Change

 

“Look among the nations ! Watch !
 Be horrified! Be frightened speechless !
 For I am accomplishing a work in your days—
You would not believe it even if you were told !"

A few weeks ago, God had me meditating on "new things."  The scripture that had leaped out to me was this one, in Habakkuk 1:5, that God is indeed does new things...which we wouldn't be able to believe, even if He told us.

It's a statement that raises profound theological questions.

We know that God is the same yesterday, today, and always.  We know that God's BE-ing--"I AM THAT I AM"--His Character, could we speak as if His Absolute One-ness comprises separate elements...is integrally manifest in His every act.

How then could God do or say something "new," something He'd never said or done before, except He act contrary to His unchanging Character...by lying, for example, or doing unrighteousness...and negate His Being ?

And that, of course, He has never done, and never will.  His promise to do a "new" thing can only be His accomodation, in human language, to our experience of God's Immediacy: His promise is that He will do things which we have never experienced before...or could even imagine.

Which is exactly God's Character, and exactly His unchanging way with us, always.  His perceptive worshippers learn to expect His "inscrutability," His unexpectedness.

Habbakuk's words have seemed especially relevant because a few months ago our church left the denomination it had been affiliated with.  And because of that change, the congregation had to choose its own pastor, which we'd never done before.  I think we all have a sense of excitement that God is right now doing a "new thing" among us.

But as God says to Habakkuk, "new" things...especially unimaginable new things...also elicit fear.  Even while we expect to be astounded by God, we are always most comfortable in life when "things" remain the same.  When our world...which we cannot help seeing as our personal circumstances...changes, so must our "world-view," if it's to be based in reality: and God is always The Reality.

Because of Who God IS, our "tried and true" (and therefore comfortable) thoughts and reactions must change to accommodate His "new things:" and frankly, we fear change.  And we deeply hate anything that requires we change.

I know I do.

It's undoubtedly God's intent in doing "new things," that we don't get comfortable except in His Reality.  And in His greatest "new" work, Christ's death and resurrection, He promises we can change.  For none but the changed can see His unimaginable works,  and welcome and rejoice in the astonishing continual "newness" of our unchanging "I AM."

General Milley

 

There are reports a soon-to-be-published book will claim that General Mark Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff sat down with the leaders of America's "war room" after the January 6th attack on the Capitol, and asked each to personally swear he would immediately notify Milley if ordered by the then-president to launch military action or nuclear missles.

When he received a call from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, questioning the security of America's nuclear arsenal in the then-president's control, Milley reassured her.  He then called the head of the National Security Agency to tell them "...keep watching, scan:" and called the head of the CIA to request her organization to "Aggressively watch everything 360."

General Milley then called his counterparts in other nations, friendly and unfriendly, who had put their militaries on high alert because of the chaos in Washington, to reassure them that America would NOT "lash  out" militarily in the last days of the then-president's administration.

If these reports are subsequently verified (and it's always unwise to take first "reports" at face-value), General Milley did the right thing in what he was said to have called "the absolute darkest moment of theoretical possibility."  His attempt to keep Americans...indeed, all the world's people...safe from nuclear immolation by an unhinged president is a higher law than any Constitutional provision could ever be.

I have to wonder if the situation General Milley had to deal with was, as we've heard about virtually every act of that president, "unprecedented" ?  Or did the nation's military leaders during Nixon's last-days mental and emotional melt-down also feel they had to act to keep America's nuclear arsenal secure from him ?

I wonder too why I wasn't on General Milley's call-list ?  LOL.  It would have saved me a lot of worry and stress...and I doubt I'm the only one...to have had top-level reassurance that our crazed president would not be able to destroy the world, to keep his hold on power.