Today is Ariel’s birthay.  Five years ago today, just about the time I write this the life of the most delightful girl I’ve ever known hung in the balance as light and dark clashed in the heavenlies.  The doctors’ report:  prepare for her death.  The Lord’s report: [I] have taught children and infants to tell of [My] strength, silencing [My] enemies and all who oppose [Me].  Ps. 8:2.  She had been born with Meconium Aspiration Syndrome, whisked away from me before I could hold her, and put on ventilators.  By this time of her first day, her lungs had collapsed twice, and the airlift team from the best children’s hospital in the Northwest was on the ground at Madigan Army Hospital, preparing her tiny body for transfer.

OJ and I had been married for only 14 months at this point, filled with excitement over the birth of our first baby, the baby we couldn’t wait for, though everyone said to give ourselves a year before conceiving.  We were filled with zest and excitement for life and the kingdom of God, raring to go, considering returning to our alma mater to minister to the students there through Residence Life so OJ could get a Masters Degree.  We were all optimism, and the thought had never crossed our minds that sorrow could take our hearts and destroy them right in front of us.  When the staff finally made us understand how sick Ariel was, I think there was a gasp heard all over the country, maybe even the world, and hundreds of knees hit the ground.  Her precious life…a cry rose up to God from all around.  My father wept in Chicago, my sister alerted the intercessors at the House of Prayer in Kansas City, and OJ made a phone call to our pastor and leader in Tacoma, leaving a message on their answering machine.  “Brian, our baby’s really sick…please…”

OJ and I had already been so transformed and impacted in our brief time in Tacoma, we knew it was a special place.  In fact, we were chomping at the bit to get back to our former lives and tell them all we had learned.  We’d already probably offended most of our friends with loud proclamations and preaching, certain everyone would want to hear the good news of freedom in Christ.  We were who we were.  We had pulled our car up to the take-out window, and gotten (we felt) enough for ourselves and everyone we knew.  We were getting ready to pull out and attempt to deliver the goods when Ariel’s birth happened all wrong.  There was a place in our hearts God wanted to access fast, and there’s no way there except by severity.  Desperation.

I remember the moment that the spirit of despair landed on me.  I was semi-prone in the hospital bed when OJ brought back the news of the second collapse of her lungs, and I remember the moment.   I remember the panic.  I remember the fear, which was knowledge of a sort.  There had been a little whisper of a question somewhere deep down for the hours previously, but at that moment, I knew she was going to die.  There was no more talking or listening or hearing for me.  I was not me anymore.  I was just there.  I was in that state when OJ was rolling me past the maternity ward doors to the NICU.  They opened and Brian came walking miraculously through, having been passed through a multitude of military checkpoints with no valid pass.  I couldn’t look up to see his face, but I remember his hands, which were at my eye level in my wheelchair.  They were shaking, and I heard him say, “We asked the Lord every which way, and every time He said this baby’s going to live.”  Those words were like drops of water in my mouth, cracking and burning with dryness.  That was the day I became addicted to the clear voice of Lord, and my ears became dull to anybody else’s opinions.

OJ left me in the care of my midwife, and took my mom and Brian to Ariel’s room.  Numerous hospital staff buzzed around in addition to the blue-smocked chopper team, and a nurse spoke to Brian as he entered, “You have to help these parents understand that the baby’s going to die.”  Elizabeth had called and someone had pressed the phone to my ear so I could hear her sob, “Listen, Suz, listen to this…”  She held her phone out to the prayer room, where hundreds of intercessors were lifting my baby up in prayer, and Misty was singing, “Ariel, breathe…Ariel, breathe…”  Ariel, Lioness of God, name for Jesus’ beloved city…Ariel was a burden that would not lift, and those praying, I later came to find out, literally could not relent.  The Spirit was carrying a cry in the room that only increased, and no one could move on.

