Yahweh-Yireh: God sees us. (And provides… but that’s a different idea.)

Genesis 22.12.

My church’s musicians finally got round to learning “Jireh,” an Elevation Worship song which mixes together the ideas of God being “Jehovah Jireh” and “my grace is sufficient for thee.”

Kinda like the Don Moen’s old song “Jehovah Jireh” did. Here’s the Moen song:

Jehovah Jireh, my provider

His grace is sufficient for me, for me, for me

Jehovah Jireh, my provider

His grace is sufficient for me

 

My God shall supply all my needs

According to his riches in glory

He will give his angels charge over me

Jehovah Jireh cares for me, for me, for me

Jehovah Jireh cares for me

And he does! Anyway, y’notice Moen stitched together a couple different things from the scriptures: There’s the name “Jehovah Jireh.” There’s the “grace is sufficient” concept, which comes from when Paul complained to God about something he suffered from, and God’s response was, “I’m not curing that. I want you weak; it reveals my strength. So you’re just gonna have to settle for my grace.” That’s an extremely loose translation of 2 Corinthians 12.9, a verse that’s also heavily quoted out of context, but I’m not discussing that one today.

Oh, and the “supply all my needs” bit comes from Paul and Timothy’s statement to the Philippians at the close of their letter:

Philippians 4.19 KJV

But my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus.

Buncha provision scriptures. Moen’s trying to remind us of a biblical principle which Jesus expressed better in his Sermon on the Mount: Stop worrying. God provides way better than, thus far, you’ve been expecting him to… so stop underestimating your loving Father, stop stressing out, and let him provide.

Matthew 6.25-34 KJV

25 Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment? 26 Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they? 27 Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature? 28 And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: 29 and yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 30 Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to day is, and to morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith? 31 Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? 32 (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. 33 But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you. 34 Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.

God provides. And a lot of Christians like to remember that—and love the Moen song—so they’ll call him “Jehovah Jireh.”

But here’s the problem: “My provider” is not what Jireh means. It means “seer.” God sees us.

Altars, and how God expects us to use them.

ALTAR 'ɔl.tər noun. A table or block used as the focus for a religious ritual, particularly offerings or ritual sacrifices to a deity.

2. In Christianity, the table used to hold the elements for holy communion.

3. In some churches, the stage, the steps to the stage, or the space in front of the stage, where people go as a sign of commitment.

Whenever humans ritually worship God, we usually need a table to put stuff on.

Might be the stuff we need for our rituals. Might be something we’re gonna give to God, or sacrifice for God. If there’s nothing else around—we just kinda did this on the spur of the moment—often humans will use the table itself as the ritual: “Hey God, I built you an altar!” and then we pray at the altar. Which is exactly what we Christians do whenever we use our churches’ various tables or raised platforms (or, y’know, actual altars for holy communion) as makeshift altars for our “altar calls.”

Humanity instinctively just finds something profound about using a raised platform for God-stuff. It’s not solely practical.

When spur-of-the-moment altars get built, it’s usually because we wanna worship God so bad, we can’t wait to get to an existing altar. Or we figure we’re gonna worship God at that place, and frequently, so we may as well have a regular altar around. Sometimes it’s a memorial altar: God did something at that location, so let’s mark it with an altar, and people can use it to continue to worship him.

Among the ancients Hebrews, any flat-surfaced rock would do. But typically they did stuff to make the altar more obviously an altar, and not just some flat rock. Ancient middle eastern custom was simply to stand a rock upright: A rock lying flat on the ground was obviously a product of nature, but a rock standing upright for no good reason probably had some good reason: Somebody propped it up that way as a memorial or an altar. That was the idea when the Hebrews left 12 rocks near the place they first crossed the Jordan River into Palestine:

Joshua 4.8 KJV

And the children of Israel did so as Joshua commanded, and took up twelve stones out of the midst of Jordan, as the LORD spake unto Joshua, according to the number of the tribes of the children of Israel, and carried them over with them unto the place where they lodged, and laid them down there.

Iron Age massebót, or standing stones, found in the middle east. Biblical Archaeology Review

“And laid them down” (Hebrew וַיַּנִּח֖וּם/vey-yannikhúm, “and placed them”) implies they put ’em flat on the ground, or in a pile, or even in a tower. That wasn’t the middle eastern custom. They stood up. It needed to be obvious humans had placed them there for good reason. These were a memorial; these were for worship; sometimes these were altars. They weren’t random rocks in a weird formation.

Y’might notice lots of ancient cultures put up “standing stones” for exactly the same reason. Like the obelisks and steles of ancient Egypt, or the megaliths and menhirs and stone circles found all over the Celtic regions. Heck, I’ve known kids who like to stand rocks upright for fun, so it’s no surprise you’ll find ’em everywhere. But for the really big stones which take effort to put in place, we’re talking important reasons for it: Memorials and worship.

