The Way Of Futility

“Because in much wisdom there is much grief, and increasing knowledge results in increasing pain.” (Ecclesiastes 1:18)

It is painful to gaze upon our true reflection
Ignorance is bliss
Which is better:
To be happily ignorant
Or to be joyfully afflicted?

As I explore the paths of wisdom
I only become more aware that I am a child who knows nothing
An ignorant babe who needs to be taught
I keep sitting up to listen
Yet, You say lay back to hear
I keep sitting up to learn
Yet, You say lay back and be taught
I reach for You to grasp You
Yet, You say drop your hands and receive
I want to strive for understanding
Yet, You say be still as You give revelation

I want to find the source of the wind
Yet, You say let it blow where it will
“Just feel the wind in your face, child”
But I want to hold it in my hand
I want to examine the wind
And You say let it be
“Observe the effects of the wind,
But do not try to grasp it.”
Yet I grasp and reach
For something that is impossible to catch
Why do I keep doing this?
Why am I compelled by futility?

Because we have been subjected to futility
You said, “From this tree do not eat”
Yet, we reached
We grasped
And when we looked down at our hands
To see what we obtained
We looked with horror
We sobbed with grief
Because we reached for You
But we only grasped our self
Our hands are full of ourselves
With no room for You
We reached for freedom
Only to be shackled by Self

For thousands of years we sat in these chains
We sat in darkness
Hands full of ourselves
Minds full of knowledge without understanding
Such is the curse of futility
We were created for knowledge
Yet we cursed ourselves with the inability to understand
What good is knowledge without understanding?
Yes, this is futility

Yet, this is when we begin to understand
To understand the depths of meaninglessness
To understand that without You, there is nothing
Without You, there is only futility
There is only chasing after a wind
That will never be caught
Because our hands cannot hold the wind
They can only hold ourselves
Or You
But we must choose one or the other

(Deut 30:19,20) This day I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live and that you may love the Lord your God, listen to His voice, and hold fast to Him. For the Lord is your life…

(Rom 8:19-21) For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to futility, not by its own will, but because of the One who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.

(John 3:6-8) That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not be amazed that I said to you, “You must be born again.” The wind blows where it wishes and you hear the sound of it, but do not know where it comes from or where it is going; so is everyone who is born of the Spirit.

(Eccl 3:11,12) I have seen the burden that God has laid upon the sons of men to occupy them. He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men, yet they cannot fathom the work that God has done from beginning to end.

(Posted on Facebook 11/16/2020 Talitha Koum)

Broken Zippers

I am a terrible salesman. 

When I was in high-school I got a job at a clothing store in the mall. On the last day I worked there, a young man came in who was interested in an expensive jacket. The job was commission-based and my manager constantly reminded me —“Whatever it takes to make the sale.” The young man was reluctant to splurge on the jacket and my manager saw me fidgeting in reluctance to make the sale. So, the manager came over and convinced the young man to buy it. As the young man walked to the register, I was compelled to tell him the whole truth: “You need to know that the zipper on that jacket is broken.” Needless to say, my manager advised me that my services were no longer needed.

One of the many things I love about the Bible is that it doesn’t leave out the ugly parts. God tells us about the broken zippers. The Bible isn’t trying to sell anyone Christianity, its focus is truth, more so than any particular emotion. And often times, truth can be ugly. Like, Peter-denying-Jesus-three-times-even-though-he-swore-he-wouldn’t, kind of ugly (Mark 14:31,67-72). Scripture paints no illusions as it shows us the full gamut of the human condition: betrayal and faithfulness, sorrow and joy, perversion and purity. We see failure, weakness, and fear, along with victory, strength, and courage.

For a long time Christianity has attempted to sell people cheap happiness, instead of teaching them how to have costly joy. And to teach people how to have costly joy, we must tell them the whole truth of what it means to be a Christian, both the struggles and the joys. We must do exactly as our Master instructed, “teach them to observe all I commanded…” (Matt 28:20). And Jesus never commanded us to sell Him to anyone, He never told us to focus only the good parts, He never said, “Whatever it takes to make the sale.” He commanded us to “count the cost,” and for someone to accurately count the cost, means that we tell them about the broken zippers (Luke 14:28).

We tell them that eternal joy in Jesus Christ is costly. Jesus communicates this emphatically in His teachings (Matt 13:44,45; 16:25,26; Luke 14:16-35). It will cost us our own right to ourselves as we submit to Him as Lord. It will cost us our pride as we humble ourselves before Him. For Christ to be our supreme devotion, means that our walk with Him is one of increasing narrowness (Matt 7:14), allowing nothing-- not family (Luke 14:26), not possessions (Luke 14:33), not ambitions (Luke 14:8,9), not worldly obligations (Luke 14:18-20), not anything in all of creation to come between us and Him.

