Looking for Joy

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We talked long the other night about the mystery of Joy, how it comes from God and bears little resemblance to the human emotion by the same name. We noticed the unexpected connections, how thanksgiving was inextricably linked to joy, our praise giving honor to the Giver; how trust is the act of recognizing and bowing to the beauty of His nature; how hope springs from acknowledging His power and sovereignty, believing His promises are steadfast and true. It’s as if we were a mirror, and turning our focus on who He is and what He is doing reflects His glory everywhere, lighting up our lives with our enjoyment of Him….Joy shining in us like a candle in the darkness.

It will take time, this unraveling of all the threads woven through one large intangible concept. Is praise an overflowing of joy in our hearts?…or does joy flow when we lift up our voices to praise? And do we trust because we have hope that His promises are all solidly true?…or do we hope because we trust in His solid faithfulness? It doesn’t really matter, except when we try to pry it all apart and find out how it works, so that we understand. The answers are all Yes and Amen in the person of Christ. All the questions boil down to a matter of perspective– it’s all in what we look at, where our hearts are dwelling.

See, joy is not a thing. Not a skill. Not an experience. We study joy because we want to find it, and possess it– we know instinctively that we cannot live without it. Instead we are finding that joy comes from relationship, the response of the human soul to the One who gave it life. And all these habits we can cultivate are not a way to attain some quality, but rather a matter of learning to live in His presence and to know Him more fully– that’s why Paul tells us “Don’t shuffle along, eyes to the ground, absorbed with the things right in front of you. Look up, and be alert to what is going on around Christ – that’s where the action is. See things from his perspective.” (Colossians 3:2, The Message) When we see things the way God does and participate in the work He is doing, finally stop looking for joy…it comes looking for us, and it is a mystery wilder and brighter than we realized.

So we are counting in our journals for the next two weeks, five things to be thankful for every day, and “no repeats.” Seventy all told, written on the pages so we will remember, and I find it is like priming a pump to look for His goodness: the more I count the more I can see Him everywhere. Seventy may be only the beginning by the end of two weeks, and hope and trust unfurling new shoots as the praises continue to flow. It takes practice to turn our eyes on what is unseen and not get distracted by the demands of the unavoidably real everyday; we will choose to praise, choose to trust, choose to hope in His promises…and discover that joy is right there where He is, and all we had to do was step into the Light.

 

 

 

“You make known to me the path of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand.” (Psalm 16:11)

 

 

“We bury our swollen prayers in Him who’s raised from the tomb.We lay our hope, full and tender, into the depths of Him and wait in hope for God to resurrect something good.” Ann VosKamp

 

 

“The root of joy is gratefulness … It is not joy that makes us grateful; it is gratitude that makes us joyful.” (David Steindl-Rast)

Be the Bucket

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It always comes to mind now when I water my flowers, how the bucket is just an empty vessel to carry life-giving water from the faucet to the thirsty plants.  Our author-mentor Elizabeth used that illustration to explain the way our lives are the vessels God uses to carry His love into the lives of others. Us holding up empty buckets and filling with His endless supply of love, and then taking it to those who are thirsty; becoming the hands and feet and smiles and words that make God’s love tangible to the world. Then back again for More, because if it all works the way it should, buckets will get empty as fast as you fill them. The needs are endless. Fortunately, the Supply is everlasting.

The very first step in this bucket brigade is admitting that you are empty. And its no use trying to fill up with with everything you find along the way. Buckets are only valuable if they are empty and ready to be filled with what the Gardener desires. It’s hard to admit my need; empty feels broken, seems wrong…but You say it is the beginning of something very right and good. “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 5:3) It is the same paradoxical truth that Paul discovered: “Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me….For when I am weak, then I am strong.” (2 Corinthians 12:9-10) When I am empty, then I can be filled with His love.

Mostly, a bucket just needs to be available whenever the Gardener wants to use it. It’s a good choice to make at the beginning of a new week, to present ourselves as empty buckets. It doesn’t seem like much. It’s how a bucket is used that makes its life so meaningful.

