Problems are for Solving

First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way. This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all, which is the testimony given at the proper time.
(1 Timothy 2:1-6, ESV)

I mentioned in yesterday’s blog post that no matter who you voted for you should be praying for President-elect Obama. Why?

Paul, in the verse I’ve quoted above exhorts that prayers be made for all people, specifically for “kings and all who are in high positions.” And he tells us why: “that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way.” And then he goes on to talk about the Gospel and Jesus Christ the one mediator between God and man.

So why should we want a peaceful and quiet life? So that we can preach the Gospel! So that people would come to saving faith in Jesus Christ.

When Bill Clinton was President of the United States, it would often bother me how many Christians would spend so much time complaining about him. I can actually only remember one time (in a sermon) that anyone mentioned praying for him. Now Clinton was not an honorable man, nor do I believe that he was honest nor a faithful Christian. But irrespective of that he was the president, and God tells us to pray for all people in high places.

So today, and every day from now until January, 2013 when there may be another president, pray for Barack Obama. Pray that God would use him to make a way for Christians to lead a peaceful and quiet life, so that the Gospel may be preached. Pray that God would convert him in the same powerful way as was Nebuchadnezzar.

And don’t stop there.

Pray for Nancy Pelosi. For Harry Reid. For your governor. Your state legislators. Your congressmen and senators. Pray for all those in high places so that you may live a peaceful and quiet life. And God, who holds the heart of the king in His hands, will hear that prayer and may be merciful to give us that peace and quiet, whether we deserve it or not.

And don’t stop there.

Whether the peace and quiet comes or not, both in word and deed proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ of salvation to horrid sinners like you and me to every creature.

May God bring a prayerful heart to every one of us, and may He be merciful to give us a peaceful and quiet life, and may we respond with faithfulness in the proclamation of the Gospel of Peace!

I started to leave a comment on this post from Gabrielle, and then it turned into something long enough that I wanted it here.
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And because of this, even when our lives are pathetic and cranky, Jesus intercedes and redeems those things that are pathetic and cranky.

He gives us:
Beauty for ashes
An oil of joy for mourning
A garment of praise for a spirit of heaviness.

And He sometimes gives us hope for despair as well. Praise the Lord He is risen in power.

The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me, because the LORD has anointed me to bring good news to the poor; he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound; to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn; to grant to those who mourn in Zion– to give them a beautiful headdress instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the garment of praise instead of a faint spirit; that they may be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, that he may be glorified.
(Isaiah 61:1-3)

A Dark And Quiet Room » Get Dirty

Seth has a good post here that might just (that’s a kingean understatement for the uninitiated) intersect with what it means to be in the world and not of the world (though “in and not of” is an extrapolation that needs to be examined and fleshed out as well–it’s not a straight quote from the Bible).

Leithart.com | Perpetual War

According to Deuteronomy 20, any man who had built a house, planted a vineyard, or married a wife without enjoying their benefits and joys was excused from military service. While it was certainly possible for a 20-year-old Israelite to be unmarried and propertyless, it would seem that the military was largely made up of men who already had these benefits of peace. I base this on the supposition that men would be entering on an independent adulthood at 20, the same age they became eligible for military service. Also, I’m assuming that Israelite ages of marriage were comparable to other ancient civilizations; Roman girls, for instance, were considered marriageable at 12 and adults at 14, at which age men would begin to call them “domina.” Thus, Israel’s army would largely consist of men who already had some experience of the benefits of adult life in peacetime.

This has important effects on the makeup and psychology of the military. First, the men going to war had some sense of why they were fighting and what they were defending. Second, home, vineyard, and wife provided a triple anchor that kept an Israelite warrior from getting too attached to the battlefield. This was particularly important in the ancient world, when war was for some men was life, not an irritating interruption of life.

…necessary but not normal.

And by ‘normal’ I mean ‘the norm for life.’ I am not a pacifist. I understand that war and violence are very ncecessary at times.

But they are not what life is to revolve around. Those who are fighting in a war ought to understand what they are fighting for, and have a reason to go home when the war is over. I fear that is no longer the case in our country or many places in the world.

Men who have wives and businesses and homes and have to leave and go to war want to come home.

Young men whose sole occupation is war have no reason to do so.

There will be battles and war that are necessary–let us learn to send those into battle who know for whom they fight, and who want to return home to them.

Isaiah 40:27-33:

Why do you say, O Jacob,
and speak, O Israel,
“My way is hidden from the LORD,
and my right is disregarded by my God”?
Have you not known? Have you not heard?
The LORD is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He does not faint or grow weary;
his understanding is unsearchable.
He gives power to the faint,
and to him who has no might he increases strength.
Even youths shall faint and be weary,
and young men shall fall exhausted;
but they who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength;
they shall mount up with wings like eagles;
they shall run and not be weary;
they shall walk and not faint.

I’ve gotten a couple of phone calls on my previous post.

I’m doing OK. I’m tired. I’m still feeling disillusioned and discouraged but I’ll make it through this by God’s grace.

The passage above is what I read this morning, emphasis mine.

I am a young man feeling faint and exhausted.

But God gives power to those who are faint and who lack might. And right now I am waiting on Him to renew my strength.

Tomorrow is the Sabbath day. It will be better. May God humble me enough that I don’t forget that I lack strength and might–may I be humbled enough that I wait upon Him for renewed strength all the time. May I be humbled enough that my heart will soar in His grace like upon the back of an eagle.

There is much ahead of me in the short and long term. Pray that I would trust God enough that I will walk and not grow faint.

The other day I was talking to a friend around lunchtime about a house. It was important to my friend that the home be in a “safe� neighborhood. That was only days after I got an inquiry about another house that asked if the neighborhood was “safe.�

I know that I am weird on this, but I don’t believe in safety the same way most people seem to speak of it. I’ve only had my car broken into one time in the twenty years I’ve been driving, and it was while it was parked eight feet from my parents’ front door in an upper-middle-class neighborhood in the suburbs of a small city. My stereo was stolen in a “safe” neighborhood.

Since 9-11-01 it seems that people in the United States are consumed with this issue of safety but it doesn’t exist. It doesn’t matter what is done to protect us, people who are willing to die in the process of committing a heinous act will always be able to do so. There is no way to humanly protect everyone.

Every night when I put the children to bed safety is on my mind. That’s because we sing a short song that is the text of Psalm 4:8:

I will lie down in peace

In peace and sleep

I will lie down in peace and sleep

You alone O my LORD make me dwell in safety

I will lie down in peace . . . and sleep

God alone makes us to dwell in safety. There is no safety apart from Him.

I live in a neighborhood now that many people consider to be not safe. I sleep peacefully every night and fear no man—because God is watching out for me. Because he makes me to dwell in safety, I can lie down in peace . . . and sleep.