Beloved, here is the whole truth: Jesus Christ gives us Himself freely by our faith in Him, but we must be prepared in our heart to have Him at any cost.

(Matt 13:44,45) The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and in his joy he went and sold all he had and bought that field. Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant seeking fine pearls, and upon finding one pearl of great value, he went and sold all that he had and bought it.

(Matt 16:24,25 ) Then Jesus told His disciples, “If anyone wants to come after Me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.”

(John 15:1,2) I am the true vine, and My Father is the keeper of the vineyard. He cuts off every branch in Me that bears no fruit, and every branch that does bear fruit, He prunes it so that it may bear more fruit.

(Acts 14:21,22) After they had preached the gospel to that city and had made many disciples, they returned to Lystra and to Iconium and to Antioch, strengthening the souls of the disciples, encouraging them to continue in the faith, and saying, “Through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God.”

(Prov 23:23) Invest in truth and never sell it—get wisdom and instruction and understanding.

(Posted on Facebook 11/15/2020 Talitha Koum)

The Way Of Christ

I have found that one of the most difficult things in my walk with Christ is to allow myself to be taught by Him, rather than be driven by my constant endeavor to learn about Him. 

Beloved, there is a fine line between learning versus being taught. There can be an aggressiveness to learning. Whereas, to be taught, requires a certain degree of submissiveness. A pupil who is taught, needs to be silent and still while they receive the teacher’s instructions. It is difficult to teach when the student is asking questions the whole time. It is difficult to teach when the student spends much of their time trying to anticipate what the teacher is going to say next so they can run out ahead. It is difficult to teach when the student assumes they understand before the teacher is done with the explanation. 

You cannot teach someone who already thinks they know. This is why Jesus didn’t choose anyone from the religious establishment to be His apostle. He needed those who were willing to submit to Him in humility, to forget what they thought they knew and admit that they needed to be taught. Those who would allow themselves to be broken, rejected, mocked, and humiliated. Those who were willing to forsake their pride for His sake. 

There is a breaking-down that is needed to build someone up in the way of Christ. Too often, we only seek the building-up and never submit to the breaking-down. When this happens, arrogance invades the church and the sheep are devoured instead of fed. When we only seek to be built-up instead of embracing the breaking-down, the church looks more like the world instead of the kingdom of God. That is because in His kingdom the way up is down, the way of life is to be put to death, to be great is to be the least. In the kingdom of God, to be made worthy of power is to be willing to relinquish it and be weak. For when we are weak, He is strong, and this flies in the face of the dictates of the current prince of this world. 

(John 14:30,31) I will not speak with you much longer, for the prince of this world is coming, and he has no claim on Me, but he comes so that the world may learn that I love the Father and do exactly what my Father has commanded me.

(2 Cor 12:9,10) And He has said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness." Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. That is why, for the sake of Christ, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

(Posted on Facebook 11/14/2020 Talitha Koum)

The Way Of The Cross

The way of the cross is brutal. It is bloody. The cross says, “The only way to reach out and grasp true freedom is to have your hand nailed down.”

Paradox.

To walk in the valley of the shadow of death is to come face to face with all the things that are working death in you. It is to walk the narrow path of life through the valley of death, and as you walk, you encounter your own ego, your own selfishness, your longing for approval, your desire to be accepted among men, your self-pity, your pride, and other such things we like to keep hidden behind that fig leaf. It is to wrestle against the muscle of your own reasoning. It is to willingly drop to your knees in submission, when you’d rather stand tall in your love of authority. It is to be willing to surrender when you would rather be in control. Paul said, “I die daily,” and so must we (1 Cor 15:31).

I think we are reluctant to admit our struggles with these things because we are ashamed. We are so used to hiding behind that fig leaf, of attempting to cover our own nakedness with the illusion of self-sufficiency-- “Nothing to see in my own heart, move along…” Then there are annoying people like me who shout from the city gate, “Come see how ugly we are, come and face all your warts.” That is because until we are ready to face our own wretchedness, until we are ready to look in the mirror without any filter, I dare say that we can have no real depth of intimacy with Jesus Christ. The land of the flesh is superficial and if we insist on dwelling there, then our pursuit of Christ will remain superficial as well.

