2010 in Review: The Tireless Shepherd and His Tenacious Grace

Thy goodness has been with me during another year,

leading me though a twisting wilderness,

in retreat helping me to advance,

when beaten back making sure headway.

Thy goodness will be with me in the year ahead;

I hoist sail and draw up anchor, 

with thee as the blessed pilot of my future as of my past.

I bless thee that thou hast veiled my eyes to the waters ahead. 

If thou hast appointed storms of tribulation,

thou wilt be with me in them;

If I have to pass through tempests of persecution and temptation,

I shall not drown;

If I am to die,

I shall see thy face the sooner;

If a painful end is to be my lot,

grant me grace that my faith fail not;

If I am to be cast aside from the service I love,

I can make no stipulation;

Only glorify thyself in me whether in comfort or trial,

as a chosen vessel meet always for thy use.

[From The Valley of Vision, p. 111]

"The Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God" (Exodus 34:14). Not jealous in any maligning way, but in the most perfectly loving way, as a father commands the exclusive respect and honor of his children, or as a husband pursues his wife in love. Yet very much unlike the fathers and husbands of sin-blighted flesh, God's motives are excellently pure. He pursues us and commands our love and obedience and honor righteously. (See more in Spurgeon's excellent 1863 sermon on the subject.)

More than ever before, this year I have experienced this jealousy of Jehovah. From the dreaming spires of an ancient university to the lazy seashore of San Diego and to the mighty Sierras and back again to this strange, offbeat New England home of mine, God has not ceased to pursue me valorously, faithfully. It's frightening and a great comfort all the same to know that there is no place where our God is not completely sovereign, no matter how removed a place seems from the reach of his hand. There is no place where he will not go to accomplish his will and gather up his sheep. He is the tireless shepherd.

The story begins exactly a year ago. When I left for England a few days after New Year's Day, I was still damp from baptism. In December I had been immersed in a pool to signify submission, to display outwardly an inward reality of having died and been raised up again with my Savior. It was an inspiring time, as it is for any baptizand.

I was praying hard and dangerously. After a semester that was less than academically stellar, for instance, I was asking God to reveal to me whether my aspirations to a career as an academic historian were really his will for me. Really, I wanted confirmation; I wanted God to say, Onward, my son! I wanted to hear that any confusions in me were to be disregarded, that of course I was on the right track. I wanted God to sign off on my report card with a half-hearted smile and a supportive-looking wink.

I prayed this for a month or more. The prayer changed over time, without my notice. I realized eventually that I had begun asking God to change my plans if they were not consistent with his will. This was altogether different from requesting a divine rubber-stamp on my status quo. I trembled.

He delivered. In both senses: he heard my prayers (not that I believed he wouldn't), and then delivered me from the plans I had for my life (this is the part I didn't expect--or desire for that matter). This is when the story begins to get really good.

"I want your mind for myself"; "I want you to be my servant"; "I want you to give me your life for my purposes." That's what God started saying to me. "I want you to commit yourself to making me known." Already anxious about a tough, incredibly stressful term in Oxford, these were startling and fearsome words.

But it resonated, too. It hit me on deep, secret planes, in parts of my soul where only God can reach me. "What does that mean exactly?" I asked. "Show me what that means."

Well, he did. At least he showed me what my next step ought to be: "Seminary," he intoned. "I want you to go to seminary." Now this was hard to swallow. Seminary? I pictured the guys I've known who go to seminary. They're hip, cool, strong, deep super-Christians (what does that mean anyway?). In short, they're not typically people like me. Sure, I shared some commonalities with (my perception of) them: the frequenting of Starbucks and other chain coffee joints, the wearing of dark-blue sweaters, the enjoyment of books. But these were all superficial.

"No," I replied to God. "Seminary is not for me. No thanks." My retort was less in the spirit of the question "Who does God think he is?" but rather "Who does God think I am?"

Well, the rest is his story, as they say. Over the course of a few months spent reading intensely in and meditating on his Word, sitting under the powerful preaching at St. Ebbe's Church, and praying for a taste for manna, my opinions were transformed. My heart was changed. It was not merely that I became more comfortable with the idea of committing my life to ministry, or that God was meticulously taking apart my previous identity and desires and plans and replacing them with his own--all of this happened, but it was much more than that.

