Finding Perspective in the Chaos

Now this weekend, flip your notes over to page one, let's talk about finding perspective in the chaos. Chaos is the word that the national media used in my observation most often to describe the condition that our state was in in the last couple of weeks on Forbes.com. Northern California thrown into chaos by PG&E blackouts. The New York Times tales of chaos from the California blackout that you and I just lived through. And I've noticed that chaos is used in the news in general to describe our world more and more. And news headlines aside, we all live chaotic lives at times. Would you agree with that? There's relational chaos, financial chaos, professional chaos, illness chaos, schedule chaos.

So knowing that there will be chaos in our lives, is there a secret to staying calm and collected and centered in the middle of it? Because when chaos happens, the temptation that you and I face every single time is to make our chaos chaotic-er. Do you know what I mean? To make it even worse, to respond with fear or panic or worry. The real challenge is never really the chaos. It's how you respond to the chaos. So wouldn't you love to learn how to respond with calm? Well, that's what we see David doing in today's story.

Let me catch you up to speed. When we last left David last weekend, he was riding back into Jerusalem after Absalom's revolt. It was civil war, but his side won and now he's surely hoping for a time of peace. Instead, there's another revolt almost instantly. And then there's a three-year drought and famine. And then the pesky Philistines start another war on the border, and then David himself is almost killed. In battle, he's cornered. A man with a raised spear about to skewer him. And Abishai shows up at the last possible second, and David is saved when Abishai spears the man about to spear David with just seconds to spare.

And then David's advisors tell him, "You are never going out to battle again. You're too old. You can't hack it anymore. It's too much of a risk." Imagine how hard that was for David to take. David the giant killer. David the great warrior. David the legend. And now he's an old man and they're taking away the keys to the car. He's the aging quarterback who still thinks he can do it but cut from the team.

I want to show you something. This is one of the earliest photographs ever taken in America. It's surely one of the earliest photographic portraits ever taken in human history. It's by a woman named Julia Cameron. She called it a study of King David. And I think it's fascinating that she chose to pose her model as David, not in triumph, not the young David with the slingshot, you know, downing a giant. Instead she imagines him tired and exhausted and worn out. And that's very accurate actually. I think she knew her Bible because look at the way the Bible describes David in 2 Samuel 21:15 during this time. It says, "He became weak and exhausted."

And then right at this spot in the text, with all the context leading up to it that I just described, the author of Samuel inserts a song. What is this, a musical about war and bloodshed? Well, it's a song that David wrote at this point in his life. And it's included in 2 Samuel 22. Look at verse 1. It says, "David sang this song to the Lord on the day the Lord rescued him from all his enemies and King Saul." Some experts believe this may be the last song that this prolific writer of song lyrics, David ever wrote. It goes on and says, "He sang." Now stop for a second. I want to point out, David didn't just pen these words. He sang them. And you know the difference, right? It's the difference between, "Well, I got the job." And, "I got the job!" Right? This means David's stoked. David believes this way down to the core of his being.

What does he believe? Something very surprising considering the chaotic context of the composition. He says, "The Lord is my rock, my fortress, my savior. My God is my rock in whom I find protection. He's my shield, the power that saves me and my place of safety." We've seen this again and again in the two and a half months we've been doing this series, but David's favorite way, all time, favorite way to think of God is as a rock, as a fortress, as a place of safety, as a hideout. And personally, I think it's because David had to literally crawl into caves and crawl into rocks and hide in holes so many times as he fled his adversaries that he's probably lost count. And so his favorite way to think of God in stressful times is, "You're my hideout. You're my hiding place."

When I was in Israel filming and writing for this series, I went to a place called The Garden of the Righteous Among Nations. It's at the Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem. It honors Gentiles who saved Jews during World War II. And there's a tree planted there in memory of Corey Tenbom and her family. Corey Tenbom was an amazing Dutch woman. She was actually the first female licensed commercial watchmaker in the history of Holland. Very successful business person. She ran youth groups for teenagers in her neighborhood. She raised several abandoned children. And then in World War II, her whole family, who all lived together in a couple of conjoined homes there in downtown Amsterdam, they hid Jews from the Nazis in a secret room that they had built in their house. A literal hiding place behind a false wall. And they saved an estimated 800 Jewish lives. 800.

