Listen Up, The Teacher Is Speaking

Twice yesterday, almost like the Lord knew what He'd say to me this morning (funny how that works), I gave instructions to my Kindergartners about something specific, and then allowed them the freedom to begin to work according to my instructions.

Inevitably, both times, someone hadn't been listening, and both times, rather than raising their hand and asking me for clarification on the task, one or another child blurted out the question every teacher loves to hear: "Wait, what are we supposed to be doing?"

And... both times, before I could make my way to the child and clear up any confusion, one of the other Kindergartners jumped in and gave instructions that were a shadow of what I had said, but were not correct.

For instance, knowing that my little crowd of painters who were working on beautifying cardboard boxes into playhouses would take a while longer to clean up in time to board the buses than my crowd of card-making artists who had only to put away a few crayons, I gave instructions, slowly and clearly. "Those who are painting, who have a paintbrush in their hands, who are working on the boxes, are to begin cleaning up. The rest of you may continue to work on your cards for a few more minutes."

There was the sound of scurry and hurry from the painters, and then startled confusion from one of the card-makers. "What are we doing?"

And the supposed hero jumped in before I could say anything. "You're supposed to clean up. We're getting on the buses."

Since this was the second time this happened in the space of a few hours, I decided to let it go and see if there could be anything to be learned from it, rather than stepping in and correcting my little five-year-old administrator. 

So... from this experience, I learned that Kindergartners who clean up too quickly and have nothing to do for a space of ten minutes, who are wired because it's Friday, and who are filled with spring fever, become like one of those hummingbirds at a feeder: still, still, dart! And then before you can hardly center your focus on them again in their new place where they're hovering, they dart again.

Anyway, I digress. The point is: Listen, don't assume. Don't act out of assumptions without fact-checking.

So in James 4:7-10, he begins with some basic instructions to get the heart's condition back to the place it needs to be in order for active listening to be properly in place. 

"Submit yourselves, then, to God."

When He gives instructions, how hard it is to lay down our own preconceived thoughts about what He means by those instructions? "He said it was time to go; clean up your mess!" We all who claim a relationship with Him long for the time when He will return in the clouds. How might this apply to us? "He's coming soon; look at the signs of the times! Clean up your mess; it's time to go." I'm not saying, one way or the other, that He's coming soon or not-soon. We simply know that He is coming, and we need to listen for His instructions.

"Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come near to God and He will come near to you."

Here's something: Satan hates God. He -- like Jim Carrey's Grinch -- loathes Him entirely. So he's set himself up against God, and the two are on the opposite ends of a battlefield with the church in the middle. Satan tries his best to divide us, conquer us, and take us hostage. The Lord fights for us. He draws us to Him. We are His. 

Now, if we intentionally walk toward the enemy's side, if we -- with all our hearts -- turn our backs on the Lord, heart-breaking as that act is, the Lord allows it. No one can snatch us out of the Lord's hand (John 10:28), but the only one who has the power to leave the Lord's protection and the cover of His hand is us. Ourselves. 

So, picture yourself on the middle of that battlefield, Satan on one side, the Lord on the other. Picture the absolute loathing the enemy has for the Lord. If you, as James instructs, "come near to God," He runs to meet you (see my post The Eternal Hug from April 21), and Satan must flee as the Lord approaches. He cannot stand in the presence of the Lord. Draw near to God; the enemy has no place there.

"Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Grieve, mourn, and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord and He will lift you up."

James isn't telling us all to become Eeyores, looking at circumstances with our glass half-empty (or all the way empty), moaning about life's difficulties. He's telling us: repent. Realize our mistakes, accept the lessons we've learned from them, and let God do His work through them. 

Look at the contrast between "Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom" and "You turned my wailing into dancing" (Psalm 30:11). Dancing comes after wailing when you encounter God. So take your attitude to the Lord, turn your laughter to mourning, your joy to gloom, and He will lift you up, give you new unmitigated laughter, unrestrained joy. Ever truly apologized to someone and been whole-heartedly forgiven? It's like the world falls off your shoulders and you're lighter than air.

