Wilderness Wanderings

"Endow the king with your justice, O God, the royal son with your righteousness…In his days the righteous will flourish, prosperity will abound till the moon is no more…May grain abound throughout the land; on the tops of the hills may it sway" (Psalm 72:1,7,16).

When Israel first asked for a king as recorded in 1 Samul 8, God warned her it would be a disaster. Samuel told Israel a human king would fleece her and the land. He would not bring shalom but establish an economy rooted in the machinery of warfare. This need for power would destroy humanity and the earth.

Israel did not heed the warning. Saul was that kind of king; his reign dominated by war with an economy of destruction. Not much has changed. With an unsatiable hunger for more and for cheaper stuff, the worker and the earth are both defrauded. Since the world of power hides behind political bureaucrats and the machinery of the supply and demand economy behind international conglomerates, many feel powerless to initiate any change. And our imaginations are too numbed by mindless entertainment to dream any alternatives.

Yet, during the reigns of David and Solomon battles ended and weapons were turned into tools of agriculture and industry. In response, Israel's worship leaders began dreaming about 'shalom'. Under the guidance of the Holy Spirit the elements of shalom began to crystallize and put to music in Psalm 72. Somewhere along the way, the whole nation began to sing these words.

A quick glance at our song selections, suggests that little of this vision has penetrated our spiritual imaginations. Our view of salvation tends to be limited to the individual soul. The New Testament suggests rather strongly that the shalom of this psalm is at the heart of the Kingdom of God as Jesus preached and practised it.

If we profess to be followers of Jesus, we will desire to follow in his footsteps. Thus, this psalm will need to be allowed to penetrate and guide our prayers and worship. It is first and foremost a prayer for the king to be endowed by God with God's justice and righteousness. (We do well to offer this same prayer for our political leaders).

When the king rules with justice the primary beneficiary is not himself or his close associates, nor the wealthy. No, it is the afflicted that benefit. Do you recall that Jesus continually hung out with the afflicted, healing their maladies? This irritated the powerful.

Under a just king's rule, the afflicted would be cared for and the land and its people would flourish. Grain would even sway on the hilltops. Its notoriously difficult to get crops to grow on the hill tops because water doesn't stay up there, it flows down before the plants can get enough of it. Finally, when the king leads with justice, his reign and power will extend to the ends of the earth. All will benefit when God answers this prayer.

As much as the Bible describes how wealthy Israel became during the reigns of David and Solomon, the wealth did not last nor bring shalom for all. In 2 Kings 2:1-12, David speaks his last words to Solomon. On the one hand David tells his son to follow the Lord, on the other, he encourages his son to give David's remaining enemies their due reward, vengeance.

For us, the Psalm anticipates the return of Christ when He will reign supreme, and His justice will flourish in all of creation. No human king will ever be able to accomplish this grand vision. So, until that time this psalm needs to fill our imaginations. It needs to inspire our worship and prayers.

When it informs our worship, it will also inform how we live. If our lives are not lived with a view to this vision, our worship is meaningless, empty, useless (see Isaiah 58).

Since my youth, God, you have taught me, and to this day I declare your marvelous deeds. Even when I am old and gray, do not forsake me, my God, till I declare your power to the next generation, your mighty acts to all who are to come. (Psalm 71:17-18)

We never retire from the Christian life. From our birth and youth, until our senior years and death we are witnesses to the work of God. That happens in two distinct ways.

Firstly, we witness what God does across our lifetime. He teaches us through those who go before us, through the scriptures and prayer, through worship and sacraments, through provision in times of need, through comfort in places of distress, grief, or loneliness—all across our lives we are learning about this God who has claimed us in our baptisms. We witness, personally, his work in our lives as slowly the testimony of the scriptures become our own lived reality and belief.

These are the ways that we witness who God is and what he does. These are the ways he teaches us. But we also witness in another way. We are not only witnesses of God—seeing, hearing, and receiving the things that God has done, but we are also witnesses to God—declaring the things that God has done. Witnesses see something, but witnesses also say something.

Again, the second form of witnessing begins the moment we are born. The very fact of our life—of a new life born into the world—is itself a testament to the beautiful handiwork of God. But as we begin to speak across our first few years, we begin to offer other testimony as well. We learn the language of faith—to say "amen" and "Jesus loves me." To offer those prayers pastor Michael mentioned yesterday of "thank you," "help me," or even of "I'm sorry."