But the entire Tenbom family were all caught. And Corey and her sister Betsy were imprisoned in the Ravensbruck concentration camp. Notorious, hideous, nightmarish place of death. One day, Corey told her sister Betsy, "I wish we had a secret room to hide in here, just to go away and escape like we used to have at our house." And Betsy told her, "But Corey, we do." And Corey was like, "You've been hiding out on me. Where?" And Betsy said, "The Lord is our hiding place." And she said she realized she was always filled with worry, understandably, but Betsy always seemed to be at peace. And she understood in that moment that it's because Betsy could always go spiritually to a place of peace anytime she wanted to because of the way she looked at circumstances. And eventually Corey learned to do this too. She wrote a bestseller about it called "The Hiding Place." I really recommend it.

And one of the stories she tells in the book is this one. The barracks they slept in there were flea-ridden. And one day Betsy said to Corey, "You know, Corey, I thank God for all these fleas." And he said, "That is going a bit too far. I refuse to thank God for these pests." And Betsy said, "Well, you can do whatever you want, but I believe God is somehow going to work everything for good." That's what the Bible says. "Even these fleas, maybe we'll see how he's going to work this out for good too." Well, they started holding church services in the barracks, certain that the guards would stop them, but they didn't. And these church services grew and grew until it was a standing room only church service.

And then they had to do two church services, and then they had to start streaming on Facebook Live. No, that's not true. But they went to two standing room services on Sunday mornings, and then they started holding them daily. I mean, they would sing worship songs, then they would read some scripture, one of the ten bomb girls would pray. And Corey wondered why the Nazis would allow this. Until one day she overheard two guards say, "Well, do you want to go in and stop them?" And the other one said, "And step into that flea-infested place, not on your life!" Is it possible to find a hiding place, even in a Nazi concentration camp? Yes. Corey says she discovered that peace is not about a chaos-free life. It's about how you choose to see life.

And that's exactly what David does in this song. I mean, think about this. Nothing has really turned out the way David hoped, right? I mean, surely when he was a teenager in Samuel, the prophet anointed him as the next king of Israel. He did not picture all the travails and the near escapes from death over and over and over again in his life, all of his chaos. Nothing's not... His kingdom is not turning out the way he hoped. His kids didn't turn out the way he hoped. Nothing. And maybe you feel like your life has not turned out the way you hoped. Or life is just harder than you thought it would be. The hits just keep on coming, right? Well, David's right there with you.

And watch how he finds perspective in his chaos by choosing to look at his life in a certain way. This song in 2 Samuel 22 very neatly falls into three divisions. His past, his present, and his future. First, he says, "In my past, God saved me," as in literally saved his skin. He says, "When I look back, I see one bad thing after another and one rescue after another." Rest of verse 3, "He is my refuge, my savior, the one who saves me from violence. I called on the Lord who is worthy of praise, and he saved me from my enemies." What enemies did David have? Well, think back on his story. Lions, bears, a giant Philistine warrior, a murderous king, a flotilla of assassins, all kinds of enemies on all his borders, a civil war, a rebellious son.

And then, right after he's almost killed, he writes this. He admits, "Man, all that was bad." And here's the way he described how all that felt. "The waves of death overwhelmed me. Floods of destruction swept over me. The grave wrapped its ropes around me. Death laid a trap in my path. I was a goner. I was as good as dead. But in my distress, I called out to the Lord. Yes, I cried to my God for help. And he heard me from his sanctuary. My cry reached his ears. Now, don't miss what happens next." Look how he describes this. "Then the earth quaked and trembled. The foundations of the heavens shook. They quaked because of his anger. Smoke poured from his nostrils. Fierce flames leaped from his mouth. Glowing coals blazed forth from him. And he opened the heavens and came down. Dark storm clouds were beneath his feet. Mounted on a mighty angelic being. He flew soaring on the wings of the wind." That's how David describes how God rescued him.

But let me ask you, when did David ever see this? By now, you know much of his story. Did this happen when he was hiding from Saul in the cave? No. Did this happen when he was facing, you know, the Philistines on the battlefield? No. Did this happen when his own son Absalom was trying to kill him? No. If you think about it, you realize this never happened. David never saw the heavens split open and God riding on angelic beings and swooping down and clutching him and rescuing him from the grasp of his pursuers. If you could time travel back to David's era and you had a video camera, you could record every near disastrous moment in his life, you would never capture anything even remotely like this on your video screen.

