Blessings In Disguise

You, O God, have tested us;

You have tried us as silver is tried.

You brought us into the net;

You laid a crushing burden on our backs.

You let men ride over our heads.

We went through fire and through water;

But You have brought us out to a place of abundance.

—Psalm 66:10-12

“You…You…You…You…You…You." Six times in three verses. The psalmist sees God in every ordeal. Fiery trials, strictures, pressure, people riding roughshod over his head, fire and rain—all of this came to him through the hand of God.

Here lies one of the great enigmas of our faith: God accepts the responsibility for the evil that befalls us. Scripture affirms it; I can't explain it; I can only state it.

One of the most startling statements in the Bible occurs on an occasion in which Satan, having done his worst to torment Job, appears a second time before God—who takes the blame for all that Satan did to Job: "You incited me to act against him" (Job 2:3). God is big enough to take responsibility for all that befalls us.

Seeing God in our ordeals makes them more meaningful. If everything in the universe is random it's a very, scary place. But if God’s mercy orders all that pains us, we can assume that there’s a purpose in it all.

God is love. He cannot be otherwise. If that's true, everything in life is screened through His affection for us and thus everything, even adversity, must work together for "the good life"—not that we’re knee-deep in clover, but that we have the best life of all, a life that reflects the lovingkindness of Jesus (Romans 8:28).

There's a hint of that in the psalm: David's suffering is God "searching" and "refining" (66:10). Suffering purifies us and makes us better than before, a point the psalm makes as well: "You bring us out (of suffering) to a place of (overflowing) abundance^[1]” (66:12).

Good when He gives, supremely good;

Nor less when He denies: 

Afflictions, from His sovereign hand, 

Are blessings in disguise.

David Roper

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^[1] Same word that David uses in Psalm 23:5: “My cup overflows.”

"One returned…giving Him thanks” (Luke 17:17) Joshuaroperphotography.com

This One Thing

I will not give sleep to my eyes

Or slumber to my eyelids,

Until I find a place for the Lord,

A dwelling place for the Mighty One of Jacob." —Psalm 132:3-5

The first hundred days of a leader's tenure are closely scrutinized, for they establish his or her priorities. David's first act as Israel’s king was to search for the Ark of the Covenant for, he said, "We did not seek it in the days of Saul" (1 Chronicles 13:3).

Saul was a secular man. He cared nothing for the ark, but abandoned it, left it to rot for forty years in an overgrown field. David, however, could not rest until he retrieved the ark and brought it up to Jerusalem and placed it in the little tent that became it's "dwelling place" (2 Samuel 6:1-15).

The ark, as you know, was a little box about the size of an army footlocker. It had no intrinsic value, or magic power, Raiders of the Lost Ark, not withstanding. It was merely a symbol—a visible reminder of the invisible, enduring presence of God, the reality of which dominated David's thoughts and prayers. 

David wrote in another place, “One thing I ask of the LORD, this is what I seek: That I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, that I might gaze upon the beauty of the LORD and to seek him in his tabernacle” (Psalms 27:4).

Obviously, David didn't plan to spend the rest of his life sequestered in a little tent, staring at a box. No, this was his way of saying that he treasured God and His love above all else—above mother, brother, friends, money, health, love or life itself. God was the "one thing" necessary—indeed the only thing. This was the measure of his greatness—and ours.

David Roper

5.14.17

Who Goes There?

Several years ago, Carolyn and I were driving up a mountain road into the Sawtooths when we came across a large band of sheep moving down the road toward us. A lone shepherd with his dogs was in the vanguard, leading his flock out of summer pasture into the lowlands and winter quarters.

We pulled to the side of the road and waited while the flock swirled around us—and watched them until they were out of sight.

I wondered: Sheep are the embodiment of all that is feeble and helpless. Do they fear change and new places?”

Like most old folks I like the “fold”—the old, familiar regimens Like Bilbo, the aging hobbit, “I miss my victuals at noon.” But all is shifting and changing these days; I’m being led out—away from familiar surroundings and into a vast unknown. I wonder: What new limits will overtake me this year? What nameless fears will wake? Jesus’ words come to mind: “When I lead my sheep out, I go before them (John 10:4).

