Nerd Gospel: You are the CSS to my HTML

In computer programming, there is a language called HTML.  You've probably heard of it.  It's the language that nearly every website is built on.  In fact, if you right-click on this page, and go to "view source," much of what you'll see is HTML.  Since the very early days of the internet, HTML has been a staple.  Through most of the 90's, the adolescent years of the internet, those blocky GeoCities sites, Myspace, and AltaVista were all coded in pure HTML. Then something almost magical happened.  The advent of CSS.  It's been called the "Holy Grail" of website programming.  It ushered in the modern era of the internet.  Sites looked astonishingly better, were much easier to navigate, and gained a level of visual engagement that had never been accomplished before.

At the risk of putting half of you to sleep, I tell this anecdote because it parallels my spiritual journey.  CSS does not replace HTML, it breathes life into it.  There was once a language that was adequate, that no one really minded, that was serviceable, but looking back, was just a shell of what it someday would be.  It took something outside of itself to radically alter the landscape and forever change the experience. 

For a long time, I lived with an HTML spiritual reality, where vanilla was the flavor of the month, every month, and the people around me looked like me and functioned like me, and it was nice.  It was serviceable.  But there were holes in the tapestry (sorry to mix metaphors), there were bugs in the code.  I knew that there were unanswered questions that my spiritual life to that point couldn't address.  If God is a God of wonder and might and amazing revelation, why wasn't I experiencing any of that?  

My code had been written, from the moment of my birth, to experience God.  But over time, that experience became more and more limiting.  The politics of faith, the pretense of every question already asked and answered, the scaffold of a culture built to reinforce the spiritual status quo.  All of this left me with a benign faith.  Then, maybe ten years ago, I got my first glimpse of someone doing faith differently.  It was my CSS moment.  It was the first time I realized that God was not limited by the constraints that we put around him, that my boring faith wasn't a result of a boring Jesus, but that truly seeking him could breathe life, CSS-style, into my HTML existence.  I felt free to ask the questions, seek the truth, and shed the falsehoods I'd long been believing.  

I am still the same person I have always been, just like eBay has always been eBay.  But looking at eBay form 1996, it is more than evident that something is different.  CSS changed everything.  In my life, discovering the Jesus I'd never known, has been the CSS to my HTML.

Always Give Something

I watched his quivering lips and I knew the tears weren’t far behind. He sighed and continued with his story, choking out the words, wanting to communicate in spite of his unpredictable emotions. Yep. That’s why I love him so much--crusty and tough on the outside, a soft, squishy marshmallow within. And he’s not embarrassed by it.

It was Week #4 of our Thursday evening Truth for Living Course. We were presenting a video series, Marriage Oneness, by Tim Lundy, a speaker associated with Family Life Today. Good stuff. Yes, that’s a shameless plug. Our incredible Marriage Team had finished serving a delicious pot roast dinner by candlelight and, over homemade pumpkin cheesecake, our twenty precious couples listened attentively to Tim explain the urgency of oneness in handling family finances.

Before referencing much of Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University material, Tim suggested that nearly all of the Bible’s 2300 plus verses about money could be arranged into four major categories represented simply by four words: live, give, save, and limit. Now I’m not going to rehearse all of Tim’s teaching here mostly because I am hoping you will take the course next fall, but the second word, giving, was about what you would expect. His bullet point read, “Always give something.” The first verses he pointed to were Acts 20:35 and Proverbs 3:9.

“Remember the words of the Lord Jesus, that He Himself said,‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’”                                                                                                                  “Honor the LORD from your wealth and from the first of all your produce.”

Tim was presenting this important biblical theme of giving…and the tithe in Scripture was ten per cent of one’s income. To encourage those who have never considered this mandate, he suggested beginning by giving something regularly. We need to understand that our wise and loving Father tenderly cares for the needs of His lost, poor, sick, orphaned, widowed, and sojourning children here on earth, the advancement of His Kingdom, and the work of His church through the generosity and obedience of other of His children. That’s why tithing to His church is so urgent and important. To emphasize the point, my dear husband, Kenny, wanted to share a personal story I had long ago forgotten. Soon we both were sniffing through grateful tears.

Kenny grew up here in South Jersey, the second of seven children, all born within nine very busy years. His dad had a steady job but also needed to farm, working long hours to feed and care for his family. Money was tight. Very tight.

