Category Archives: In the Broken Places

Of Leaky Boats and Honest Faith

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I gave up on church-going faith a long time ago. It just wasn’t big enough to carry me and all my baggage. Mind you, I loved it dearly, because it was a part of me from my earliest remembrance: the hymns that I knew by heart, the words of Scripture that convicted and encouraged and told me what life was supposed to be like, the kind smiling faces of the people who believed it, the gathering together many times a week, the long prayer lists of needs that we lifted up to the Heavenly Father…all these things framed my life and shaped my thinking from the beginning. And every bit of it was good.

But at some point everyone will find themselves in the middle of a storm, and when the darkness closes in, you just have to ask the hard questions, lean right into this Truth you’ve known all your life and find out if it is big enough to carry you. Because if the words God says are true, then they should make a difference in everyday life– or else what good are they? If they are real and living, like He says they are, then they need to apply to me and the real situations I am in, and to be as powerful as they were when He first said them to people long ago. Going to meetings won’t stop the waves from crashing into the boat. Doing all the good work won’t keep the creeping fear at bay, or help me sleep at night. Singing the songs and going to fellowships won’t change my home-life. When your boat threatens to go under, then you begin to see what really matters, and there is only the raw cry of need: Find me, change me, meet me here or I won’t make it through. If I have to pretend that everything is all right in order to fit into my faith, then I’m the one who is adrift in a leaky boat. The Musician-King David had no trouble being honest and raw about his need, and he knew that mere church-going wasn’t anywhere near enough. “I wait for the Lord, my whole being waits, and in His word I put my hope. I wait for the Lord more than watchmen wait for the morning….” (Psalm 130:5-6)

I see friends struggling with faith in wilderness places, and I get it. When the walls are crashing down and gut-wrenching prayers seem to go unanswered, it makes you wrestle with what you believe about the Person in charge of all this and how willing He is to get involved… in a way that a pedestrian list of public prayer requests never will. It makes me think that faith is a deeper, wilder, more frightening leap than we are led to believe. But when life brings you here, there is no turning back from the questions, and I can hear the Musician-King still singing, “God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging.” (Psalm 46:1-3) If God’s help and strength is more sure than the earth beneath us, then it is big enough for what I am facing, and at some point I need to stop seeing those as poetic words to read in church, and either choose to believe them, or not.

Once I stop relying on the church-going stuff and really start listening to what God is saying to me, I hear Him saying everything I need to hear. The Church-planter Paul recorded God’s promise to him when he was going through hard things: “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” (2 Corinthians 12:9) And I have to decide whether that answer– that promise– is big enough for the problems I face. Is it just a good church-going verse to memorize? Or is it a truth that is actually sturdy enough to hold up when I come pounding on the door in the middle of the night, with needs big enough to swallow us whole, and gritted-teeth reminders of the promises He made? Paul shared the hidden riches he discovered in his own hour of need: “Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.” Somehow the way God met Paul in his storm made the pain worth it, in the long run. That speaks volumes to the needy heart.

So maybe there is a strange mercy in the storms that drive you to examine what you really believe God is doing, and what you are expecting from Him. And maybe the bravest thing you can do is to leave behind the faith you’ve always had, trade it for something bigger….finally give up on the tidy organized church-going-things that you can do yourself, and fling yourself heart and soul on the One who can do all things. Jesus’ words still ring through the raging storms with all authority, “Peace, be still.” (Mark 4:39) Not even the blessed existential peace of shalom, but the nitty-gritty everyday command to hush the clamor, stop the shrieking of chaos, still the frenzied activity… because the Lord your Maker has come to you. And some days that kind of practical peace is exactly what we need.

The wind and waves obeyed Him because they were His; it was that simple. Seems to me that our lives would be simpler too, if we had that relationship with our Maker; if we listened to what He said and obeyed just because we are His, bowing down to His power in complete trust and worship. I am gradually learning that this is a deeper faith: to fasten my eyes on Him and trust that His words are for me, that He is right here with me. It feels a little like stepping right out onto the waves, but I do believe His Kingdom is real life, and I choose to bend everything I see, and feel, and think, to fit with that Reality. Nothing safe and tidy about it, but honestly, it is finally big enough to carry me.

