Dave Dishman

Ancient philosophers depicted the gods living on Mount Olympus, gloriously unconcerned with everyday people. But where does the God of the Bible live?

For thus says the One who is high and lifted up, who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: “I dwell in the high and holy place, and also with him who is of a contrite and lowly spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly, and to revive the heart of the contrite.“

God dwells in a magnificent, sacred place with the saints and angels, far above my imagining. At least this is my visualization of his home. But notice where else he spends his time. God resides with the contrite—those who are remorseful and repentant. He settles in with the humble, the broken, the average, the modest of heart. He makes it a practice to sit with the lowly.

The triune Creator of the universe doesn’t lounge around Mount Olympus cracking nuts and playing croquet. He ain’t spending a lot of time with proud and arrogant people either. Rather, God comes to you and me when we humble ourselves, confess our sins, and ask for the peace of his company.

Where does God live? With all of us who need his presence and aren’t afraid to admit it.

Isaiah 57:15

Photo by Louis Galvez

Sometimes I’m lost in thought and my wife leans over and asks, what are you thinking? She assumes I’m thinking about her, or our kids or grandkids, or pondering a deep theological concept. So I mumble something along those lines. But what I’m actually thinking about is whether Mizzou’s new quarterback is as good as the hype? Could the Tigers challenge for an SEC championship with him at the helm? And as a follow-up, how’s the offensive line looking?

My thoughts rarely run deep. Instead they hit on sports, money, politics, what’s for supper, etc. The mundane things of life. Fortunately for me, the Lord’s reflections expand to the skies:

For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.

It’s not hard for the Lord to supersede my thoughts, or even the thoughts of history’s greatest thinkers. The Lord muses higher and richer, into the heavens.

I often overlook the reality that the Bible sitting on my shelf holds God’s thoughts as revealed to his prophets and disciples. Within its pages I get a glimpse of what’s on his mind. Which is why it’s so valuable to study the Scriptures and discover what the Lord is thinking.

Isaiah 55:8-9

Photo by Dominic Kurniawan Suryaputra

Paul expressed his frustration with the group of young believers in Corinth. They just couldn’t make the jump from their former ways to maturity in Christ.

At one point he calls them babies: Brothers and sisters, I could not address you as people who live by the Spirit but as people who are still worldly—mere infants in Christ. I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for it. Indeed, you are still not ready.

He pushes them to grow up: When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me.

Then he chides them for naive thinking: Brothers and sisters, stop thinking like children. In regard to evil be infants, but in your thinking be adults.

Paul yearns for this young congregation to flourish in grace and knowledge and the practice of their faith. He longs for them to develop into fully mature followers of Jesus. They are not there yet, so Paul keeps hammering away.

But notice the one aspect of life Paul hopes they remain infantile—in regard to evil. Corinth was a cosmopolitan seaport. Wicked walked the streets arm in arm with corrupt and immoral. The world pressed in from all sides.

Paul strove to build neophytes into thinkers who allowed the Holy Spirit to guide and direct them. He then juxtaposed these qualities with a refusal to engage in the seamy side of life. In other words, don’t get good at being bad. Paul reminds us that adults in the faith know when act like a grown-up and when to think like a child.

I Corinthians 3:1-2; 13:11; 14:20

Photo by Luke Jones

A company of German soldiers launched World War 1 by invading a small village in Luxembourg, a vital center for lines of communication between Germany and Belgium. While only a tiny step in an enormous tragedy (20 million people died in WWI, which set the stage for WW2 where another 75 million died), the act underscored the madness to come.

The name of the village? Trois Vierges, or the Three Virgins, representing faith, hope, and love—the first casualty of the war to end all wars.* The name referred to this line from the Apostle Paul: So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

Paul penned one of the most beautiful and moving passages in all literature on the overwhelming power of love: Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Our world promotes love, talks of it constantly, protests in favor of love and at times uses love as a cudgel to batter an unfavorable cause. Those German soldiers invading Trois Vierges all had people they loved, either wives or children, or at least their dogs. It’s easier to talk about love and read beautiful words about love, than it is to practice love.

I need the Lord’s help to practice love. I must rely on the Holy Spirit to enable me to trouble myself beyond my circle of family and friends. I see too much of myself in those who tromp others underfoot while mouthing shibboleths about caring. To love my neighbor as myself remains a powerful challenge, and so I pray:

Lord, help me to love, and remind me of when I’m trampling those around me who need your touch today.

1 Corinthians 13

*The Guns of August by Barbara W. Tuchman (p. 98)

Photo by Kyle Cleveland