My Mom

Mary Elaine Califf2 Comments

This would have been my mother’s 79th birthday had we not lost her earlier this year. We had really been losing her for a while, since she suffered from dementia, but we are thankful that she remained kind and patient to the end.
Kindness and patience were her hallmarks, along with a rock-solid devotion to God, which she also maintained until she could no longer hold her Bible to read it. She might not have recognized all of the people on her prayer list or been able to remember what chapters she read the day before, but she faithfully spent time praying for each name on the list and spent time reading and meditating over scripture each day.
Mom waited a lot. One of my favorite stories from before my memory of her starts is from my toddler years. I was apparently old enough to pick my own toys, but I wasn’t interested in doing so. I’m told that she just sat in the doorway to my room and calmly told me that I would not be leaving until the room was picked up, and waited until I had all my toys picked up. Calm, patient, steady discipline was characteristic of her interaction with children and animals, which is part of why both loved her.
In his partially drafted autobiography, my father wrote of telling my mother that he felt they were called to the mission field, only to be informed that she had committed her life to missions at age 12. She had simply waited for over a decade for God to pull Dad to the point where he was ready for the call.
Mom was a highly practical and capable person. She was a good cook, a good housekeeper, and a good seamstress who worked hard to help her daughters learn those skills.
She was also good at making a house a home, a skill that she had many opportunities to practice over the years. I don’t think Mom ever wanted to move as frequently as life with Dad demanded, but she never complained, just helped pack and unpack and then worked on arranging the house and its decor into a welcoming atmosphere. We recently moved, and I’m sad that I won’t have her help with the task of deciding what to hang on which wall, since she has helped me with that in our past homes.
Mom really cared about people and worked to know them well. She and I had very different tastes in clothing, both colors and style. I was very glad to grow too tall to wear her old clothes, because they never suited me at all. However, Mom was one of the few people I trusted to select clothing for me, because she took the trouble to really learn my tastes. My sister and I have very similar tastes in color, but very different in style, and Mom generally nailed both color and style for each of us, because she worked at it.
Like Dad, Mom enjoyed games and loved to laugh. Her favorite TV shows were Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy. She loved to play word games, card games, and board games, and liked learning new games until the dementia made it too difficult. She tried to look at life through a lens of optimism and good humor. One friend told us that, as a newly appointed missionary, they had asked several missionary women for advice. Mom’s advice: Find something to laugh at every day.
And, of course, Mom loved music, especially singing and playing the piano. She really inspired my interest in both and taught me much, although she refused to be my formal piano teacher. Probably wise, given my personality. We did not sing together often, but it was always a joy when there was an opportunity. In her final week of life, she was bedridden, but we have a recording of her singing Amazing Grace with a couple of visitors, her voice still strong and beautiful raised in praise even in the last days.
I miss my mom, but I am so deeply grateful for the legacy of faith, the patient love, and the practical skills she left us.

Kindness

Mary Elaine CaliffLeave a comment

People can be difficult to deal with. We all have rough edges. That, I feel, is one of the realities that I constantly come back to, whether it’s with students, employees, my managers, co-workers, friends, or family. People can be challenging.

But here’s the most important thing I’ve learned about that reality: those people are dealing with challenges of their own.

We live in a broken world, and life is hard. We usually don’t know everything that’s going on in other people’s lives. Any time I find myself in a deeper conversation with someone I don’t know well, I learn that they are facing hard things: illness, grief, financial hardship, broken relationships, abuse, or something else I hadn’t known about.

In my own tight circle over the last few years, there have been deaths due to cancer and dementia, other people dealing with cancer, serious mental illness, a dear friend who is dealing with her husband in the late stages of early-onset Parkinson’s, a colleague who lost her brother unexpectedly, then her mother after multiple health challenges, and also had a granddaughter going through treatment for leukemia, people who have lost jobs despite or because of trying to do the right things, people struggling with addiction, and several people dealing with childhood trauma. 