 

 

“Hungry I come to You for I know You satisfy
I am empty but I know Your love does not run dry
So I wait for You…
I’m falling on my knees
Offering all of me
Jesus, You’re all this heart is living for.”
(Hungry, Kathryn Scott)

 

 

Love Might Be The Hardest Thing You’ll Ever Do

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This morning at the gym, women are working out together and sharing their lives in bits and pieces, so naturally: how feet get larger as we grow older (“What?? They really do that? I have to stop working out with you people.”); how husbands manage to remain in bed at night when the baby awakes; how someone hasn’t been in to class for weeks, did anyone call to see if she is well; and a good book just finished, that someone else could borrow.

It makes me think again how we women are good at loving. We notice the needs and feelings of others, and have a heart to come alongside and help. We understand the importance of connecting, of sharing common moments, of feeling you are part of something larger. We can go without, to meet people’s needs, extend ourselves beyond reasonable bounds, persevere through storms that should make us quit. It is the cry of every woman’s heart to love and to be loved, and she knows it very well, regardless of how she goes about seeking it.

Discovering God’s love for us suits us completely; His command to love others is something we can tuck in among our natural relationship abilities, like adding to the collection– definitely an improvement, something we are quick to take up because it comes with admirable standards and handy “how-to” descriptions. It also tends to confuse us, and we will spend all our days wrestling to mold our natural abilities into something resembling God’s standards, maybe feeling guilty because of how hard it can be to make wayward emotions conform.

See, we women also have a hard time loving. At least loving the way God does. Maybe because we value relationships so much, they have the ability to disappoint us more. The very connections that make life worth living can become a very heavy burden. And our sensitivity to others’ emotions also leaves us easily wounded by what we notice. We can pour out love so naturally… but we often find ourselves running dry and irritable at the ones we are closest to. As long as we look at love as a feeling of closeness, or even a liking for someone, we will struggle to love the way God does, and that is the crucial hair-splitting point on which everything turns.

It’s Jesus who tells us how it works, when He is talking about branches staying connected to the vine: “If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love….This is My commandment that you love one another, just as I have loved you.” (John 15:10, 12-13) Obedience is the key– an act of the will, and very often in conflict with our emotions– and then there’s that little phrase added onto the end of the sentence, only six words, but expressing something so big that it sent the apostle Paul into superlatives: “And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love. No power in the sky above or in the earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:38-39) And suddenly we are beyond the realm of natural abilities and into something supernatural: love that commits to the good of another no matter the cost or the obstacle… regardless of whether it is wanted or returned…love that looks like Jesus dying on the cross for people who hated Him.

Choice…obedience…death…not the words we would choose for a love-letter, but woven all through God’s message of love to us. And to love like this I need His help to push beyond the feelings of a woman’s heart; I need to stay connected to Jesus, who calls me His friend and shows me His own loving heart and explains to me in words what God’s love looks like. Watching Him I am learning a whole new way to love, finding a moment of choice when I am running dry and irritable– a moment in which to ask Him for help, to choose to obey, to depend on the Spirit for the power to bear fruit that is loving.

 

 

 

“Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.8 Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.” (1 John 4:7-8)

 

 

“Could we with ink the ocean fill,
And were the skies of parchment made;
Were every stalk on earth a quill,
And every man a scribe by trade;
To write the love of God above
Would drain the ocean dry;
Nor could the scroll contain the whole,
Though stretched from sky to sky.”
(The Love of God, Frederick Lehman)

Of Elephants and Orchards

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We talked of gardening the other night in Small Group, how Paul wrote about what was growing in our lives: all the weeds that spring up so naturally from Self, and the new fruit that flourishes in the presence of God’s Spirit. The supernatural fruit that is named by the qualities contained in it. One fruit, nine descriptive words of the best, the most longed-for and admired qualities of human life. I’ve heard a lot of words through the years about this fruit, but I feel like only now am I really starting to catch a glimpse of what it means. Maybe we are very often like the blind beggars circling the elephant and trying to put into words the small bits we can touch and experience ourselves…. or maybe we are just too easily satisfied with what our limited perspectives can hold onto, and we could waste our days arguing about the shapes of smaller things and miss the larger truth entirely.