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Teach my eyes to recognize You;
Teach my lips tp glorify You.
Guide my feet so I can find You,
Wherever You are.
Be my way; I’m lost without You.
Be my light, shining through
My every breath, my every move,
Till every thought is You.

No Other Name (Unhindered)

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O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek You; my soul thirsts for You; my flesh faints for You, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.

Psalm 63:1-2

When You Feel Like Giving Up

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It’s hard to say which is more difficult for a person: to step out into the unknown by faith to do what God is calling…or to wait in the silence by faith for what He is going to do. Both require eyes to see beyond the pressing circumstances. Both call for trust in His goodness and hope in His promises. Both can feel like they are stretching you right in two. But there is something particularly ragged about reaching the end of yourself– when you pour out the longings of your heart till there’s nothing left but raw vulnerability– and waiting there for God to show up and do what you cannot.

Just ask Hannah how she felt when she wept and prayed in the temple at Shiloh year after year, till she was so brokenhearted that old Eli thought she had lost her senses. Or Naomi packing up the remnants of a life, with nothing but a foreign daughter-in-law to show for her years; “Call me Mara, because the Almighty has made my life very bitter. I went away full, but the Lord has brought me back empty.” (Ruth 1:20-21) And then there is David, hiding in the desert caves from the King he had pledged his life to serve– the man who had welcomed him into his palace and his family, and now wanted to kill him. His song resonates with all those who wait: “You, God, are my God, earnestly I seek you; I thirst for you, my whole being longs for you, in a dry and parched land where there is no water.” (Psalm 63:1) And each of these found in the depth of their need that God’s plans were abundantly more than they could ask, and His presence with them sufficient for their needs.

Perhaps in our desire to avoid pain we sometimes fail to see the Love that presses hard, the implacable mercy of the One who will stop at nothing less than the complete transformation of our souls. Maybe when we are finally empty of ourselves, and our own voices fall silent, there is room for Him to come in all His fulness and speak His answers into our stillness. Maybe in the waiting we finally realize what we want most of all, and can ask for the right things. And when we do reach the end of ourselves, we often find that the desert places are rich with the secret blessings of His presence.

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“Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.”

PSALM 73:25-26

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“How often have I found myself asking for relief for those I love, just simple blessed relief from the grinding pressure of the stones: but would not another, a braver, deeper kind of prayer help them far more?…Let us pray alongside our Lord as He makes of mortal souls, through pressure, something that will be used for the life of the world…”

Amy Carmichael

The Weight of Caring

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As a child I learned that verse about “Casting all your cares on Jesus, because He cares for you.” (1 Peter 5:7) The repetition in the King James version made it kind of sing-song and easy to remember, and it was vaguely comforting, but it seemed too lightweight to handle life’s difficulties– just a general reminder that someone cared about what you were going through. Paul’s prescription for anxiety seemed much more practical for everyday life: “Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.” (Philippians 4:5) And doesn’t everyone long for peace in return for worry?…the kind of peace that passes all our understanding of the present circumstances? I lived here and taught here and claimed the promises of Scripture for decades.

Until one day this year when it wasn’t enough. Not that it isn’t true, every word of it, but sometimes it isn’t about anxiety or fear so much as the growing weight of grief over situations that have no resolution, and the weariness of wrestling with hard circumstances in hope and praise and faith, day after day. ..the struggle to see truth, hold on to truth in this world, when nothing makes sense. When the heart grows heavy with sorrow till you feel like giving up, sometimes what you really need is Someone big enough to carry the burden for you, so you don’t have to any more.

And suddenly that old verse from the past came back to me in light of Easter. “Because He cares for you” takes on new layers of meaning when you are looking at the very rugged reality of a bloody cross and an abandoned tomb. From this vantage point, it is clear we are not talking about a bland platonic caring in the general sense. See, this is how much Jesus cares, that He comes down to us in fragile flesh, and lives amid our brokenness; that He weeps and laughs and eats with us; that He takes the weight of suffering and ugliness for all of us from Beginning to End so that He can make everything new. This is a love that is measured in suffering– one that embraces our own without hesitation or effort– a love that stands alone in its intensity. It is no coincidence that the Latin word for suffering is passio, from which we get our word, passion. Isaiah the Prophet described Jesus’ passionate love this way: “Surely He took up our pain and bore our suffering…..He was pierced for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on Him, and by His wounds we are healed.” (Isaiah 53:4-5) This is a God who cares about our emotions and our experiences intimately, and He is telling us to cast all our care on Him, because He can carry it for us.

