Episode Transcript
PRAYER OF CONSECRATION
Wake up, sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.
Jesus, I belong to you.
I lift up my heart to you.
I set my mind on you.
I fix my eyes on you.
I offer my body to you as a living sacrifice.
Jesus, we belong to you.
Praying in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, amen.
Exodus 14:23–25
The Egyptians pursued them, and all Pharaoh’s horses and chariots and horsemen followed them into the sea. During the last watch of the night the Lord looked down from the pillar of fire and cloud at the Egyptian army and threw it into confusion. He jammed the wheels of their chariots so that they had difficulty driving. And the Egyptians said, “Let’s get away from the Israelites! The Lord is fighting for them against Egypt.”
CONSIDER THIS
As you might imagine, I get a fair amount of reader mail. Most of it is encouragement, for which I am grateful. Sometimes, a reader takes issue with something I have written, which I appreciate and try to respond to. I often get questions like this: Why did the Egyptian army enter the water trap when its occurrence obviously defied all laws of physics?
Here is my initial response: Bloodlust, greed, and the maintenance of their own kingdom and way of life. The slaves were their Dow Jones Industrial Average.
It’s a good question. In the best of times, people make irrational decisions. In the midst of unrelenting chaos, people make horribly irrational decisions. The Israelites walked into the sea, pursuing the kingdom of God. Pharaoh and his armies charged into the sea, chasing the kingdom of Egypt. They pursued the protection of their way of life.
Life really comes down to such a simple choice. Sometimes, it takes a plague, or ten, to bring it to such clarity. The rest of the time, it can be so many shiny things whirring around our heads and filling up our phones.
For so many, it’s coffee in the morning and wine at night, and a long day’s labor between to get to the next income bracket with better schools, nicer vacations, and richer retirement accounts. We live from deer season to turkey season, from the Super Bowl to the World Series, from Augusta National to the Final Four.
And, to be clear, none of these things are bad at all. They are good, yet they can keep us in such a state of constant distraction and preoccupation we miss the real point and purpose of our one life. Coffee and wine; lunch and supper; Saturday and Sunday—and where on earth is God in all of that?
Thoreau put it this way: “Most people lead lives of quiet desperation, and they go to the grave with the song still in them.” Blaise Pascal said it thus: “We run heedlessly into the abyss after putting something in front of us to stop us from seeing it.” Most don’t realize it until they are miles into the Red Sea, chasing after a mirage surrounded by water walls threatening to become waterfalls.
Jesus said it so decisively and clearly: “But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well” (Matt. 6:33). For so many churchgoing (or at least church-saluting) Christians, it can be more like, “Seek all these things, ask for God’s help to get them, and consider yourself blessed by God when they come. And the kingdom of God and his righteousness will be added unto you.”
It is the peak of deception. God and the things of God occupy such a small compartment in far too many lives. Church fills such a stale, stifling, and predictable category. When will we finally wake up? The thing we must come to crave in these days of chaos is the gift of clarity. This is a moment for deep-soul clarity.
During the last watch of the night the Lord looked down from the pillar of fire and cloud at the Egyptian army and threw it into confusion.
As it comes to world history and particularly the story of God, we are in the last watch of the night. This text comes to mind: “In the past God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom also he made the universe” (Heb. 1:1–2).
Everything noted in the Apostles’ Creed has happened save this one thing: “From thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead.”
I am not one given to stirring apocalyptic anxiety, and clearly, no one knows the times or dates. Should you meet up with someone claiming they do, my advice is to run. All this said we are living in the last days—even the last watch of the night. How long these last days will last is unknowable. Concerning such things, Jesus put it this way:
“But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man.” (Matt. 24:36–39)
It’s why every single day we say the words to each other: Wake Up Sleeper! Rise from the dead! And Christ will shine on you. (see Ephesians 5:14) It won’t mean giving up everything you enjoy—not for a minute. It will mean something infinitely greater to live for. That is awakening. And it’s never too late. Jesus—not stale religion, not a caricature of church, not self-righteous, pompous religion; just Jesus—he’s better than the best.
And one more pro tip for the fields today. Just prior to Jesus’s words giving us the Noah’s Ark reminder, he said this: “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away” (Matt. 24:35).
THE PRAYER FOR DELIVERANCE
Lord Jesus, you are my Deliverer.
Exodus! You keep decreeing it. I keep declaring it—over my heart, my home, my church, my city, over my friends, and even those who consider me their enemy.
And I am beginning to lift up the staff of the cross and stretch out my hand over people and situations around me—at least, I’m beginning to visualize myself doing such a thing in my mind’s eye.
At the same time, I find myself busy all the time and often with distraction and mindless activity. I receive your deliverance from distraction and the subtle deception to which it leads. I receive your deliverance into the gentle attentiveness inspired by the Holy Spirit in me. I receive the Holy Spirit, the breath of God, and also the unhurried pace at which you breathe. I want to live my life at the pace of Jesus in me; in step with the Holy Spirit—awake but not anxious, alert without preoccupation.
We are not afraid, nor are we anxious. We are joyful in hope as we walk each other home.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost.
As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be. World without end, amen! Amen!
