Psalm 88 & Suffering

Out of the whole year, summer is when I get to spend the most time with my husband. That means instead of writing posts in the evenings I’ve been spending time with my hunny-bun. That doesn’t mean I haven’t had things that I’ve been wanting to write about though! Today I want to tell you guys just a bit about a book I just finished reading. OMG (and I don’t use that often) it was amazing! Suffering and the Sovereignty of God is the name of it (Piper & Taylor). Basically it answers these questions: Is God really in control when bad things happen? Is God still good and perfect when those things happen? To put it simply: Yes & Yes.


But not only is God in control and good and perfect he is there in the pain and suffering. Up until recently the biggest pain that I’ve had in my life had been the death of my grandpa in high school and a bad break-up a few years ago. You may be able to relate. It was God’s word-specifically the Psalms-that kept my head above water. I couldn’t get enough of them. They described exactly what I was feeling.

David Powlison discusses suffering, psalms, and God in a chapter entitled “Waiting for the Morning.” He uses Psalm 88 to talk about the depth of pain. In the psalm, one can see the writer is so full of troubles he feels near his death. His eyes even grow dim through sorrow. In his sorrows and pain he feels helpless. This chapter is pretty depressing b/c it doesn’t end with a “Yet you are the God of my salvation.” Nope, no joyful triumph here. It ends with the author describing how God has caused his friends not to just leave him but shun him-they are as darkness to him. Powlison goes on to say what is remarkable about this Psalm is that it seems right-on with pain. Are these not the things that grief and pain do to us? They are. But why is something so depressing in the bible? Well, in short it’s so that when we doubt that God is listening, we will see “that what we are feeling is normal.”

Let me leave with you with this excerpt from the chapter:

"God cares about us in the midst of pain. His goal isn’t just to get us out of the pain to joy; he also wants us to see that he is for us and with us in the pain. It is true that weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes in the morning (Ps. 30:5). The morning will dawn and God will remove every tear (Rev. 21:4), but God is not just concerned about the morning, the new day when you can shout for joy. He is with us even in the night when there is nothing but weeping, when the tears are so think that we can’t see. When we are in the deepest pit and darkness weighs on our souls and God feels so absent that we wonder if he is even real, this psalm reminds us that he is with us even then."

God is Sovereign

Sovereignty. It wasn’t until recently that I really started hearing this word a lot. It wasn’t until even more recently till I’ve only begun to understand it. God has been showing me little by little.

First, it was through really grasping election, then it was through explaining it to children (that God is the Boss), and then just today I opened Suffering and the Sovereignty of God (by J. Piper & J. Taylor) and I’ve got a feeling I’m going to be thinking about this for awhile.

Why is sovereignty such a big deal anyways? Well, I think it has to do with God’s glory (see John 9:3 below). When we ask questions like: Did God let/cause the Holocaust (to) happen? Or why did this little child get raped? Where was God? (These are questions about God’s sovereignty.) Can we really say, “Well God didn’t know that would happen” or “He has to let it happen because if He didn’t He’d be impeding on our freewill”? Often times those are the easy answers, but are they right? Does that thinking really match up with scripture? Consider God’s Word:

Proverbs 16: 4

The Lord has made everything for it’s own purpose, even the wicked for the day of evil.

Exodus 4:11

Then the Lord said to Him, “Who has made man’s mouth? Who makes him mute, or deaf, or seeing, or blind? Is it not I, the Lord?”

Job 2: 10

Even when Job’s wife told him to “Curse God and die!” he told her, “Shall we receive good from God and shall we not receive evil?”

Isaiah 45: 7

I form light and create darkness, I make well-being and [I] create calamity, I am the Lord who does all these things.

Amos 3:6

Is a trumpet blown in a city, and are the people not afraid? Does a disaster come to a city, unless the Lord has done it?”

Eccl. 7:14

In the day of prosperity be joyful, and in the day adversity consider; the Lord has made one as well as the other.

[And one of the most beautiful to me is…]

John 9:3

When someone asked Jesus why a man was disabled “Jesus answered, ‘It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him”

Check out this video that a friend showed me:

So I’m learning God lets, causes and allows evil things to happen. But they are for the purpose of Him getting glory and also for His people’s good (James 1:2-4, Heb 12: 3-11). Of course there are difficult questions that come along with this. May they cause us to know Christ more and give Him glory.

Thoughts of a preschool Teacher...

So if you don’t know already…I’m officially a pre-school teacher! Horray! God is good and gave me a surprise teaching position for the summer.

This week was a lot about setting boundaries and getting to know them. Also, we learned about how God is the sovereign creator of all things.