The prayer journal: Keeping track of our conversations with God.

PRAYER JOURNAL 'pr(eɪ.)ər 'dʒər.nəl noun. A regular record of our interactions with God.

[Prayer journaling - 'dʒər.nəl.ɪŋ verb tense.]

Gotta admit: There’s a lot of old emails and texts I’ve never deleted. I have text chains going back decades now. I delete stuff from businesses and employers; I especially delete ads. But I wanna keep the family and friends stuff.

A prayer journal is as close as we can get to the same thing with God.

It’s sort of a diary. But rather than listing all the main things we did each day (or listing all of them, plus our innermost secret feelings about them, which’ll be a lot of embarrassing fun someday when someone finds and reads it, especially in a courtroom) it’s about what we prayed. We’re keeping track. God’s memory of our interactions is absolutely perfect; ours, not always so much.

Yeah, I realize not everyone keeps a diary. Sometimes because someone found and read it, and we realized such a thing is a great big embarrassment time bomb. Other times because we lack the self-discipline. Mostly because we never saw the point. Well this is the point: You kinda should keep track.

See, your average Christian doesn’t journal their prayers. Don’t see the point. They ask God a question and get an answer, then move on. They ask for stuff, get it, and move on. Or they don’t get what they want, give up, and move on. Or they ask God on behalf of others, but they don’t bother to follow up because they don’t entirely care; or they got some news about whether the prayer worked, then promptly forgot it and again moved on.

Lots of moving on. But no record of anything God’s done for them. No record other than their own personal, and often faulty, memories. And whenever people go through any kind of crisis, sometimes those memories immediately become irrelevant: Our panicking minds don’t recall, or even care, how God’s constantly come through for us in the past.

God answers our prayers all the time. And not just with “no”! But when we never keep track, we can’t always tell you when, how, and how often. When we’re feeling low, we too often forget every good thing God has done for us. You know, like the Hebrews did in the wilderness, every single time they hit a rough patch: “Aw man, we’re gonna die. Y’know, despite all the whippings and work and how they used to murder our babies, I remember Egypt was way better. Why’d we ever leave?” Ex 16.3, 17.3, Nu 11.18, etc. God forbid, but this kind of thing still happens with humans. All the time.

That’s why the prophets and apostles put together a written record of what God did do for ’em. And you oughta have one too. Your prayer journal is what God’s done for you. Keep track!

Especially if you’re involved (or getting involved) with your church’s prayer ministry. Or if you regularly pray for others. Or if you’re not entirely sure prayer works: Keep a journal for three months and see for yourself.

There are dozens of different prayer journal techniques. Today I’ll just start you off with a really simple method, which works for me.

Prophetic note-taking.

So you’re in church, someone’s preaching a sermon, and you’re taking notes. You do take notes, right?

Oh you don’t? Well start taking notes!

Some churches include a blank page in their bulletin for note-taking… although some churches stopped producing bulletins during the 2020 pandemic, so that’s not always an option anymore. I used to take a notebook to church with me. Nowadays I use Google Documents on my phone.

You don’t have to write down every single thing the preacher says, or every single thing they put on their PowerPoint slides, or deduce and reconstruct their entire sermon outline. You can try, for fun. But I’ve found pretty much the only things you wanna write down are the things you’ll want to remember later:

• Profound things they said which you’ll want to meditate upon.
• Profound scriptures they quoted which you’ll want to memorize.
• Stuff you’ll want to fact-check. It sounds like good stuff… but is it true?

As a result you won’t have an entire page of notes. Maybe three or four important points. More, if the sermon’s full of a lot of good stuff. Less, if you spend the entire sermon trying to “find the pony.” (I explain what I mean by that elsewhere.) But in general you shouldn’t wind up with full notebooks full of stuff which you’ll never find the time to go back to… like all the notebooks I used to fill when I was a teenager.

Oh, and the fourth thing you oughta include in your notes: Anything the Holy Spirit tells you.

This is why I titled this article, “Prophetic note-taking.” This is the prophetic part. You’re paying attention to the sermonizer… and I would hope you’re also keeping an ear open for the Spirit. ’Cause he’s gonna make comments during the sermon. Ideas are gonna pop into your head which relate to God. (And sometimes they won’t even have anything to do with the sermon. Not that this matters.) Whenever this happens, write ’em down.

“So wait: Every stray idea that pops into my head is the Holy Spirit?” No. Honestly, many of those ideas will be your bright ideas. And some of them won’t actually be all that bright. In fact they might be really stupid. But sometimes, sometimes… one of them is a God-idea. And you’d better keep those!

The Satan Versus Satan Story.

Mark 3.23-26, Matthew 12.24-30, Luke 11.17-18.

