The Shadow of a Great Rock in a Dry and Weary Law

I've been seeing more correlation between special revelation and general revelation lately. Here's one example.

Psalm 19 speaks of the glory of God revealed in the skies, and in a second section, of the perfections of God's law. Here's the first section:

The heavens declare the glory of God,
and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.
Day to day pours out speech,
and night to night reveals knowledge.
There is no speech, nor are there words,
whose voice is not heard.
Their voice goes out through all the earth,
and their words to the end of the world.
In them he has set a tent for the sun,
which comes out like a bridegroom leaving his chamber,
and, like a strong man, runs its course with joy.
Its rising is from the end of the heavens,
and its circuit to the end of them,
and there is nothing hidden from its heat.
(Psalm 19:1-6 ESV)

Though we often think of the nighttime sky when we think of "the heavens" revealing the nature of God, here David focuses on the daytime sky, and particularly the sun. If you've been to Israel (or any desert, for that matter), you'll understand the attention given to the daytime sun: the clean dry air makes the night sky breathtakingly beautiful, but the daytime sun shows the כְּבֹֽוד־אֵ֑ל, the glory, heaviness, splendor, and copiousness of God. When I was there ten years ago, the dryer where we stayed broke, but it didn't matter (besides a little embarrassment at everyone seeing each other's underwear), because clothes dried faster in the sun than they did in the dryer. And this is exactly the conclusion reached by the Psalm regarding the sun in verse 6: "there is nothing hidden from its heat." 


Speaking of embarrassment, I've often felt it when looking back at pictures of the trip, all of which show me wearing this goofy safari hat, helpful as it was in the glorious desert sun:

Mt. Arbel 1200 feet above the Sea of Galilee. The wind almost blew me off into oblivion. 


Back on topic then, the second half of the Psalm:

The law of the LORD is perfect,
reviving the soul;
the testimony of the LORD is sure,
making wise the simple;
the precepts of the LORD are right,
rejoicing the heart;
the commandment of the LORD is pure,
enlightening the eyes;
the fear of the LORD is clean,
enduring forever;
the rules of the LORD are true,
and righteous altogether.
More to be desired are they than gold,
even much fine gold;
sweeter also than honey
and drippings of the honeycomb.
Moreover, by them is your servant warned;
in keeping them there is great reward.
(Psalm 19:7-11)

I love this Psalm, though I've often wondered how the two halves relate to each other. Recently I saw a connection between the meditation on the glory of God revealed in the skies, and the moral perfection revealed in the law. The Psalm continues:

Who can discern his errors?
Declare me innocent from hidden faults.
Keep back your servant also from presumptuous sins;
let them not have dominion over me!
Then I shall be blameless,
and innocent of great transgression.
(Psalm 19:12-13)

Do you see it? The conclusion of the section about the glory of God shining in the sun is "there is nothing hidden (נִ֝סְתָּ֗ר ) from its heat" and the conclusion of the teaching on the law includes the prayer "Declare me innocent from hidden (מִֽנִּסְתָּרֹ֥ות) faults" (the Hebrew word is compound for "from hiddens", if I may create an English word; the English "faults" is merely implied). Because God's perfect law demands obedience, it wakes us up and brings us to realize our failure, our errors, our hidden faults, and that the path to blamelessness (אֵיתָ֑ם eytam; cf. v. 7 תְּ֭מִימָה temiymah) is not in our ability, but in God's gracious intervention. He alone can declare us innocent, keep us back from presumptuous sins, and deliver us from their dominion.

In his conclusion to the Psalm, David prays:

Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart
be acceptable in your sight,
O LORD, my rock and my redeemer.
(Psalm 19:14)

While the "law" half of the Psalm brings us to the LORD as redeemer, what of the title "my rock"? The attention given to the sun as revelator of God's glory and similar to a bridegroom and champion warrior fits with Scriptural metaphors that describe God (Psalm 84:11; Isaiah 54:5; 62:5; Psalm 78:65; Zephaniah 3:17). So why not "my sun and my redeemer" in v. 14?

