrath, and worry—all of which damage my fellowship with Him. I must always delight in His judgments and His righteousness, even if I don’t yet understand them.

Also, if I worry and try to solve this problem on my own, that is as good as admitting my lack of trust in His power. It is me saying, “God, you aren’t strong enough or wise enough to manage this situation, so I’ll handle it.” This kind of change tests my faith, refines it in fire, and makes it all the stronger, but I have to be willing to undergo the forging. This is why I must always remember the words of the sacred song, “Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus” to keep my heart and mind focused on the right thing. After all, if I can “Look full in His wonderful face, …the things of Earth will grow strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace.”

The same message is contained in Psalm 40: 1—5.

 1 I waited patiently for the LORD;
And He inclined to me,
And heard my cry.
2 He also brought me up out of a horrible pit,
Out of the miry clay,
And set my feet upon a rock,
And established my steps.
3 He has put a new song in my mouth—
Praise to our God;
Many will see it and fear,
And will trust in the LORD.
4 Blessed is that man who makes the LORD his trust,
And does not respect the proud, nor such as turn aside to lies.
5 Many, O LORD my God, are Your wonderful works
Which You have done;
And Your thoughts toward us
Cannot be recounted to You in order;
If I would declare and speak of them,
They are more than can be numbered.

However, unlike the previous psalm that claims the certainty of a future blessing, this one states the message in the past tense. “I waited patiently,” he begins. As a result, God “inclined” to him, “heard” his cry, and “brought” him up from the mire clay in which he was trapped. David is praising a blessing received in this song; he is not simply claiming “God will.” Instead, he is telling us “God does.” It is a song of a promise made manifest. He sings of the amazing blessings from God, and insists that the praise from his mouth, his testimony, will bring others to a lasting trust in God. And David asserts that his are not the only prayers answered or the only blessings given. Instead, David asserts, “Many, O Lord my God, are Your wonderful works” and that “Your thoughts towards us Cannot be recounted to You in order” because “They are more than can be numbered.”

What do I learn from these three passages? Simply this—I matter to God. God promises. God delivers. It’s as simple as that. He does so in a way that is necessary for us and, more importantly, brings Him glory.

Change, as I asserted earlier, is hard. It requires us to step outside our comfort zone and trust in His will for our lives, knowing full well that His will may not coincide with our desires. However, His will is perfect and His judgments righteous. I will continue to pray for His will to be done in His time safe in the knowledge that I am His child and that He guides me rightly.

Following Marching Orders

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As I study the book of Judges, I see time and time again how God uses people who are seemingly insignificant to bring about mighty triumphs for His chosen people. Whether it was the left-handed man, Ehud; Shamgar and his seemingly insignificant weapon, the ox goad; Gideon who threshed wheat in hiding until declared a “man of valor” by God Himself; or even Jephthah, the son of a harlot, our Father had a habit of choosing unlikely heroes to deliver Israel from bondage.

Of the twelve men and one woman chosen to be the judges of Israel, only two worked as a “spiritual tag team”–Deborah and Barak. Naturally, whenever I see a break in a pattern, I assume that the divergence holds some special significance and merits further study, especially since one of them is the only female judge in the book.

As I read, I noticed quite a few references to trees and other forms of plant life in this book so far, and I’m sure each will reveal a new truth to me in time if I read with a careful eye.  For example, Deborah, as the author of Judges states, sits “under the palm tree of Deborah between Ramah and Bethel in the mountains of Ephraim. And the children of Israel came up to her for judgement” (Judges 4:5). According to my research, the palm tree (or the palm branch) is used as a symbol of victory. Hence, palm branches were placed before Jesus on His entrance into Jerusalem, and they often decorate the tombs of martyrs and other who experienced a triumph of the spirit over the flesh. Deborah, therefore, is well-placed under a tree of victory, and her people seek her out for council and judgement.

However, it is she who calls for Barak to come to her, bringing him up from Kedesh in Naphtali. She tells him, “Has not the Lord God of Isreal commanded, ‘Go and deploy troops at Mount Tabor; take with you ten thousand men of the sons of Naphtali and of the sons of Zebulun; and against you I will deploy Sisera, the commander of Jabins’s army, with his chariots and his multitude at the River Kishon; and I will deliver him into your hand’?” (Judges 4:6-7).

I find it interesting that, unlike the others who sought her out, Barak was called by Deborah but even more so that her words to him are so specific. She does not reveal anything to him; she does not tell him, “God told me to tell you….” Instead, she says, “Has not the Lord God of Israel commanded….” She is asking a rhetorical question. Therefore, it is reasonable to assume that God had already given Barak his marching orders, so to speak, but that Barak had done nothing with them since he heard them. It took Deborah repeating the missive for him to act.

