God is for me

“Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.” (Psalm 119:105)

Sometimes I feel like I’m becoming an old church guy who is against everything. They say old people are already mad about being old, so it doesn’t take much to tick them off. Ouch!

Someone said that we often turn the wine back into water with our bad attitudes and that the church has run out of wine like at the wedding at Cana (John 2:1-11) and we need new wine. I get that.

I was talking to a guy who loves Jesus a lot a few weeks ago and I was feeling sorry for myself because of my outward circumstance. This pastor I hardly know said, “Ken, you have to get over yourself.” We probably all need to hear some version of that. It’s not about us, it’s not our party, if we are the smartest person in the room we are in the wrong room and while the world really is against me, God is for me (Psalm 118:6). If that last part is true and it is, how can I have a bad day?

Here’s what I’m trying to say. I can remember when I got turned on to Amazon several, several years ago. I was certain it was run by a cult or by Hell itself. How can they sell stuff cheaper and deliver the next day to my front door? Spooky, right?

Why is it easy for us to be against things that are new or that we don’t understand? Why can’t we choose to be for some stuff? Eugene Peterson paraphrases Philippians 4:5 when he writes in The Message, “Make it as clear as you can to all you meet that you’re on their side, working with them and not against them.”

I read somewhere that they will know us by our love (John 13:35). Maybe that’s why they don’t know us? Old, cynical, selfish, proud, ticked off, against things and don’t love - that is a pretty attractive combination.

I keep thinking about Jesus on the beach after Easter (John 21). Some of the disciples had been fishing all night, they had zip to show for it, but this dude on the beach (Jesus, but they didn’t know it) tells them to throw their nets out again and so they do, and they catch the mother of all catches. About that time Peter sees that it’s Jesus and he swims half naked to the shore.

What I love about this passage is what Jesus says to the disciples, “Come and have breakfast.” Wow! Really? It seems like Jesus just back from the dead, scars in His hands and side would have better things to do, but nope. Jesus the risen Savior cooks breakfast. Jesus shows us that He is for two things in this passage: People and the most important meal of the day. I guess that’s love being expressed in a tangible way. I don’t have to understand it, I just have to do it.

He told me to tell you that.