Paul writes that we will "be transformed by the renewal of [our] mind" (Rom. 12:2). By the renewal of mind--why is that? Why is it the mind that has to be renewed? Why is it in the mind that our whole transformation begins? Why not "the renewal of heart" or "the renewal of soul" or "the renewal of love"? Well, I have no solution to the mystery. But I can say that it's true, that transformation does indeed begin when we submit to his purification and purging and strengthening of our minds. This is what was happening to me. I was feeling God's truth wash over me like a tide that erases the markings in the sand. And in the truth is the grace, is the mercy, is the Cross and the resurrection, the whole sweep of history, the whole plan of God in time, the record of God's trustworthiness toward his people. One can't help but be transformed by such visions.

I was. I am. And it was and is in the sharing of those visions with me that God has implanted and sustains in me a profound and resolute desire to see others be reconciled to him by his Son and edified by his Spirit, to see brothers and sisters glorify and enjoy God forever, as the Westminster Shorter Catechism so pleasantly puts it.

Meanwhile I was having a roller-coaster ride of a time in Oxford. My first term was terrible. I had one tutor, whom I've since named James the Terrible (the tenure of our tutorial gaining in my mental biography the appellation The Jacobean Terror), who was unbearably mean to me. He tried to make my life a living hell, and it worked. And to make matters worse I wasn't meeting any people, gaining no friends. I was going to church but was not involved at all. Misery.

The second term, after a break of several weeks in California, was vastly better. I'd resolved to pray weekly with a friend, join a Bible study at Ebbe's, and try to savor Oxford for what it was and stop complaining. All three, by grace, came to fruition. It was a marvelous two months. Plus, I had a great tutor whose real name I choose to remember her by because she did not merit any cruel renaming like James the Terrible did. Our tutorial focused on the English Reformation. Little did I know how useful that topic would soon be.

Leaving Oxford was not quite bittersweet--it was just plain bitter. I'd grown to enjoy living there and had made some good friends in the process. More exciting yet was the work God had been doing in me while there. He made use of my frailty in a foreign land to teach me life-changing spiritual lessons. Somehow I grew to connect inextricably that good growth and Oxford as a place, thinking it to be heaven on earth. Which I now see is deceptive, since God (and all his goodness and promises and love and power), as I was saying before, follows you wherever you go and does not let you go.

Well, I left Oxford and headed to the wild wild West. I spent the summer nomadically wandering between Phoenix, LA, Tehachapi, and San Diego--and, for a bit of a breather, up to San Francisco and Yosemite at one point. I have a hard time relaxing, and so the summer was tough. I had little to do. That is, little to do besides contemplating my senior year of college and whether I wanted to write a senior thesis.

That was a delightful enough task. Though early in the summer I had settled on one thesis topic, by the end I had chosen something vastly different. I had decided to study Jonathan Edwards, the great New England Puritan preacher and theologian of the 18th century. I had seen how soul-shakingly transformative a study of Edwards had been for my theological hero John Piper, so I imagined I too could and would reap rich rewards from it.

My inkling was right. After a fall semester spent reading widely and deeply about Edwards, and even having the chance to read Edwards himself, I must say, I'm so grateful to God for such a deep well to be drinking from. The next month I'll be working--at fever pitch--to finish a first draft. Next semester I have even more time away from classes to explore the topic and continue writing and editing and, if he wills it, finishing the thesis by April. This has surely been, alongside my call to ministry, one of the Lord's most glorious blessings to me this year.

And coming back to Amherst has been a joy. Though I miss, and probably always shall miss, Oxford, being among friends and my church family is irreplaceably, irrepressibly delightful.

