Sheep!

I have gone astray like a lost sheep;

Seek Your servant (Psalm 119:176).

SHEEP, you may be surprised to know, are not as innocent as they look. They’re actually wily outlaws, prone to wander and happy to do it. 

I know. I used to raise sheep. 

Some would attribute their behavior to stupidity, but I doubt it. I’ve seen them look over their shoulders to see where I am before they vamoose. I think they’re cold, calculating, ruthless rebels. 

But then so am I. “Prone to wander, Lord I feel it. Prone to leave the God I love.”

So…come after me, Lord, when I high-tail it. “Seek your servant.”

David Roper

5.29.20

Sheltering in Place III

Come, my people, enter your chambers,

And shut your doors behind you;

Hide yourself, as it were, for a little while,

Until the plague is past (Isaiah 26:20).

This was Isaiah’s call to God’s people to shelter in place while God rained judgment on the City of Man. “Hide yourself…until the plague is past,” a call that’s remarkably apropos for our day.

I think of another call: Jesus’ invitation to withdraw from the mad, mad, mad, mad world around us and within us, on any day and for any reason, and enter into that quiet chamber in our hearts that Jesus called our “closet”—to shut the door behind us and bide a wee with him (Matthew 6:6).

David Roper

5.26.20

The Purpose That Is Purposed

“This is the purpose that is purposed with regard to the whole earth, and this is the hand that is stretched out over all the nations. For the LORD of hosts has purposed, and who will annul it? His hand is stretched out, and who will turn it back?”—Isaiah 14:26-27

This remarkable text follows on the heels of God’s promise to put an end to Assyria’s plan for world domination and is a model for all that God has determined to do on the earth. His strategies and tactics alone are purposed and perfected: “The LORD of hosts has purposed, and who will annul it?” (Vs. 27).

This is a solid fact to hold fast in the face of the current gaggle of conspiracy theories. We’re told, for example, that Facebook, Amazon and Google are an unholy trinity contriving to unite us under a one-world government. Efforts to quarantine church-goers during the Corvid-19 pandemic are attempts to isolate them from the fellowship of believers and a first step toward shuttering all places of worship. Plots and counterplots abound.

Some of these schemes could exist, I suppose, though eighty-seven years of living have taught me that no collection of flesh-governed individuals can hold their stuff together very long. Evil is inherently unstable and disruptive. The best laid plans of mortal men soon fall apart at the seams. 

So Isaiah warns us, “Do not call conspiracy everything this people regard as conspiracy. Do not fear what they fear” (Isaiah 8:12). We’re encouraged to look past our fear to God, who has the first and last word on everything that happens here on earth. History is His-story from beginning to end. 

So, we can be at peace when rumors of sedition swirl around us, for we believe and know that our Father in Heaven controls every “purpose that is purposed.” Thus his children need not fear. 

David Roper

5.15.20

“They Were There”

“It made no difference whether the Cloud hovered over The Dwelling for two days or a month or a year, as long as the Cloud was there, they were there”(Numbers. 9:22 The Message)

I see that the beaches in Florida and other places have re-opened, largely due to the demands of the young and restless. I suspect, however that these folks will be no less restless on the beaches. Contentment has nothing to do with one’s circumstances. It’s a matter of the heart.

The secret to contentment is seeing God in every place, knowing that he is with us in all that we endure. We can embrace every hardship with joy because he is present. The author of Hebrews has written, “Be  content with things as they are, for God Himself has said, “I will never leave you; I will never forsake you‑forever” 

David Roper

5.2.20

Some Thoughts On Kerfuffles While Sheltering

More in number than the hairs of my head

are those who hate me without cause;

mighty are those who would destroy me,

those who attack me with lies…

O God, you know my folly;

the wrongs I have done are not hidden from you (Psalm 69:4,5).

Funny how prayer works. I begin to recite and bewail the wrongs done to me and discover the wrong-doing in me.

That’s the value of putting my plight before God: I see myself—my lack of wisdom and the beam in my own eye (Matthew 7:5). 

So… the first step in regaining perspective in an angry dispute is repentance. “It is a consoling thought that no matter what others do, I am always in the wrong” (Søren Kierkegaard).

David Roper

5.17.20

He Goes Before

“When I lead my sheep out, I go before them” (John 10:4).

A few years ago Carolyn and I were making our way up a winding 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 warmer winter quarters. 

We pulled to the side of the road and waited while the flock swirled around us, and watched until it passed out of view. 

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

Like most old folks, I like the “fold”—the familiar circumstances and surroundings. Like the aging Hobbit, Bilbo, I like continuity, “I miss my meal at noon.” 

But all is shifting and changing around me; Carolyn and I are being led out, away from familiar surroundings and into a vast unknown. This a “novel” virus, they say. No one has been this way before. 

I wonder: What new limits will overtake us? What nameless fears will awaken? Jesus’ words come to mind: “When I lead my sheep out, I go before them (John 10:4). 

I may well be dismayed at what life holds for us this year and next and the next, but the Good Shepherd knows the way. 

He will go before us, picking the way. He will not lead us down paths too steep for us to negotiate; He knows our limitations and will strike a leisurely pace. He knows the way to green pastures and still water; all we have to do is follow. 

Thus I need not fear tomorrow, or take on its obligations, for tomorrow will take care of itself. God knows all the trouble that lies before me. It “must pass through Him before it gets to me” (F. B. Meyer)..

Doubt has cast its weird, unwelcome shadows o’er me

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

What but His word can strengthen and restore me.

And this blest fact: that still He goes before.

—J. Danson Smith

David Roper

“Spring Up, O Well”

“The Lord answered Moses, ‘Go out in front of the people. Take with you some of the elders of Israel and take in your hand the staff with which you struck the Nile, and go. I will stand there before you by the rock at Horeb. Strike the rock, and water will come out of it for the people to drink.’ So Moses did this in the sight of the elders of Israel” (Exodus 17:5,6, cp., Numbers 20:11).

Some of the subtlety of the original command was lost on Moses the second time around (Numbers 20:10-12). The rock had already been broken. There was no need to strike it again.

Missing from both accounts is the rousing tune that the congregation sang that accompanied Moses’ actions: When he struck the rock, “Israel sang this song: ‘Spring up, O well’” (Numbers 21:17). 

The New Testament unpacks the metaphor revealing that the rock is Christ (1Corinthians 10:4), and the “water” is that sense of blessedness (wholeness and spiritual well-being) that brings satisfaction and joy to our days. Jesus said, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me. And let him who believes in me drink. As  Scripture has said, ‘Out of His (Christ’s) heart will flow rivers of living water’” (John 7:38). 

So…when the days get dreary, sing out again and again to the rock: “Spring up, O well!” Rivers of living water will flow (John 4:14). 

David Roper

4.13.20