Jesus said it plainly enough: “I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.” (John 10:10) Only I think we often take that rather literally, more along the lines of our years on earth, because that is how we measure life, as a quantity of moments…and surely we would want them to be rich and full and last forever, so if we could learn to add those nine virtues to our repertoire we would be blessed indeed. But what if life is measured better in quality– by what is flowing in us, and by what we produce with it? And then Jesus’ purpose becomes all about us living in close relationship with God, in the fullness of His own Spirit, and the abundance is this supernatural fruit that grows in us when we stay connected to Him. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control… not as separate human virtues to add onto our list of good deeds, but as one work of art– a portrait of Jesus.

Paul explains exactly what the Breath of God is producing in us, the fruit He is growing: “For God knew His people in advance, and He chose them to become like his Son” (Romans 8:29)….“May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through.” (1 Thessalonians 5:23) Jesus said that if we stay connected to Him, make our dwelling in His presence, the Spirit’s life will flow through us and grow this fruit of Christ-likeness in us.

The power that raised Christ from the dead raising my own spirit from its sin-death? Re-creating me from the inside out, into the person God intended me to be all along, reflecting the image of God? His own Life breathing through me the way it did in Adam and Eve at the Beginning, like sap and sun and rain through branches clinging tightly to the vine? We are feeling our way along like children trying to understand, and this is a much bigger Story than we could ever have imagined on our own– the fruit of the Spirit a much bigger treasure than we suppose. Not just a way to live, but Life itself. “And I am certain that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns.” (Philippians 1:6)

 

 

“Where sin runs deep Your grace is more
Where grace is found is where You are
And where You are, Lord, I am free
Holiness is Christ in me…
Lord, I need You, oh, I need You
Every hour I need You…”
(Lord, I Need You, Matt Maher)

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“Now we see things imperfectly, like puzzling reflections in a mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely.” (1 Corinthians 13:12)

At A Loss for Words

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I usually know what is going on inside me. And if I don’t, the work of finding the right words helps me to understand.

Seems like lately whenever I sit down to write there are too many feelings, words tangled up inside pushing to get out in no particular order and much too raw-edged to share. So I end up staring at the screen and writing nothing. Not that I feel the need to show something better, to hide what’s going on inside behind a row of properly yellow ducks. Just this inability to sort through the jumble to find the words, right now, and waiting for something to change.

For me, writing has always been a way to process life– to attach words to emotions and perceptions gives them shape, orders them into patterns that reveal meaning, connects them to bigger concepts and ideas. But it is the processing that is getting stuck. And I don’t even know what I need; can’t put a finger on whether the difficulty is a matter of too much, or not enough, the wrong direction, or the wrong thing altogether…maybe we are all like that at times. Sleeping Beauty lying unaware in a tower for a hundred years, till the Prince comes to awaken her.

But You know my heart, Lord, and You know what I need. And when I am at a loss for words You promised to pray for me, Your Spirit helping me, Everlasting Arms to carry me. And in this again You stoop to my weakness, that You would groan without words for my own wordless needs. “Test me, LORD, and try me, examine my heart and my mind; for I have always been mindful of your unfailing love and have lived in reliance on your faithfulness.” (Psalm 26:2-3) You know my days and You know the change I am waiting for, even though I do not. And somehow I feel sure that when I awake, it will be to the sight of Your unfailing love.

 

 

“In death, In life, I’m confident and
covered by the power of Your great love
My debt is paid, there’s nothing that can
separate my heart from Your great love…”
(One Thing Remains, Jesus Culture)

 

 

“In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God.” (Romans 8:26-27)

Still Running

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Sometimes you know going in that it will be a stretching experience. This ten-day challenge of camping in the hottest part of the Summer always is, and here I am again, scribbling lists and making piles, mentally prepping as if for a marathon. Because once we head out there is no more time to prepare and train, no stopping till the Finish Line.  Whatever comes, we’ll deal with it as we go with the resources that are at hand…and from experience I can say that anything can (and will) happen when you are living and working outdoors with people you don’t know well. The one underlying goal is to be Christ-like in the midst of every unfamiliar, uncomfortable, stressing circumstance; the one thing you can count on is finding Christ’s strength and help in the midst of it all… and sometimes even serendipitous blessing.

Thus the mixed emotions, because as difficult as the next two weeks will be, I can look forward to God making Himself known in ways that I could not see here in the familiar and routine. Marathons are like that: a catalyst for change, an exercise that pushes Who You Are into something stronger, maybe even a tool for transformation in the hands of Someone who knows what He is doing. And when you finish you get that unique mixture of satisfaction and relief for a difficult task completed.