While OJ, Brian, and my mom warred for her inside the NICU, I sat whimpering in a separate waiting room.  The room was quiet and dark and then something like a silent wind blew through, and my soul passed out of a cave.  A thousand weights lifted off of me, and physically I lifted my head, not realizing till that moment that I hadn’t previously been able to.  In a moment, I went from knowing that Ariel was dying to knowing, with certainty, that she would live.  I looked at the midwife and said, “She’s going to live!”  She said soothingly, “That’s right, honey…”  And I corrected her, “No.  You don’t understand.  She’s going to live.”  I asked them as soon as they walked through the door, “What happened in there?  Everything is different.”  They replied, “We rebuked the spirit of fear…”  That was the day that we put on our armor, took up the sword, and became freedom fighters.   For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.  II Tim 1:7

We bowed our heads to pray together, and my heart began to remember the things the Lord had told me about this baby throughout the months of loving her in my growing middle.  Sweet things, like that she would have red hair.  Powerful things, like that she would be used for salvation in Israel when He spoke Zech. 12:10 to me, long before I knew that my little one would be pierced and that I would know a taste of mourning for my firstborn.  Encouraging things, like that we were a family marked by joy and she would be full of laughter.  It was that last remembrance that tightened my stomach, and I nearly yelled out loud as I understood the scheme to destroy our little family’s joy just as it was getting started.  To sideline us, stop us, gut us.  I remember being righteously enraged, and proclaiming Psalm 8:2 over her.  I remember a peace so profound, and a joy so deep coming over the room that we literally could not pray any more.  All there was to be done was done. I remember looking at one another, wondering what to say, when they came to bring us to say goodbye to her before the airlift.  Babies often don’t survive that trip, they told us.  That was the day we broke ties publicly with the report of men, boldly telling our girl that she would be just fine…

There are a hundred other stories, like how they told us she would be weeks in Intensive Care and instead she was home within days, and of bringing Ariel into the midst of our church Body a week later…how we all wept and cheered for the miracle in our midst.   But there’s one more that I only just learned recently since moving to Kansas City.  Many people have remembered praying for Ariel, that night all those years ago, one being the prayer leader of the session.  He recalled it clearly, and told me of the burden of the Spirit, about not being able to get the people to stop praying, about the unction on it.  And so for more than an hour, they sang and prayed and beseeched the Lord God Almighty…and then suddenly, he said, it lifted.   All there was to be done was done. I asked what time it all took place, and sure enough, it was just about the time we were sitting in that little room, smiling at one another.  That was the day Ariel was born.

Next time some erring evangelical caught in scandalous sin pulls the “David and Bathsheba” card, take a moment to clarify that David paid for his sin with the death of his child.  Though he was ultimately atoned for and forgiven, God’s judgement for David’s outrages still came down, and his son died.  David’s reaction:  to rise up, wash, and worship God.  David considered God merciful, knowing he deserved much worse.  He deserved to lose everything, and was thankful for his light sentence.

Also, David’s repentance followed his sin being revealed to him in private, not to the public.  That’s just called “getting caught.”  This is in contrast to folks who, upon getting exposed, compare themselves to David to explain why  they should not lose standing almost in the same breath as they express their regret.  This is not repentance.

There is no self-pity or self-preservation in true repentance.  Only worship at the mercy of God for not giving out the full measure of wrath that is deserved.  So when you hear someone grasping for their kingdom with one side of their mouth as their druel and self-pity drips from the other, please release King David from this posthumous association.

Hey, church.  Let’s acquaint ourselves with biblical repentance.  Our salvation depends on it. 

