Author: <span>Christine Lindstrom</span>

Genesis 32:28

“Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with humans and have overcome.”

“What’s in a name?” Juliet famously wonders. “That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” Juliet is, of course, lamenting that Romeo is from the other side of a bitter feud. If one or the other of them just had a different name, everything would be fine. But they don’t. Spoiler alert: everyone dies. Names matter. (Oh, if my 9th grade English teacher could see this and know how much he taught me.)

Long before Shakespeare’s star-crossed lovers, the Bible offers many examples of the importance of names. People’s names carried meaning and told you something about the person. Because of this, a significant life change could bring with it a name change as well. Think of Abram and Sarai becoming Abraham and Sarah when they entered into a covenant with God (Genesis 17:5, 15). Jacob is also called Israel after he spends a night wrestling with God (Genesis 32:28), and this identity of struggle with God becomes the identity of God’s people for centuries. The pattern continues throughout the Old Testament and into the New, as we see Jesus give Simon the new name Peter (Matthew 16:16 / John 1:42) as a sign of the calling given to him. 

God also chooses to reveal things about himself by giving us different names he can be called. Most notably, perhaps, is the name he gives Moses when Moses asks who he should say has sent him. God gives him the name I AM – the essential nature of God, eternally existing in the present tense. But God shares other names with his people. For example, God Almighty (El Shaddai) is the name he uses in confirming his covenant with Abraham (Gen 17:1). He also reveals himself as Jesus. The God who saves.

Names don’t carry quite as much significance in our culture today. Sure, parents choose their children’s names carefully, and most of us look at what a name means before naming a child. But when I first meet people, I don’t assume that I know anything about them by learning their names. My name, Christine, means believer in Christ, which fits me. But I was one of five Christines in my elementary school class (Christine, Christy, Chrissy, Chris, and Chrissy 2 to make things easier) and the same cannot be said for all of them, as far as I know. 

For the most part, this change in the importance of names is a cultural difference and not something that is good or bad. Something I think we’ve lost along the way, though, is understanding the power of naming things. 

When it comes to feelings, fears, worries, or even decisions or conflicts, unnamed issues hold a strange sort of power. When I’m feeling emotional but don’t stop to identify more specifically what I’m feeling, I feel overwhelmed and out of control. A general sense of fear is impossible to overcome without naming what it is I’m actually afraid of. Decisions can’t be made until the decision can be clearly defined, and conflicts can’t be resolved until the central issue has been identified. It might sound obvious, but think of how many times we skip the step of naming things before trying to struggle through.

When I was upset or worried about something as a kid, my dad used to ask me, “What’s the worst that could happen?” I would name whatever worst-case scenario I could think of and then he’d ask again, “Ok, and then what’s the worst that could happen?” Over and over, usually until the conclusion was so ridiculous that I was laughing and realizing how unlikely all these worst-case scenarios actually were. It’s still a technique I use as an adult sometimes, not only to gain perspective, but because describing the worst thing that could happen is a way of naming the fear. Once you’ve named it, it loses some of its power.

Writing things down is another way of naming fears and robbing them of their influence. When I’m feeling really busy and scattered with juggling different tasks, it helps me to make a list. What often happens when I make the list is that I see that all those things felt like more than they actually were, and once I have it down on paper I don’t need to reserve mental and emotional space for them anymore. Journaling about fears forces us to try to put words to the intangible feelings. Once we’ve named them, we can often see that they aren’t quite as bad as they seemed, and we don’t have to hold space for them anymore. 

Perhaps a rose by any other name would smell just the same, but naming it is still important.

Take some time today to name your fears in the presence of the God who bears many names. And may you discover that one of them is Jehovah Shalom – the Lord is Peace (Judges 6:24).

Matthew 4:6-7

“If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down. For it is written:

“‘He will command his angels concerning you,

    and they will lift you up in their hands,

    so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’”

Jesus answered him, “It is also written: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’”

Did you ever read the account of when Jesus was tempted by the devil and wonder what would have happened if Jesus had given in or fallen victim to the devil’s tactics? 

Before anyone cries heresy and blocks me on social media, let me clarify. Jesus was the sinless Son of God and there was never a risk that this would really have happened. It’s simply a thought experiment. If Jesus had chosen to respond to the devil’s taunts (If you are the Son of God…) the way many of us might (What do you mean if? Watch this!) and thrown himself down from the highest point of the temple, what would have happened? Would an angel army have rescued him, even though his decision meant that the critical mission had already failed? 

It’s a purely hypothetical question and we can’t be sure. Thankfully, Jesus saw through all the traps the devil tried to catch him in, but this one in particular really grabs my attention. Not only did the devil question Jesus’ identity, but he quoted scripture in order to do it. Obviously Jesus knew his Bible well enough to recognize this misuse of the text and counter with another verse. Would God the Father have rescued his Son from going splat in the temple courtyard? We will never know, because Jesus knew better than to put God to the test. 