And as we grow, we have more and more experiences of this God and of his people. We hear more of the stories. We learn more of the language of faith: learning things like lament, learning to wrestle and fight well with God, learning to submit and humble ourselves before God. And in each new chapter of life, we have more testimony to give. More witness to bear to the work and reality of our God as each year ticks by.

Our life becomes a witness—a sign to others. And we never graduate or retire from this work. Despite the fact that we make profession of faith often quite early in life—we're never done. You elder saints among us bear a special responsibility in this regard: your memory stretches longer and your experiences deeper. You become the living memory of the community, the ones who carry the wisdom of a life lived before God with all the joys and challenges therein. When, around the Lord's Supper table we are implored to "remember and believe," you elder saints are the ones who have to help the rest of us do it!

There is power in the stories of God's power revealed and witnessed to through the life of someone we know. So: dear people of God, continue to tell the stories of God! The Biblical stories yes—but also the stories of where you yourselves have met God, where he has shown his faithfulness to you. We all need to remember and believe again and again—and this is a work and witness best done together, in faith.

"Hasten, O God, to save me; O Lord, come quickly to help me" (Psalm 70:1).

Anne Lamott once said that the best prayers she knows are: 'Help me!' and 'Thank you!'

She has a friend who has two very different prayers. Each morning the friend prays 'Whatever' and each evening, 'Oh, well.'

Recognizing it's a grand oversimplification, most of the prayers in the Book of Psalms can be divided into, 'Help me!' and 'Thank you!' prayers. The resignation in the prayers of Lamott's friend are unknown in the Bible. Its prayers are full of urgency and passion and expectation.

And how could they not be? Our need is great and the God we pray to, our only hope, is responsive, powerful and His promises are extravagant. And so is His grace.

Psalm 70 is mostly one of the 'Help me!' prayers. It has been used this way since its earliest days. You will find an earlier version in Psalm 40:13-17. That was probably its original setting. Later, it was taken from there and used in the liturgy of temple worship.

One of the earliest Christian preachers said, "This [Psalm] should be poured out in unceasing prayer so that we may be delivered in adversity and preserved and not puffed up in prosperity. You should meditate constantly on this verse in your heart. You should not stop repeating it when you are doing any kind of work or performing some service or are on a journey. Meditate on it while sleeping and eating and attending to the least needs of nature…Let it be the first thing that comes to you when you awake, let it anticipate every other thought as you get up, let it send you to your knees as you arise from your bed, let it bring you from there to every work and activity, and let it accompany you at all times."

The Benedictine monks begin each of their seven daily 'hours' of prayer with Psalm 70. Maybe we ought to do that too. Learn a few verses of this song and use them 7 times each day in prayer. It's one way to weave dependence on God into our lives.

Christians have long recognized that we face two equal dangers. When we are in trouble, we think we need to solve each problem ourselves. When we are in prosperity, we think we have earned it all. The regular repetition of this prayer was encouraged to help us develop the anxiety free life Jesus encourages in Matthew 6.

The Psalm 70 'Help me!' prayer is like a one size fits all pair of socks. It can be adjusted to fit all sorts of circumstances. And often, in times of trouble, 'Help me!' is the most we can muster. In those times, we have some good biblical words to form into our prayers.

But in the good times, when all is at peace, we ought not to forget that we have this prayer in our spiritual arsenal. It helps keep us humble and alert, reminding us how much we need God's help, even when it doesn't seem like it.

Yet, in the middle of the Psalm is a call to rejoice and be glad in the Lord (4). More than that: we declare that God is exalted. Those who know his helping, saving hand need to proclaim what God has done. The psalm is more than a 'help me' cry. It is also part of the 'Thank you!' stream.

Even while we cry 'Help me', when we are not sure when or how God will come to our rescue, there is the glimmer of sunshine. We anticipate a time of rejoicing. While we wait for God to act, we are glad that we have a God we can call on for help.

You know how I am scorned, disgraced and shamed; all my enemies are before you. Scorn has broken my heart and has left me helpless; I looked for sympathy, but there was none, for comforters, but I found none. They put gall in my food and gave me vinegar for my thirst. … But as for me, afflicted and in pain—may your salvation, God, protect me. (Psalm 69:19-21, 29)

Psalm 69 holds a lot of suffering. It's a long psalm that outlines detail after detail of how this person has been hurt, scorned, and rejected by their community. Not only that, but it also speaks about how their affliction has itself come from the hand of God.

