Not Your Average Rainbow: God's Mercy in Noah's Ark

Our children’s church teachers are using the Jesus Story Book Bible to teach the kids in our church this year. As I was preparing for the lesson on Noah’s ark I was struck by how the author (Sally Lloyd-Jones) told the story. The story is about God. God brings the animals, God gives Noah the plans for the ark, and God makes the floods come. God also brings the promise of hope. She describes it this way:

“It wasn’t long before everything went wrong again but God wasn’t surprised, he knew this would happen. That’s why, before the beginning of time, he had another plan—a better plan. A plan not to destroy the world, but to rescue it—a plan to one day send his own Son, the Rescuer.

God’s strong anger against hate and sadness and death would come down once more—but not on his people, or his world. No, God’s war bow was not pointing down at his people. It was pointing up, into the heart of Heaven.”

So often we hear the story of Noah’s ark only in children’s Bible stories, and often it is closely followed by a craft where we play with the animals and build the ark. The story of Noah becomes a story about animals getting on a big boat, a flood, and a rainbow. All of these things are essential pieces to this story, but I think they are incomplete. They don’t tell the entire story—the most important part of the story. Jesus.

When we reduce the story of Noah to building an ark and pairs of animals we miss the wonder of the story. It’s hard for us to imagine animals walking on to a boat and not killing each other because we don’t fully grasp what God was doing. He was preserving a people for himself. He was making a new creation. And he was extending amazing mercy that points us to the greatest mercy of all—the Cross. It is in the refuge of Christ that we find protection from the wrath of God. Genesis 6-9 is about sin and a Savior just as much as Romans is.

Little kids need to know that our only hope from the flood of eternal destruction is in Christ. Like Noah, we must seek refuge in the “ark” that God provides for us. When we look at Noah’s story in this way, trying to figure out how many animals got on the boat seems far more insignificant than it used to.

Noah’s ark was most definitely about the animals, and the flood, and the rainbow but most importantly it was about the God that made them. And when we see a rainbow in the sky, we can be thankful that the promise to never flood the earth again was fulfilled in the Promised One—our great Savior, Jesus Christ.

True Woman 2010

Registration opened this past weekend for the True Woman 2010 conferences. I say "conferences" because there will be more than one this time. True Woman is going to be in three different cities this time, and the wonderful people who put this conference on promise that it will be the same God-centered, womanhood affiirming conference that blessed so many women last October. I hope to be at one of them, and I hope you will consider attending too! What a great opportunity to hear from wonderful speakers and fellowship with women who desire to serve our Christ in the way that he designed us to be.

Visit their website and register today!

Thanking God for 29 Years of Marriage

Today is my parents 29th wedding anniversary. Even though last year I honored them on this happy day, I think it deserves another mention this year. In today's culture it is no small thing that two people make it to 29 years (and beyond). I think they would tell you that the fact that they made it this long is by the wonderful grace of God. Christ sustained marriages are a sweet testimony to the power and richness of the Gospel. So thank you Lord, for sustaining my parents these 29 years. And thank you for giving them to us as a model of faithful, covenant keeping love. May they be blessed with many more years. Happy Anniversary!

Learning to Say "Thank You"

“We should see constructive criticism as a gift to us, and respond to the one criticizing with thank you.”

Whoa. Really?

Immediately I feel a sharp pain. Can this be true? What if the criticism isn’t accurate? What if I can think of 50 other reasons why I did what I did? I think if I stopped and really let this idea sink in I would realize that the reason why I chafe against it initially is because I don’t like criticism. Usually my response is a big, fat, “no thank you” to the one bringing the correction.

Is this in the Bible? Not exactly. My husband was taught this (and many other things) at a management training class this week. But I think we can see biblical truth even in this secular model.

Proverbs says, “Faithful are the wounds of a friend.” This friend can be in the form of a spouse, sibling, parent, pastor, or best friend. These wounds are faithful because friendship implies a deep knowing. This person knows us better than anyone, and also loves us dearly. He or she does not want us to continue on in our sin, or even ignorance. Faithful wounds point us towards the Savior and chisel away at the garbage that keeps us from intimacy with the Father.

But what do we do when the person is not a friend, and they aren’t criticizing in love. I do not pretend to have arrived in this area. In fact, I respond poorly even when it is a friend bringing the correction. But as I have heard others (much wiser than me) say before, people who are criticizing us aren’t criticizing us enough. We are far more foolish and sinful than we can even imagine. Our criticizers aren’t even getting to the half of it.

I think we can still respond graciously and kindly to any person bringing correction. Perhaps the flawed correction will be used by God to bring other sin to light that we can’t even see yet. And even if they are wrong on many levels, God will be the final judge. We can trust in his justice. The Psalms are a great source of hope in those times. All throughout the psalmist often cries out to the Lord for vindication from his enemies. These enemies were real, and they were painful at times. But even in his innocence from fault, he trusts that God will deal with those who are against him.

We can be thankful for the criticism, not because it is always right, but because God uses all things for our good. These “wounds”, whether from a friend or enemy, make us examine our hearts and run to the Savior. I think what God cares about for us in these times is how we respond to the people criticizing us. He will deal with the rest. So I am praying for myself today. That I will learn how to say “thank you” instead of “no thank you.”