I may be dismayed at what life has in store for me this year and next, but my shepherd knows the way I’m taking and He goes before. He will not lead me down paths too steep, too arduous for me; He knows my limits and will strike a leisurely pace. He knows the way to green pasture and good water. “He knows the way through the wilderness; all I have to do is follow.”

Thus I need not fear tomorrow, or take on its obligations, for tomorrow will take care of itself: Tomorrow “must pass through Him before it gets to me”[1] 

Doubt casts its weird, unwelcome shadows o’er me

Thoughts that life’s best and choice things are o’er.

What but His word can strengthen and restore me.

And this blessed fact: that still He goes before.

—J. Danson Smith

David Roper

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[1] F. B. Meyer

WHAt’s A Parent to do?

Lord, I will straighten all I can and You; take over what we parents cannot do.

—Ruth Bell Graham

When our children make unwise choices: when they abuse alcohol, do drugs, get pregnant, drop out of school, turn their backs on family and God, we ask ourselves, in one way or another, “What did I do that I should not have done?” “What should I have done that I did not do?” We collapse into self–doubt and condemnation. We feel like failures, our children the tragic victims of our mismanagement.

There is, however, no absolute correlation between the way people parent and the way their children turn out. Good parenting does make a difference, but it does not guarantee that the product will be good.

We’re all are acquainted with families where cruelty, abuse, neglect, violence and alcoholism are the normal state, yet the children turn out remarkably well. They have good friends, they do well in school, they get jobs and hold them, they end up in stable marriages and handle their parental responsibilities with wisdom and love.

On the other hand we all know of families where the parents are warm, nurturing, kind, firm, wise and giving and yet there is at least one prodigal and sometimes more than one.

It’s certainly better to be one kind of parent than the other, but the fact remains that despite our best efforts sometimes our children choose to go the wrong way.

But, you say, what about the proverb: “Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it” (Proverbs 22:6)? That sounds very much like a guarantee—except it’s not.

The biblical proverbs are not promises; they are premises—general rules or axioms. Proverbs 22:6 is a statement of general truth much like our contemporary saying: “As the twig is bent so the tree is inclined.” It’s an adage, a saying that sets forth a truth applicable in most cases, but not necessarily so. There are always exceptions to the rule.

The reason there are exceptions is that children are not mindless matter that can be shaped and formed at will, but thinking, choosing individuals who may, even with the best of parenting, choose to go his or her own way. Even God, who is the perfect parent, has had trouble with his children—Adam and Eve to name only two. (You and me to name two others.)

You and I cannot produce godly children and if we believe that by applying certain techniques and rules we can secure good behavior we may be in for bitter disillusionment and heartache. No one can determine nor can they predict what their offspring will do. It was Joaquin Andujar, poet and pitcher for the St. Louis Cardinals, who said you could sum up baseball in one word: “You never know.” His word count was off, but he captured the essence of childrearing as well as baseball.

Given that uncertainty the question we should ask ourselves is not, “How can I produce good children?” but rather, “How can I be a good parent?” The two questions appear to be the same, but they’re not. The first has to do with results; the second with process. The first puts the responsibility on us; the second leaves the results to God. The first is concerned with matters beyond our control; the second with things that are well within our control.

If our focus is on process rather than results the questions then become, “How can I deal with my impatience, my temper and rage, my selfishness, my resentment, my stubbornness, my defensiveness, my pride, my laziness, my unwillingness to listen? How can I deal with my addictions? How can I strengthen my marriage? How can I develop my parenting skills? How can I build bridges of grace, forgiveness and acceptance, that make it possible for my prodigal to return?” And more important than all, “How can I grow in love for my Father–God and become much more like him in all that I do?”

These are the matters that ought to occupy us—the things that we can do. And then we must leave the consequences to God.

David Roper (With a a lot of help from psychiatrist, Dr. John White)