So I take a deep breath and get ready to plunge ahead, to see what it is I have been training for, see what the race will call forth from me this year. Somewhat dreading. Definitely anxious. Maybe a little excited. Thankful that this annual challenge is neatly counted into days.

It’s possible my whole life might be a marathon race like this…one uniquely stretching and transforming event that is both difficult and amazing…except my viewpoint isn’t big enough to see the entirety and I was not aware enough to know it from the start. But I take it by faith that out ahead somewhere there is a Finish Line, and I do see God at work in the good and the bad, showing Himself in new ways as we go. I trust that Someday I will see with an eternal perspective that makes everything clear…that some Morning I’ll wake up with the overwhelming relief and satisfaction of a marathon well-completed. In the meantime, I am still running.

 

 

“…I focus on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us.” (Philippians 3:13-14)

 

 

“I believe like a child that suffering will be healed and made up for, that all the humiliating absurdity of human contradictions will vanish like a pitiful mirage, like the despicable fabrication of the impotent and infinitely small Euclidean mind of man, that in the world’s finale, at the moment of eternal harmony, something so precious will come to pass that it will suffice for all hearts, for the comforting of all resentments, of the atonement of all the crimes of humanity, of all the blood that they’ve shed; and it will make it not only possible to forgive but to justify what has happened.” (The Brothers Karamazov, Fyodor Dostoevsky)

Counting Reasons

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I’m listening to her talk as we all work out this morning, these good women from various church backgrounds, except that I happen to know her faith is a personal one. “I told God that whatever He decides is fine with me,” she says quietly. “I know He will do what’s best.” The others shake their heads in sympathy; I slant a smile for her courage, small offering to a wife nursing a second husband through cancer. She looks tired today, but she is here to exercise. The feet keep moving and voices intermingle with the upbeat music, and she is speaking her list of thanksgiving: an air conditioner in the apartment, a good breakfast, a daughter coming to visit for the holiday…

It seems hard to me that God would ask her to go through this loss again– hasn’t she suffered enough? Learned enough? The others are still talking, her praises still threading through, and when she says she will stay and take care of him herself, whatever it takes, I think maybe this isn’t about her learning  or growing anything.  Maybe it’s about her giving what she has already learned– blessing two men with her faithful love and willing service, sharing her faith and courage with these watching friends. And she is still offering up her reasons to praise God, all her reasons to hope and keep on going because He is with her: some days are almost pain-free, a new pill to help with nausea, God hears our prayers…

My heart can’t help but add to her list of reasons, because if she can praise where she is, how can the rest of us not? …strawberry sundaes, a night of rest, pink and purple flowers spilling out of a big pot, fireworks, coffee in the morning air, school loans paid off, meaningful work to do… This remembering is like breathing for our souls– drawing in acknowledgement of the Giver and pouring out thanksgiving– a litany of everyday praise that battles against depression and worry and fear. This choice to give thanks is a kind of spiritual discipline, the exercise that moves our hearts close to the Father in childlike trust, our minds to bow before the Creator. It is grace you can learn to see in the desert places: the sun and rain that fall on everyone, and daily bread. “The sun comes up, it’s a new day dawning; It’s time to sing Your song again. Whatever may pass, and whatever lies before me, Let me be singing when the evening comes….” (Matt Redman)

When I stop to stretch, change clothes and head out for the day, she waves goodbye from out on the floor, and I think how she shines without even knowing it, and how praise transfigures the most difficult things. And how we could spend our whole lives and not run out of reasons to give thanks.

 

 

 

“Praise the Lord, my soul, and forget not all his benefits…. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us. As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him; for he knows how we are formed– he remembers that we are dust.” (Psalm 103:2, 10-14)

 

“You’re rich in love, and You’re slow to anger,
Your name is great, and Your heart is kind;
For all Your goodness I will keep on singing,
Ten thousand reasons for my heart to find.