God also told both judges specifics including the force to be met, the place of the intended battle, and even the inevitable victorious outcome! That, too, is also insufficient for Barak. He asks Deborah to accompany him to the battlefield, saying, “If you will go with me, I will go; but if you will not go with me, I will not go!” (Judges 4:8). Even after an order from God, one filled with specifics and predicting triumph, and a recapitulation of that order from the mouth of the prophetess Deborah, Barak still has neither the will nor the faith to ride up to Mount Tabor.

Even while they are there, Deborah has to crack the whip. She tells Barak, “Up! For this is the day in which the Lord has delivered Sisera into your hand. Has not the Lord gone out before you?” (Judges 4:14). Once again, using a rhetorical question, she scolds him into action. I noticed that Deborah uses the present perfect tense verb phrase “the Lord has delivered.” For those of you who aren’t grammar nerds like I am, here’s what makes that choice so interesting. Present perfect tense describes an action that happened at an indefinite time in the past or that began in the past and continues in the present as in “Nobody has climbed that mountain.” In essence, the victory had already been won; the Lord had already made it happen. It doesn’t read “The Lord will deliver” or “The Lord might deliver if…”

There is no Heisenberg uncertainty principle here. There are no unknown variables or x-factors. Barak is not dealing with physics after all, but rather with the God who is beyond even the metaphysical, He who called all things physical into being. There should be no doubt or indecision, yet in the man chosen to lead Israel into battle, doubt still exists.

The truth of the matter is that the Lord needed neither Deborah nor Barak to carry the day against the Canaanite army; thus, the passage from Judges reads, “And the Lord routed Sistera and all his chariots and all his army with the edge of the sword before Barak” (4:15). Barak was merely an agent used by God to carry out His good purpose. In fact, even his name lends symbolic significance to this fact. Barak means “lightning” or “thunderbolt,” and if one reads the Song of Deborah and Barak that follows the detailed summary of the battle, one can see exactly how God uses ten thousand foot soldiers against a superior force of nine hundred iron chariots, the old testament equivalent of a brigade of tanks. The song contains the revelation that, “…The earth trembled and the heavens poured, the clouds also poured water; the mountains gushed before the Lord, this Sinai, before the Lord God of Israel” (Judges 6:4). In essence, God sent forth a deluge from the heavens,  capturing the heavy wheeled chariots of His enemies in the mire, leaving them useless. A man whose name means “lightning” and a storm called from the heavens are all God needed to defeat the seemingly insurmountable foe and bring glory to His mighty name.

So what does this mean for a Christian? After all, this is material from the Old Testament relating the history of the Jewish people lost in their repeated disobedience, captivity, and defeat. However, I think the same lesson God meant for Barak is also pertinent to us, too. It is a fine thing to say we trust in God’s providence and goodness, but to actually lean on it in times of difficulty, especially when odds seem overwhelming, is another matter entirely. Absolute trust brings more complete victories, ones both physical and spiritual. God begins to bless each of us to an even greater extent when we are faithful rather than doubtful. Our faith is built and girded up in this way, making us mightier warriors in His service.  

For example, because he does eventually carry out the required action, Barak and his army are victorious, but not entirely. He is not permitted to kill the enemy commander and gain the glory that comes from it. It is as Deborah promised him before they left for Mount Tabor,  “…there will be no glory for you in the journey you are taking, for the Lord will sell Sisera into the hand of a woman” (Judges 4:9). The honor is given instead to Jael, the wife of Heber the Kenite. Unlike her husband who had broken faith with Israel, she remained obedient and true to her people. As a result, when Sisera comes to hide in her tent, she carries out an act of swift justice, driving a tent stake through his head and killing him instantly. She, another humble instrument, attains the final victory because she was willing both to listen to God and to act on His instructions without hesitation. As a result, her name and Deborah’s are the two we remember while Barak’s is often hazy. 

Like them, our joys and triumphs can only be truly complete and our service to God satisfactory when what is required of us is carried out in obedience and trusting faith.