I could go on, but the point is that life can be hard, and the people around us are dealing with life’s challenges.

So what are we, as Christians, supposed to do about that?

We’re supposed to be kind.

Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, Colossians 3:12

Paul goes on to discuss bearing with one another and forgiving one another, which may focus on our relationships within the body of Christ. However, these character traits of compassion, kindness, humility, and patience are not something to turn on only when dealing with other Christ-followers. They should be who we are all the time. Jesus made that point in his story of the Good Samaritan. The Samaritan man had no reason to help the injured Jew: quite the opposite within the culture. Jesus is clearly calling us to be that neighbor. As Paul says, 

So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith. Galatians 6:10

Yes, we do good especially to our fellow believers, but first it says to everyone. I would also point out that some of the people around you may also be believers who just don’t happen to attend your church. While working at a public university, I was surprised by the number of colleagues whom I eventually discovered were faithful followers of Jesus Christ.

So when a colleague is crabby, instead of snapping back, listen and look for something kind to do for them. When an employee isn’t carrying their share of the workload, don’t just assume they’re lazy. Perhaps they are, but perhaps they’re dealing with an illness or other circumstances. We shouldn’t pry, but we can ask if there’s anything they need to be successful, and we can listen to the answer.

We can always offer praise in public and make sure that criticism is offered in private and constructively. We can work to limit our own grumpiness to a select circle of confidants and pour out our troubles to God and those confidants. We can work to be quick to listen. We can look for small ways to offer a bit of cheer and brightness to those around us.

Most of all, we can assume that those around us have their own private struggles and challenges, and whatever is going on is likely not about us. We can (and should) make the effort to put it aside, give it to God, and try to be kind.

This kindness is somewhat anti-cultural, especially in the United States, where we are encouraged to stand on our two feet, defend our personal rights, and value independence above all. And it’s becoming more anti-cultural at the moment, with “empathy” getting a bad name among some who call themselves Christian and the apparent labeling of attempts to help people as “woke.” 

But the reality is that the Bible is pretty clear on this topic. Jesus helped people, including obvious sinners, and primarily condemned the self-righteous religious leaders of the day. In the rest of the New Testament, there are repeated calls from Paul, John, Peter, and the writer of Hebrews to do good, to help people, and to be kind and gentle. Even in the Old Testament, part of the call to God’s chosen is to treat strangers and the poor well and to be kind.

He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God? Micah 6:8

Kindness is not easy. It is very human to be self-centered and self-protective. Kindness is, however, a command from God, not just to our own people, but to everyone. If we claim Christ, we must work to be kind.

Photo by Simon Ray on Unsplash

My Father

Mary Elaine Califf5 Comments

I miss the dignified man in the pulpit and the great-grandfather sitting on the floor with the little ones.

I miss the collared shirts and sweater vests on some days and the absurd golfing outfits on others.

I miss the world traveler who was always eager to spend time with family.

I miss the highly competent computer user who tended to print out everything, then tear the sheet in half and shred it once he was done with it.

I miss the stories, from the silliness of the wide-mouthed frog to the amazing works of God in astonishing places.

I miss the careful record keeper who apparently blocked out all memory of everything negative from my childhood.

I miss the avid game player of card and board games who was so willing to lose computer games to his grandchildren.

I miss the devoted man who spent daily time in study and prayer and worked hard to share his faith with children and grandchildren.

I miss the man who loved his family without condition, both those who believed as he did and those who did not.

I miss the only member of my family of origin who tried to call me “Mary Elaine” instead of Mary, and did the same for others who chose to adjust their childhood names.

I miss the jokes, bad puns though they often were.

I miss his laugh, from the chuckles to the full-throated belly laughs.

I miss one of my biggest cheerleaders, certainly the biggest cheerleader for this blog.

On what would have been his 81st birthday, I miss my dad. I’m grateful that he is free of pain and rejoicing in heaven, but I miss him here on earth.

