Tag: watch

How long?

But God’s Spirit is more effective than force or strength December 3, 2025

Zechariah 4:6, 7:12 “It is not by force nor by strength, but by my Spirit, says the Lord of Heaven’s Armies. … They made their hearts as hard as stone, so they could not hear the instructions or the messages that the Lord of Heaven’s Armies had sent them by his Spirit through the earlier prophets. That is why the Lord of Heaven’s Armies was so angry with them.

Zechariah 9:9, 16; 14:1, 8-9 Look, your king is coming to you. He is righteous and victorious, yet he is humble, riding on a donkey … On that day the Lord will rescue his people, just as a shepherd rescues his sheep. … Watch, for the day of the Lord is coming. … On that day life-giving waters will flow out from Jerusalem … and the Lord will be king over all the earth. On that day there will be one Lord—his name alone will be worshiped.

Image by Carol Amidi

As we enter Advent, the prophet Zechariah offers our last insight into the Holy Spirit at work in the Old Testament. Through God’s Spirit, Zechariah envisioned Advent themes: the sanctification of God’s people ushering in a new age of holiness, and a great shepherd, Messiah, coming to reign over a new kingdom of perfect harmony. Watch, for the day of the Lord is coming, when all earth will be rescued from evil, renewed, rejuvenated, restored.

Zechariah assisted his fellow prophet Haggai, encouraging the people living in Palestine after the Exile to finish rebuilding the Temple and reinstitute worship there under a revitalized priesthood. Centuries later, after the Messiah did come into Jerusalem riding on a donkey, Paul would explain to believers in Messiah’s redemptive work that they themselves, their own bodies, were now the Temple of God, through the Holy Spirit living within them. We, too, need rebuilding from the impact of evil in our time, our worship reinvigorated.

We, too, seek the Lord’s transformation, both personally and collectively, as we also await the Messiah’s coming for the “last battle” as CS Lewis called it. This time, he will usher in the Kingdom, uniting heaven and earth.

We, too, watch and wait for the coming of the Lord, our Shepherd and King.

Zechariah’s words resonate today. We, too, must turn from our evil ways and practices:

Don’t be afraid. But this is what you must do:

Tell the truth to each other.

Render verdicts in your courts that are just and that lead to peace.

Don’t scheme against each other.

Stop your love of telling lies that you swear are the truth.

              I hate all these things, says the Lord. … So love truth and peace.

(Zechariah 1:4; 8:15-17, 19)

How, though? How can we change these things that are so embedded in our culture, in our own hearts? Not by force, nor by strength, but by God’s Spirit, Zechariah tells us. This Advent let’s open our hearts to God’s Spirit so he can do beautiful, regenerative work within and among us.

“How Long” by Ann VosKamp, Leslie Jordan, and Trillia Newbell, sung by St. Andrew’s Lutheran

Open your mouth wide

But God would feed us  August 11, 2022

Psalm 81:8-16 Listen to me, O my people, while I give you stern warnings. Oh, if you would only listen to me! . . . Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it with good things. But no, my people wouldn’t listen . . . But I would feed you with the finest wheat. I would satisfy you with wild honey from the rock.”

This morning I made French toast with yogurt and strawberries, scrambled eggs, and sausage for my husband for breakfast. A way of making up, I suppose, for the week of dry cereal he just had while I traveled to Idaho to visit my sister Marsha and her husband Vance. Of course, if he wished, he could learn to cook! But he has too many other irons in his fire.

While I was making breakfast, I thought about this blog. Some days are French toast days. Some are cold cereal days, when other priorities of life must take precedence. Today, I think, is a cold cereal day, because I’m preoccupied with completing the manuscript for Treasure Hunt 1904. Next Monday the 15th is the deadline for turning it in to the publisher. Four days! Yikes!!

But I do want to honor the Lord today. As I prayed about my trip to Idaho, he gave me this Scripture from Psalm 81, which made me think of baby birds in a nest, trustfully opening their beaks to receive what their mother would bring them.

Shutterstock: PCHT

I wanted to be one who listened, who paid trustful attention to what the Lord was doing in Idaho and in my life and the intersection of the two for a week. I traveled with a sense of curiosity and anticipation.

Some of what God did, I expected. Like the peace and the warm welcome I feel in Vance and Marsha’s home. Their kindness and generosity. Their joy in living one day at a time despite challenging circumstances.

But God filled my mouth with surprises, too. I will treasure forever my sister’s beautiful voice soaring in worship. A dancing fountain became for me an image of the Holy Spirit’s delight in delighting us. I was able to see beauty in the desert this time I had not been able to appreciate on other visits to Idaho. Vance had given me a book to read called Desert Spirituality and Cultural Resistance by Belden C. Lane which nurtured new concepts for me about the hard times in our lives. It challenges me to pay attention, to listen, to watch for the ways our Father draws close to us when we are not distracted by all our stuff and our own “important and urgent” work. To pay more attention to his voice than to having a voice of my own—though of course, the two are intertwined.

Opening my mouth wide is not just for travel to the high desert of Idaho. It’s for Pittsburgh too.