Where Do Babies Come From? 

"As you do not know the way the spirit comes to the bones in the womb of a woman with child, so you do not know the work of God who makes everything" (Ecclesiastes 11:5).

Stephan Hawking wrote, "Philosophy is dead. Philosophy has not kept up with modern developments in science, particularly physics. Scientists have become the bearers of the torch of discovery in our quest for knowledge" (The Grand Design).

In other words, science has a final answer for every question.

But that's not science; it's scientism, the worship of science. Science does not have universal adequacy. Scientists, however learned, cannot explain everything. They deal with the observable world—"the things that are seen—and do not have a method for looking into the world of unseen things. 

One obvious example: Scientists "do not know the way the spirit comes to the bones in the womb of a woman with child." They cannot explain the origin of the human soul and the mysterious growth of little human beings, cradled in their mothers’ wombs. 

Apropos of which: Carolyn and I have two brand-new great-grandchildren and another on the way. I gaze at those little ones (or the baby bump) with awe. 

A few months ago they didn't exist. Anywhere. Now here they are: Tiny miracles. Little human beings, made out of nothing. Creatio ex nihilo. "Where did you come from?" I ask; "How did you get to be you?"

Where did you come from, baby dear?

Out of the everywhere into here.

Where did you get your eyes so blue?

Out of the sky as I came through.

What makes the light in them sparkle and spin?

Some of the starry spikes left in.

Where did you get that little tear?

I found it waiting when I got here.

What makes your forehead so smooth and high?

A soft hand stroked it as I went by.

What makes your cheek like a warm white rose?

I saw something better than anyone knows.

Whence that three-cornered smile of bliss?

Three angels gave me at once a kiss.j

Where did you get this pearly ear?

God spoke, and it came out to hear.

Where did you get those arms and hands?

Love made itself into hooks and bands.

Feet, whence did you come, you darling things?

From the same box as the cherubs' wings.

How did they all just come to be you?

God thought about me, and so I grew.—George MacDonald

David Roper

9.5.18

Tested and Approved

"(God) knows what he's doing; when he has tried me, I shall come out as pure gold" (Job 23:10). 

Job's premise was a prodigious leap of faith for he was in the dark: "Thick darkness covers me," he lamented (Job. 23:17). Job couldn't understand God's odd behavior because he wasn't privy to the scene in Heaven with which the book began (Job 1,2). He had no idea that God intended to display his handiwork to Satan through Job and his "trials" (Job 1:6-12).

[I think here of sculptors that hide their work under a shroud until the "showing," at which time they snatch off the cover to reveal their work. Job's test was his "showing," when the adversary would see what sort of man Job had become under God's shaping.]

Job's trials were not the means by which he became a godly man; he was already "blameless and upright, one who feared God and turned away from evil" (Job 1:1). Nor was his "trial" a discipline  for sin, though his friends insisted that it was. Rather, the trials were the means by which God revealed the work he had been doing in Job's soul. (The metaphor is drawn from metallurgy and the "trying" of precious metals to reveal their worth.)

There is an echo of this "trying" in the New Testament Greek word, dokímion a word found inscribed on the bottom of clay jars in ancient times. It was an early "Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval," signifying that the jar had been "tested and approved." 

[The same idiom occurred in the Latin world. Unscrupulous potters would fill the cracks in faulty pots with wax and glaze over the imperfections. "Trying" them in a furnace would melt the wax. Pots that passed the test would be stamped, sine cera (without wax), or, as we would say, they were sincere.]

Peter enlarges on the Greek metaphor dokímion in his first letter: "In this (salvation) you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while, if need be, you have been grieved by various trials (peirásmos, fiery ordeals) that the tested genuineness (dokímion) of your faith, being much more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire (dokimázō) may be found to praise, honor, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ..." (1Peter 1:6,7)

So it was for Job. His tests were designed to show the world of demons and men the work that God had been doing in his soul. Job endured and was approved. Throughout his trials, though he struggled mightily, he clung to God and treasured his word (23:11,12). He was God's man from head to foot. "Though he slay me," Job said, "yet will I trust him" (Job 13:15). Job made the grade; Satan shuffled away like the villain in a western melodrama: "Curses, foiled again." 

And so it can be for you. Your quiet faith and joyful endurance in the face of persecution, disappointment, pain and sorrow is an evident sign to men and demons that God is at work in you, making you a kinder, gentler, more loving, more courageous version of yourself, despite your suffering and grief. And there is no end to God's efforts: Sweet old age, despite severe limitation and loss, is one of God's crowning achievements.

But, you say, I may go bad. What will prevent me from growing bitter and restive in my trials?

If you will but keep yourself in God's love and in his hands for his shaping he will complete the work he has begun in you. Job knew that: "Who can thwart him? What he desires, he will do! For he will complete what he has in mind for me..." (23:13,14).