So for all the harassed and distracted…the disillusioned and the disappointed…the tired of trying, and the waiting for answers…anyone who is overcome with the intensity of caring in this sin-broken world, there is this invitation to cast it all upon Jesus, into the care of the One who was broken by us and for us. And maybe in some mysterious way, when we feel overwhelmed by the brokenness of this world, we draw closer to the heart of Jesus–participate with Him somehow, and touch His suffering– this passion that is powerful enough to re-shape Creation. Perhaps that is what the Church-Planter meant when he proclaimed “I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead.” (Philippians 3:10-11)

After a difficult year of uncertainty and anxiety and loss, here at the beginning of a new season, we can cast all our caring on this Savior who carries us, and just rest here in the light of Easter. And hope is pushing its way through to the surface, under the warm Spring rain, because the reality of Jesus’ resurrection is the answer to all those impossible situations we care about. Easter is only the beginning.

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This is grace: God joined us on the floor of this earth. God did not stay far from our pain. He did not judge it from a distance. He did not pity it from the other side of the universe. He became it.

KJ Ramsey, This Too Shall Last

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Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God. For just as we share abundantly in the sufferings of Christ, so also our comfort abounds through Christ.

2 Corinthians 1:3-5

Of Small Seeds and Little Lunches

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Sometimes I wish I could say it louder, or different, or with more profound words to make it sink in to faltering hearts: Faith heroes and prayer warriors and legacy makers aren’t born that way. They do not inherently possess any piercing clarity of wisdom or rock-solid certainty of vision or even spotless purity of spirit. The heroes are just the ones who persevere, one hard step at a time. The warriors are the people who pour out their hearts to God every day, and labor over the hard things, until they want to see Him more than they want their answers. The legacy makers are those who decide to be faithful in the small things, doing whatever is in front of them with a desire to please the One who called them, and leaving the outcome in His hands.

What makes them great is that they kept pressing on in faith, even when they felt like they had lost their way…even when they felt bogged down in the mundane…even when they could not see any good outcomes from where they were sitting… because you see, there simply is no way to get from here to there except through the ordinary moments of Everyday. And the Church-Planter reminds the early believers, that this is all they need to do, because God is doing all the heavy lifting in this relationship: God will make this happen, for He who calls you is faithful. (1 Thessalonians 5:24)

See, the people we look up to and aspire to become are forged in the ordinary ups and downs of gritty everyday life. They are the slow growth of hundreds of small self-denials and choices to stand in the light, and only they know the tears and doubts and sleepless nights along the way. You don’t need to be gifted and strong and capable, or wake up one day with all your issues resolved– you just need to take the next step toward God. And then do it again tomorrow.

Jesus used the story-picture of a mustard seed, and said nothing would be impossible if it were offered up into God’s hands. Then He showed them in living color what He was talking about, when a child held out his food, released it into Jesus’ hands and they all watched it grow into a feast for thousands. And it strikes me how this little boy thought he would go hungry for the day, when he gave up his lunch as a love-gift to the rabbi who was teaching them about God. He had no idea what Jesus intended to do with it, no aspirations of greatness. He just took a small step of serving someone else on a long hot day by the lake, despite his own needs, and ended up in the middle of a miracle.

And in all our ordinary days of needs and disappointments and expectations, that is always what it comes down to– will we choose to do the right thing, walk toward the light, offer up our small seed of faith, choose hope, lean on grace? Again and again, in and out of weeks and through all the seasons and changes of life, until someday we will be able to look back and see how far we have come in our faith-journey and know it was worth it. The Church-Planter Paul assured us it would be more than worth it, as he leaned hard into God’s promises: I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. (Romans 8:18).

And who knows, from the outside looking in, someone else might well be saying Someday I want to be just like her.

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This is the air I breathe
This is the air I breathe
Your holy presence living in me;
This is my daily bread
This is my daily bread
Your very Word spoken to me
And I…
I’m desperate for you
And I…
I’m lost without you

Breathe, Marie Barnett

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Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.