And he will go on before the Lord, in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous—to make ready a people prepared for the Lord. Luke 1:17

When I was in college , I sung an oratorio by Mendehlssohn called Elijah. Three hundred plus singers, a jawdropping baritone in the lead, and a full orchestra (I was just one of the three hundred, definitely.)  We only performed it 2 or 3 times, but I wept every time.  Rehearsals preceded it for months.  Three hours of scripture pinned to staff and bar by a rare genius.  I can still come to tears just mulling over some of its moments in my heart.  Like when the whole frantic choir cries out full volume to Baal, to be met with total silence.  Or when we sang through the earthquake, the tornado, and the fire, only to finally hear His voice in the still quiet.  Or when Elijah shoots back with the authority of God at King Ahab after his whiny accusation that the prophet is a pest to Israel, NOT I, AHAB, BUT YOU… YOU TROUBLE ISRAEL.  Your sin, your compromise, your false peace and promiscuity leading these blind and foolish people down to death.  YOU TROUBLE ISRAEL.  Moments of pure triumph, even though he was one against hundreds of thousands.

Just memorizing the songs (scripture verses), God would confront me.  When the children of Israel cried out to Baal, I was shaken up at the fortissimo infidelity, and wondered about singing the words myself when it dawned on me that they were truly supplicating a demon.  (I determined this was okay as I would not myself be speaking to said demon.)  I remember sharing my consideration with a friend, who looked at me with a mocking look, and said, “Or maybe they were just talking to a carving?”  This friend was, as were most of the students at my excellent Christian college, mostly unfamiliar with the Bible.  But I was too immature to realize that and just felt stupid at the time.

The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom…  Ps. 111:10 I guess I could probably think of a lot of times that fearing God has made me feel very stupid in company.  Anyone who fears God can.  But God does not have an agenda of rescuing us from that situation.  On the contrary, He’ll let them come to drive out the fear of man.  Fear of man and fear of God are like oil and vinegar.  They don’t mix.  I tried really, really hard to do it, especially in college.  Picture your hand on the bottle of House Italian about to drench your salad.  I shook that hard, but it still didn’t last.  The question for that friend and most of the church is simple, “Why do you put forth opinions about anything when you don’t know what God says?” It’s an honest question, not a rude one.  “Doesn’t that scare you?” Back in college I couldn’t have asked the question, because it presents a test that I was failing at the time.  I loved the Lord, but my fear of God level was looking low next to my “love His grace” and “thankful for His blessing” gauges.  Saved, but frequently stupid.

Note:  fearing God is not the same thing as fearing breaking the rules.  This is why folks sometimes known in our culture as “fundamentalists,” can be so extraordinarily unwise, as can folks who work the hardest, strive the most, or seem the most ardent for God.  But immature people will often defend their compromise by pointing to the religious as if they’re proof of the foolishness of zeal.  God’s equations always prove true.   Don’t worry about how hard someone seems to serve God.  If they truly fear Him, there will be wisdom.  If there’s a lack of wisdom, there’s a lack somewhere of the fear of God.

“Doesn’t that scare you?” I recently overheard a man postulating about homosexuality and the church at my gym.  While I worked out, I read Ps. 119.  Ps 119 is super repetitive, just perfect for a born fool like me.  Or didn’t you know?  Folly is bound up in the heart of a child… Prov 22:15a.  One thing you can be sure of every person you meet, they were born a fool.  And they still are, except where the discipline of the Lord has driven it from them.  This is something you already know if you’ve read Proverbs.  I may sing, shout, sway and pray, but if I hate the discipline of God and ignore His precepts, I’m just a fool gonna live foolish.  This explains a whole lot of church (the wise amongst us will say to ourselves, “This explains a whole lot of my life.”).

Here is the other thing that explains a lot of church.  The rest of Ps.  111:10:  “…a good understanding have all those who do His commandments.“  This is why many students at excellent Christian colleges can be so unfamiliar with their familiar Bibles, and why seminary can be so wholly unproductive.  You don’t gain wisdom by merely reading or even studying the Bible, but by doing it.  In other words, if you don’t come to it already bowed low in your heart, fearing God and forcefully subjecting your thinking to His, you won’t get much out of it.  You can faithfully read it for years, but still be as foolish as when you found it.

