Morning Reverie

Sing to the LORD with thanksgiving; making melody to our God on the lyre.

He covers the heavens with clouds, prepares rain for the earth,

makes grass grow on the hills.

He gives to their animals their food, and to the young ravens when they cry.

Psalm 147:7-9

What a delight it was this morning to sit outside for a few moments and feel refreshed by the cooler desert air.  After a long searing summer, I felt renewed as I sipped at my coffee, gazed at flowers, and took pleasure in the mixed chorus of birds.  Many of their voices I hadn’t heard since last spring.  “Welcome back Snow Birds,” I thought.

Then I watched the sun begin its morning climb and for a brief, passing moment, it painted everything gold.   In the morning’s radiance I thought of the English poet, Gerard Manley Hopkins, and how “the world is charged with the grandeur of God.”  I thought of Isaiah the prophet, and how “The whole world is filled with the glory of God.”  I wanted to join the singing.

From where my next thought came, I don’t know, but I thought how I had learned that in Biblical Hebrew there is no word for “nature.”   There amidst the beauties of nature, I realized that neither prophets or psalmists ever paid homage to “nature.”   That’s strange, I thought, because our culture talks quite a bit about “nature.”   But for the Hebrews there was no place in the vocabulary, nor place in their thinking for an impersonal force such as “nature” to care for the world apart from the Creator.  I knew it wasn’t “nature” putting on the grand show this morning.  It was the Creator!

In this the Hebrew Scriptures remind us of something fundamental and important, but often overlooked.   It isn’t nature that guides the birds back here each fall and away in the spring.  It isn’t nature that teaches each species how to sing its own song, or how to build its distinctive nest.  It isn’t nature that turns the seasons from summer to fall, or turns the night into day.  It is the heavenly Father!  It is our Creator intimately involved in and embracing His creation!   While we do not confuse the Creator with His creation as pantheists are prone, we most certainly discern His involvement in its every part.  For “in Him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28).

When I finished my reverie I was off to church where in our opening hymn we sang the grand hymn, “I Sing the Mighty Power of God”:

There’s not a plant or flower below, but makes Thy glories known,
And clouds arise, and tempests blow, by order from Thy throne;
While all that borrows life from Thee is ever in Thy care;
And everywhere that we can be, Thou, God art present there. (verse 3)

“All that borrows life from Thee is every in they care!”  Amen and amen!  Will you today begin to see God’s glory in the flower?  Will you see Him riding on the clouds?  Will you let His creation lift your thoughts to its Creator?  If you will, each day can be new and wondrous!

Grace and Peace!

Tim Smith

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A Prayer Without Words

Give ear to my words, O Lord;
   give heed to my sighing. Listen to the sound of my cry.  

Psalm 5:1-2

I was in a dark night of the soul, and had forgotten how to pray. I just couldn’t find the words to say to God. My thoughts and feelings were muddled.

Yet in my heart I wanted to connect with God.  So I did the only thing I knew to do - I went to music. I put on my CD player an instrumental piece that never failed to move me. And then as I listened to the soulful, evocative strain of a cello, I sighed. And as I sighed, I whispered to God: “This is my prayer. This music, it’s what I want to say to you.”

While at the time I wasn’t quite sure of the orthodoxy of what I was doing, when the music was over, I felt God had heard me.  I think that’s why I was moved this morning as I read of David’s inarticulate “sighing” in Psalm 5. I was encouraged to realize that even the sweet singer of Israel had times when he just couldn’t find the words. And so, David cries to the Lord: “Give heed to my sighing.”

Hear David again, in the next Psalm: “The Lord has heard the sound of my weeping” (Psalm 6:8). Sighing and weeping!

On my rounds in the hospital, I frequently hear patients whose prayers are not words.  Through their pains and struggles they have learned to trust with God the unspoken feelings of their heart and the ramblings of their minds. A sigh, a tear, and a tossing in the night, are all understood by the One who loves us.

I take it that even the great Apostle Paul had learned that his sighing and grumbling became prayer as he directed them to God. In Romans 8:26 Paul writes: 
            Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words.

We sigh and the Holy Spirit sighs in harmony with us. Take heart!  He understands, and He cares!