In Scripture a rock is a symbol of strength and perfection (Deuteronomy 32:4, 15; "rock" is used seven times in that chapter), a source of water in the desert (Isaiah 48:21; Exodus 17:6; Numbers 20:11; Psalm 78:16, 20), and a place of refuge from an enemy (most of the 28 occurrences in the Psalms). Amazingly, in the closest encounter with God of all the Old Testament prophets, a rock serves Moses as the place of protection from God himself (Exodus 33:18-23). Why does Moses need protection from God? Because, as God says, "'you cannot see my face, for man shall not see me and live'"(Exodus 33:20). The immediate holiness and glory of God are literally more than a human can bear. Is this not exactly what the sun "says" in its shining every day? The sun is a lethal danger to our vision, our skin, and if we're over-exposed to its heat, to our overall vitality.

Might it be that just as we need protection from the sun's heat and light, so we need protection from the law of God, not because they are in and of themselves destructive, but because we are so frail that we cannot bear their brilliance? Maybe the giving of the law in the desert was more than a geographical and historical accident, but was rooted deeply in God's wisdom, to flavor the entire law with sun-baked dryness that impels our longing for shady waters. Where is the shade at the end of the legal wilderness? Isaiah foreshadows the relief when he compares a future king and his princes to

a hiding place from the wind,
a shelter from the storm,
like streams of water in a dry place,
like the shade of a great rock in a weary land. (Isaiah 32:2)

Who are the king and the princes, and how do they give this shelter and shade? That will have to wait for another post, but for now, let's listen to God speaking through Isaiah once again:

“Come, everyone who thirsts,
come to the waters;
and he who has no money,
come, buy and eat!
Come, buy wine and milk
without money and without price.
Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread,
and your labor for that which does not satisfy?
Listen diligently to me, and eat what is good,
and delight yourselves in rich food.
Incline your ear, and come to me;
hear, that your soul may live;
and I will make with you an everlasting covenant,
my steadfast, sure love for David.
(Isaiah 55:1-3, emphasis mine)

Beautiful Feet

While doing my laundry tonight I realized another reminder of Hebrews 12 from my ride and crash Saturday. I was wearing these socks:

They say "Run with Endurance the race marked out for you". They were made in memory of Adam Little, who was tragically killed while riding to work in Charlotte last year. He was a believer, and like Abel, "through his faith, though he died, he still speaks" (Hebrews 11:4). I didn't know him, but after his death the local cycling community was grief-stricken; he was loved by all who knew him.

I see all this, and connect the dots, but my heart faints. God has answered my prayer this week to show me my crooked ways that need to be made straight, and that has hurt and humbled me, but I feel weak and lazy and my heart is distracted with temporal things and dispassionate toward the invisible things of God.


Hear my cry, O God,
listen to my prayer;
from the end of the earth I call to you
when my heart is faint.
Lead me to the rock
that is higher than I,
for you have been my refuge,
a strong tower against the enemy. (Psalm 61:1-3)

The Crooked Shall Become Strait

Yesterday I had a bicycle accident that put me in the emergency room for a few hours. That was a first. (Now that I think of it, I went to an urgent care facility in the sixth grade when I unsuccessfully tried to navigate a sandy corner in front of my parents' house without touching the brakes.) Anyways, this accident had some peculiar circumstances to it that I've not quite figured out yet, so hopefully I'll figure out something as I tell you about it. Kind of like this from Augustine:

"I count myself one of the number of those who write as they learn and learn as they write." -from a letter To Marcellinus

In my last post, I wrote some about the intriguing appearance of threes in the stats of my most significant rides in the past month or so, and that such numeric oddities cause me to ponder God's working in my life. Here they are again, briefly:

• 24 hours of Booty 7/29-30. I reached 333.3 km at 12 hours 12 minutes ride time. 
• group ride 8/6: accident that cracked my frame happened 60 hours before I turned 33 years old
• 8/23: ride from Charlotte after dropping phone: 3:00:00 ride time, 3:33:03 elapsed time after 2 stops
• 9/4: rode every road in Tega Cay: 99.93 miles. Sold a bike before leaving for $333.83.

After I wrote the other night, I read Stephen Furtick's comments about how perception and expectation affect experience and how we interpret it, and  I started to think I'm only making a big deal of these things because I'm looking for them. That may yet be true, but after yesterday's accident, I'm less inclined to think it's just my (mistaken) perception. As I sat waiting in the ER, I realized I was 33 years and 33 days old. There's more though . . .