But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. 1 Thessalonians 4:13 ESV

Truth

Mary Elaine Califf

Truth is an essential concept in the Bible. Jesus goes beyond claiming that his words are true to claim that he himself is truth.

Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

John 14:6 (ESV) 

We are guaranteed that God is true: he is the “God of truth” (Isaiah 65:16). His words are true, and they are, in fact, the standard by which we should determine truth. We are also told that the truth is central to our experience as followers of Jesus.

So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” 

John 8:31-32 (ESV)

Unfortunately, there are stories throughout history where the church has fought the truth. One example is the attempt to suppress the evidence that the earth goes around the sun out of a mistaken belief that such a view contradicts the Bible.

We often see even more dangerous forms of truth avoidance in our approaches to sin and fellowship in the church. We hide our sins and our daily struggles from those around us. We convince ourselves that our sins are “little” sins that don’t matter (things like gossip or “white lies” or selfishness) or that exposing our sins will do more harm than good.

The damage done by this kind of truth avoidance is hard to measure, but not hard to find. It’s in the friendship destroyed by gossip. It’s in the seeker turned off by the church where everyone seems to live perfect lives. It’s in the church shattered by the discovery of a pastor’s secret sin or the lives tortured by the secrecy surrounding another minister’s sin.

My denomination has been in the news this past week, in a way that is both awful and potentially very good. You see, people have done terrible, sinful things, and those things have been covered up in the name of protecting church leaders, the churches, the denominational leaders, and the denomination. The good news is that as some of these sins have come to light the majority of representatives of the churches have chosen to do some right things and to seek more of the truth. We have yet to see how much change will result from the truth that has been revealed, but learning the truth has resulted in opportunities for change and healing that could never have happened without those revelations.

It’s easy to look at stories of big-picture hypocrisy and corruption in churches and think that the issue is about “them”: it’s all about the church leaders, whether pastors, deacons, elders, and so on. After all, they’re in charge of the churches and what they do, right?

But they’re not entirely in charge, because we are the church. While leadership may sometimes be corrupt and cause problems that are out of our control, individual members too often participate in truth-hiding ourselves. We can’t change what our pastors and other church leaders do, but we can live our own lives with integrity and refuse to cover up or even just turn a blind eye to sin in our leaders in the name of protecting the church or protecting someone’s ministry.

God will protect his own Church and the work of his Church without the help of our lies about sin. God will also provide healing from sin, but that healing requires the light of truth. There is a verse that I had to memorize as a child: 1 John 1:9. I have become convinced that to fully grasp the point here, we also need to look at the verses that surround it.

If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.

1 John 1:8-10 (ESV)

We have all sinned. We know that, but we become tempted as Christians to see our sin as in the past or to see our current sins as small and insignificant and therefore unworthy of focus and confession. We’ll take our gossip or our little white lies or our “borrowing” of a small item or our feuding with a coworker and sweep it into a corner and hope no one notices it. That way we get to present the picture of the Christian who has it all together. Apart from the issue that these are not “little” sins in the eyes of God, there is no growth or healing in that approach. James makes a related point:

Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.

James 5:16 (ESV)

Based on the context, the healing here is primarily physical healing, but James is switching back and forth between physical healing and forgiveness of sin in this passage in a way that I think makes it clear that he considers them closely tied together. This shouldn’t surprise us much given our current understanding of the impacts of things like stress and guilt on our physical well-being.

There are two important points in this verse. The first is one I often prefer to ignore: James calls us to confess not only to God but also to each other. I think this is a reminder about the importance of truth and bringing things into the light of day in our lives. If we want healing (I suspect any kind of healing), we need to let our brothers and sisters see into the dark closets of our lives. I don’t think that necessarily means that the whole world needs to know every detail of every sin every one of us commits. It does mean that we need to be willing to confess the details to trusted fellow Christians. And I think it means that we should be more open in general about our failures and stumbles. The church is supposed to be a place for sinners and people with struggles and problems. Pretending our lives are perfect is not part of our mission on earth.

