Yet you know me, Lord;
    you see me and test my thoughts about you. – Jeremiah 12:3

Physics and Economics. Those were the two classes in high school that I have no clue how I passed. The day-to-day memories are fuzzy now, but what I recall about each of these classes is how embarrassingly in-the-dark I felt most of the time. I always felt steps behind, like I’d missed an essential memo or something, but had to forge ahead anyway. I somehow got by, but always with fingers crossed. 

If I could give my 17-year-old self one piece of academic advice, it would be this: ask the teacher to help you understand. Come in before or after school and ask questions! It seems so obvious now, but at the time, that option never even occurred to me. Something within me felt embarrassed that I didn’t understand. And I simply didn’t see the student-teacher relationship in those terms. But asking for help would have made all the difference for me. 

When it comes to talking with God, do you ever forget you can ask questions? Like…real questions? Do you ever feel like you shouldn’t have questions in the first place? 

The prophet Jeremiah faced massive confusion. The world around him was falling apart. He was uncertain of his purpose. He felt betrayed by the people closest to him. Tough times were ahead. In Chapter 12, Jeremiah  brings his confusion, his questions, even his complaints, directly to God. Take a look at the first three verses of this chapter. Jeremiah says…

I appreciate the earnesty with which Jeremiah addresses God. He’s saying, “Lord, I know you’re good, and that’s why I’m so bewildered at what’s going on.  What I know about you and what I see around me don’t add up. Why do things work this way? Make sense of it for me. You know my thoughts. Make me understand.”

Sometimes I forget that my interaction with God is a dialogue. But Jeremiah shows us what it means to really, truly talk with God. He lays it all out there. He asks why. He says, I understand some things about you, but other things go right over my head. 

A life of obeying God is not free of confusion. But Jeremiah reminds us that we can bring our confusion—even our confusion about God—directly to God. When we feel confused, we ask the Teacher to help us understand.

“The creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.” —Romans 8:21

We humans are part of creation. We are part of God’s creation. We are God’s image bearers in creation.

We are just a part of God’s massive creation. Anyone who has contemplated the scale of the universe is familiar with the humbling awareness of how small our little speck of a planet is. Within our little planet, we are just one species. And each one of us is just one organism of this one species on this one planet in this one solar system in this one galaxy.

And yet, in some mysterious and ennobling sense, we humans are distinctly important in this creation. In his letter to Christians in Rome, the apostle Paul wrote that our own liberation from sin has creation-wide implications. All of creation suffers when we fail to be the image bearers of God we were made to be. And all of creation rejoices at our liberation.

A lot of this is cloaked in mystery. How exactly is human sin implicated in seemingly random suffering like a child’s cancer diagnosis or a fatal freak accident or a (pre-human) mass extinction event? I don’t really know how to talk about those connections (to the extent that they exist) in any intelligible and loving and truthful way.

But there are also elements that we can see pretty clearly. The current mass extinction event has a lot to do with our arrogant destruction of creation. The spread of a novel coronavirus and the suffering that’s gone along with it have in some cases been made worse by pre-existing sinful neglect of poor and under-resourced communities and by leadership around the world more focused on self-preservation than on servanthood. The frequency and severity of extreme weather events have been increased by our sinful and short-sighted delay in adopting renewable energy sources.

Thankfully, the remedy stands before us, not as an abstract idea or principle, but as a person. On the cross, Jesus liberated us from bondage to sin and death. He liberated all of us. Creation longs for us to realize that we’re free and to start living like the redeemed. Creation longs for us to give up our addictions to pride and myopia and become addicted to compassion and wisdom. Creation longs for us to remember that we bear the very image of our Creator, that we are claimed as children of the one true King of creation, that we have been set free for freedom. Creation is looking to us to be who we are.

The eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and his ears are open to their cry. —Psalm 34:15

Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. —Matthew 7:7

Last night, a prayer vigil for racial justice was held in Park Ridge. Some people gathered at a social distance near Uptown to pray, and many others chose to pray from home at the same time. In the midst of confusion, anger, fear, and heartbreak, Christ-followers pray. Even as we’re also called to act, turning first to our powerful and loving God is a non-negotiable part of the Christian life. We carry the confusion, anger, fear, and heartbreak directly to God. We ask God for guidance and healing. We ask God for direction and wisdom. We ask God for courage and compassion. We remember that God is the surest source of what we, and the world, need.