The writer tries to carry their cross, their God-given thorn in the flesh with grace, humility, and faithfulness only to find that the rest of the community of believers shuns, scorns, and mocks them. Says the psalmist: "I looked for sympathy, but there was none."

I wonder how many of us have had just this sort of experience. The language of our faith suggests to us that we should receive all the things in our lives as part of God's work and will in our lives—both the good and the bad. And yet, a number of us have also had the experience of being abandoned by friends, family, and the church in the midst of our wrestling with God through the burdens he allows that feel too heavy to carry.

Sometimes people just don't know. Sometimes they just don't want to be nosy. Sometimes we have a strong ambivalence: we want them to come and we don't want them to come at the same time, and folks take the hint and stay away. But sometimes, more painfully, people just move on and forget. Or ignore. Or actively decide to stay away or avoid us so as not to get caught up in our mess.

More painfully yet, as time passes, people can begin passing words around the community like "shouldn't that person just move on already?" "If I were them, I would _______." Or, "they should just do this, and it would be fine." Each time one of those sentiments catches our ears, it's another barb in our flesh—another pain to bear.

We do not always have a very deep sense of what it means to suffer well. To suffer Christianly. To suffer with dignity. And certainly very little idea of what it means to journey with others who are seeking to bear their suffering in just that way. And, if psalm 69 is any clue—perhaps we human folk never have.

But Jesus models something different. Psalm 69 has long been a psalm associated with his suffering. He is the one who had gall and vinegar offered to him on the cross. The one who suffered under the will of God and yet was rejected and scorned by the people of God all the same. Jesus was the one who bore his suffering with the sort of grace, humility, faithfulness, and dignity that had been made perfect by that suffering—as the writer of Hebrews puts it—even able to offer forgiveness to his crucifiers.

We may never suffer with such grace as our Lord. And maybe we'll never display the sort of long-suffering grace of Christ to someone who is suffering either. But even where we fail, or where the Christian community fails us—we are invited to place our hope and trust ultimately in the same place that Jesus and this psalm do: not in ourselves or in others, but in God and his vindication. His salvation.

Because the promise we receive through Jesus' suffering, is that one day, for those who place their trust in him, suffering will be no more.

"May God arise, may his enemies be scattered; may his foes flee before him... Summon your power, God; show us your strength, our God, as you have done before" (Psalm 68:1,28).

In the Narnia Chronicles, C.S. Lewis uses the phrase, "Aslan is on the move". It instills hope in those who still believe in him. It is a tonic whispered among those outnumbered few who fight against those determined to crush the goodness out of Narnia.

I think Lewis may have been riffing on Psalm 68 which can be summed up with the phrase, "God is on the move." The entire biblical story could also be summed up with this phrase.

He speaks creation into existence. He walks in the Garden with Adam and Eve. He puts all of life into an ark and sends the floods in judgment. He calls Abraham by name and rains plagues in Egypt. At His command the Red Sea splits and Sinai thunders with the majesty of His presence. He leads His armies in battle and shatters His enemies. He gives His people a land and carts them away from it in chains when they persist in crushing all goodness.

In centuries past, theologians sought to tame God into logical constructs. It was believed that we could predict how God would behave. Some thought that God could be known in such a way that he would no longer surprise us.

But now in our chaotic age we are less sure of ourselves. Our universe is dynamic: light is both particle and wave and the nature and movement of subatomic particles is not fully understood. In such a cosmos, the exploding energy of the God of the Bible is more acceptable.

Moreover, despite the revelation of the church's deep sinfulness, God continues to uphold and even renew his church. In this, we see the dynamic power of the Holy Spirit made visible, and God looks more and more like the living God of Psalm 68. Like Aslan, He may not be safe, but he is good, and he is on the move.

In our psalm, God is remembered for guiding Israel through the wilderness and defeating opposing kings. He shakes Sinai and has an army of chariots who do His bidding. He also speaks oracles, wounds His enemies, and orders a procession into His temple. He "rides on the heaven of heavens" (33) and is "more awesome than His holy places (35)."

