Episode Transcript
CONSECRATE
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.
HEAR
Romans 15:4–6 NASB
For whatever was written in earlier times was written for our instruction, so that through perseverance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope. Now may the God who gives perseverance and encouragement grant you to be of the same mind with one another, according to Christ Jesus, so that with one purpose and one voice you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
CONSIDER
I wonder if you picked up on the little jewel in verse 4 of our text from yesterday and today.
For whatever was written in earlier times was written for our instruction, so that through perseverance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.
Speaking of something written in earlier times . . . for our instruction, so that through perseverance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope, meet Habakkuk, a minor prophet prophesying about a major trial on the horizon. I call it “Descent #17.”
Though the fig tree does not bud
and there are no grapes on the vines,
though the olive crop fails
and the fields produce no food,
though there are no sheep in the pen
and no cattle in the stalls, (Hab. 3:17)
This is the story of a story not working out like it was supposed to work out and yet working out in a much more surprising way. In other words, it is the story of our lives. It is the story of a baby that will never be born, a spouse who should not have died so soon, a marriage that should not have ended as it did, a career path that just couldn’t seem to right itself, an addiction that swallowed up a whole life, a mental illness that led to the brink of bankruptcy and even suicide, and you can take it from here. It is the story of the kind of discouraging situations and conditions that become infected with despair and metastasize into depression and hopelessness. Or worse, it is the more common story of the not-quite crisis—that low-grade fever of a slumbering prosperity without purpose—an illusory life of pain so normalized it has become forgotten, propped up by caffeine and sedated by chardonnay.
Whether screaming or whispering, the song is the same: no figs, no grapes, no olives, no grain, no sheep, no cattle, no energy, no purpose, no light, no life, no happiness, no friends, no lover, no faith, no hope, no love . . . no, no, no.
Into this nothing-doing, nowhere-going existence, Habakkuk deploys lament to lead us to the bankruptcy of the bottom. But look what happens at the no-nothing bottom. Habakkuk and James meet up and do a fist bump. Here’s what “Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything” (James 1:4) looks like: “Yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Savior” (Hab. 3:18).
Oh my gosh! Did he really just go there? This, my friends, is a picture of pure joy. I used to think that was hyperbole until I realized it was literal. Pure joy is joy untethered from even the slightest shred of happiness. It is inexplicable because it is coming from somewhere other than this valley of the shadow of death and devastation we call “here.” It is streaming in live from heaven via the person of Jesus through the power of the Holy Spirit.
To “consider it pure joy . . . whenever you face trials of many kinds,” as James instructs, requires faith, because, let’s be honest, feelings will never get it done in these feckless places. James continues, “Because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance” (1:3). This is the stuff of perseverance.
So whether you are at the bottom or you are only practicing for the next trial, I want you to repeat the refrain of what I call “Valley #18” after me: “Yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will be joyful in God my Savior.”
PRAY
Father, thank you for these words from your Word: encouragement and perseverance. And thank you for the way they capture what Jesus is always doing with, for, in, through, and all around us. We know Descent #17 and the long and winding way down into the valley of the shadow of discouragement. Some of us know discouragement to the point of despair and depression. Our spirits have given up and are succumbing to this valley as a place of residence. Holy Spirit, empower us to even begin to mouth the words to the song of Valley #18: “Yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Savior.” Jesus, we need you to help us, but much more, we need you to have us. We pray in Jesus’s name, amen.