Last Sunday, when John and I rode every road in Tega Cay, I was pondering part of the sermon text from morning worship.

the voice of one crying in the wilderness:
‘Prepare the way of the Lord,
make his paths straight,’” (Mark 1:3, quoting Isaiah 40)

This stood out to me particularly because the day's ride route was not straight. As I thought, I remembered what comes after the words above in Isaiah 40:

Every valley shall be lifted up,
and every mountain and hill be made low;
the uneven ground shall become level (or "the crooked shall become straight" Luke 3:5)
and the rough places a plain.
And the glory of the LORD shall be revealed,
and all flesh shall see it together,
for the mouth of the LORD has spoken.” (Isaiah 40:3-5)

How shall the uneven ground become level, and the crooked ways straight, but by God coming to walk in them? Even the way of the crooked foolish sluggard, full of "thorns" and wandering aimlessly  (Proverbs 15:19; 22:5; Ecclesiastes 10:15), terms which at times have seemed to describe my summer, sounds a lot like what Jesus experienced in his humiliation: born in a barn, driven as a refugee to a foreign land as a toddler; prepared for his time as a teacher in the wilderness with the devil and wild beasts for company; often had to avoid towns or flee from them during his ministry (Mark 1:45 Luke 4:29); when he did head straight toward Jerusalem, encountered opposition (Luke 9:51ff.), and when he got there, he was rejected and executed as a cursed man outside the city (Hebrews 13:12; Galatians 3:13), and on his "way out" of this world (Luke 9:31), all he could see was thorns (Matthew 27:29).

God with us in Jesus is also the answer to the frustrating feeling of undergoing God's discipline, because our elder brother has gone through it first:

Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted. In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. And have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons?
“My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord,
nor be weary when reproved by him.
For the Lord disciplines the one he loves,
and chastises every son whom he receives.”
It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live? For they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness. For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. (Hebrews 12:3-11)

For the moment it seems painful . . . amen to that. But in these painful experiences of God consuming like a moth what is dear to me (Psalm 39:11), God is treating me like a son, even like His only begotten Son, who lost everything in the path of obedience to the Father: he had no home, lived off donations, his friends and family abandoned him, his last possessions were divided up as he died on the cross. Why should I expect otherwise in walking his path? And why would I want otherwise?

The exhortation linked to this is very pertinent, and brings the theme back around to the idea of "straight paths":

Therefore lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees, and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be put out of joint but rather be healed. (Hebrews 12:12-13)

I'm still working through what crookedness I need to make straight, but isn't it interesting that I crashed on a rough patch of pavement on Strait Rd?

A few months ago, I mentioned the Heidelberg catechism question 1 as something that expresses my hope when I venture out on hostile roads, and said

Without the will of my heavenly father not a hair can fall from my head. Those cars can't touch me unless God lets them, and that to serve my salvation and everlasting joy. I believe this because God has said it, and because it really does correspond to my experience. I've seen His deliverances on the road and in the circumstances of my life. I can't explain how I've been spared and guided any better way.

No cars touched me this time, but I can't escape the belief that God let me fall but spared me serious injury. So this morning at church, when to my pleasant surprise we recited question 1 of the Heidelberg Catechism, I made it about as far as "I, with body and soul, both in life and death, am not my own . . ." before I was too choked up to speak. But I've never believed it more than I do now. 

"The Numbers Fell off the Clockface..."

In my last post I wrote about how I sensed the Lord's discipline in frustrations with my bike in the past few months. What tipped me off to the notion that there was some particular divine purpose in it all were some conspicuous numbers. Conspicuous to me anyway. Augustine said,

"The Divine Wisdom is reflected in the numbers impressed on all things. The construction of the physical and moral world is based on eternal numbers." -Apparently in a commentary on the Psalms 

As one who sees numbers spatially, and who believes that God communicates directly and deeply with the spirits of his children, I have a theory that sometimes God intervenes in my life, and perhaps in the world in general, in numerically significant patterns.