It's a psalm that portrays God on the move, conquering his enemies and delivering His people. It's a source of encouragement for all of us who get weary in the battle of the Christian life. The battle belongs to the Lord. It anticipates Easter. It's a riotous collage of images depicting God crushing all evil and lifting all that is good.

But it is also a prayer; a powerful plea that God will arise. That He will do what He has done in the past. It's a prayer taking us back to creation and to the empty tomb, as it also anticipates Christ's final victory as depicted in Revelation 19:10-14, "I saw heaven standing open and there before me was a white horse, whose rider is called Faithful and True. With justice he judges and wages war. His eyes are like blazing fire, and on his head are many crowns. He has a name written on him that no one knows but he himself. He is dressed in a robe dipped in blood, and his name is the Word of God. The armies of heaven were following him, riding on white horses and dressed in fine linen, white and clean."

No matter what struggles you may encounter, remember, God is on the move. This psalm offers us a way to pray with hope amid the evil chaos of this world. We don't pray to a small god easily understood, but to a strong God, who will and can do the unexpected. We pray to the one who will make all things new.

An extended Sunday Sermon edition of Wilderness Wanderings! The text is Daniel 5 from the New International Version of the Bible. Dive In discussion questions are below for further reflection!

To see this sermon in the context of the worship service it comes from, find it here on YouTube. Or, head to our website to connect with the worshiping community of Immanuel CRC: immanuelministries.ca

DIVE IN QUESTIONS

1. Do you ever look for a sign from God? Have you ever seen or received one? Tell about it.
2. What does Pastor Anthony mean by "the silence of God?" Does it show up in the Bible? Have you experienced this?
3. How do we lose sight of God and lose track of his voice? Are there other ways than what Pastor Anthony suggested? Do you agree or disagree with what he said? Why?
4. How has God acted to give us signs and assurances of his presence? What gifts have we received from him to show us his care? What reminders are there in worship and in the life of the church that can remind us of his presence, love, and forgiveness?
5. How might you keep your eyes peeled and your ears open to the voice, presence, and gifts of God this week?

"May God be gracious to us and bless us and make his face shine upon us, that your ways may be known on earth, your salvation among all nations. May the peoples praise you, God; may all the peoples praise you. May God bless us still, so that all the ends of the earth will fear him" (Psalm 67:1-3, 7).

Have you ever asked God to bless you? Of course, you have. We Christians hardly ever pray without asking for God's blessing. And we know these are not empty prayers because God does want to bless us. Pastors regularly offer these words to their departing flocks, "The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you; the Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace" (Numbers 6:24-26).

God told Moses and Aaron to lift their hands over Israel blessing His people with those words. But have you ever wondered what they mean? To ask it differently, when we ask God to bless us are we asking for what He wants?

From Psalm 13:1 and 89:46ff we learn that when God hides his face from his people it means trouble. It's a poetic image picturing the curse of sin having full licence to do its worst.

When God's face is turned towards his people then the effects of the curse are held at bay, even repelled. The oddest thing is that when God turned His face away from his own son in the darkest hour of Jesus' life, God was turning his face fully towards us.

During those darkest hours this world has ever known, in those events that led Jesus to cry out, "My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?" this same God was pouring out his blessings upon this earth.

It's true that when we ask God to bless us, we are often praying from selfish motives. Richard Foster tells us that all prayers begin here. But as we continue to pray, our motivations begin to change. Prayer changes us. Rather than looking fully towards our own interests, we move towards Gods. But this takes time, so maybe long prayers are not always a bad thing.

In prayer, we turn our faces towards God. As we gaze upon Him our petty motivations and desires crumble away. Fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, we become absorbed with the great works of God.

This is where Psalm 67 leads us. It echoes that blessing of Numbers 6. And, I think, the Lord's Prayer echoes this Psalm.

God's blessings towards us serve the larger purposes of His redemptive work in Christ. We are blessed so that others may know the great ways of God, so that they will know how great Israel's God is. God blesses us so that we can bless others.

But there is even more to it than that. The structure of the psalm suggests that verse 4 is the heart of the matter. It says, "May the nations be glad and sing for joy, for you rule the peoples with equity and guide the nations of the earth." We are blessed so that the nations we join us in glad songs of praise to our God.