We can follow Christ around and merely listen to His teachings, just like many others did in Jesus’ days on earth. But Jesus said, “For those who have ears to hear…” (Matt 13:9). It is one thing to listen, but it is quite another to truly hear what is being said. In Jesus’ day, many listened for a little while, but there will come a time for us just like it did for them, when Jesus will turn around and say, “For those who have ears to hear: There is one thing you lack. And you can follow Me this far and no farther unless you are willing to deny yourself and put your flesh to death” (Mark 10:21; Luke 9:23,24). The price of our freedom was paid for by the flesh of Jesus Christ, but there seem to be so very few who are truly willing to join Him in that death.

Beloved, Scripture clearly teaches that we are to join Christ in His death (Rom 6:4-6), that we are to flee from sin (2 Tim 2:22; Rom 13:14), that we are a new creature who is having Christ formed in us in ever-increasing glory (2 Cor 3:18, 5:17; Gal 4:19; Col 1:27). And this only happens through our cooperation with His Spirit Who works within us unto that end. There are sins of the flesh and there are sins of the heart, therefore I will confess to you that it was much easier for me to face the truth that I was an alcoholic and cut off my hand to stop drinking, than it has been for me to walk through the valley of death and face the evil ugliness of my inner man. But we must face this true condition. We must see the depth of our need, before Christ will begin to practically work Himself into us to meet it.

It is time for many in the church to stop playing with the cross, and climb onto it. Because seed cannot sprout unless it dies.

(John 12:24) Truly, truly, I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a seed; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.

(Phil 3:10) I want to know Christ and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to Him in His death..

(Matt 13:3-9) And He spoke many things to them in parables saying, “Behold, the sower went out to sow; and as he sowed, some seeds fell beside the road, and the birds came and ate them up. Others fell on the rocky places, where they did not have much soil; and immediately they sprang up, because they had no depth of soil. But when the sun had risen, they were scorched; and because they had no root, they withered away. Others fell among the thorns, and the thorns came up and choked them out. And others fell on the good soil and yielded a crop, some a hundredfold, some sixty and some thirty. He who has ears, let him hear.”

(John 15:8) This is to my Father's glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.

(Psalm 23:3,4) He restores my soul; He guides me in the paths of righteousness for His name’s sake. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil, for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.

(Posted on Facebook 11/12/2020 Talitha Koum)

Enduring Your Caiaphas

This morning in the barn I read Mark 14:53-72 about Jesus going before the high priest Caiaphas. When Jesus went before Caiaphas, His hands were likely tied behind His back and He was likely pushed down to His knees, as He was taunted and berated by the Sanhedrin. He was spit in the face, slapped and mocked, enduring gross injustice at the hands of those who should have recognized Him as Messiah, more than anyone else.

We see Jesus enduring extreme testing here. He was betrayed by leaders within His own religious system and He was humiliated by those more ignorant and sinful than He. Jesus was allowed to experience both frustration and helplessness in the face of His circumstances, and He did so with His hands tied behind His back. Oswald Chambers said, “Abraham did not choose what his sacrifice would be….never decide the place of your own martyrdom, as if to say, ‘I will only go to there, but no farther.’ God chose the test for Abraham, and Abraham neither delayed nor protested, but steadily obeyed.” And that is exactly what we see exhibited in the life of our Savior and Master.

To endure your own Caiaphas is to be at the mercy of your ordained circumstances and not fight back. It is to willingly allow your hands to be tied behind your back as your circumstances spit upon you and slap you in the face. It is to want to fight back, to want to take control, to want to escape, but to surrender entirely and endure it instead. It is to trust God implicitly despite your circumstances and have Him on His terms, instead of your own. This morning as I sat on the hay loft steps and tears streamed down my face, I looked up to heaven and prayed, “Thank you for not allowing me to have You on my own terms. I will not ask You to deliver me from my Caiaphas, but I will ask for Your continued grace in the midst of it.”

Beloved, God is not in the business of delivering us from the furnace, but in staying beside us as we endure it. He will lead you by the hand into the fire, He will walk with you in the midst of it, but you must choose whether you trust Him enough to enter. “Father, if You are willing, take this cup from Me. Yet not My will, but Yours be done” (Luke 22:42).

(Isaiah 43:2) When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you go through the rivers, they will not overwhelm you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be scorched; the flames will not set you ablaze.

(1 Peter 2:20-23) How is it to your credit if you are beaten for doing wrong and you endure it? But if you suffer for doing good and you endure it, this is commendable before God. For to this you were called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in His footsteps: "He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth." When they heaped abuse on Him, He did not retaliate; when He suffered, He made no threats, but entrusted Himself to Him who judges justly.