The second point I want to talk about has to do with the “prayer of a righteous person.” It’s easy to look at that phrase and think that it’s not about me. I’m not righteous: James was just telling me to confess my sins. However, James also told us to pray for one another. The point is that when we do confess, when we drag our sins into the light of day and turn away from them, we become the righteous person whose prayer is powerful. That’s what John was telling us. It’s a central point of the gospel, but one that we don’t focus on enough at times.

By dragging our failures and flaws into the light of truth, we become righteous and powerful. When we pretend to be righteous and powerful, hiding our undesirable traits, we remain weak and become stumbling blocks for those we should be helping.

I’ll leave you with a recent song by Matthew West; I’ve linked the official YouTube video below, but part of the chorus goes like this:

“I don’t know why it’s so hard to admit it
When being honest is the only way to fix it
There’s no failure, no fall
There’s no sin you don’t already know
So let the truth be told”

Embracing the New

Mary Elaine Califf

One of the major themes of my limited posts on Facebook over the last 2 years has been protesting the impact of the pandemic on my professional life. And that impact has been fairly severe, as it has for many others. Some of that impact has just been hard.

Some of the impact, however, has been very positive. As a result of the time online, I have incorporated techniques into my teaching that I had never considered. Those techniques are continuing to have positive impacts on my students today.

Obviously, the pandemic was an arduous thing, but some of what it brought into my life was not inherently bad; it was just different. New. We humans don’t always welcome the new. We often like the familiar, the known, the trustworthy. The new can be exciting, but we’re often reluctant to leave the comfortable and familiar to explore. When we do go out to explore, we often want to know everything about what is involved in whatever we’re doing. When planning a trip we want to know: “Where are we going? What’s it going to cost? How long are we going to be there? Who else will be there?”

God doesn’t work that way, however. He doesn’t give his followers roadmaps; he encourages them to step out in faith. In Abraham’s story, we see, “Now the Lord said to Abram, ‘Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you’” Genesis 12:1 (ESV). 

Abraham is credited with great faith because he didn’t know the end of the story. He didn’t know where God was taking him. He didn’t know what God was going to do about Isaac, either leading up to his birth or at the time of the sacrifice. He only knew that God had called him to follow him and promised to make him a father of nations, blessing the world through him. He trusted that God would somehow work it all out.

For Joseph to fulfill his role, he had to be sold into slavery in a foreign land. Jesus called his disciples away from family and their livelihoods, promising nothing more than an opportunity to live with and learn from him. The fishermen in the group certainly didn’t understand what it meant to become “fishers of men” when they walked away from their nets.

If we truly want to follow God, we have to be prepared to accept the new, and, even more, to welcome and embrace what God brings into our lives. 

Jonah didn’t willingly go where God sent him, and it didn’t turn out well for him. Even after he acquiesced and carried out his mission, his refusal to embrace it, to align his heart with God’s intent, led to continued misery for Jonah, though the Ninevites benefited from his preaching.

What does this mean for us today as Christ-followers? Most importantly, it means that we should be ready, willing, and even excited to walk with God no matter where he’s calling us. I recently came across a great quote about what it means to actually put faith in God:

Faith isn’t about having everything figured out ahead of time, faith is about following the quiet voice of God without having everything figured out ahead of time.

Rachel Held Evans, A Year of Biblical Womanhood

When God calls us to something new, he doesn’t tell us everything. He simply asks us to follow his direction and trust that he has a plan and is in control. 

For we walk by faith, not by sight.

2 Corinthians 5:7 (ESV)

This is hard. We like control; we like to know where we’re going. But there is good news: When we are willing to step out in faith, he will be there. When God led the people of Israel into the promised land, they had to step into the rushing Jordan river before the water stopped flowing, but they walked across on dry land. 