Philippians 3:12-14

When You Need an Eye Exam

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Originally published December 8, 2017.

This lined page lays on my desk looking back at me, and I ought to be writing on it every day, enumerating the things I am thankful for. Our small group returns to that discipline of heart and mind periodically, to remind ourselves Whose we are, and where everything comes from. It’s like re-orienting a compass, aligning our hearts to the fixed poles of truth that can guide our steps, our thoughts, our behavior. No question about it– we live better as thankful people.

The list is filling up slowly right now, but not because of fewer gifts. My head knows that All is Gift– that is the very definition of the grace that we wear, like a label on our being, both nametag and crown for someone who walks in the footsteps of Christ. No, the gifts are many.

But seeing people you care about go through impossibly hard situations strains the eyesight…it’s just hard to see the right things, and recognize God’s handiwork. Beautiful strong women battle addiction and disease, and weary young mamas clutch onto the ends of ropes, and marriages fade and wither in the harsh winds of neglect, and families struggle to take care of the sick, and young believers struggle to stay the course….and you can look at enough loneliness and heartache and pain and injustice until it’s all you can see at the end of the day. It’s my eyesight that is weak, focusing on the things closest to me and losing sight of the bigger picture. Apparently it is a common malady, because even Paul wrote to encourage his friends: “…our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.” (2 Corinthians 4:18) It’s like God’s truth is corrective lenses for the eyes of the soul. Because life here may be eye-catching and attention-grabbing, but it is also passing away, and focusing on my feet as I walk can make me impossibly myopic, in every sense of the word.

When your eyesight is failing, that’s where giving thanks becomes more an exercise of the will, just because He says so. Paul reminds us, “…give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.” (1 Thessalonians 5:18) He balances it carefully on top of that tall stack of high ideals, as if the first two weren’t quite enough: “Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances….” That’s what God wants from us who follow His Son, and I know there are people who scoff at the seeming-impossible, but the Spirit who makes all things possible is alive and well in me, and He says this is what real life looks like. It seems clear that when I fix my eyes on Him and what He is doing, both joy and thankfulness will abound in His company.

So I reach out my mind to choose what He says over what I see; I reach out my words to tell Him what hurts and that I trust Him to take care of it in the best way; I reach out my heart to say Thank You, Thank You for all the undeserved blessings of this day. And this is the slowly unfolding miracle, that gratitude rises anew.

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I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which He has called you, the riches of His glorious inheritance in His holy people, and His incomparably great power for us who believe.

Ephesians 1:18-19

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What you think you can’t handle — might actually be God handing you a gift.  And I think of everything I have chafed against and railed about and howled to the heavens and who am I to know what is best or not — but when you bow and surrender to the sovereignty of God then you are in the posture to receive all as a gift.

Ann VosKamp

Polite Lepers and the Power of Choosing Happiness

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Originally published November 15, 2017.

One of my favorite Bible stories in Sunday School when I was a child was the ten lepers who call out to Jesus to have mercy on them; He tells them to go to the Temple to show the priests they were healed and off they run, eager to make the proper sacrifices so that they could rejoin their families and get their lives back. But one of them turns around and runs back to Jesus to say thank you. I can still remember that line of men strung out across the flannelgraph board, their colorful robes flapping around their legs, and that one figure kneeling at the feet of Jesus, his hands and face turned upwards in worship. The story definitely has a strong visual appeal, and it probably resonates with children everywhere who are being taught polite manners: even Jesus thinks it is important that people say thank you!

Now that I am older, other aspects of the story intrigue me though, like the fact that all were healed, regardless of whether they said thanks or not. God’s mercy was lavish and free…no strings attached. And the fact that the man who came back was a foreigner is striking, because it is probably the real reason for his gratitude. The Jews were used to being God’s special people, and it made sense to them, both that God would heal them and that the Temple priest was the one who would declare them clean. The Samaritan though, was fully aware of his own unworthiness to be touched by God, and knew that he was not welcome to offer his gifts of thankfulness in the Temple. He saw clearly that the healing was at Jesus’ command, and returned to give thanks where it was due; it was his faith that Jesus was commending. All ten were healed of their skin condition, but one came back to kneel at Jesus’ feet, and had his heart healed as well. Obviously, the lesson for us is much larger than having nice manners.