Alfred Poirier has an excellent article on criticism. It has really helped me (and I know has helped many others). You can read a copy of it here.

The Mercy of the "Helmet"

One of the sweet mercies of the Lord is to provide hope for us when we feel like there is no hope. Often in times of disappointment or discouragement it feels like God has abandoned us. When things are hard it feels like he isn't there. How could he be, right? How could a loving God be right there with us in the middle of such pain, such heartache. Love, in our finite minds, means not being able to stand the suffering of a cherished one. But the great hope, and great paradox, for a believer is that the only place to look is heavenward. Our loving Father is in control of the hard times. It's almost as if he is saying "hold on, dear child. There is light at the end of this dark tunnel that you can't see right now. But I can. I have made the light, for you." But it just feels so dark. So dark that we can't even see our feet enough to guide us towards the light.

Thankfully feelings are not reality. While God may deal the blows, he protects us from the damage. John Piper wrote an encouraging and challenging post today about our hope when these blows come. As he reflects on his brief battle with cancer, he reminds us that God's word is our "helmet" when trouble comes. It was a blessing to my soul to be reminded of these truths. He concludes by saying:

In retrospect, God covered my head with the promise that this blow was not his wrath. He positioned the helmet of hope perfectly without my even thinking of helmets. I simply thought: This is not wrath; and if I live, I live with Christ, and if I die, I also live with Christ. With that he covered my head.

So go to the arsenal of God’s word and get your armor. The blows are going to come. Without a helmet they will crush your skull. God has a helmet of hope fitted for your head. Put it on.

God's word is our light when we can't see. It is a challenge to me to learn it and study it so my helmet can be secure when these blows come. You can read the rest of the post here

Be Careful Little Eyes What You See

“Be careful little eyes what you see. Be careful little eyes what you see. For the Father up above is looking down in love, so be careful little eyes what you see.”

Many of us remember singing this song in Sunday school growing up. It has a catchy beat, catchy words and enough truth in it to make a little kid understand that God cares about what he or she sees. But has this understanding carried us into adulthood? We hear a lot about men guarding their eyes from impurity, but should women exercise the same vigilance with what images they see?

In talking about movies they watched, I have heard women say “we probably couldn’t watch it if guys were around. But it’s fine if it’s just girls.” Usually this is in reference to less than appropriately dressed women. But does the Bible make distinctions regarding the images that we, as women, allow into our minds?

Ephesians 5:3 says: “But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed, because these are improper for God's holy people.”

Guarding the eyes is not only a male problem relegated to accountability groups. It applies to women as well. What we fill our minds with matters, even if it is “just women.” God wants our minds to be free from immorality because what the culture is telling us about modesty and sexuality is never what he designed it to be. When we fill our minds with images that are contrary to God’s design we are opening the door to the sin that is already in our hearts. There are three temptations that I see rise up in my heart, and in the hearts of women I have been around, when inundated with worldly images.

1. The temptation toward comparison. When we consciously or subconsciously allow images of immodesty into our minds we slowly begin to see that as the model. But it isn’t. And this can lead us to compare ourselves to the images we are seeing. Slowly we become discontent with how God made us and begin to wish that we looked differently.
2. The temptation toward a false understanding of beauty. With this desire to compare comes a wrong understanding of beauty. When we compare we are saying that what we desire is the standard. God sets the standard for beauty, and the world’s understanding of beauty is very far from his. Immodesty and fakeness are not true beauty. Rather, godliness, modesty, and a quiet spirit is what God deems beautiful (1 Peter 3:3-4).
3. The temptation toward lust. Like guarding our eyes, we often see lust as a male problem. That is far from the truth. While often in different ways, women struggle with lust just as much as men do. We see women getting attention from ungodly men when they look a certain way and we lust for that attention. We see an inappropriate scene in a commercial or movie and we lust for sexual fulfillment outside of a marriage covenant.

Images and scenes draw us in and promise the world. We lust for those promises, but will slowly find out that they are lies. Media is a good thing. But we must be discerning with what we watch. We cannot blindly watch the popular television shows and movies and expect nothing to happen to our consciences. While it may seem like we are fine, slowly our souls are being hardened until all that is left are calluses that numb us to the pain of sin. Images matter for women. Paul did not have gender distinctions when he said that we are to have “not even a hint” of sexual immorality among us. Temptations are strong. Sin is powerful. But Jesus is greater. That old children’s song is good, but not good enough. Yes, we are careful what we see because God is looking down on us. But we are also careful what see because Jesus bought us. Our eyes have been awakened to the truth that Jesus is better than those things that seem so harmless.

So be careful little eyes what you see. Be careful little eyes what you see. For the Savior up above has bought your soul in love, so be careful little eyes what you see.

Return to Gender Blog

I am sorry I haven't posted at all this week. It has been quite crazy around here! But I did get a chance to write at CBMW again. I wrote a post about leaving a legacy of godly womanhood. You can read it here. And while you are there browse around the website. They always have great stuff for free!

I will be back next week (or maybe sometime this weekend) with some new posts. They are in my head, just not in Word yet.

I hope you enjoy the post.