Paul had to walk through many challenging things. At one point he lays out many of those experiences:

Five times I received at the hands of the Jews the forty lashes less one. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I was adrift at sea; on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers; in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure.

2 Corinthians 11:24-27 (ESV)

Through all of this, Paul experienced God’s presence, allowing him to be content in all circumstances. After going on to talk also about revelations he has received and his “thorn in the flesh,” Paul concludes, “For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong,” 2 Corinthians: 12:10 (ESV).

When God calls us to go with him, he will be there. That was his promise to Abraham and Paul, and that is his promise to us today. We need to take the simple and difficult step of trusting him and embracing the “new” he is calling us to walk in.


Photo by Grant Ritchie on Unsplash

Engaging with God’s Word

Mary Elaine Califf

One of the things that I love about the religious tradition in which I was raised is the emphasis placed on the individual relationship with God and on individuals reading and studying the Bible themselves. I am always disturbed when someone says they don’t know what they believe about something, that they’ll need to ask a pastor, rabbi, or priest to find out. After all, how can anyone possibly believe something if they don’t know what it is? My pastor is fond of telling his congregation to read the Bible passage he’s discussing and make sure that he’s telling us the truth. This is one of several reasons I appreciate his teaching.

This emphasis on studying and knowing scripture is clearly biblical. In Acts 17, the Berean Jews are praised for examining scripture to see whether the teaching of Paul and Silas was true. Jesus often focuses on believing in his words. In one example during his final words to the disciples before his death, in the midst of talking about our need to abide in him, he says, “If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you” (John 15:7 ESV). The word “abide” here means to dwell in or inhabit.

Lately, I’ve been struck by a particular verse on the topic of knowing the word of God:

Let what you heard from the beginning abide in you. If what you heard from the beginning abides in you, then you too will abide in the Son and in the Father. I John 2:24 ESV

I John 2:24 ESV

If God’s word abides in us, then we will abide in him. What power and assurance!

But it raises the question: What does it mean for God’s word to abide in us? It cannot be a matter of simple book knowledge. Certainly, I know people who can spout scripture but have hearts that seem far from God, and I suspect you do, too. 

James provides some thoughts in his discussion of hearing and doing:

But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing.

James 1:22-25 ESV

The Bible does not talk much about just reading God’s word. Instead, we see a focus on meditating on it, delighting in it, hiding it in our hearts. The goal is not just to know what God says, but to interact with it. 

Last summer, I participated in some professional development training on designing a college course. I was going to be teaching a course for the first time in 18 years and thought the training would be helpful for keeping me on track in getting prepared. I also thought I might gain some useful insights. One of the first steps was to come up with a “transformational goal”: a statement describing how my students should be changed by completing my course.

Here’s a reality of all college teaching (of all teaching, really): even if I pick the best possible materials and give amazing lectures, my students will not change unless they do something with the course material. We tend to talk about student engagement as a key goal of good teaching: if students engage with the material, they will learn it, and it can change them.

The same is true of scripture. While God’s word has power that my textbooks and lectures never could, we must engage with it in order for it to transform us. We must consider (even question), wrestle with, accept, and act on what we read and hear. Then instead of washing over us, the truths of scripture will sink roots into our hearts, truly abiding in us, and enabling us to abide in God.

We are told to drink of the living water, not just shower in it.


Photo by Jacob Buchhave on Unsplash

It’s Personal

Mary Elaine Califf1 Comment

There are a couple of people who read my blog post drafts before I put them out for all of you to see. On reading last week’s post, one of them commented that I needed to explain why God chooses good things for us, why he would sacrifice himself for our benefit after we disobeyed him.

Now, fully explaining God’s thinking in this matter, as with all others, is beyond me, but the Bible does provide insights to explore.