Fairy Tale Envy

jamieahughes3 Comments
Glass Slippers: Neither Necessary Nor Practical

This weekend, I had to do a little soul-searching regarding my reaction to another person’s joyous moment. I volunteered to play French horn in the pit orchestra for a local production of Cinderella, which was great fun and allowed me to make some new friends and grow as a musician. The young woman playing the lead role was playing opposite her real life boyfriend of several years. During the Saturday evening performance, he matched her with her missing shoe but then deviated from the script by pulling her center stage and asking her if he would be his “forever princess” and presenting her with a diamond engagement ring. The musical then continued on to the wedding sequence and ended as planned.

Anyone who knows me will tell you that I don’t like ostentatious displays of emotion. I’m not comfortable watching them or participating in them, and I am rarely motivated to cry. It isn’t that I don’t feel things very deeply; I am just distressingly uncomfortable with expressing my feelings. (Aside from anger that is…I’ve got that one down fairly well.) Therefore, my first reaction to this heartwarming little scene was not that of 99.9% of the women in the audience that evening. Unlike them, I did not tear up, scream with joy, or clap my hands. I might have smiled a little, but that’s all. It was the second performance of the day, and after eight performances of a fairy tale musical, it begins to grate on the nerves.

My nearly Vulcan reaction to the scene wasn’t what gave me great pause, but my thoughts on the matter afterwards did. The young lady in question, I’m told, is the picture of loveliness and kindness. She and I have spoken exactly three words together, and they happened the night of her engagement:

Me: “Congratulations.”

Her: “Thank you.”

That’s as far as our relationship goes, and barring our working together in another musical, I doubt it will develop to any further.

On the way home, I began to think about the difference in her life situation and mine, and in my writerly way, I began to cull details I had noticed and learned about her to create a story that would allow me to dislike her intensely. I began playing my own version of “He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not” with my memories and imaginings, alternating between what she (likely) has and what I have. For instance, she’s been the star of several well-received musicals. She’s young, beautiful, wealthy (from what I could see), and has very few limitations placed on her life. She is earning her doctoral degree from a prestigious university and, again I’m guessing here, has likely never known suffering or compromise. The version of her I created is every bit the princess she played on stage, and that was what began to stick in my craw the more I thought about it.

In contrast, I spent those nine shows dressed in black, stuck in a corner and playing what seemed to be an endless series of upbeats. The only time I was noticed was when I missed a note or a rhythm, and I’m sure few even took note of those mistakes (pun intended). Unlike the paper doll I’d envisioned in my mind, I am hardly princess material. I stand nearly six feet tall and boast few physical graces.  I know what William Faulkner described as “the old thrill and the old despair of a penny more or less,” my dreams of a Ph.D. and a university career grow more ephemeral with each passing year, and I’ve been beset by more health and personal troubles in the last half decade than I care to admit. In essence, while she was being waltzed around the stage, I was emptying spit out of my horn during a tacet number.

Envy, the “green-eyed monster which doth mock / The meat it feeds on,” was what was gnawing at me. That and nothing else. After all, from where I sat, she had just about everything I (and any other red-blooded American female) want, and I started ruminating on that and losing perspective on life. I was positively catty most of the next day because of it, but the more I pondered both that moment and my reaction to it, I realized that it was not justified.

It also wasn’t Christian. So I went in search of scripture to help me “get my mind right” as the Captain from Cool Hand Luke might say. A search through both the Old and New Testaments turned up several instructive passages, the most relevant of which were:

“For wrath kills a foolish man, And envy slays a simple one.”–(Job 5:2)

“A sound heart is life to the body, But envy is rottenness to the bones.”–(Proverbs 14:30)

“Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”–(1 Corinthians 13: 4-7)

“For where envy and self-seeking exist, confusion and every evil thing are there.”– (James 3:16)

The truth of the matter is quite clear from these few scriptures. Envy is something everyone is prone to as it is a weakness of the flesh and is not of the spirit. Focusing on what she had and what I “lacked” only weakened me spiritually. I couldn’t take joy in the things that I do have–a loving family, a husband who adores me, good health despite my MS diagnosis, friends, a church home, and above all, a God who loves me and who has a plan for me that is right and just though I lack the power to discern it as of yet. To wish I had another’s life is fallacious as it would deny me all the good things I enjoy in my own, and wasting my time in envy is only harming my soul and sense of well-being. Unless the young lady in question ever reads this blog entry, she will never know my thoughts or what it took for me to see the error in them.

I may never get the “glass slipper,” and instead of spending my life “bemoan[ing] my outcast state” as Shakespeare put it in “Sonnet 29,” I am meant to trust and obey and to be content with my lot. Quite honestly, I have neither earned nor deserved the blessings that are already mine, and to wish them away for those of another is nothing but injurious to my own soul and detrimental to my fellowship with God.