I used to have this crazy poster on my fridge that I printed out, mostly because I needed to think about the words every day, in order to wrap my brain around them: “Everyone gets to decide how happy they want to be…because everyone gets to decide how grateful they are willing to be.” (Ann VosKamp)”

Everyone gets to decide how happy they want to be? Even the lepers and the lonely?…. all the ones that get stuck in situations beyond their control? And what if there is no family to run home to, and the healing doesn’t come? That’s the hard ceiling on free will, finding out that in so many ways you are not actually free, and have no choices in the matter. And who in this life gets to decide on a quantity of happiness, as if they were window shopping in a mall? Isn’t everyone allotted some random measure of happiness in this life, and some people are just more blessed than others? There is an inequity of circumstances that we all have learned to put up with, ever since we were toddlers and discovered the painful truth that we can’t always have what someone else has. And right about that same time we laid the responsibility of our happiness on the shoulders of circumstance, let it roll on the unpredictable winds of fortune. I see how we often live on that thin knife-edge, balanced between hope that things will go our way, and fear that everything will crash down around our ears– can see how we lean toward worry or toward control, trying to manage it all. And some of us just give up on the trying, and do whatever we can to pretend everything is going to work out fine. The world we live in makes no sense of the first part of that sentence.

But the truth of the second part skewers through the uncertainty of that first bit, anchoring it firmly. “Everyone gets to decide how happy they want to be… because everyone gets to decide how grateful they are willing to be.” (Ann VosKamp) And I know this spiritual sister is speaking truth, even though my heart still struggles at times to put it into practice. Because gratitude is precisely what we are free to choose– or not– in response to the circumstances we are given, and the way we respond shows what is in our hearts toward the Giver.

In his letters to the early churches, Paul writes it over and over again, rings out the insistent call: “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice.” (Philippians 4:4) He hands out this command boldly, as the standard for believers, regardless of their circumstances. And given the circumstances of his own life, we can surmise that Paul was no rosy idealist about life; he had no illusions about how hard it could be to hold onto hope or contentment or joy. His answer to the hurting, to the lonely, to the failing and the fallen is the same: Rejoice in the One who loves you and will never leave you.

Just before the story of the lepers, Jesus’ followers ask Him how to increase their faith. I wonder if the story of the thankful man surprised them at all. The connection between faith and thanksgiving is probably not one that we would make on our own, yet it runs over and over through the Scriptures: thankfulness is an act of obedience and faith, the humble offering of a heart that recognizes its Maker and Healer. And it is thankfulness that enables us to persevere in faith through whatever comes. This Savior who answers our cries for mercy is the answer to all the hurts of this world, and because of His presence we can always rejoice, can always give thanks, no matter how hard our faith is tested.

But it’s a choice and we have to be willing to submit to what He has given this day, open our hands for what He supplies and be content there. Paul’s words stand firm: “We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.” (2 Corinthians 4:8-9) The only certainty in this world is suffering; all else is Grace, and undeserved.

So maybe happiness is really up to me and I do get to decide, because while the circumstances are not in my control, my response to them is, and gratitude is always the best option. Choose to see Grace? Be willing to acknowledge the Giver’s goodness and provision in the midst of circumstances, and find happiness in His presence? I get to decide.

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Whatever happens to me each day is my daily bread, provided I do not refuse to take it from Thy hand and to feed upon it.

Francois de la Mothe Fenelon

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Be very careful, then, how you live—not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will is….be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another with psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit. Sing and make music from your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Ephesians 5:15-17, 19-20

But Still, Easter

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There is a pile of Easter candy here on the table that was meant to go out to children this happy Sunday. And a flowery Spring dress hanging in the closet. And I hardly know what to do with myself this weekend without a pile of music to learn, and cinnamon rolls to bake, and meals with family and friends. I keep going back to the strange thought that It doesn’t feel like Easter… and yet that isn’t right either, because Easter never was about all those extra things. Makes me realize how intertwined our own traditions have become with the ancient story. Maybe Easter is more real than ever, this year, with these trappings stripped away, so that only iron and splintered wood, blood, and old rough rock remain. At the center of it all there is truth, and I know the Resurrection story is more ruggedly real than any of the pastel Springtime fairy-tales we have woven.