Grace and Peace,

Tim Smith

 
Weekly Bible Classes with Tim Smith

At the Franciscan Renewal Center

(The Garces Room of the Piper Center)

ENCOUNTERING GOD IN HOLY SCRIPTURE

Jesus said that “a person does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.”  In this class we will explore what it means to live by God’s word, what it means to receive God’s word fresh each day and to respond to his personal word to us.  This is more than a class in how to study the Bible, or in how to pray. This is about a developing lively conversation with the Living Word.

Begins Tuesday, September 8     NEW TIME:  11:00 – Noon!

EXPLORING ECCLESIASTES:  A BOOK FOR OUR TIME

The Book of Ecclesiastes is one of the Bible’s most enigmatic, yet most relevant and beautiful books. Ecclesiastes asks the hard questions about the meaning of life, grief and loss, pleasure and profit, money and accumulation, and applies godly wisdom to everyday realities. You’re invited to join us in this study of what is most important in life and how we can live more rich and fulfilling lives. 

Begins Tuesday, September 8     7:00 P.M. – 8:00 P.M

Sub-Eternal Physics

¹⁶So we do not lose heart. Even though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day. ¹⁷For this slight momentary affliction is preparing us for an eternal weight of glory beyond all measure, ¹⁸because we look not at what can be seen but at what cannot be seen; for what can be seen is temporary, but what cannot be seen is eternal. II Corinthians 4:16-18

I recently had the pleasure of an extended conversation with a professor of quantum physics. He is a man who has devoted his life to thinking and writing about things at the subatomic level, like protons, electrons, neutrons, quarks, and gluons. Although I couldn’t understand a thing he said, it was fun to think about a dimension of reality where things behave with total disregard for common sense. Like, things that can be two places at the same time, or things that can act together while far apart, with no apparent way to communicate. My brain was spinning!

The professor tried to console me for not understanding anything he was talking about. He laughed and said, “We quantum physicists don’t understand quantum physics either!” Then, as we said goodbye, I thought about how many times I think and talk about things I don’t understand, but I know are true. Things like Trinity, Christmas, resurrection, and life eternal.  And I glory in their wonder and mystery. I praise God my little mind can’t contain them!

In today’s text, the Apostle Paul leads us into still more mystery as he points to a holy paradox at the sub-eternal level.   He writes of the daily inner renewal we experience as Christ-followers. “Even though our outer nature is wasting away,” Paul says, “our inner nature is being renewed day by day.” While the strength of youth falters and fades, and our bodies ache, paradoxically our spirits are broadened and refreshed as we reach out for the eternal.   

Then, with what must have been a twinkle in his eye, Paul knowingly declares that “our slight momentary affliction,” is preparing us for glory, namely, “an eternal weight of glory beyond all measure.” Paul says that the trials and sufferings we’re going through are actually “preparing us” for the glory ahead. There is purpose in the hard times you’re going through.  Something incredible lies ahead.    

Our daily, inner renewing speaks to us of realities we know, but can’t understand. And the Holy Spirit reminds us of the things that really matter, and the things that really count, as “we look not at what can be seen but at what cannot be seen; for what can be seen is temporary, but what cannot be seen is eternal.” 

Grace and Peace,

Tim Smith

Bible classes this Wednesday, September 2: at Noon and at 7p.m. in the Garces Room at Franciscan Renewal Center. See you there!

Beginning on September 8: weekly Bible Classes classes will now be held every Tuesday! in the Garces Room at the Franciscan Renewal Center: 

ENCOUNTERING GOD IN HOLY SCRIPTURE

Jesus said that “a person does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.”  In this class we will explore what it means to live by God’s word, what it means to receive God’s word fresh each day and to respond to his personal word to us. This is more than a class in how to study the Bible, or in how to pray.  This is about a developing lively conversation with the Living Word.

Begins Tuesday, September 8, NEW TIME:  11:00 — Noon!

EXPLORING ECCLESIASTES:  A BOOK FOR OUR TIME

The Book of Ecclesiastes is one of the Bible’s most enigmatic, yet most relevant and beautiful books. Ecclesiastes asks the hard questions about the meaning of life, grief and loss, pleasure and profit, money and accumulation, and applies godly wisdom to everyday realities. You’re invited to join us in this study of what is most important in life and how we can live more rich and fulfilling lives.

Begins Tuesday, September 8, 7:00 P.M. — 8:00 P.M