The passage quoted by the devil in this scene is Psalm 91:11-12. Psalm 91 is so interesting and relevant for many reasons, and I encourage you to look it up and read the whole thing, but pay attention to verses 5-7:

You will not fear the terror of night,
    nor the arrow that flies by day,
nor the pestilence that stalks in the darkness,
    nor the plague that destroys at midday.
A thousand may fall at your side,
    ten thousand at your right hand,
    but it will not come near you.

Violence? Pestilence and plague? Thousands dead? Check, check, and check. It’s like the psalmist is foretelling 2020. But we will not fear these things because they won’t come near us, right? God promised, right?

It has been suggested that taking precautions to slow the spread of covid-19 is faithless, and a sign of living in fear. For example, being careful to wear masks when we go into public places, or continuing to avoid large group gatherings such as church services, is a sign that we do not trust God enough. If I understand the argument correctly, we should rely only on God to protect us from the virus, and if he doesn’t it would be because it’s our time to die anyway. In other words, it doesn’t matter what I do, I won’t die until God wants me to. And if God is ready to call me home, nothing I do will prevent it. It sounds pious and spiritual, but it is a form of thinly veiled fatalism that has no place in Christian theology.

The description of the interaction between Jesus and the devil shows us that not every philosophy or logical reasoning that is based in the words of Scripture is automatically godly. Jesus knew the “master plan,” and he knew that it was not his time to die, so in theory he could have hopped off the roof of the temple. But his response, also firmly grounded in Scripture, is an example for us as well: Do not put the Lord your God to the test.

Avoiding taking simple precautions to protect yourself and others from the spread of covid-19 is a new form of snake handling. Though the practice is now illegal in most states, some Christian traditions still teach that people can test for the presence of the Holy Spirit by handling poisonous snakes. If the snake does not bite you, it is because God has protected you. The Holy Spirit is in you. If it does bite you, then the believers gather around and pray for you. If you recover, it is because God wills you to continue living. If not, then they believe that God has shown his will by allowing you to die.

I realize I may be stepping on some toes here, but grocery shopping without a mask is neither proving your faith nor protesting against tyranny. If there’s even a chance that covering our faces in public might help to protect someone else, shouldn’t the followers of Jesus be 100% behind that? 

Of course there may be reasons people are unable to follow suggested guidelines to help prevent the virus from spreading. We should not judge the individuals around us, nor assume that we know the reasons behind each person’s choices. You have flesh and blood – you are not my enemy. Nor am I yours.

This is not to say that we should surrender to fear. Taking reasonable precautions is not the same as living in bondage to fear of the coronavirus. The mask I wear to go grocery shopping is not a sign that I lack faith or the ability to think for myself. It would be wrong to assume those things about me, just as it would be wrong of me to assume that everyone I see without a mask is callous or selfish. Just because you saw it on a meme on Facebook doesn’t make it true.

It is vitally important that we examine the source of the fatalist ideology that is creeping into our theology in new ways during this crisis. We know that the enemy knows the words to Psalm 91. Perhaps we need to take a cue from Jesus and respond with the words of Deuteronomy 6:16: “Do not put the Lord your God to the test.”

Psalm 46:1-2

“God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble.
Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea”

“Hey, it’s me. Just calling to chat, nothing earth-shattering. Call me back when you get a chance.” 

Have you ever left a voicemail message like this one? I have countless times. Probably most often, this is a message I would leave for my parents. What I am really saying is, “Don’t be worried that you missed my call. Everything is fine. I’d love to talk to you, but it’s not an emergency.” 

Why is it so much less common to use the expression “earth-shattering” in the opposite context? Those phone calls that start out with, “I’m calling from the hospital,” or, “There’s been an accident,” or, “I have your biopsy results.” Moments when it feels like your whole world is actually crumbling. Earth-shattering news. Everything has changed in a moment, and nothing will ever be the same.

The events of 2020 have been a bit like earthquakes that are reshaping what the world looks like. There have been so many that it’s hard to tell the earthquakes from the aftershocks, but it doesn’t really matter because the ground never seems to stop shaking. We’re trying to learn to live with the tremors, but it is hard to ignore the constant reminders of instability.

How, then, can the psalmist say, “we will not fear though the earth give way…”? Some of the deepest, most palpable fear I have felt has been in those moments when the phone rings late at night, when the voice on the other end made my blood feel cold and my muscles tremble. In the last few months, the fear is of a more chronic variety. It whispers and nags, asking what will happen next. Where will the next earthquake strike, and what will be destroyed when it does? The earth is giving way all around us – how can we not be afraid?

“God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble.” 

