Thursday, June 16, 2011

Living through to the YET!

I love Roman 8:35-39. It begins with: "Who shall separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord? and ends with the resounding "NOTHING shall be able to separate us"...... There is that troublesome Old Testament passage that is stuck in the middle though.....the one from Psalm 44 that says, "For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered...." Having taught this passage a number of times, I have to admit that I have generally skipped over this reference, not really knowing what to do with it. Going to Psalm 44 has never been very helpful either....it is a Psalm that begins about all the wonderful works God has done for His people and their boasting in Him and giving thanks to Him....only to have the very next verse say, "But You have rejected us and disgraced us...." I want to always say, 'How does that fit, Paul? Why does this verse make sense here? Are you saying to us that nothing can separate us but God Himself?' Is it the same enigma we face when we read of Job who had done no wrong yet faced the loss of all that was around him? Or the man born blind of whom Jesus Himself says his blindness was simply to bring glory to God? Not many of us are standing in line to be the next Job or the next man born blind. In fact, most of us would quickly go the route of Job's friends and the disciples in looking for the sin that had resulted in this horrendous result in our lives. What kind of an economy is it where both nothing can separate us from the love of God AND we are being led as sheep to the slaughter all day long by this very same God?

Then it hit me. This is the issue, of course. It is the issue that keeps many from growing up in Christ and causes many others to have their love grow cold. It is the experience that all of us have in our earthly walk as we see the evil doers flourish and the righteous go hungry. The God we have created in our own image doesn't allow these things. He smashes evil doing and never lets the righteous suffer. He is the God who does things that match my understanding of what is just and fair. But the Scriptures shout to us of another God, the real God, the One who no one gives advice to and to whom no one gives sustenance. To truly know Him is to rejoice in the opportunity to be the life chosen to suffer that He might receive glory. It is to be a part of an economy where nothing in the middle of the experience holds a candle to the end. Where the opportunity to bring glory to this great God causes all other earthly experiences whether they be death, or life, or powers, or principalities, or things present or things to come to be rendered impotent because they are without the ability to separate us from God Himself. The greatness of the Romans promise is that nothing, though God Himself might lead us as sheep to the slaughter, will separate us from Him. Ultimately, of course, He was always the only one who could have caused that separation. That Christ has removed that possibility for all who are 'in Him' is a truth that takes my breath away.

Grasping this makes other passages suddenly rich and full instead of cumbersome and frustrating. It makes me look for the 'yets' of Scripture, the 'yets' that appear in passages like Psalm 66:8-12 which starts with "Bless our God, O peoples; let the sound of His praise be heard, who has kept our soul among the living and has not let our feet slip." This promising start then goes to, "For you, O God, have tested us; you have tried us as silver is tried. You brought us into the net; you laid a crushing burden on our backs; you let men ride over our heads; we went through fire and through water." This, turn of course, seems much less desirable. But then, wonder of wonders, you get to the YET! ......."yet you have brought us out to a place of abundance." The critical point, of course, is to live through to the yet! It is fully grasping the reality that NOTHING can separate us and then living through all the things that seem bent on doing so with our faces firmly turned in expectation of seeing the 'YET!' It is walking through the things that God Himself sets in our paths with the firm conviction that the 'YET' will make all the trials in the middle to be 'momentary light affliction' in the light of what is to come.