So what's David talking about? This is the way David, as an old man now, is looking back and seeing what happened in his life. This was just as real to him as everything that your video camera could capture. You know, you ever ask an older person about their tough times and hear them say something like this, "It all seemed so dark to me then, but now looking back, I can see God's fingerprints all over it." Didn't see it then, but looking back, man, can I see God moving then? It was amazing. This is what David is saying. If David narrated your life, you know what he'd see? That friend who brought you a meal that time that you were sick, that was an angel soaring to help. That sunrise that you saw on The Way to Work or The Way to Church today, David would say, "That was the heavens opening and God showing you his glory." Or maybe that Bible verse you saw or that song you heard at just the right time to inspire you.

For David, that's God soaring to you on the wings of the wind, mounted on the cherubim, reaching down from heaven, pulling you out of deep waters in the nick of time, and then leaving a vapor trail in his wake. That's how he perceives his life. And it's just as real as anything that you could record physically, you see? Verse 17, "He reached down from heaven and rescued me. He drew me out of deep waters. He rescued me from my powerful enemies, from those who hated me and were too strong for me. He led me to a place of safety. He rescued me." Now, look at this carefully. "God rescued me," he says. Why? Because what? He delights in me.

What? Personally, I think this may be the most audacious and the hardest phrase for people to believe in this whole song. "God saved me because he delights in me." I want us to say these four words out loud. "God delights in me." Say that with me. "God delights in me." Now, say it like you mean it. "God delights in me." One more time. "God delights in me." Maybe that's making you squirm a little bit. Because some of you are going, "I'm pretty sure God exists, but I'm not even sure God cares for me, and if he does, if he's aware of my existence, I'm pretty sure that I disgust him." Sometimes we get the idea that God saves me because it's like his job description cosmically somehow, you know?

Kind of like I was thinking about this, kind of like those grocery store clerks. Now, it's kind of the mode, the fashion, the way they're training grocery store clerks these days is at the checkout line, they got to smile, they got to call you by name, right? "Hello, Mr. Scleeper. It's so good to have you with you." Why do they do that? Because they delight in you. No, it's their job. They got to smile at you. They don't love you. They don't even like you. If it wasn't for you, they'd be standing there gossiping with the other checkout clerks all the time. Then you had to roll up with your cart, with your yogurt, with your coupons. You annoy them. They don't like you.

My point is sometimes we think, "I'm pretty sure I kind of annoy God, but he's got to save me because it's like, you know, his attributes or something." No, God delights in you, but he can't delight in me. I'm so inconsistent. I'm so not righteous. I don't pray enough for something. Think of who is writing this. This is David, very flawed human being. That has nothing to do with God's delight. Listen, look up here for just a second if you've been distracted by the scores from the London NFL game as I have been. Some of you, the next two minutes may be why God wanted you in church today. I love the way author Brannan Manning puts it. Jesus Christ, this moment comes right to your seat and says, "I have a word for you." I know your whole life story. I know every skeleton in your closet. I know every moment of sin, shame, dishonesty, and degraded love that has darkened your past.

Right now I know your shallow faith, your feeble prayer life, your inconsistent discipleship, and my word is this. I dare you to trust that I love you just as you are and not as you should be. Yes, I know. God's 100% delight, of course, does not mean God's 100% approval of every single thing you do. Do parents delight in their kids without approving of their tantrums? Of course they do. When you really start to believe this, your spiritual growth takes off because it's just natural to want to spend time with somebody who likes you, right? And if you think, "God not only just kind of exists, but He likes me," you will start to spend more time with Him. You'll start to see your spiritual growth just soar.

David looks back and sees, "Because He delights in me, He saved me again and again and again." And let me give you a homework assignment here. This week write down three ways God has saved you, come through for you in the past. A prayer God answered, "You needed a lift somewhere and a friend helped. You got a job in the nick of time. You got an encouraging text phone call. You got a meal." I guarantee you, the more you're aware of those times, the more help you'll have in times of chaos. Now, I spent most of my time on point one, but points two and three are important too. Very quickly, next David says, "And in my present God strengthens me." He says, "Every time I've needed strength, God has strengthened me." Any time you need strength, God is there to help you.

David says, "With your help, I can attack an army. With God's help, I can jump over a wall." What? Remember, this is right after his worst performance in a battle. He was almost killed, like maybe like hours before he wrote this. He's old, he's weak, his skills are gone. He goes on, "He makes me like a deer that doesn't stumble. He helps me stand on steep mountains. He trains my hands for battle so my arms can bend a bronze bow." What is he saying? Again, poetically, he's saying God will give him all the strength he needs for the tasks he has left. And the same exact thing is true for you. Maybe there's some challenge in front of you right now, making you feel totally incapable, like being asked to bend a piece of metal with your bare hands. David says, "Well, if I really have to bend a bronze bow, like if that's important to God, then God will help me do it." Like the Apostle Paul said much later, "I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength."