Some things I will remember for next time I teach this is that:

• The 10 Gospel Truths were made for 5+ in mind (my kiddos are just barely four).
• I didn’t need to use all the object-ideas.
• Most of them don’t need to necessarily be used at circle time/devotion time but could be used throughout the entire day during free-time or outside-time.

For the devotion we memorized Psalm 24: 1. I did rearrange the verse (awkward-but I wanted them to understand what they were saying). I rearranged it like this: The earth, everything in it, and all the people who live in it, are the Lord’s. If you compare it to the ESV, it’s not so bad right?

There were only a couple of kids that were actually there everyday- so of course they got the verse! However, even the kids that only came twice during the week also memorized it! The capacity for these kids to memorize is amazing so it’s such an important time to fill them with the word of God.

One thing that has been fun this week was hugging and them and swaying them while singing: “Danny, Danny, God made Danny, with brown hair and brown eyes, and a beautiful smile!” I know that 5-year-olds are not so impressed with fun little movement songs. So it’s interesting to see how much a one-year difference makes. These kids love to sing and dance and don’t have as many reservations about it.

So I’m a teacher, the lessons were not perfect, hiding scripture in hearts is vital and I had fun making up songs about God as Creator. God is good. 

God is Faithful

Making friends was never hard for me. Or so I thought. When I went to Mexico it was a little-NO VERY HARD to make friends. I mean, have you ever placed yourself in a different country with 25 different people from different countries or states? It’s not initially easy to make friends. In fact, it’s a lot easier to just go home. And two weeks in that situation, and that’s exactly what I wanted. I was so shy and nervous around people-I didn’t even know myself. I found myself at a loss for words in conversations and I was so lonely. However, after much desperate prayer God showed me that He wanted me to love Him more than a need for friends. So by grace, I fell in love with Him in Mexico. And God was faithful-after first giving my heart & trust to Him, He blessed me not only with friends-but sisters in Christ.

After six beautiful months of growing in the Lord through mission work and godly friendships I was headed back home. Only to realize that all my best friends were scattered in far off cities and different states. BUT God was faithful-after humbling me God put me in a small group where I was soon to meet one my closest friends ever and future roommate.

Eventually, we moved in with some friends to finish college in Fullerton. I wasn’t extremely close with the friend I shared a room with-but I knew God had plans for us. It was our prayer that God would connect us to a community of friends there. There were many unexpected trials-so many, many trials. But God was faithful. Again he created for me (us) a community of women who wanted more of Him and the roommate that I only a friend became my best friend. God is so faithful to me.

Starting to see a pattern here? ;)

After two years of growing intimate friendships with godly women I was going to get married to my very best friend-James. I was excited but nervous. Excited to get married and live and love God with my husband but SOOO nervous that I would not find a community like the community that spurred me on to live more like Christ in Fullerton. I knew God was faithful so I asked the women “please pray that I will get plugged into my new church, please pray for community there.” 

They prayed. We prayed. And there were trials, hard trials, God-glorifying trials.  So here I am because today and once again I am reminded of God’s faithfulness. James and I are in a bible-saturated, Christ-centered church and not only that but we are in a bible study (MC) with people who are desperate to know Christ more. That, my friends, is an answer to prayer that I’ve been praying for about almost a year now! God is faithful. He has created for us a community that we could never have created on our own.

God is faithful. God is faithful. God is faithful.

Are you lonely? Maybe in a far-off place & away from other believers? Are you desperate for God? Are you desperate to live in a Christ-centered community? Pray. Start right now. God wants to glorify Himself through showing you His faith-fullness no matter where you are! He wants to place you in that community where you will desire to live more like Christ.  God is faithful…He will hear your desperate prayer and show you again and again his faithfulness. Just you wait! It is a beautiful, beautiful thing!

          

God, The Boss of Ouwies

More and more I feel like God is taking me and undoing me in the area of Early Childhood. It’s like “The UN-education of Heather Burdette.” J It’s been so amazing!  Just last week I was listening to a message titled “Great Truths for Small People: Teaching the Sovereignty of God to Children”. In it the speaker Sally Michael discussed that children need to understand God is the boss of everything. She gave many examples on how to help young children understand that. It was like I was at CSUF all over again- sucking up everything I could get.

So yesterday I don’t know how it happened. All I know is that at lunch-time God gave me grace and I was able to talk about God being the boss of everything. First, I started out by saying how Ms. Amy is the boss of me and how Ms. Amy also has a boss. They named her. We moved on talking about who their boss is at home, etc., etc. It was wonderful.