Maybe that’s what these times of upheaval do best: they peel away the trappings of a busy life, to find what is real and true beneath it. We would probably never choose to step back for this long and examine ourselves and the choices we are making. But when the noise stills and the merry-go-round slows its whirl, there is no other option but to step off and look around at what you have built. It can be slightly terrifying, and an odd relief, all at once. I feel a little like the woman near a well in ancient Samaria, asking, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.” (John 4:15) There is no more distraction for the things that are broken, no more ignoring the disappointments we’ve been covering up, no more substitutes for the restless longing for something More. Just the need for real life-change. Somehow the Resurrection feels so much more ruggedly real when we are facing our own mortality– when I am vulnerable and small before the things I cannot control, cannot avoid. And the Church-planter writes with assurance that “The Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you.” (Romans 8:11) and I am trying to figure out what that means in the everyday mess and upheaval of this particular Easter.

That same Holy Spirit with the power to kill Death lives in my failing body. The same Holy Spirit who the Father sent to guide us into all truth lives with me here today. The Holy Spirit who Jesus sent to His disciples calls me a child of God and banishes fear. It is the same Holy Spirit who was in Christ Jesus, and the Church-planter Paul writes again that “…we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into His image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.” (2 Corinthians 3:18) This is earthy, real, everyday miraculous stuff, and maybe it is good for us to peel away all the brightly colored shell of it and remember what is actually true. On that first Easter Sunday a body impossibly stepped out of its grave and suddenly new Life became a powerful reality.

If we step away from the busy-ness and the little pleasures and the many hats we wear, what is left is just the rough reality of who we are on this earth before our Maker. In these stripped-bare places we get to choose what we believe as real and powerful– whether to trust that the same Spirit who raised the Son of God can also resurrect our relationships…turn sorrow into joy… redeem our wasted time and give us second chances. And one young mom says how they have found healthy rhythms with a houseful of children by the grace of God, and it seems so right to have everyone together at home. And a friend writes that he has spent time alone with God this week dealing with hard things from the past, finding forgiveness and healing in the cross of Christ. And all around, people make the effort to reach out to the hurting with encouragement and hope. This is the power of the Resurrection at work in us.

It’s Easter weekend and the azalea bush out front has suddenly burst into wild purple glory fit for a king.

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So let the ruins come to life
In the beauty of Your Name,
Rising up from the ashes–
God forever You reign!
And my soul will find refuge
In the shadow of Your wings;
I will love You forever,
And forever I’ll sing.
When the world caves in
Still my hope will cling to Your promise;
Where my courage ends
Let my heart find strength in Your presence…

Glorious Ruins, Hillsong Worship

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I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in Me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in Me will never die. Do you believe this?”

John 11:25-26

Where Jesus Is

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In wilderness places when it’s hard to make it through the day, sometimes the biggest battle is in your head. Because in the desert, the Enemy’s voice whispers loud, and there is no rest from the scouring wind and scorching sun. The sand keeps shifting beneath your feet until you begin to forget that there is a rock-solid Truth underneath it all…seems easier to listen to the voice saying that you are not enough, and that you better take what you need any way you can get it because no one else is watching out for you. The way to get lost in the wilderness is to listen to the constant refrain that where you are is all there is ever going to be.

But David the Musician knew the wilderness long before he became King, and he is singing out of the desert , “O God…I thirst for You, my whole being longs for You, in a dry and parched land where there is no water.” (Psalm 63:1) He knew that the only way to survive the harsh barren places was to turn his eyes on the One who gives Living Water…the One who is beautiful beyond measure. “I have seen You in the sanctuary and beheld your power and your glory. Because Your love is better than life, my lips will glorify You. I will be fully satisfied as with the richest of foods; with singing lips my mouth will praise you.” (verses 2-4) You can focus on all that you lack in the seemingly endless days, or you can focus on the Giver of all things, like a compass-point to steer by and know that eventually you will end up safely Home. “I cling to You; Your right hand upholds me.” (v.8) It is the first choice of every day, the last before you lay your head down at night; even when no one else can hear, and you feel like you are all alone. “On my bed I remember You; I think of You through the watches of the night.” (verse 6) This is Wilderness Survival 101.