Anyways, what caught my attention was the realization that the accident that broke my bicycle frame happened 60 hours to the minute before I turned 33 years old. It was 8:46 AM on Saturday August 6, and I was born at 8:46 PM on August 8. What does 60 hours mean? Nothing in and of itself, but considering the numerical significance of the circumstances surrounding my acquiring the bike to begin with made me start to wonder.  The timing of my "pro contract" with Paul has set the number 33 in my mind for most of the year, and it keeps popping up in peculiar ways, even in the past month of cycling, which has largely been frustrating for me. Consider these numbers from four of my biggest rides of the past month:

• At 24 hours of booty, I passed 333.3 km 12 hours 12 minutes into riding, and considered stopping, but continued on to finish with 13 hours 88 seconds, with an average heart rate of 130 and 13th place on the hill climb section (now that I'm writing this I've dropped to 26th place and am one second behind the fastest woman. Interesting). I'm not superstitious about the number 13, but that's weird. 
• The crash on August 6 occurred exactly 60 hours before I turned 33.
• The ride back from a meeting with a close friend and valued counselor the day I dropped my phone on Cherry Rd (yet another frustration) was exactly 3:00:00 of ride time and 3:33:03 elapsed time, after stopping for a drink and a new cell phone. I'm not making that up and it was unplanned and unknown by me until I uploaded the ride data from the Garmin.  
• The ride of Tega Cay this past Sunday turned out to be 99.93 miles. The planned route was just under 98 miles, but that changed when we ran out of fluid (twice; Tega Cay has no gas stations), took a wrong turn or two, re-did a road or two, I forgot to turn the GPS on after stopping, John had to get back home and we couldn't stop for dinner, and I decided not to carry on past 100 miles when I neared the house and realized I was a few hundred feet short. I wasn't sure how much I needed since I was reading kilometers on the Garmin. And another thing I almost forgot. When I met John at the bike shop, a customer came in, we told him we weren't really open, but he asked if he could buy a bike, and the price after tax was $333.83.

What does all of this mean? I'm not sure, but as I look back and remember what was going on in my spirit on each of these rides, the numbers correspond quite well. 

• on the booty ride I was frustrated, impatient, and self-absorbed (even moreso than I am all the time:-), greedy for miles. Somewhat pleased with the ride, but not joyful.  
• on August 6 I was tired from long work hours, encouraged to be riding after a week off, but after the crash despondent, though starting to wonder if all my frustrations were more than coincidence
• the day I dropped my phone seemed to encapsulate all of the emotions of this month in one ride. When I started I was running late, frustrated, angry; how I felt at the booty ride. When I dropped my phone I was apprehensive and a little scared since I was riding on an iffy tire on strange roads, but also starting to laugh at yet another material possession falling apart. After meeting with my friend I was hopeful, encouraged, determined to follow through on the day's riding goal and with new optimism for life in general. It was a turning point of sorts, and all the 3s made me smile when I reviewed the ride data.
• On Sunday I was excited, looking forward to the ride for the physical and geographical challenge (some of the routes through the neighborhoods were rather serpentine), and anticipating a big haul of elevation for the Strava climbing competition. That and John is one of my favorite people to ride with. He keeps it real. The verse from Mark 1 also was looming in my mind, and I was looking forward to pondering the straight paths of the Lord as we wound our way through some very crooked and steep roads. God gave fresh insight into his word, and plenty of strength for one of the hardest rides I've ever done, and by the end of the eight hours of riding, the frustrations seemed to make sense and there was a sense of resolution and completion.  

The Scriptural insight will have to wait for another post, but I think the gist of what I'm learning (or re-learning, as is often the case) is that the cracked frames, dropped phones, long miles in sweltering heat with not enough water, unrecorded riding miles, and unfinished centuries of life (read into those metaphors what most disappoints and irks you) are all part of the way God makes His children like their big brother. If that makes no sense to you, here's some food for thought. I'll try to explain more next time I write.  


And here's a song that's also been on my mind this year with all these thoughts about threes, followed by pictures of my latest progress on the roads of York County. "three thirty three, and the numbers fell off the clockface...". More on that here and here. 