(Daniel 3:20,24,25) ….our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the furnace of blazing fire; and He will deliver us out of your hand, O king. But even if He does not…we are not going to serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up…then Nebuchadnezzar..commanded some of the strongest soldiers in his army to tie up Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-nego in order to cast them into the furnace of blazing fire….Suddenly King Nebuchadnezzar jumped up in amazement and asked his advisers, “Did we not throw three men, firmly bound, into the fire?” “Certainly, O king,” they replied. “Look!” he exclaimed. “I see four men, unbound and unharmed, walking around in the fire—and the fourth looks like a son of the gods!”

Eating Dust

It is one thing to speak truth but it is quite another thing to speak truth from a pure heart. Satan can speak truth but he doesn’t speak it from a pure heart. There is no life in truth unless it is spoken through Christ in you. That is what we hunger for, and that is why the church currently starves. 

If we are not giving each other Christ, then what good is it? What good is truth from an impure heart? Jesus said the pure in heart will see God (Matt 5:8). It is the pure in heart who see God and then proclaim to a hungry world Who He is and what He is like. That is the testimony of truth, that is the only thing that can truly feed Christ’s sheep. Everything else is a feast of dust.
Jesus said feed my sheep (John 21:17). Jesus said He is the bread of heaven (John 6:51) and the living water that quenches our thirst (John 4:14), thus the only food and drink we can give anyone is who we are in Christ. Therefore, if you are to strive, strive to know Him. Strive in your surrendering more than your shouting. Let your shout become a sigh. 

There is only one Savior and one Teacher and we can only share with each other what He has given us. He is the head of the river of life, He is the source of all knowledge and wisdom (1 Cor 1:30; Col 2:3) and unless we are giving each other Him, unless we are giving each other Christ, Who is our life (Col 3:4), we labor in vain. Unless we are giving each other Him, we feed each other dust, for we are but dust. 

I see many hungry faces
Haunting eyes of longing
The madness of thirst has set in
The echoes of empty bellies deafen my ears

I see the dirt all around their mouths
The dirty mouth of a child
That has feasted upon dust
They gnaw at their tongue with dry and dusty mouths 

Wipe their faces Lord
And give them drink
“Come to me all you who thirst
And I will give you drink”

Get yourself up on a high mountain Zion
Bearer of good news
Tell them, “Here is your God!”

The afflicted and needy seek water
But there is none
Their tongue is parched with thirst
And You will not forsake them
You will answer them Yourself

Showing Suffering

Sometimes we need to see someone else’s private struggles to understand that we are not alone in ours. Sometimes we need to hear someone else’s private prayers so we know how to shape our own. Sometimes we need to bear witness to someone else’s humiliation to understand that we must face our own. Discipleship is to show someone Christ being worked in you, it is to show them what our walk looks like. But we must show them the truth, all of it. Therefore when I share private, intimate moments from my prayer time, I do so reluctantly.

If I am brutally honest, I wrestle with Facebook and the desire to walk away and leave it be. More often than not, I ask God, “Can I be done now?” I think to myself, “This is the last post I will make for a while, I will take a break and sit in my comfortable solitude.” Sometimes I wrestle with thoughts like, “You shouldn’t have said that, you shouldn’t have shared that.” I understand what Paul meant when he said, “We have become a spectacle to the whole world, to angels as well as to men” (1 Cor 4:9).

Maybe this is what people need to see. Brokenness. A Christian who doesn’t have all the answers. I keep wondering if my heart will be strong enough to carry me through the days ahead, and I keep coming to the conclusion that it won’t. My heart cannot withstand the force of the enemy, no one’s heart can withstand the force of the enemy, that is why we need Jesus Christ. We mustn’t fool ourselves with romantic notions of our own strength. You need Jesus Christ, I need Jesus Christ, and if me sharing my struggles and my doubts and my intimate times with God, even against the screaming reluctance of my flesh, will help someone see Him, then it is a price I’m willing to pay.

Today, I am tired of this world. Today, I give no romantic illusions of valor in my stand for Christ. Will I stand? Yes. Will I endure? Yes. But today, I just want to go home. Here I am, here is what is real in me: outside of Jesus Christ I am nothing, I am a coward and a fool and I am ignorant. The only thing I truly know is that I need Jesus Christ. The only thing I can bring Him day after day is my need and my longing as His Spirit does the work of forming Himself in me in ever-increasing glory. That is what I have to share. I would rather not, I would rather just be alone in my barn and keep all those precious moments to myself, but I can’t because God keeps dragging me back here, day after day. The Spirit keeps compelling me, “Share your journey, even the ugly parts.”

Beloved, sometimes our walk hurts. But trust Him always, even through the ugly parts because it is a walk worth making.

(Heb 12:1-3) Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off every encumbrance and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with endurance the race set out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider Him who endured such hostility from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.