Paul echoes Job's conviction: "I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will complete it at the day of Jesus Christ" (Philippians 1:6).

David Roper

8.27.18

Afterward!

"I know that my Redeemer lives, and afterward he will stand upon the earth. And afterward, when my skin has been taken off, in my flesh, I shall see God, whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall gaze at Him, and He will not be a stranger. My heart leaps for joy! [Lit: "my kidneys jump into my chest!] (Job 19:25-27). 

Job, under attack by his ersatz friends, argues with remarkable prescience that God will vindicate him in this life, or in the next. 

The Old Testament, contrary to expectations, has much to say about the "afterward,"—the “hereafter,” or "afterlife," we would say (e.g., Psalm 73:23,24: "You hold me by my right hand. You guide me with Your counsel, and afterward you will receive me into glory.") Here, in what may be the oldest book in the Bible, Job boldly affirms his faith in the life to come. 

The risen Job is the old Job, the thinking, feeling, knowing, remembering, loving Job who writes, “I shall see him; I shall gaze at him with my own eyes, and I shall know him; he will not be a stranger."   

We too shall see our Redeemer. We shall gaze upon him with our eyes and he will not be a stranger. We shall know him by the prints of the nails in his hands. 

That prospect makes for "colossal joy," C.S. Lewis said, or as Job would say, "It makes my kidneys jump into my chest!" 

David Roper 

8.25.18 

Reasons

"The sacrifice of the unrighteous is an abomination; How much more when he brings it with an ulterior motive!" (Proverbs 21:27).

T.S. Eliot said that the greatest treason is "to do the right thing for the wrong reason."

Reasons are tricky. Why do I write? Why do I serve? Why do I love? Why do I do whatever I do? Is it my desire to serve God purely, or do I have my own selfish interests in mind—to be affirmed, to be respected, to be reimbursed? I know my heart is "deceitful above all things and desperately wicked." My motives can be and often are unworthy. I get caught up in morbid introspection: Am I doing the right things for the wrong reasons?

Thankfully, ”God is greater than (my) heart, and knows all things" (1John 3:20). He knows my heart and my conflicted motives far better than I and has forgiven the sinful inclinations of my heart. I can do what I do without scrutinizing my motives and receive God’s grace for the reasons.

"Thou—greater than ever my heart can be; For my sinful heart give Thyself to me!"—Annie Johnson Flint

David Roper

8.22.18

Gathering My Thoughts

"Unite my heart to fear (reverence) Your name” 

—Psalm 86:11

Gather my thoughts, dear Lord, they fitfully roam

    Like children bent on foolish wandering,

Or vanity of fruitless wayfaring

    O call them home.

See them—they drift like the wind-scattered foam;

    Like wild sea birds, they hither, thither fly,

And some sink low, and others soar too high

    O call them home.

Wherever, Lord, beneath the wide blue dome

    They wander, in Thy patience find them there:

That, undistracted, I may go to prayer. —George Herbert

Plato said our minds are like aviaries and our thoughts are like birds. It’s an apt metaphor as I age. I reach for a thought and it eludes me; I grasp at another and I frighten it away. I can only pray...

“Gather my thoughts, dear Lord, to worship and adore.”

David Roper

8.18.18

Loved!

"God so loved the world..." —John 3:16

Imagine a little girl born with a cleft palate—a misshapen lip, a crooked nose, lopsided teeth, garbled speech. Teased and taunted at school, she knew that no one could ever love her. 

There was, however, a teacher in the second grade that all the children loved—a short, round, jolly lady full of good humor and affection.

The school conducted hearing tests each year in which the teachers examined every child. The child stood on one side of the room, across from the teacher who would whisper a question: “What color are your shoes?” or “Do you have a new dress?” and the child would answer. 

When it came the little girl’s turn she waited anxiously for the teacher to whisper and heard these words: “I wish you were my little girl.” 

This was a turning point in her life, she later said, for she realized that day that she could be loved by someone who mattered.

Do you know that God loves you like that? You may be flawed, misshaped, unattractive in your own eyes, but He wants you to be his child. 

There's a idea someone gave me some years ago. I think of it when I pass through our kitchen. "If God had a refrigerator, my picture would be on it."

David

The Best Thing

“Love will never end... " (1Corinthians 8:2,3).

“But when I am quite old, and words are slow, 

Like dying things that keep their holes for woe, 

And memory's withering tendrils clasp with effort vain?  

Then as now, no less wilt be my life...”—George MacDonald

Memory loss is disconcerting. Think of the time, energy and money we expend acquiring knowledge—only to lose it in the end.

But knowledge is not the best thing and therefore to lose it is not the worst thing. Love is the best thing because, it's the most god-like thing we can do, and it “will never end." It's what we'll be doing for the rest of our lives. 

So you’re a few slices short of a loaf. No matter. You can love.

David Roper

8.14.18