Jesus was in the habit of ignoring Pharisee customs. In part because they aren’t biblical and therefore aren’t necessary (and aren’t sin when you break ’em). In part because too many Pharisees pointed to their customs as proof they were devout… and hoped the customs distracted people from the fact they were breaking the Law just as much as any gentile. It was all hypocrisy—the one thing which really pisses Jesus off.

Pharisees who legitimately tried to follow God, easily recognized Jesus is from God. Pharisees who were only interested in looking devout had the darnedest time trying to prove Jesus isn’t from God: It’s kinda impossible to make such a case when Jesus so obviously has God’s power to cure the sick and throw evil spirits out of people. When Pharisees tried to cure people and do exorcisms, they had such a low success rate, lots of Jews turned to witch doctors instead. In comparison, Jesus looks like he put hardly any effort into it. Sometimes he had to pray real hard, or lay hands on someone more than once, or had to give up because people were so faithless. But most of the time he’d say, “You’re cured,” and they were; or “Get out,” and the critters would scream and flee. He had the Holy Spirit without limit, Jn 3.34 and this almightiness showed.

So Pharisees had nothing. But it looks like the Galilean Pharisees decided to pick the brains of Judean Pharisees, who came up with the explanation, “He hath Beelzebub, and by the prince of the devils casteth he out devils.” Mk 3.22 I explained the backstory of “Beelzebub,” properly Baal Zevúl, in another article. It’s pretty much a euphemism for Satan. Like many a cessationist nowadays, these Judeans claimed Jesus did his thing through the power of the devil. ’Cause God would never work through such people.

In response, Jesus told this parable.

Mark 3.23-26 KWL

23 Jesus, summoning them,

is telling them in parables,

“How can Satan throw out Satan?

24 When a kingdom is divided against itself,

that kingdom can’t stand.

25 When a house is divided against itself,

that house can’t stand.

26 And if Satan rises up against itself and is divided,

it can’t stand. Instead it’s the End.”

When you gotta pray in public.

You might have an amazing, consistent prayer life. You might have regular deep, meaningful conversations with God.

Nah, who are we kidding? You might suck at it. All your prayers are short little “God, can I have [IMMEDIATE DESIRE]?” whenever your wallet can’t immediately answer your requests. And maybe you remember to say grace. And yeah, when someone else at church is praying, you agree with them. That’s about it.

Then, terror of terrors, it comes time to speak to God in front of other people. The small group leader tells you, “Hey, could you lead us in prayer?” and you quickly look behind yourself to confirm the leader was totally speaking to someone else… and when it turns out nope, it’s you, you outwardly say, “Yeah no problem,” and inwardly freak out a little.

Totally normal.

No, it doesn’t mean you suck as a Christian. (Being irreligious does.) You’re praying in front of others. That’s a form of public speaking—the number one fear of all Americans, in survey after survey. People are more afraid of public speaking than death. Than death. Jerry Seinfeld once joked that at a funeral, more people would rather be in the casket than give the eulogy.

So if you’re anxious about public speaking—you don’t know what to say, or you did but as soon as you stood up you blanked out, or you’re anxious about what people might think when you mess up, or you feel you might have an utter meltdown and collapse in tears and even your own pee: This is normal. Yeah, maybe we Christians in particular oughta have more courage than this, but it’s normal to not want to speak or pray to a crowd. You’re not a freak. Relax.

Okay, so how do we deal with this? Glad you asked.

Experiencing God by obeying him.

Experiencing God: Knowing and Doing the Will of God.
By Henry and Richard Blackaby, and Claude V. King.
326 pages. B&H Books: 2021 edition.

May as well start by plugging the book Experiencing God, a book that’s been out since 1976 and has been through a few editions and updates. It’s about taking your Christianity beyond being just an intellectual exercise—beyond merely believing you’re saved, and Jesus is Lord and orthodox Christianity is true, and all the assorted beliefs connected with that.

Because Christians discover these beliefs, by themselves, are completely unfulfilling. What we want is real live contact with God, not a series of things to accept, verses to memorize, rituals to practice, and motions to go through. We want what the first apostles had. We don’t want to just believe, but see. Because that’s the testimony we see throughout the bible: People saw stuff. It was never enough for the folks in the bible to give testimonies without concrete experiential evidence.

Yet somehow, that’s become okay for many 21st century Christians. Some of ’em will even insist we’d better expect nothing more—that seeking signs and wonders is somehow devilish, and lacks faith.

Do read the book. But like most books written by pastors, Experiencing God takes a powerful pile of words before they finally get to the point. I was trained as a journalist, so I won’t. You want to experience God? It’s ridiculously simple: Obey him.

Yeah, it’s really no more complicated than that. We make it complicated… because we’re trying to find loopholes. We want excuses to not obey him.