Now I stand on the cusp of another year. I would be a fool to say what is in store as if I know for sure. But there are a few things worth highlighting:

1. I'm leading a weekly small group at my church which is taking us through the Gospel of Luke. This should be a good and fruitful challenge. I will need supernatural wisdom, strength, and insight.
2. As I mentioned already, I'm working to finish my thesis by April. This is a hefty task, and I will be in need of a great amount of grace. I'll also need strength to avoid being swept up in the vanity of year-end senior prizes for theses as well as of the inescapable doling out of Latin honors.
3. I graduate in May. I pray it goes well.
4. After a month spent on the West Coast in June to see two good friends marry (not each other), I'll be coming back to Amherst to live and work for the academic year before applying to seminaries next winter. I will need fortitude, foresight, commitment, and a good dose of reliance on the Lord. 

Jonathan Edwards has taught me to take the time on a regular basis to examine the heart and think back on God's providence and faithfulness and to prepare the heart for what is to come. Consider this my first weak attempt, Jonathan.

As AD 2011 overtakes this small, cold Friday night in this small, cold New England village, I thank and look to the loving Father whose joy is my only strength and know that as he is eternally satisfied I shall be kept eternally strong in him. Thank you, Lord, for your two gifts, my two Comforters, your Holy Son and your Holy Spirit. May I abide in your trinity, and may you abide in me. As Christ is my temple, may this sinful body be your holy dwelling-place and throne, the seat of your rule and reign of truth and grace. May my memory of 2010 be saturated with a supreme thankfulness in you, O Lord, thankful that you are wondrous and able to move mountains, for you have moved me, a mountain of stubbornness and pride, into joyful submission to you. You are the Almighty, the beginning and the end, the never-ending God. To your name be all the glory of this life. Amen.

When the River of Life Floods the Dry Plains of Distant Hearts

A year ago today, or some day immediately before or after this one (I can't quite remember the date), I was submerged in a pool of water in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Immersion was the symbol of God's fullness and my wholeness, the sufficiency of Christ crucified and resurrected for me, a desperate sinner--a declaration of a sovereign God's work in me and of my faith response to it.

This morning my church family and I watched as seven spiritual siblings were in the same way ritually put to death and resurrected in a bath of (evidently fairly cold) water. It is a symbol well worth beholding regularly. Seeing the incredible vulnerability of the shivering dunked reminds us of how far we can wander from that reverence.

I had forgotten. I had been wandering. Last night the dams I'd built up to keep the Almighty at bay fell. They had to. It was inevitable. His grace burst through my weak palisades of sin and selfishness. I was overcome. I was overcome by power, by sovereignty, by a flood, by grace irresistible and true and good. My dry haven in the middle of the River of Life, my concocted valley of self, was inundated. I stood for a moment watching it all cave in and the mighty tempest loom above me. I thought to grab my belongings, like an earthquake drill.

But the Father beckoned me out, he grabbed me and plucked me from my flooding space. He took me in his arms. I was limp and weak and ashamed. But I was dry.

In this time of prayer, somewhere up against a tree in the middle of the frigid night, I felt the warmth and comfort and peace of God's Spirit renewing me, purifying, making way for the Lord. That flood was in my heart. That stronghold was there, constructed deep in my soul, a foothold for a rebel.

I soon saw--God revealed to me gently--that so much of the chaos and depression and darkness and sorrow I've been stuck in this season was a means of drawing me in, drawing me out, drawing me near to the Father. Numb and deaf and blind, but now I could see a precious part of the tapestry of his sovereign, eminently good will. The Lord my God loved me--loves me--so much that he has tugged at and pulled on and then torn down this pestilent stronghold, this preserve of sinful obstinacy. He traversed the distance I would not, just as he did in sending Christ to this world--that's what Advent and Christmas are all about!

Well, my Christmas was last night. The gift I opened was an irresistible grace. It was love packaged in a Savior, wrapped in sustaining sufficiency and overwhelming power, sacrifice and justice satisfied. Lord, you are God, you are Love eternal. I have peace, purpose, a promise sealed in the precious blood of Christ.

Jesus, Thy Visible Glory

I'm a walker. I do all my best thinking on the move, wandering down some brambly path in the crunchy autumn forest or in a pale meadow in the summertime. Today I had a few moments between commitments and took a quick walk around campus, taking advantage of the invigorating but thankfully rainless chill. Even in that tiny stroll the Holy Spirit moved in me and caused my work-tired mind and disharmonious heart to see and feel and know a profound reality that I don't think I'd ever really grasped before. Here's how it happened.

