Words of Faith

I came across an interesting scripture recently in Psalms. It is Psalm 12:1-4. The psalmist is crying to the Lord for help, and he tells God that the godly are gone. He gives the qualities of the ungodly, and in verses 3-4 he says:

                                    “May the Lord cut off all flattering lips

and every boastful tongue that says, ‘We will triumph with our tongues, we own our lips- who is our Master?’”

It is the boastful and the ungodly that say we own our lips- who is our Master (what an arrogant statement, by the way). It follows that those who are Godly do not own our lips, since we have a Lord and Master, who is God.

            I can think of several verses to hymns that godly people have penned to express the change inside of them once they submitted to salvation, such “Now I Belong to Jesus,” “Take My Life and Let it be…consecrated Lord, to Thee”. 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 states that we are not our own. We have been bought with a price. Once we individually accept the gift of the salvation of our souls that Jesus purchased with His blood on the cross of Calvary, we become God’s possession. We belong to Him, and we are no longer our own. In submitting to Jesus’ Lordship in our lives, we accept Him as our master, and as a result all we have and are becomes His, including (as Psalm 12 points out) our lips. I had not thought that much about it before, but since reading Psalm 12:4 again, I realize that nothing in or about me is mine anymore. We indeed have been bought with a price, and ALL we are is now the Lord’s.

            The fact that we no longer own our lips should make us very careful about what we do with our lips, including what we allow to pass through them. This can be quite a challenge to us, as we go through this life. In our day-to-day lives, we may be tempted to use our lips to defend ourselves, when God says that He is our shield and sure defense. We may be tempted to speak poorly of others, when Jesus says that we are to bless and encourage others. We may be tempted to speak boastfully of ourselves or our situation, or flatter others in an effort to exalt ourselves, when the Lord says that He will cut off the flattering lips.

            I have been challenged by Psalms 12:3-4, to pay closer attention to my lips, while keeping in mind that they do not really belong to me any more. There are some things I will have to change, like having pouting lips when I don’t get my way; like smiling when I feel like frowning. I will have to close my lips when tempted to speak unpleasantly, and open my lips in praise to God, even in the most difficult of circumstances. James chapter 3 points out many things about our speech, one of which is that out of the same mouth comes blessing or cursing. Our lips are the only part of our body that can have such a heavy impact on others. The power to speak a blessing or a curse is in our lips. The power to affect another person’s life eternally with God’s words is equally in our lips. That is pretty heavy-duty responsibility, but if we continually keep in the forefront of our minds that our lips are not our own, we will use them wisely.

            So, since we don’t own our lips, and God does, I will be careful to use them wisely. I will blow more kisses to my children as I leave the driveway for work, or kiss a loved one more, or smile at the people I encounter each day, or whisper a word of encouragement to a friend, or speak more blessings to others, or sing more songs of joy, or shout the Lord’s praises alone or in the assembly—after all, whose lips are these anyway?

                                    Oh Lord, open thou my lips, that my mouth

 may show forth Thy praise.  - Psalm 51:15

I was singing a song in the shower on a recent morning that made me look at life and the reality of Jesus coming to earth to dwell among us in a different way. While I was belting out, “He left the splendor of heaven, knowing His destiny…” I realized that when we think of Jesus coming to earth, we tend to think of things from Jesus’ perspective. How He left heaven, how He gave up His position on the throne with the Father, how He took on humanity, how He suffered, and so on. We look at His experience from His point of view, but what about the Father’s point of view in all of this?

It may have something to do with turning the big “something-0” this month, or the fact that in a few short months, my second child in so many years will leave the safety and control of the “nest” and venture off on his own, but I have been thinking lately of the Father’s perspective in having His Son leave heaven and walk on the earth in bodily form. It must have been heartbreaking. Imagine the Father allowing the King of Kings out of the glory and splendor of heaven, that we can only imagine, into a fallen and sinful world. He would not only not be recognized by His own, but would also not be accepted by His own. Imagine seeing the One who put creation together mistreated, mocked, poor and outside of the sphere of the Father being able to make things “all better.”

As I prepare for another child leaving the home, it is a bittersweet moment. On the one hand, I don’t want them to leave. I like having them around. They are cool children. I don’t want them to have to be on their own and get knocked around and beat up by the world. I don’t like the prospect of not playing a central role in their lives anymore, as they go out and make their own way in life. On the other hand, this is what I have been training them up to do! We spend our parenting time training and growing our children up, influencing them and directing then to one day be able to make it “out there” in the world as successful, independent, good citizens. We hold them close, protect them and teach them, for the very goal of one day letting them go. But the letting go part is so difficult.

I wonder if the letting go part was difficult for God the Father, too. Was it difficult for the Father to see the Son as a helpless baby, lying on a bed of hay, even though that was His plan? Was it difficult for the Father to trust His Son to choose the right 12 disciples? Was it difficult for the Father to watch the Son carry out His plan of salvation and all that it entailed? Jesus said that He always and only did what the Father showed Him to do, (John 5:19-20; John 5:30) but He still had the choice to do that. He chose to be obedient and follow the Father’s directions. (Matthew 26:53)

We think upon how difficult it was for Jesus to suffer, (and no argument from me that it so definitely was) but how difficult was it for the Father to watch that all, and NOT intervene?  We think about the terribleness of Jesus hanging in agony and being forsaken by His Father (Matthew 27:46). Think for a moment, also, about the agony of the Father, as He had to turn His head away from His beloved Son as He carried all the evil, hate, rebellion and sin of the world to His death. I can’t imagine the torture this was for the Father and Son. And yet, there was no other way to save humanity that they were partners in creating.

There is no other way for us, as parents, to go through life with our children. We cannot keep them as children forever. We have to allow them to grow up and be their own people- to live the lives God has planned for them, and allowed his Son to die for them to live.

As parents, we spend a lot of time wishing that our children would hurry and learn to walk, or talk, or learn to read, figure out their own Math problems, drive the car, balance their own checkbooks, or whatever. We can’t wait for them to reach all these milestones, to learn to do such and such, but in retrospect, I could have enjoyed the stages where they were at more, knowing that it would pass all too quickly. I could have enjoyed carrying them more until they could walk. I would have enjoyed making goofy and loving faces with them more, until they learned to talk. I could have enjoyed reading to them more until they learned how to read, enjoyed working the Math problems with them until they could figure on their own. Instead of hurrying them into the driver’s seat, I would have enjoyed being the chauffer more until they were older (and slower).

As my children prepare to embark on their own journeys through life on the paths God has for them, I can’t help but take a lesson from my Heavenly Father, who had to observe from the sidelines, as His Son fulfilled the mission before Him on this earth. I, too, will have to observe from the sidelines as my sons (and daughter) fulfill their missions on this earth, hoping that they will, as Jesus did, that they will hear and obey the voice of their Heavenly Father, who gave it all for them to live.