It’s almost obligatory that we start with one of the best known verses in the Bible:

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

John 3:16 ESV

A verse so familiar, especially to those of us from evangelical backgrounds, that we probably have to force ourselves to stop and read slowly in order to really think about what the verse means. Why did God do it? Because he “loved the world.”

As simple as this statement is, I’ve heard two approaches to understanding what it means that God loved the world and that Jesus came into the world because of his love. One approach says that each of us should interpret “for the world” as “for each of us individually.” God loves me so much that Jesus came and died so that I would have eternal life if I choose to believe in him.

I have heard others push back against this interpretation, arguing that we cannot take this verse so personally. They say that the sacrifice was for all who would believe and that individuals cannot claim this love for themselves particularly. My impression has been that their concern is that “God so loved me” lacks humility.

Personally, I am inclined to see the substitution of the individual for the world in John 3:16 as valid. This is partly because we see Paul do it when he talks about “the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (Galatians 2:20b ESV). We may be inclined to think that Paul saying this doesn’t mean it also applies to us. We often look at Paul as especially righteous and knowledgeable and somehow more special than we are, but Paul would not. He declares, “The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost” (1 Timothy 1:15 ESV). Other translations, such as the NIV, have “worst” rather than foremost. While Paul clearly recognized that God was using him, he also saw himself as utterly unworthy. In spite of that, he claims that Jesus loved him in particular and gave his life for Paul’s benefit.

As he teaches the disciples on his last evening with them before his crucifixion, Jesus also indicates that his sacrifice is personal.

Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you

John 15:13-16a ESV

These words are for the disciples, especially, but they apply also to all of those who have answered Christ’s call to follow him. He laid down his life for his friends, and he counts us among his friends.

I can’t begin to explain why the creator of the universe would choose to love me and to love you so much that he died for us. I do know for sure that it is personal.

I also know that if we really grasp the significance of this, our reaction cannot be one of pride, but rather one of gratitude, humility, and surrender. Paul did not talk about Jesus loving him and dying for him in isolation. Here’s the full verse:

I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

Galatians 2:20 ESV

Paul’s response to God’s love and sacrifice is complete surrender of his life. That’s the response that our great and loving God deserves from us as well.


Photo by Justice Amoh on Unsplash

The Nature of God

Mary Elaine Califf

I read a lot of speculative fiction, both science fiction and fantasy. I especially enjoy the world-building and exploration of possible and impossible worlds in fantasy. One element that intrigues me is the approach various authors take to deity. 

Not surprisingly, many authors avoid the concept entirely. A few, like C.S. Lewis, take an allegorical approach. Among those who include gods in their creation, many determine the power of each god by the number and fervor of their worshippers.

I’ve not seen an actual religion that claims to believe that, but I have seen people who act as if they believe it, as if they are doing a favor for God (or other gods) by their worship. I’ve seen concern over gaining new believers, or at least new church members, that seems to be focused not on the benefit to the people who need God, but somehow on the benefit to the church or even God himself. 

Newsflash: God deserves our worship and wants it, but he doesn’t need it. His power is not impacted by our numbers or by our behavior. We see that in 1 Kings 18 when Elijah confronts the 450 prophets of Baal before the people of Israel, who apparently can’t decide who they want to worship. Elijah’s faith is pretty strong, but Baal’s prophets are also fervent and throw themselves into their worship with enthusiasm. But what matters in the story is that God is the one with all the power, not the people, the 450 prophets, or even Elijah.

Other approaches to understanding deity assume that the gods (or God) have power, but also that they can be manipulated. That is the core of animism and some other religions: there are powers in the world that can cause harm or good, and humans must appease their anger and attract their good will. The purpose of their worship and sacrifices is getting the gods to do what they want them to do.

And, of course, we sometimes see Christians doing this. We may have done it ourselves, promising things to God if he’ll do what we want him to do. We see it in the Bible as well, as in the story of Jepthah and his daughter in Judges 11. Jepthah promises God that if given victory over the Ammonites he will sacrifice the first thing that comes out of his house on his return. He does receive the victory that God desired to give him, but pays a heavy price when he is met by his daughter upon his return.