And yeah, maybe the Enemy knows all the right buttons to push, because I am most assuredly not enough for any of this…but in the middle of all I cannot control and everything I cannot fix, and the obvious shortage of wisdom and patience and strength in me, still the Spirit of the Lord who conquered death and sin is alive in me, and I am not alone. “Because You are my help, I sing in the shadow of Your wings.” (verse 7) 

Just hold on tight and take the next step, one after another, and don’t be afraid to hurl the everlasting Truth defiantly into the face of the storm.

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“Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. I say to myself, ‘The Lord is my portion; therefore I will wait for him.’” (Lamentations 3:21-24)

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“Can’t go back to the beginning,
Can’t control what tomorrow will bring,
But I know here in the middle
Is the place where You promise to be.

I’m not enough unless You come;
Will you meet me here again?
Cause all I want is all You are;
Will You meet me here again?

As I walk now through the valley,
Let Your love rise above every fear;
Like the sun shaping the shadow,
In my weakness Your glory appears…

Not for a minute
Was I forsaken;
The Lord is in this place,
The Lord is in this place.

Come Holy Spirit–
Dry bones awaken;
The Lord is in this place,
The Lord is in this place.”
(Here Again, Elevation Worship)

Not Wasted At All

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Sometimes I think we are looking at all the wrong things when we read the story Jesus told about the two brothers and their father. Even the title is indicative of our slant– the name prodigal son is wasted on the younger brother, because although he certainly was all about wasting his inheritance, that is hardly the point of the story. I mean, as long as we go on seeing him only as disrespectful and irresponsible we can shake our heads and agree that it is hard to forgive people who make a mess of everyone’s lives and come back looking for grace. Call the older brother offended (as we would certainly be at our sibling’s behavior)…even call him unforgiving or jealous; better yet, point out that the father best deserves the name prodigal as he pours out his love and grace– wastes it without regard for justice on the one who has wronged him. But let the boy’s situation hit our hearts squarely in all its raw need: “So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed pigs. He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything.” (Luke 15:15-16)

The younger brother is better understood in the context of the other two stories Jesus told to the crowds. His is the third– the lost sheep, the lost coin, the lost son– and in the first two we are hearing it from the perspective of those who have lost something of value, so it is right when we come to the third to see the grief of the Father over everything that has been destroyed by his son’s bad choices. After all, these are parables, simple memorable stories intended to teach a moral lesson to those who listen. But this time we get a window into what it is like to be the one lost. And we see a boy who is desperate, alone, hear how broken is his pride and how ready to admit that he needs his father’s love and forgiveness, even if he doesn’t deserve it. If we are going to understand forgiveness, we need to see things from the younger son’s perspective, and feel his pain when he cries out, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son…” (Luke 15:18-19)

Because I suspect that you can’t really understand forgiving someone else until you know what it means to long for forgiveness yourself, to hunger and thirst for that righteousness that wipes away shame and guilt…until you can weep with King David: “Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love; according to your great compassion blot out my transgressions.” (Psalm 51:1) Any concept you have of forgiveness is likely to be more intellectual (and pretty anemic) until you have seen the blood on your own hands, and faced the dark closets in your own soul, prostrated yourself before God: “Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.” (Psalm 51:7) You can be sure that David was not reciting any formula or just doing what was expected of him when he pleaded “Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones You have crushed rejoice. Hide Your face from my sins and blot out all my iniquity.” (Psalm 51:8-9) on the deathbed of his infant son. Only such a gifted musician could have written melody for the agony of a father bearing the guilt of his son’s death. And only those who have received grace know its life-giving power to people lost in the dark.

The parable of the two brothers and their father is above all a story to teach God’s prodigal grace. And although we might be tempted to look at the two brother’s achievements and name one more deserving than the other, the Father’s love and grace pours out on both extravagantly, unhindered by our measurements and unconcerned by our ideas of fairness. Grace isn’t grace unless it is undeserved, and grace is never wasted– just ask anyone who knows their need. “Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.” (Hebrews 4:16)

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“You, God, are my God, earnestly I seek You; I thirst for You, my whole being longs for You, in a dry and parched land where there is no water. I have seen You in the sanctuary and beheld Your power and Your glory. Because Your love is better than life, my lips will glorify You.” (Psalm 63:1-3)