And then, David uses one of my favorite phrases. Of all the great phrases this ancient Shakespeare-level wordsmith coined, this has got to be up there as one of my favorite. He says, "You protect me with your saving shield." Watch this. "You have stooped to make me great." This is so rich. A couple of things I want to highlight here. God stooped to save you because that's the only reason you could possibly be saved. We were as good as dead, and the only way we could possibly connect with God, we couldn't reach him. And so he stooped down to us. It's what somebody called the stooping of majesty. God stooped from heaven to reveal himself to the people of Israel on Mount Sinai. And the Bible says that he keeps stooping down from heaven closer and closer and closer.

As the Bible develops, you see it in the tabernacle and then in the temple, until one day God stoops all the way down into a lowly cattle feeding trough for shepherds and sheep and Bethlehem, and then further all the way down to a cross and then as low as you can stoop underground, you know, into the grave, and then rose again, all to rescue us. And we're going to remember that in a minute during communion. But the stooping of majesty is the plot line of the Bible. The Bible is not about us searching for God. It's about God stooping, seeking, saving, people who weren't even looking for him in the first place. And then even more amazingly, David says, "You have stooped to make me..." What? Great! I love that! He saved me to make me great! I mean, why do you think God saved you? To barely let you squeak into heaven? To turn you into some inoffensive, milk toast church tender who gets a perfect attendance pin? No, he saved you to make you great!

Now, maybe this is as hard for you to believe as God delights in me. So do me a favor. Let's declare this out loud too. Say it with me. God saved me to make me great. One more time. God saved me to make me great. Do you really believe that? You have unique talents, unique life experiences, unique spiritual gifts that God is going to use in great ways. Certainly not in all the great things that our culture associates with the word "great." But he will do great things through you. He will make your character great to be like Christ. Can you see how this whole psalm is an x-ray of David's psyche? David doesn't have what we would call in our culture good self-esteem. What he has is good God-esteem. This is how he sees... He doesn't think, "I am so amazing!" That's not how he gets through the chaotic times in life. He thinks, "God is so amazing!"

He says, "In my past, do I see bad times?" "Yeah, I see also God saving me again and again." "And in my present, I see God strengthening me again and again." "And you know what I see in my future? In my future, God secures me." So I have nothing to worry about. Very last line of the song. You show unfailing love to your anointed, to David and all his descendants forever. God's love for you is unfailing forever. You know, maybe somebody told you once, "I don't really love you anymore." Maybe a boss told you once, "Yeah, we're moving on here. We don't want you around anymore." Maybe a parent abandoned you. Maybe a once close friend ended your relationship. God will never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever stop loving you, not even after you're dead.

Because you will be with him forever if you love him and trust him. David says, "When God saved me, God saved me forever." Now, David is specifically referring to God's covenant promise that David will have an heir, a son of David, to rule on his throne forever who will one day finish what he, David, started. But of course, you and I have that same exact promise. One day the son of God, or rather the son of David and son of God, Jesus Christ, will return and rule on David's throne and will finish what he started and will make all things new and all things right. And that is security for our future.

So look at all the ways that David is framing his life in this moment when another person might see it as all the wheels keep coming off. David is framing his... This is the power of perspective. And for a couple of minutes before we go into communion, I just want to talk to you about this. How are you choosing to frame your life experience right now? Listen carefully. You are subconsciously, even if you're not aware of it, you're subconsciously looking for evidence constantly to support some view of the world, your operating system by which you frame the world. Like our country in the world is just going to hell in a handbasket. You're going to find evidence to prove that point of view.

This political party or that political party, they're all evil idiots. You'll find evidence to support whatever point of view you've got. Those secularists are ruining everything. They're all... They have it in for us Christians. Well, you're going to find evidence. Or God is always at work, even in the fleas in a concentration camp's barracks. You're going to find evidence for that. You will find evidence for whatever world view you are choosing is operating your life right now. So choose carefully what evidence you are seeking because you tend to see whatever you seek.