Back to my story.  I was reading Ps. 119, thinking about this guy’s personal thoughts on gay church-goers which he was making public, and shaking inwardly for him.  I had a picture of a Bible, dusty on a shelf in His house, in a version he couldn’t understand.  “Isn’t he scared to spout opinions with no idea what God says?” He was not scared.  Not at all.  I was grappling.   How could he not be scared?  My heart was broken for him.  About my age, and already a failed marriage and a toddler girl he and his ex throw back and forth, and still spouting ungodly opinions like he had something to say.  And the perfect answer sitting unconsulted on His shelf.  This is the plight of the fool.

Lest anyone be concerned that I somehow think myself better, I have to tell you the truth.  I majored in foolishness.  No, literally.  If we could define foolishness (or one glaring aspect of it) as thinking you have something to say while willfully ignorant of what God’s said, then I really did major in foolishness.  I was a philosophy major, and even in my immature state of shaking the salad dressing, even I picked up on a few problems during my time in that esteemed department.

Number one problem:  it was understood that only stupid people accepted authority of scripture as establishing anything as true.  Sure, that was fine for a catechism, but we are thinkers and this is not sunday school.

Number two problem:  most of the people in the department were personally obnoxious to some degree due to their superiority complexes or social ineptitude, or became so with every year advanced in study.

Number three problem:  in the esteemed intellectual laboratory, all faith was placed in our own human abilities to lead us to the right conclusions.  The concept is that if the thinking is challenged rigorously enough, this must work.  Except that once again, we are just our own human standard.  Just as the alpha male monkey who struts his stuff inside the cage is still only comparing himself to other monkeys, while two year olds make fun of him just outside the glass.  Augustine and a few other Christians on the shelf knew our minds were not supreme, but as students we were not taught this, but to study them and then determine if they were right.  See the conundrum?  Why not just wear t-shirts saying, “I am God, except while I’m in church”?  If only the Philosophy department had one foundational class that explains the Biblical concept that pride equals foolishness, maybe people wouldn’t waste their lives searching after something their own heart condition guarantees they will not find.  But then maybe there wouldn’t be a Phil department left; I don’t know.

AAAAAAAAuuuuuuuuggggggghhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  The tragedy of spending hours, months, years reading, studying, poring over the thoughts of ungodly, unsanctified, (many of them) God-hating fools (Ps. 53:1, Ps. 14:1), and neglecting the WORD HIMSELF.  It stirs me to, well, to cry out for wisdom.

³¹ The ear that hears the rebukes of life
Will abide among the wise.
³² He who disdains instruction despises his own soul,
But he who heeds rebuke gets understanding.  Prov.15

Oh, God, send the righteous rebukes my way!  I long for your wisdom.  I long to obey, but my thoughts are futile apart from your instruction.  Send me truthspeakers, send me wise leadership, open up your secrets to me!  And then clarify my mind, in the Spirit of Elijah, to tell the truth in the face of the compromised, undiscerning, confused Christianity that proclaims peace without obedience and forgiveness without fear of God…

¹⁶ But to the wicked God says:
“What right have you to declare My statutes,
Or take My covenant in your mouth,
¹⁷ Seeing you hate instruction
And cast My words behind you?
¹⁸ When you saw a thief, you consented^[a] with him,
And have been a partaker with adulterers.
¹⁹ You give your mouth to evil,
And your tongue frames deceit.
²⁰ You sit and speak against your brother;
You slander your own mother’s son.
²¹ These things you have done, and I kept silent;
You thought that I was altogether like you;
But I will rebuke you,
And set them in order before your eyes.  Ps. 50

My son, if you receive my words,
And treasure my commands within you,
² So that you incline your ear to wisdom,
And apply your heart to understanding;
³ Yes, if you cry out for discernment,
And lift up your voice for understanding,
⁴ If you seek her as silver,
And search for her as for hidden treasures;
⁵ Then you will understand the fear of the LORD,
And find the knowledge of God.
⁶ For the LORD gives wisdom;
From His mouth come knowledge and understanding…  Prov 2:1-6