Bless the Lord, O my soul,
O my soul;
Worship His holy name.
Sing like never before,
O my soul;
I’ll worship Your holy name”
(10,000 Reasons, Matt Redman)

Of Plows and Crosses

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An antique plow is still sitting in the hallway of our church. When I saw it for the first time in the dim silence of an empty building, it seemed like something unexpectedly sacred. Something profound and pointed. There is beauty in the utilitarian curves, the worn grey wood, the aged metal touched with rust, the simple command framed in black above it: “Burn them.”

That plow is a tangible illustration of one man’s whole-hearted response when God came calling. A challenge to leave our lives behind and follow wherever He leads. A reminder that obedience often looks counter-intuitive, maybe down-right crazy, to the world at large. There’s no escaping that. But maybe someone* who is busy burning a plow, his heart focused on what God is saying, has no time for looking around and wondering what people think.

I used to wonder at the prophets, how when they heard the Word of the Lord it changed them, sent them wandering and somewhat wild, prone to unpopular declarations and inconvenient tasks…used to wonder how the thousands of years worked to tame the Word of the Lord till it fit into soft-colored pews and Sunday morning schedules before lunch. It took me awhile to realize that ears-listening to the Word of the Lord isn’t always the same as heart-listening to the Word of the Lord, and that when a person really hears what God is saying his life will go against the grain in all kinds of wildly wonderful ways.

I am reading about Katie and her thirteen children in Uganda, a beautiful mom barely more than a teen herself, and reading about newlyweds crossing the world to bring God’s love to people who don’t even want it, and reading sister-heart Ann saying “Compassion…is a feeling so strong that it causes you to bend: it shapes your body, your life, into a response. Compassion is the radical cross-shaping of a life.” (VosKamp) I see the plow every time I walk into the building and wonder what God is calling us to as a Body, as individuals. Vance Havner said something along the lines of “You live what you believe; the rest is only talk.” That’s what makes the plow so powerful– because what you are willing to do for God shows what you really believe, and the evidence is both in what you are running toward, and in what you are leaving behind.
(*You can read the story of Elisha and his plow in 1 Kings 19:15-21.)

 

 

 

“…let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.” (Hebrews 12:1-2)

 

 

“We may never be martyrs but we can die to self, to sin, to the world, to our plans and ambitions. That is the significance of baptism; we died with Christ and rose to new life.” (Vance Havner)

 

 

From the Mouths of Babes

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Lately God keeps talking to me about faith– not how to live it out in words and actions, but how to live it on the inside, because learning to step out and do the right thing is good, but learning to “Be still and know that [He] is God” (Psalm 46:10) is important too. The word the Singer used for being still is rapha, meaning to surrender… allow yourself to let go. His song has more to do with remembering Who is in control than with ceasing of noise and energy– the surrendering is linked to the knowing.

Surrender is kind of a scary concept, and I’m all for it, but I think I’d prefer it to stay within reasonable limits. It’s like my faith ping-pongs somewhere between the innocent trust of a child who says “I don’t think Jesus wants it to rain on us” and the world-toughened rationalism of an adult who is a little hesitant to trust God for anything too big for fear He might not come through for us when we pray, and how do we explain that, or reconcile that with our faith? Looking around, I think I am not the only one, either. Most of us have this fragile balancing act going on between fear and faith, and often it is only the prevailing circumstances that make the difference.

Sometimes God does the big miracles and we laugh amazed with outstretched arms like children, and sometimes it rains and we mop up the chaos and try to hang onto faith in spite of the mess…so that after awhile some of us actually become pretty fair spiritual jugglers, resigned to handling faith and disappointment-with-God as natural parts of the same show. And even though we admire the childlike faith that can expect great things and live unafraid, we have the uneasy feeling that it is only for a special few– and maybe as long as the fear is kept busy and distracted with faith flying around, it will be okay, because we are after all, only human.

But Amy Carmichael’s words keep pulling at me: “…we trust all that the love of God does; all He gives, and all He does not give; all He says, and all He does not say.” Innocent faith of a child receiving whatever comes from the Father’s hands, whether good or bad– and there’s the catch, because if it flows out of His love and He says He is working all things out for my growth and good, then how do I even know where to hang those labels of good and bad? In the words of that brave missionary to India, “The more we understand His love, the more we trust.” Maybe our crisis is not one of faith so much as one of understanding, of accepting love.