And then in 4:11-12, James dives into the dangers of slander, gossip -- talking about one another, our own brothers and sisters in the church, behind backs, misinterpreting information and passing on words that either aren't true at all or are half-truths (which is more dangerous still, because they have the appearance of truth). 

"Brothers, do not slander one another. Anyone who speaks against his brother or judges him speaks against the law and judges it. When you judge the law, you are not keeping it, but sitting in judgment on it. There is only one Lawgiver and Judge, the One Who is able to save and destroy. But you -- who are you to judge your neighbor?"

Who hasn't played the game of telephone? We used to do this as a class activity when I was in first grade. One child would whisper into another child's ear a sentence, and then sit down. The message would get passed in whisper form from student to student to student until the last person would stand up to tell what sentence he or she had heard, and 99.9% of the time, it was completely different from what the original person had said.

Asaph was a Psalmist, and I like his style. He's direct and lays out the big picture in some dynamic ways. In Psalm 50, he begins with a thundering: "The Mighty One, the Lord, speaks and summons the earth from the rising of the sun to the place where it sets. From Zion, perfect in beauty, God shines forth. Our God comes and will not be silent; a fire devours before Him, and around Him a tempest rages."

So, in other words, sit up and pay attention. God draws near. 

"He summons the heavens above, and the earth, that He may judge His people."

Who judges His people? Oh, that's right, the Lord. 

Over in Psalm 50:19-21, the Lord speaks to those who do not follow His instructions (Asaph calls them wicked): "You use your mouth for evil and harness your tongue to deceit (that same tongue that so often, like gasoline fires, has an explosive effect; see my post A Word for the Church: Lighting the Wrong Fire). You speak continually against your brother and slander your own mother's son. These things you have done and I kept silent; you thought I was altogether like you. But I will rebuke you and accuse you to your face."

As my friend Mark Driskill says: "That'll preach all day!" How often do we speak for the Lord, thinking He's altogether like us? "Clean up; we're supposed to get ready to go." Not yet. "Mrs. Shoemaker said so." Did she? 

Is it possible Mrs. Shoemaker gave instructions, and you misheard it? Is it possible that you wanted to manipulate the situation a bit, because you enjoy "being the teacher"? Is it possible you're mistaken, even if you have the best of intentions?

My footnotes on the Lord's "silence" in this verse says: "God's merciful and patient 'silence' is distorted by the wicked into bad and self-serving theology." That struck me: Instead of waiting on the Lord, discerning His voice and will, patiently sitting with Him when He is "silent" -- waiting in His waiting... we "leap before we look." We leap right into making our own judgments and analyses before we wait to hear clarification from the Lord. And this is self-serving. Why? Because it doesn't serve the Lord's purposes, which are the only purposes we should be concerned about.

How valuable I find this verse: "[Martha] had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord's feet, listening to what He said" (Luke 10:39). 

In what seems to be a simple description of a scene, basic stage blocking (for those who love stage plays), Mary takes the most important position of all: She sat. She sat at Jesus' feet. She listened to what He said.

I love Martha, the busy, flustered sister, because I think there are a lot of good things to be learned from her perspective, too, but Mary, as Jesus says, "has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her."

A little silence goes a long way. A little listening mitigates a lot of gossip. 

You don't think of gossip as being one of those "top tier sins," right? It's super easy to point to the "big-ticket sins": homosexuality, debauchery, fornication, witchcraft, etc. They're the don't touch sins, but the Word is pretty clear on gossip, too. 

How about this ouchie: prayer requests. "Y'all, I heard so and so was struggling with this; we should pray for her." And the response: "Oh my goodness; I hadn't heard. That's... that's bad. Let me know if you hear anything else; I'll keep her in my prayers."

Please understand, I'm not saying we can't pray for each other! But I think this is equivalent to using the Lord's Name in vain (Ten Commandments, anyone?), because it is. It's taking the Lord's plan, will, purposes, and skewing them, clouding them, with our own filtered perspectives as we turn it over and discuss it and dissect it and change it as one conversation passes to another conversation, until -- by the time the story gets to the front of the class, it's a completely different story from what it had started out as. 

So listen up, class. The Teacher is speaking. Let's sit at His feet, shall we?