Psalm 46 repeats twice that, “The LORD Almighty is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress” (v. 7, 11). There is a place where the ground is not shaking, and we are invited to make our shelter there. More than any other time in our lives, now is an opportunity to tangibly learn that stability and security is found in God alone. 

The image of mountains crumbling and falling into the sea is compelling because mountains are among the largest and sturdiest things we can see with our eyes. I am drawn to mountains, in part because they remind me of God’s greatness and strength. Yet they, too, are changeable. Whether by slow processes of erosion and weathering or by sudden dramatic events such as earthquakes, even the mountains lack the permanence my soul longs for.

“Nations are in uproar,” the psalmist writes (v. 6). Yes, that sounds about right, doesn’t it? If we look to countries, governments, or leaders for shelter we will also be disappointed. These earthquakes are shaking everything that is familiar and it is frightening to realize that we have been seeking refuge in unreliable places. 

Psalm 46:10 ranks pretty high on the list of popular and often-quoted Bible verses. “Be still and know that I am God.” It is far less popular to put this verse into the context of the verses before it:

“Come and see what the Lord has done,
    the desolations he has brought on the earth.
He makes wars cease
    to the ends of the earth.
He breaks the bow and shatters the spear;
    he burns the shields with fire.
He says, “Be still, and know that I am God;
    I will be exalted among the nations,
    I will be exalted in the earth.”
-Psalm 46:8-10

Not all destruction is bad. It is possible that the earthquakes we are currently enduring are tearing down structures and systems that are so mammoth and familiar that we can’t imagine life without them, but God has something better. Perhaps some of our favorite mountains need to be thrown into the sea and the earthquake is the only way to get them there. So that he will be exalted – in the earth and in our lives.

However God is reshaping the landscape of your life and my life as individuals, and our lives collectively, he encourages us to take refuge in him during the messy process and beyond. He reminds us that he is ever-present and wants to dwell with us. He invites us to be still when all around us is constant turbulence. 

He offers us peace instead of fear. But in order to take hold of one we must first let go of the other.

Romans 1:20

“For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.”

What is it that draws us to beautiful places? What is it about those places that we all seem to agree that they’re beautiful in the first place?

Think about it: In general, standards of beauty for most things vary in different cultures and time periods. Think about art, music, architecture, and fashion. Two people can look at the same painting and have completely different feelings about its beauty. In the 1800’s, European women carried parasols to keep their skin as pale and white as possible, while today many people pay money to lay in a machine that will make them as tan as possible. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, as they say.

Yet I don’t know of a culture or a time period in which people didn’t find beauty in a sunset. Mountains, forests, beaches, and wildflowers seem to hold universal appeal. More than that, they elicit an emotional response on par with the world’s most magnificent works of art. Because that is exactly what they are.

This week we are camped beside a lake. There is nothing between us and the lakeshore except a patch of grass and a small campground road. The lake is to our west, so everything is perfectly situated for brilliant sunsets over the water. This place has been soothing my soul, even in the midst of other stresses and worries, and calls to mind this verse from Romans. 

God’s invisible qualities, or attributes in another version, are revealed to us in the things that he has made. The thing that calls to us universally about nature is God’s actual nature. We are created for relationship with him and so these things that show us more of who he is touch us on a deep level.

For a long time, I focused on the “power” part of this verse. The fact that any of it exists is evidence of his immense power to simply speak it into being. When I gaze upon a majestic mountain skyline, I think about how much greater God must be to have shaped such grandeur. When I look at the stars, I echo the words of the psalmist: 

When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him? (Psalm 8:3-4)

None of this is wrong. Connecting with even the smallest measure of God’s power is still hard to grasp and even harder to put into words, but most of us have experienced it so I won’t attempt to try. 

No, it wasn’t wrong to focus on God’s power in creation, but what I was missing were so many other aspects of his “divine nature” that call to me from within his created nature. The peace I feel beside the gently lapping water of the lake – that’s God’s peaceful nature. The sense of excitement and adventure that beckon me to follow the trail deeper into the forest – that’s God’s adventurous and daring nature. The music of birdsong that greets the sunrise – that’s God’s joyful and expectant nature. The way the air smells after a summer rain – that’s God’s redemptive nature.

This is not the same thing as believing that nature itself is a god or that God’s Spirit lives in everything he created. We do not worship nature or any part of the creation, and I want to be crystal clear about that. And Scripture is clear that human beings are unique among everything God created in bearing his image and receiving his Spirit. 

Nevertheless, God chooses to reveal aspects of his nature in the things he has made, which gives everyone on Earth a chance to experience his presence. Today, I plan to meet God in the warm, inviting waters of this lake. Where can you seek his nature in nature today?

Moment of Beauty

Here are some personal pictures of beautiful nature, and I hope they inspire you to find a little piece of natural beauty where you are today – even if it’s as simple as a dandelion, raindrops in a puddle, or the moon this evening.