In the end, all nations will be gathered about the throne of God and the Lamb as pictured in Revelation 7, "there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people, and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb They were wearing white robes and holding palm branches in their hands. And they cried out in a loud voice: "Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb" (9-10). To that end, God blesses us. Let's pray for that.

Praise our God, all peoples, let the sound of his praise be heard; he has preserved our lives and kept our feet from slipping. For you, God, tested us; you refined us like silver. You brought us into prison and laid burdens on our backs. You let people ride over our heads; we went through fire and water, but you brought us to a place of abundance. (Psalm 66:8-12)

Psalm 66 is a song of praise to God. And yet, these are some pretty hard words here in the middle. "Praise our God" says verse 8. "You brought us to a place of abundance" says verse 12. But in the centre of this paragraph are some facts that might make us question that triumphant assertion.

How can a God whose plan for us includes testing, refining, imprisonment, burdening, oppression, fire, and water be a God that's worthy of praise? It is a question that's haunted many people of faith, including the psalmists, for millennia. But it's not really a question that psalm 66 dwells on.

There are different seasons in our lives. Sometimes we stand in a place of a childlike faith—perhaps it's naïve about the challenges of life—but it is trustful and uncomplicated: oriented fully toward God. At other times we stand in the place of disorientation. It's the messy middle where we are confused, hurt, feeling abandoned and asking the hard questions or just avoiding God altogether. But then there is a third place: the place of reorientation when we finally find some hard-wrestled place of peace with God again, our faith having been tested, deepened, and renewed. This three-part rhythm of orientation—disorientation—reorientation found all over the psalms and all over our lives was coined by an Old Testament scholar, and it's helpful, I think.

Psalm 66 is not written from the place of orientation or disorientation, but from the place of reorientation. This is a psalm proclaimed by the people who have passed through the fire and the water and who have found God faithful still on the other side. They call back to us who still languish in the throes of disorientation following whatever crisis of life or faith we may be facing, and they remind us of God's faithful, saving work. "Be patient," they say, "keep going! There is still reason to hope."

They remind us that God is a God who saves, who "preserves our lives" and keeps "our feet from slipping." Through the waters of the Exodus, through the return after exile, and as we Christians would now read it too: through the work of Jesus himself. There are Good Friday times of disorientation when we cry out "why have you forsaken me!?" But there are also times of Easter reorientation when life is curiously changed and made new and we find reason to praise God again. That's what this psalm declares.

It says: "hang in there: we're here to tell you that there are still places of abundance—Easter still comes! God is still a God of resurrection and salvation no matter how dark the night may look from here."

So dear friends, whether you're ready to take up the praise of God on your lips right now or not: be encouraged that the community of faith cheers you on. Be encouraged that there are others who are in that third place who can praise God for you on the days when you feel too disoriented to do it yourself. Be encouraged that no matter how long the night, our God is still a God of resurrection hope.

Praise awaits you, O God, in Zion; to you our vows will be fulfilled. O you who hear prayer, to you all people will come. When we were overwhelmed by sins, you forgave our transgressions. Blessed are those you choose and bring near to live in your courts! We are filled with the good things of your house, of your holy temple.…You care for the land and water it; you enrich it abundantly. The streams of God are filled with water to provide the people with grain, for so you have ordained it" (Psalm 65:1-4,9).

Reading through the psalms can feel like riding a rollercoaster. Yesterday, Psalm 64 led us to a deep introspection of the cunningness of our own hearts. Such things are never fun, even though under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, the work can be profitable. From the darkness of the human heart, Psalm 65 ushers us into the glories of God's movements in the cosmos.

Yet the distance between the two is but the blink of an eye. This psalm does not ignore the realities of human sinfulness. Rather, it recognizes that the disasters we create are overwhelming. We get buried under the chaos our own cunningness creates. The only way to get 'unburied' is to turn to God and God alone. In his goodness, God comes to the rescue. That is what this psalm is about.

If we are still stuck in the darkness of the misery we have caused, or others have caused for us, this psalm offers us profound hope.

It plays two melodies. The first is the praise that describes the power of God. Those who are near him are blessed. He is the God of salvation, whose power controls the raging of nature and of human affairs. It is our Lord who gives the land fertility and brings about the joy of its great productivity. His awe-inspiring deeds bring about the reverential fear of all who dwell in it.