I'm not saying you change reality. I'm saying if you're looking into your past for ways God supported you over and over and over again, you're going to find evidence of that like David did over and over and over again. But if you are looking into your past for ways that you're just a screw up and you keep messing up your life, you're going to find plenty of evidence for that. Or if you are looking into your past for evidence that other people are always walking all over you, yet holding you back, you're going to find evidence for that too. That's why two different people in the same exact circumstance can have two different life experiences. Would you agree with that?

You know, I saw it just this past week when most of us lost power here at TLC. You might know we hosted a community resource center with PG&E. And some people were just ticked no matter what we or the PG&E volunteers did for them. One person told Valerie Webb, "I am very disappointed in you." As he left with arms full of free stuff that was given out, free batteries and free charging cables and free charging cords and free lanterns and free candy and free food and free sandwiches. But he was still bitter. At least Mark eventually apologized, but it was a hard thing to see. But you know what? Other people seemed almost joyful.

One whole family told me they were over here all day long plugging in everything because everything was off at their house. They said, "You know, this is kind of cool because it's like the community bonding experience of the earthquake in '89 without all the damage. It's the best." Another family told, I don't know if you noticed last weekend, but there were people all through the lobby sitting cross-legged on the floor, plugging in their laptops and stuff because the PG&E resource center didn't have power yet. And so we just went over there and said, "Hey guys, come on into church. Plug in your stuff here in the auditorium. Of course, you'll have to listen to me preach, but come on in." And one family told me, "We've been meaning to check out TLC for years and I guess this is what God had to do to get us here." But my favorite comment was, one person I talked to said this, "I went outside last night and because there were no lights, I saw the most amazing sky filled with stars. The Milky Way was completely visible. It was breathtaking." That's the power of perspective.

What about you? Do you see the darkness or do you see the stars? Look at the way David frames his whole life. Nothing has turned out the way he hoped. But here in his last song, he doesn't just see the darkness, he sees the stars. And that's a song you can sing too. A writer named Emily Kingsley talks about this. She has a little child with some serious developmental challenges. And she blogs for other parents about what that feels like. And what she says about her circumstance can apply, I think, to so many of us here. I loved this.

She said, "It's like this. When you're going to have a baby, it's like planning a fabulous vacation to Italy. And you buy a bunch of guidebooks and you're going to see Venice and Rome and the Sistine Chapel. You learn some Italian phrases and the day arrives, you board the plane, it lands. And the flight attendant says, 'Welcome to Holland.' And you say, 'Holland, but I signed up for Italy. I'm prepared for Italy all my life. I've dreamed of going to Italy.' Well, there's been a change in the flight plans. And at first you're confused and disappointed, but after you've been there a while, you begin to look around and notice Holland has windmills, and Holland has tulips, and Holland even has Rembrandt's. And so you get new guidebooks and you learn a new language, and you meet a whole new group of people that you never would have met before.

Now, she writes, "For the rest of your life, you could say, 'Man, I was supposed to go to Italy.' And the pain will never, ever, ever go away. But if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to Italy, you'll never be free to enjoy Holland." And that principle applies in so many ways. David's life was different in many ways from what he planned. Your life is different in some ways from what you planned. Don't just be sad that you didn't get to Italy. Enjoy Holland.

I started by talking about the hiding place. You know, Corrie Tenbom survived. And I got to hear her in person years ago at a church in San Jose. People were so excited that she was there. The whole church was standing room only. And they had to put chairs in the baptistery behind the speaker, and that's where I sat, in a chair with my head peeking up over the baptistery. And I got to see the back of Corrie Tenbom as she shared. But I heard this concentration camp survivor say something I'll never forget. Quote, "Happiness isn't something that depends on our surroundings. It's something we make inside ourselves." And she ought to know.

So the next time there's unexpected chaos in your life, don't make your chaos even chaotic-er. Get a bigger perspective. The God's eye view, as David did. That's the bottom line. How do you frame your life? Frame it like David. Because when the chaos strikes, God is your hiding place. Let's pray together.

Our Father in Heaven. We give thanks that in our past you have acted again and again and again. And we give thanks that in our present you keep giving us our daily bread, you keep forgiving us our sins over and over. And we give thanks that in the future we can have security that your kingdom will come, your will will be done on earth as it is in heaven. And you'll keep loving us forever and ever. But God, life can be confusing. It can be chaotic. So help us to choose to see our lives, past, present, and future, with this biblical worldview as evidence you are working even in the chaos. Give us a robust God-esteem. And now we remember at the communion table how you stooped from majesty to rescue us because you delighted us. We come to you with our great need. Help us to revel in your salvation and your delight now. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.