Kenny’s mom had grown up in a home where tithing was part of her family’s DNA, but that was not the case in his dad’s family. This difference was occasionally the source of contention between his parents. One day, not long after the family had begun to attend a new church (MINE!), Kenny’s father was convicted in a sermon about his practice of not tithing to the church, not giving back a bit of what God had so often and so kindly given to him and to his family. That day, his father, by faith, not knowing how they would ever afford it, began to give a tithe to God.

Within two weeks, my future father-in-law’s boss called him into his office and offered him a 25% increase in pay—an incredible and unexpected raise that more than covered the money he had pledged in his heart to give away! Plus, there was left-over money for his children and his very happy wife. What a blessing!

I just love how God works…how he affirms our steps of faith and encourages our obedience. And seven wide-eyed children got to witness the goodness of their Heavenly Father in response to the faith of their earthly one. More than fifty years later, with a lump in his throat, one of those kids got to tell the story of how his dad learned to give. A quiet roomful of people listened. And heard.  

Now I don’t tell you this story so you think that there is some magical formula here and you rashly begin to give to get. No, this is one man’s story. Your story is not the same. God knows the motivations of each of our hearts.

I relate it again because of its simplicity and its beauty…and because I believe it explains clearly what the Father thinks about our gifts. They please Him. Our faith pleases Him. Our gifts, I think, are a demonstration, a visible representation of that unseen faith growing inside us.  It shows Him we are not trusting in our money; we are trusting in Him alone to take care of us. That’s just what He wants. That’s just what we need.

The multiplied gifts of His people are a huge benefit to others too. Our contributions finance the ministry and outreach of His local church, the advancement of His Kingdom abroad, and the healing and restoration of broken people everywhere. What a glorious plan!

And it all begins with one man or one woman’s decision to trust God and give.

I can only imagine how my Father-in-law’s tithe, combined with other faithful givers, has been used over these many decades. How many street kids have been fed? How many Bibles have been translated or given?  How much medicine has been dispensed in jungle hospitals? How many lives have been transformed by the Gospel? How many churches have been built? It’s amazing to think about. It’s a great story, a story that influenced at least one little boy to become a giver too.

That begs the question. Is somebody watching you?

“Freely you have received; freely give.”  (Matthew 10:8)   

Let The Redeemed Of The Lord Say So

There is no situation in which we may find ourselves that the redeeming work of God cannot reach. And the distance between our current situation and God’s help is our cry for help! 

I have been reading Psalm 107 recently as well as a devotional book alongside that touches on different applications we can draw from this passage. What an encouraging passage this is! 42 verses packed with different life scenarios where people were facing some form of challenge or distress and they experience God’s help in miraculous ways. The last verse wraps it all up with a very personal exhortation.

Are you in trouble? The Lord can help!

Are you isolated, scattered or exiled? The Lord can gather.

Are you wandering with no place to dwell and in distress? The Lord can set you on a straight path and deliver you.

Are you sitting in darkness and in the shadow of death? Are you a prisoner of either? The Lord can burst your bonds apart!

Is your heart rebelling against God or even despising his counsel? The Lord can bow or bend your heart toward him.

Are your sinful ways making you despise wisdom (another way to describe foolishness!)? 

Are your own iniquities increasing your afflictions? 

Is your current situation generating a lot of fears? Is your future looking pretty bleak? Are the waves beyond you? The Lord has power to raise the wind and the waves, and he also has the power to still them and bring you to a safe haven!

Are you facing impossibilities? Or are you being led by God to enter something that, humanly speaking, does not make any sense? The Lord can turn rivers into deserts and vice versa. He can also help people get established and experience the richness of life in places where signs of life are the last thing you see right now.

Oh but wait, as if this was not enough, God does not put up forever with the oppression of his people. The Lord “pours contempt on princes and makes them wander in trackless wastes” when they oppress his people. Furthermore, “He raises up the needy out of affliction and makes their families like flocks.”

So how powerful can God be over our current situations? Very powerful! Consistent with how he works, “He sent out his word and healed them, and delivered them from their destruction.” (20) Words from God become conduits of his power. He pronounces realities into being. That is amazing!

No wonder the recurring response of those who experience the redemption of God in some way is to thank him for his steadfast love and “his wondrous works to the children of man!”

It is no wonder that the Psalmist ends this passage with the most appropriate exhortation:

“Whoever is wise, let him attend to these things; let them consider the steadfast love of the Lord.” I am not sure if only the wise are positioned to attend these things or if anyone who attends to these things becomes wise. Regardless of what the right conclusion is, the exhortation is the same for everyone: consider the steadfast love of God.

How is God showing you his steadfast love today? Or, how do you need his steadfast love in your life?

The distance between your current situation and his help is just a cry for help away!