In today’s passages, I am in awe of God’s responsiveness to us. God doesn’t ignore us. God isn’t too far or too busy. When we speak, God is present, God listens, and God responds. The psalmist reminds us that God’s “ears are open” to the cries of God’s people. In fact, in the rest of Psalm 34, he repeats similar words about God’s responsiveness to people. The psalmist says, “I sought the LORD, and he answered me” (v. 4), “This poor man called, and the LORD heard him” (v. 6), “those who seek the LORD lack no good thing” (v. 10), and “the righteous cry out and the LORD hears them” (v. 17). Likewise, Jesus assures his followers in the book of Matthew that when we fervently pursue God, things happen: ask and receive, search and find, knock and enter.

I have said before that when problems feel big, I feel too small to pray. And the truth is, I am very small relative to the world’s pain and injustices. That’s precisely why prayer is essential. These passages are a call not just to pray, but to persist in prayer—to keep talking to God, to keep seeking God, to keep asking God to intervene.

My tongue will proclaim your righteousness, your praises all day long. —Psalm 35:28

When I look at this verse from Psalm 35, the word, “reflex” comes to mind. A tongue that tells of God’s righteousness all day long sounds to me a lot like lungs that inhale when they’re empty, eyelids that blink when they’re dry, and a stomach that starts digesting when it’s fed. It’s like flinching when we anticipate a threat. Without a whole lot of decision-making, these functions happen over and over, on and on. According to the psalmist, singing God’s praise is just what his tongue does in response to knowing God. A reflex.

And sometimes praising God feels like that, right? Sometimes we’re filled to overflowing with gratitude and awe, and we can’t help but express it in our attitudes, words, and actions. That’s the kind of praise reflex I think the psalmist is talking about.

Sometimes, however, my own praise reflex feels dulled. Sometimes I get bogged down by the mundane, I need to coax myself into expressing gratitude, I am too busy to experience awe. How about you?

Our bodily reflexes are good for us, and when they’re dulled, we suffer. So it is with our praise reflex. The truth is, I am created to praise God and my inclination to do so is important for my spiritual wellness.

This reflex is something I feel the need to sharpen in myself, especially right now when so many things feel dulled and fuzzy. In a conversation with my coach today, I figured out that I benefit from regular reminders of God’s presence. For me, revisiting Psalm 19:14 throughout my day is really important. When I do, my awareness of God’s presence becomes clearer. And with that clarity, praising God becomes more like blinking my eyes. More like a reflex. 

If you feel this need to sharpen your reflex for praise, consider these questions…

• When has praising God felt more like a reflex than a conscious decision? What was that like? 
• What would it look like for you to sharpen your praise reflex so that you might more readily and regularly praise God? 
• What reminders about God do you need to keep at the forefront? 
• What sins are blocking your natural inclination to praise the Lord? What would it look like to ask for God to help you repent of those?
• What attitudes, if shifted, would position you to stand in awe of your Creator? 
• Who can help you?

“In the morning, Lord, you hear my voice; in the morning I lay my requests before you and wait expectantly.” —Psalm 5:3

For much of my life, I’ve had on-and-off problems falling asleep at night. I’m susceptible to a racing mind, and late at night is apparently as good a time as any to solve the world’s problems, re-litigate past disagreements, or thoroughly explore my many regrets. Add to this that I often stay up too late looking at screens and I have a recipe for a bad night’s sleep.

One of the knock-on effects of having trouble falling asleep is that early morning is often not my best time. When I haven’t gotten enough good sleep, I often sleep later than I intended or drag myself out of bed in a haze.

And this is a problem for several reasons, not least of which is that the morning is an important time for my relationship with God. In Psalm 5, David writes about speaking with God in the morning. Of course, conversation with God can happen at all times, but it seems like there’s something special about the morning.

I think it’s like a lot of other things: What happens first tends to establish the tone for what happens later. When we greet someone warmly, we set the tone for a positive interaction. When our tithes are the first thing we do with our income, we set a tone of gratitude and generosity. When we wake up in the morning and raise our voices to God, we establish an awareness that our lives are being lived with and for God.

In the Jewish calendar, a day really starts with sundown. Keeping that in mind, it seems even more important to start the day well with what I do in the evening as I prepare to sleep. Good rest and morning conversation are the start to a day lived joyfully with God. I’m going to try to take this seriously as a real part of following Jesus.