Rides with new roads in August:

 Rides with new roads in July and August:

End of August year to date (roads ridden are in red): 

Prayer Answered by Crosses

So I rode my bike 100 miles today, and as usual after such a mammoth effort, I feel compelled to stay up late and write instead of crashing hard like my body is telling me to do.

As I went, I was thinking about the ride at hand, an effort to ride every road in the very hilly lakeside town of Tega Cay, SC, and a verse from the sermon text at church this morning:

"the voice of one crying in the wilderness:
‘Prepare the way of the Lord,
make his paths straight,’” (Mark 1:3 ESV)

"Yikes. Should I abandon this crazy ride route in favor of something more flat and straight?" "Is God telling me to abandon my goal of riding every road in the county this year?" Such questions plague my guilty conscience, especially since I've been struggling with pessimistic thoughts about riding and writing for a good part of the summer, as I've run into so many obstacles in my endeavors. When I first started in the spring, it seemed that God was smiling on the whole deal, but about the same time I sensed my countenance falling with the end of lengthening days, it seemed He wasn't pleased with much of anything I was doing, particularly my cycling endeavors. Texts like these seemed to condemn me:

Whoever works his land will have plenty of bread,
but he who follows worthless pursuits lacks sense. (Proverbs 12:11 ESV)

The way of a sluggard is like a hedge of thorns,
but the path of the upright is a level highway. (Proverbs 15:19 ESV) 

The latter because everything connected with my riding seemed to be falling apart: my computer was acting more sluggish than normal (not that normal for a six-year old laptop is fast), and my attempt to streamline the process of uploading rides, as well as testing the battery life of the Garmin, backfired, including completely losing my best week of rides in July, and wasting $200 on a poor decision to have mycleanpc.com try to fix it. Then I realized I was broke and couldn't afford that anyway, along with other purchases or promises I'd been making with money I didn't have. This was largely due to working shorter hours in the spring and early summer to free up more time for riding and writing (thus the first verse above cut to the heart). Preparation for my second biggest riding goal of the year, the 24 hours of booty, didn't go according to plan, and I didn't come close to surpassing my ride from last year.


I took a week off after that, and my first ride back I was hit from behind by the most skilled rider I know while we were coasting and regrouping at an intersection. It was a total fluke, so much so that I couldn't be mad about it, and coupled with the previous frustrations, only sunk lower. I felt like Cain, whose countenance fell when the Lord had no regard for his offering, or like Jeremiah, who said "surely against me he turns his hand again and again the whole day long.", or even John Newton, who wrote:

He made me feel
The hidden evils of my heart;
And let the angry pow’rs of hell
Assault my soul in every part.

Yea more, with His own hand He seemed
Intent to aggravate my woe;
Crossed all the fair designs I schemed,
Blasted my gourds, and laid me low.   from "Prayer Answered by Crosses"

Perhaps it seems silly to put so much weight into what's going on with my bike, and surely there are people right around me carrying much heavier burdens, but since it's an outgrowth of my profession, and in some ways almost a means of grace to me, and for several months this spring seemed to be enjoying conspicuous favor from God and man, maybe it's not so unreasonable that I've been disappointed.

Amazingly, the friend who hit me insisted on paying for the repair, which turned out to be as expensive as a new frame, so I took that route. I'm appreciative, but also uncomfortable with it; it's humbling, even humiliating, to receive like that.


In any case, the cracked frame led to another week and a half off the bike, and on the first ride back, the speedway team time trial, the seatpost slipped down, apparently due to a crack, and all I can figure is that the crash caused it too. Then I discovered a cut in otherwise good Michelin Krylion tires, which aren't cheap. What is going on here? Can I just make it a week or two without something on the bike falling apart so that I have to drop time and cash into fixing it? Light started to dawn with this:

I am mute; I do not open my mouth,
for it is you who have done it.
Remove your stroke from me;
I am spent by the hostility of your hand.
When you discipline a man
with rebukes for sin,
you consume like a moth what is dear to him;
surely all mankind is a mere breath! (Psalm 39:9-11 ESV)

Key word started. All of this is the reason I've not written for a month: I've felt opposed by God. What is there to say in such a state? Not much in my mind.   But I'm here writing, and that means something has changed, and it's related to these things as well as the text from the sermon mentioned above that was ringing in my ears as I rode today. More on that later . . .