I’m starting to accept the notion that I really don’t understand what is best in any situation. Spending the night in a big city airport because we missed our connecting flight? Sleeping in the food court with the homeless people taking shelter from the same storm that messed up our flight schedule? Missing the seminar that we had come for and already paid for? Bad, really bad. Except that the night passed and we were calm; we did sleep a bit, propped up on our luggage, discovered a resilience we did not know we had. And a new heart-awareness of the people who sleep in airports because they want to, who are sturdy survivors and well-prepared for storms because they expect difficulty. Not to mention a reminder that needs are not the same thing as comfort and preference. Maybe good after all?

So then the next time it rains and chaos ensues, with over-turned schedules and masses of people awaiting split-second decisions that should be nothing but bad and stressful, there is this supernatural Stillness in the center of the whirlwind, and I realize that I don’t even know if this is going to be good or bad, I just know His heart. He loves us and He is good, and whatever happens He will help us with it. Like a child who trusts the One who loves him. Oddly finding nothing to juggle any more because He is holding it all. Allowing ourselves to let go, become weak, so that we can recognize the Master of the Universe in His rightful place on the throne.

And the next day the four-year-old says, “Maybe it will rain today and maybe it won’t. Who knows?” Maybe childlike faith expects great things and lives unafraid only because it knows storms will come, and we will stand strong and survive because Someone bigger than the storm loves us. Maybe the rational adult can just choose to lay down his juggling act, admit that it is only a mask for fear and the desire to control, “be still and know [He] is God.”

Not sure yet what surrender fully means, how to live out faith on the inside and on the outside in all circumstances, but I think it may be the lesson we are all learning, in every one of our days from start to finish.  Help me Lord, on this day, to sing with the children in their simple trust: “What are you worried about now– Trying to figure it out now? God knows right where you are now– You know it’s all in His hands now. Give all your worries and your cares to God, For He cares about you…”

 

 

 

“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)

 

 

“…I need You to open my eyes,
To see that You’re shaping my life.
All I am, I surrender.
Give me faith to trust what You say:
That You’re good, and Your love is great.”

(Give Me Faith, Elevation Worship)

 

 

Drawing a Picture of God

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It’s sad, really, how we let the circumstances shape our view of God. As if He had not already spent thousands of years revealing Himself in a myriad of tiny details and grand sweeping plans, breathing Words into the hearts of men to speak to us in our own language, even wrapping Himself in flesh to walk among us– all so we could know Him.

And yet, serving gets difficult and we think “Maybe God doesn’t want me to do this any more.” Sickness hangs on and we say “God is punishing me for my sin.” Provision doesn’t come when we ask, and we wonder “Is God listening?…does He care about my need?” And before we realize it, we have looked at the circumstances and drawn our own outlines for who God is, framed Him in with the small scope of our emotions and everyday experience. When I think about it that way, I see the deception from the Garden being acted out all over again: setting how we feel and what we see up higher than what God says.

When serving gets difficult, God says, “And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.” (Colossians 3:17) When sickness lingers and prayers seem unanswered, God says, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned…but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him.” (John 9:3) When needs pinch and fear rises, God replies, “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes?” (Matthew 6:31)

We could blame our faulty arithmetic on a fallen world: two plus two equals four, and doing good should be easy, and what I can see and feel is clearly real…it’s a blind logic that ignores the weight of Divine evidence to the contrary. But how frightening to see my mind conforming to the pattern of this world and ignoring Grace. Devastating to see into even well-meaning hearts and find them fully planted in the center of the universe as if they had a right to be there. As if they had never read God’s own description of who He is, or at least had never let the words soak in deeper than skin.

God talks about that too, of course: “The human heart is the most deceitful of all things, and desperately wicked. Who really knows how bad it is?” (Jeremiah 17:9) He sees into all the twists and turns of my emotions and motivations quite clearly, and will show it to me if I really want to know, really want to change. Times like this make me realize just how amazing Grace is, and how very deep and wide and long God’s love is.

 

“A thousand times I’ve failed–
Still your mercy remains,
And should I stumble again,
I’m caught in your grace.

Everlasting, Your light will shine when all else fades;
Never ending, Your glory goes beyond all fame;
And the cry of my heart is to bring You praise
From the inside out, O my soul cries out…”
(Inside Out, Hillsong)