When we look at the prayers of those who are praised for their relationship with God, we don’t find this kind of bargaining and attempt at manipulation. It’s not that they don’t want things from God: they certainly do. However, their approach is not one of bargaining or manipulation but one of honest appeal based on their relationship with God and understanding of his character. We see Moses appealing to God’s character and reputation several times as he intercedes for the Israelites. We see David appealing to God’s character as well.

Have mercy on me, O God,
    according to your steadfast love;
according to your abundant mercy
    blot out my transgressions.

Psalm 51:1 ESV

David acknowledges that he can’t actually do anything to make his failures right. He does make promises, but they are promises that flow from a changed heart, not some kind of quid pro quo.

Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God,
    O God of my salvation,
    and my tongue will sing aloud of your righteousness.
O Lord, open my lips,
    and my mouth will declare your praise.
For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it;
    you will not be pleased with a burnt offering.
The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit;
    a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.

Psalm 51:14-17 ESV

Some people look at the whole sacrificial system as an attempt to manipulate God, but we have to be careful to understand the point. God requires a blood sacrifice to wash away sin, but the sacrifices provided by men were never sufficient for that purpose. The perfect sacrifice that was adequate to achieve the purpose was provided by God himself: was God himself.

Here is our reality: God doesn’t need us. We can’t manipulate him. He actually sees our motives and cares about our hearts and how our actions reflect the reality of our thinking. Actions that are focused on getting him to do what we want are pointless.

Yet this self-sufficient, all-powerful, and all-knowing God somehow loves us enough that he made us, chose us, and sacrificed for us. He offers us the opportunity to have a relationship with him. He listens and responds to our petitions out of his love for us, not because of anything that we have ever done or could ever do for him. No fantasy novelist has ever come up with a concept of deity that comes close to matching the amazing reality of the one true God.


Photo by Davide Cantelli on Unsplash

The Value of Believing Friends

Mary Elaine Califf

I know several people for whom this time of Covid-19 has been very difficult. They are extroverts and desperately missed spending time with other people. As we have all learned, video chat is just not the same. 

In my household, the reaction was a little different. We’re both very strong introverts, and being required to stay away from other humans was somewhat welcome, at least for a while. We’ve also managed to grow closer, talk more, and generally spend more quality time together, overall, despite the challenges of both working from the house and having limited opportunities to spend time alone.

Nevertheless, I found myself eager to get out and about after we were fully vaccinated and our state began to open up. Over the last few weeks, I’ve had the chance to get together with four of my local friends.

Those four conversations had some strong similarities. In each case, we were eager to get together to just sit down and talk for a while. All four ended when one of us had to be somewhere else; we were far from being out of things to say. 

There were also some differences. With two of these people, I share a lot of interests and experiences related to my career. I can talk with them about my classes and other aspects of the university in much more detail than I can with most people. We’re also all grandmothers, so there are always points of connection there. 

With the other two friends, the points of connection are less obvious and not as much grounded in our professions and families. The connections, however, are also far deeper. You see, these two people are believers, and our relationship and the things we talk about are rooted in our shared faith. With the first two, I look for opportunities to share Christ and my story of walking with Christ, but those topics are challenging to raise at all. A conversation with either of the other two almost always includes some discussion of our struggles, our victories, our desire to walk with our Lord.

As human beings, we need other people. We were created to be in relationships with others. God makes that point in Genesis 2:18 before he creates Eve. This need goes beyond just the need to meet with other Christians in some sort of church setting. We need people in our lives whom we can trust deeply and who will tell us the truth about ourselves.

A man of many companions may come to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.