I took it a little further to explain, “Just as Mommy & Daddy are the boss at home, God is the boss of EVERYTHING! What else do think God is the boss of?” In an attempt to be silly one of the girls said, “God is the boss of trees!” My response was “Yes, He sure is! He makes the trees grow whenever and wherever he likes! Remember in the story of Jonah God made a tree grow to give Jonah shade. God can do what he pleases with trees. What else is God the boss of?” It was perfect. Everything I learned from that message came back to me! Someone said “BUGS!” “Yes, that’s right! Remember in the story of Moses and Pharaoh, God sent grasshoppers and flies to the land of Egypt?! God is the boss of insects too!” It was so fun! They were naming all kinds of things and fully paying attention!

Today I also got to emphasize this while I was asking the preschoolers what they would like to pray for. As I was talking to one of the boys, he said “I want to pray for mommy because she has an ouwie on her toe and it won’t stop bleedin.”  It was a perfect time to talk about how God is the boss of sickness-including ouwies (not just of the natural creation). I told him, “Danny, I’d like to pray for that right now. Did you know that God is the boss of ouwies? He can say to that ouwie on your mom’s toe ‘Go away ouwie!’ and it will go away! God is the boss of ouwies. He has the power to make all things better!” Danny got so excited! I asked, “Danny, do you believe that?” With big eyes and a huge smile he said, “Yea, God is the boss!”

I’m almost crying right now just thinking about this.  His belief was joyful. What grace God gave me to communicate that God is the all-powerful sovereign Creator! Then without me asking he got on his knees, head to the floor and hands folded. We prayed and believed that God-the Boss of ouwies would heal his Mommy’s toe. God is so gracious to me.

Essential Gospel Truth #1

#1) God is Sovereign Creator of all things.

Suggested Verses: Isaiah 44:24, Psalm 19:1, 24:1, 22:8

Explanation to children: "There is a living, eternal God who created all things. Eternal means that God had no beginning and will have no ending. God was never born. He never had a birthday. He has always been alive and will always be alive. God will never die. And this one, eternal God made everything – all by Himself. God made the sky and the stars and the ground and the trees and the plants and the animals and all the people. God can do this because He is an almighty God. This means God is all-powerful and nothing is too hard for Him to do

Because God made everything, everything belongs to God. That means that God owns all of the rocks, trees, stars, oceans, plants, and people – everything! God is also the sovereign ruler over all that He has created. That means that God is “the boss”. He is the King of His creation and He controls it and rules over it."

Illustration: (Use child’s contact with the created world-see, smell, touch, taste & hear)
• Seeing a Rainbow: Instead of- “oh, that’s pretty” Say- “God created rainbows to show us how beautiful he is.”
• Thunder: “God created that thunder to show us a little bit of how powerful he is.”
• Favorite pizza: “God created that pizza because he wants to show us how good he is.”
• Hugs: “God gave you a mommy & daddy and that hug is to show you how loving God is”
• Playing with the puppy: “God created your dog to play to show you that God is a happy God”

(Use opportunities like that to show how great God is through what he’s created)

Further Illustrate that God has a rightful rule over his creation:
Box of crayons Activity (Younger child): Give them crayons & say, “Why don’t you draw a picture of something. You choose whatever you want to draw.” As they start drawing put your ear to the crayon box & say “Wait a minute Sarah. Stop drawing. You know what? The crayons are saying to me that they don’t want to be a puppy.” The child will look at you strange. You say “ I think your crayon should decide what your picture is going to look like-not you…..Is that right? Who should decide how the picture will look? The crayons or the child who is drawing the picture?” *This can help our children understand everything belongs to God so it’s right for God to decide how his creation is going to look. He owns everyone, he owns everything, he is the boss-not us.

Baking cookies (Older kids) - As they are adding ingredients you can do the same thing. “You know I think these chocolate chips would rather that they not have the flower and sugar in there. I think it would be better if we let the chocolate chips decide how they will be baked” The child will look at you and think “What in the world are you talking about? Who is going to decide what goes in the chocolate chip cookies? The baker or the ingredients?”
*Use this kind of obvious illustration to say “that’s something like understanding that God is the sovereign ruler of his creation. He decides what is true and right. He decides what his world will look like.”

Finally we don’t stop there. We give the Implication: God created YOU. YOU belong to God and it is right that God rules over you.

Just want to tell you guys again. This was taken from Jill Nelson's "Presenting the Gospel to Children" from www.childrendesiringgod.com. If you'd like to hear all 10 of the Essential Gospel truths right now, go there. But I'd love to hear what you think about this one. Tomorrow I'll post Essential Truth #2 which is God Created People for His glory. I look forward to sharing and also seeing what you guys think!