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“There’s a place where sin and shame
Are powerless;
Where my heart has peace with God
And forgiveness;
Where all the love I’ve ever found
Comes like a flood,
Comes flowing down.
At the cross, at the cross,
I surrender my life–
I’m in awe of You…”
(At The Cross, Chris Tomlin)

Ready for Christmas

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There’s nothing that lights up brokenness like the twinkling lights of Christmas. ‘Tis the season to be jolly…with Pinterest-decked-out halls, and the family in matching pajamas on the front of your cards, and your shopping definitely finished by the third week of December. But let’s be honest, some years you just don’t have it in you to watch all the Christmas movies and bubble gaily at parties. It feels a little like maybe you’d be better off on the Island of Misfit Toys, with your chipped paint and limping spirit. And all the traditions and high expectations of the season only serve to underline how you are dragging on behind….might push you to add another present to the pile and turn up the carols, so no one suspects. Doesn’t it make you wonder where we ever got the idea that we need to achieve a certain level of glitter and gaiety before Christmas can come?

But the Prophet Isaiah is lighting up the centuries with his clarion call straight from the mouth of God: “‘Comfort, comfort my people,’ says your God. ‘Speak tenderly to Jerusalem. Tell her that her sad days are gone and her sins are pardoned.'” (Isaiah 40:1) If ever there were a holiday for the hollow and the worn-weary, it is Christmas: “For I hold you by your right hand— I, the Lord your God. And I say to you, ‘Don’t be afraid. I am here to help you.” (Isaiah 41:13) The good news comes ready-or-not to the sheep-herders and the inn-keepers, that the glory of God has come down from heaven to shine in the back alleys and the open fields of everyday life. This is the gift of Christmas, that Christ has come to be with us in whatever we are facing, and bring healing and hope. “When the poor and needy search for water and there is none, and their tongues are parched from thirst, then I, the Lord, will answer them. I…will never abandon them.” (Isaiah 41:17)

Christmas is most of all for the broken and needy, and the Light of the world shines in all His brilliance on everyone who waits patiently for His help. Isaiah records the precious promises of His salvation: “…how can you say the Lord does not see your troubles?…The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of all the earth. He never grows weak or weary. No one can measure the depths of his understanding. He gives power to the weak and strength to the powerless.” (Isaiah 40:27-29) We are held, and we are loved, and we don’t need sparkle and shine to cover us up, because the Almighty covers us. Even the Musician-King David is singing of the Messiah’s coming. “He will cover you with his feathers. He will shelter you with his wings. His faithful promises are your armor and protection.” (Psalm 91:4)

The Gospel writers highlight the prophets’ words over and over, just to prove that God’s promises have all come true in Jesus. Matthew says it as plainly as he knows how: “All of this occurred to fulfill the Lord’s message through his prophet: ‘Look! The virgin will conceive a child! She will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel, which means ‘God is with us.’” (Matthew 1:22-23) The events of Christmas were always part of God’s plan, a Light shining down through history from the beginning of time for those who know their need. John bursts into praise at the truth of what he had seen with his own eyes: “The Word gave life to everything that was created, and His life brought light to everyone. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness can never extinguish it.” (John 1:4) This is the miracle of Christmas night, that all God’s promises come true at once, with a woman’s laboring cry and an army of angels singing: “Glory to God in highest heaven, and peace on earth to those with whom God is pleased.” (Luke 2:14) To the warring and the broken, the blind and deaf, the bent and the bruised, it is the best news of all. Christ has come, and He will make us whole! The prophet Malachi adds his own joyful note to the ancient songs: “But for you who fear my name, the Sun of Righteousness will rise with healing in his wings.” (Malachi 4:2)

In this most wonderful time of the year, may our longing for goodness to prevail, for beauty, for peace… drive us only to the Light of the World who is given for us.

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“For the Lord your God is living among you. He is a mighty savior. He will take delight in you with gladness. With His love, He will calm all your fears. He will rejoice over you with joyful songs.” (Zephaniah 3:17)

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“More than presents, I long for Your presence to be apparent in all the minutes You give me. I long for Your face to shine upon me. May I define abundance as a manger, strips of cloth, and a place to lay my weary head. ” (Shelly Miller)