Proverbs 18:24 ESV

Jonathan and David depict a strong example of that kind of friendship. In 1 Samuel 20, we see Jonathan helping David to escape from Saul, Jonathan’s own father. Their relationship is grounded in more than just human friendship, as evidenced by Jonathan’s words as they separate:

Then Jonathan said to David, “Go in peace, because we have sworn both of us in the name of the Lord, saying, ‘The Lord shall be between me and you, and between my offspring and your offspring, forever.’” And he rose and departed, and Jonathan went into the city.

1 Samuel 20:42 ESV

Later, after all of the running and fighting that ensues, including Jonathan’s death, we see David remember their friendship after he has become king of all Israel.

And Mephibosheth the son of Jonathan, son of Saul, came to David and fell on his face and paid homage. And David said, “Mephibosheth!” And he answered, “Behold, I am your servant.” And David said to him, “Do not fear, for I will show you kindness for the sake of your father Jonathan, and I will restore to you all the land of Saul your father, and you shall eat at my table always.”

2 Samuel 9:6-7 ESV

We see other friendships in the Bible. For example, we see Paul develop friendships with Barnabas (who is willing to tell him that he is wrong about John Mark) as well as with Priscilla and Aquila. Perhaps the most important example, however, is that of Jesus.

Jesus gathered crowds of listeners and a smaller crowd of followers. We know that he hand-picked twelve men as his primary disciples, but we also see that he chose three of the twelve to spend more time with: Peter, James, and John. Even our Lord chose a few of his followers to be those close friends.

There is much to be gained from getting together with groups of believers. There is also much to be gained from any friend with whom we share interests and concerns, but the value of a close friend who shares our faith and values cannot be overestimated.


Photo by Bewakoof.com Official on Unsplash

The Meaning of Love

Mary Elaine Califf

“God is love.”

We find that statement in the Bible, specifically in 1 John 4:8, but what does it mean?

We’ve all heard the question: “If God is love, how could . . . ?” I’ve certainly asked some form of that question at times, and I expect you may have as well.

Our world interprets this concept to mean that God’s children will all be happy and healthy and that “good people” can’t really be going to hell, that God will make everything good and happy in the end.

In my Bible memorization efforts, I have recently been working on learning parts of 1 John. The focus of this book is God’s love for us and our relationship with him.

With this focus on love, it’s easy to find other “feel-good” verses in addition to that statement that God himself is love:

See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are.

1 John 3:1a ESV

So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. We love because he first loved us.

1 John 4:16-19 ESV

I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life. And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us. And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him.

1 John 5:13-15 ESV

Beautiful, amazing, comforting words. But incomplete in and of themselves.

1 John is not just about God’s love for us and what we get out of it. It’s also about our side of the relationship. We must not latch onto the phrase “God is love” and miss the first part of the verse.

Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.

1 John 4:8 ESV

The point here is our response to God’s character, the reflection of his love in our lives.

Too often, our concept of God’s love is self-centered. We buy into the world’s notion of God’s love. We think something like, “God loves me. His very essence is love. Surely he wants me to be happy and to have the things I want.” 

Throughout John’s discussion of God’s love in this letter, he reminds us that we must follow in obedience before we can experience many of the benefits of being loved by God. Yes, he loved us first, so much that Jesus died for us, sacrificed himself to wipe away our sin, but we must then respond.

We love because he first loved us. If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother. Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the Father loves whoever has been born of him. By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome.

1 John 4:19-5:3 ESV

John doesn’t explicitly remind us here that God is just and righteous as well as loving. However, he does remind us that the benefits of God’s love and sacrifice are only for those who do love God and keep his commandments. This must include showing love to other humans as well as to God himself.

We live in a world where hatred for other people is all too common. Even within churches we see battle lines drawn over many things that truly don’t matter. Yet John tells us that if we love God we must love our brothers.

How would our churches, our nation, and our world change if we all worked to obey this commandment and reflect God’s love in our relationship with all of our fellow believers?


Photo by Jamie Street on Unsplash