It came as I was wondering how I might respond to a question concerning what it means to glorify God in one's life. If a dear saint were to die tomorrow, and I was called upon to eulogize him or her, how would I go about judging whether that life that had just come to an end was a magnification of the Lord's majesty? I wanted to make sure I had gotten straight what that actually entailed.

Glory. Hm. What is God's glory? What's it about? Can we see it? I seemed to fixate on this last question.

So I began to reason. Well, no, of course we can't see his glory. We would be blinded! After all, no one has ever beheld God (1 John 4:12). That is certainly the case in Moses's encounter with God in prayer in Exodus 33:17-20. Pleading for knowledge and wisdom and for the presence of God himself as he leads Israel out of Sinai, Moses asks specifically if God might show him his glory. This elicits an interesting answer from the Lord: "I will make all my goodness pass before you and will proclaim before you my name 'The Lord.'" Divine glory here seems to be linked to the fullness of God's goodness and the proclamation of his holy name.

Elsewhere his glory is described similarly though in various ways. In the introduction to Proverb 25, for instance, Solomon declares, "It is the glory of God to conceal things, but the glory of kings is to search things out." God's hiddenness might seem to be the focus here, yet I think probably the point is a little deeper: that God's divinity rests in his perfect and sovereign knowledge to which even the greatest among men will never have access, no matter their efforts.

At first, then, I came to a quick conclusion: No, we can't see God's glory. It is beyond us. It is dangerous and mighty. And yet in some ways we can indirectly experience it in God's supreme goodness and in the fame of his name.

But then I realized that while all of this might well be true, this is only a description of what we might call God's invisible glory. Was there by contrast any more visible glory?

Of course! It is Jesus Christ. After all, "he is the radiance of the glory of God" (Heb. 1:3)! In him we can see what we could not before. We can take part in who God is through him. He took on flesh, leaving the heights of heaven, to make manifest and evident to a distanced creation that the Lord God is God, to gather up his flock from among the nations. We have access to the treasures of heaven precisely because he descended to earth and died and was raised from death to set us free. Jesus fulfills all that the prophets foretold; he is that light that shines in the darkness and cannot be overcome (John 1:5). Jesus is God's visible glory.

When we behold the Messiah, we behold glory. When we reflect Christ, we reflect glory. We glorify, we bring glory to God, by surrendering to his supremacy and allowing our lives to be remade in the image of Jesus.

How do you know someone has lived to glorify his Maker? His life makes known the work and splendor and inestimable value of Christ crucified.

Anyway, I learn a lot when I wander. So I will never stop walking. And may they always be walks with Jesus.

O God of my delight,
Thy throne of grace is the pleasure ground of my soul.
Here I obtain mercy in time of need,
here see the smile of thy reconciled face,
here joy pleads the name of Jesus,
here I sharpen the sword of the Spirit,
anoint the shield of faith,
put on the helmet of salvation,
gather manna from thy Word,
am strengthened for each conflict,
nerved for the upward race,
empowered to conquer every foe;
Help me to come to Christ
as the fountain head of descending blessings,
as a wide open flood-gate of mercy.
I marvel at my insensate folly,
that with such enriching favours within my reach
I am slow to extend the hand to take them.
Have mercy upon my deadness for thy name's sake.
Quicken me, stir me, fill me with holy zeal.
Strengthen me that I may cling to thee and not let thee go.
May thy Spirit within me draw all blessings from thy hand.
When I advance not, I backslide.
Let me walk humbly because of good omitted and evil done.
Impress on my mind the shortness of time,
the work to be engaged in,
the account to be rendered,
the nearness of eternity,
the fearful sin of despising they Spirit.
May I never forget that thy eye always sees,
thy ear always hears,
thy recording hand always writes.
May I never give thee rest until Christ is the pulse of my heart;
the spokesman of my lips, the lamp of my feet.

[From The Valley of Vision (Banner of Truth, 2007)]