For Israel, God's presence was centred in Jerusalem, His holy city. But His works extended out to immense horizons of creation and history. He is the Hearer of Prayer unto whom all people may come. For Christians, we believe that, through Jesus, everyone is invited to come before God in prayer (Hebrews 10:19-22) and receive his grace.

God visits the earth and moves through it like a conqueror, but unlike human conquerors he does not leave it desolate. His trail through the land leaves fertility and abundance behind, unlike armies of old and today who leave destruction and famine and starvation in their wake. Fatness drips from the tracks of the great Hearer of Prayer. This is the first melody of Psalm 65.

The second are the petitions which ask God to pour forth His blessings. In God's rule of the universe, He does not need our prayers, yet He desires them. The strong word of Scripture is that we don't receive if we don't ask.

Thus, we turn to the great Hearer of Prayer for forgiveness of our transgressions. And he forgives, true. But the word translated 'forgave' has a richer meaning. It says, "you make atonement for". God not only forgives, he also sets things right. That is what this psalm leans into. We wreck relationships, we devastate the planet, we refuse to give justice, but God does not do these things. He is the God of redemption.

The strongest impact of the psalm is surely in the joy over the gift of rain and the flourishing which results from God's coming. He sustains His creation with active involvement in its mountains and oceans, its water supply, and its harvests, bringing life amid human devastation.

His work is to undo all the damage we bring. Surely, this is what Jesus meant when he said, "My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I too am working". This comment after he enabled a lame man to walk (John 5:17).

The melodies of this Psalm sing of His saving power throughout creation and of our prayers for complete redemption. They are in captioned in the yearning of the Bible's closing prayer, "Amen. Come, Lord Jesus" (Revelation 22:20).

Hide me from the conspiracy of the wicked, from the plots of evildoers. They sharpen their tongues like swords and aim cruel words like deadly arrows. They shoot from ambush at the innocent; they shoot suddenly, without fear. … But God will shoot them with his arrows; they will suddenly be struck down. He will turn their own tongues against them and bring them to ruin; all who see them will shake their heads in scorn. All people will fear; they will proclaim the works of God and ponder what he has done. (Psalm 64:2-4, 7-9)

The central assertion of this psalm, not included in our verses today, is that "surely the human mind and heart are cunning."

There are any number of reasons to distrust our politicians, our church leaders, our business leaders, even many reasons to distrust our own neighbours, family members, and fellow church members. It seems like we increasingly do distrust others. Maybe not always the people that we directly know who are in our lives, but certainly those who are a few steps removed from us—like when we think of leaders we've never met or group people into abstract cohorts like "liberals," "conservatives," "corporate leaders," "the media," or whatever other labels we might use.

This psalm uses the terms "the wicked," "evildoers," and "the innocent." Obviously these evildoers are the ones we would distrust, and reasons are given.

But what about all the people who fear God by the end of the psalm? Whose team are they on? Are they the innocent or the wicked? Hmm, maybe there's a bit more going on than meets the eye.

It is the human mind and heart that are cunning. Not just the mind and heart of the wicked evildoers. We are all wicked. And eventually God's justice meets us all too. Those who sharpen their tongues like swords will be judged by their own words. Those who shoot arrows of cruel words are shot by the arrow-word of God. And so all those wicked ones who shoot off their lips without fear will see the word of the Lord act in judgement against them, which by the psalm's end leads all people to the fear of the Lord.

So can we trust one another, even ourselves? Yes and no. In the Gospel of John, John says that "Jesus would not entrust himself to [the people], for he knew all people. He did not need any testimony about mankind, for he knew what was in each person." Indeed. So who did Jesus entrust himself to then? The Father alone, that's who. And that is the call for us as well.

Every institution, group, and individual person will eventually let us down. Because none of us are righteous. The only one we may truly entrust ourselves to, is God. But, having placed our trust in God alone and having a clear-eyed view of ourselves and our fellow-folk, we can then learn to love and trust one another more appropriately. We do it in a way that doesn't place undue burdens of expectation on fallible people, but that recognizes that disappointment, sin, confession, and forgiveness will all be part of our walk together. But it's a walk we can make in good faith, because the God in whom we trust has first provided for, loved, and forgiven us.

That's what shot through our world and hearts when God took aim and fired off the arrow of His Word. His Word is Jesus Christ. His Word is forgiveness.