All of Us Are in This Together

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“He is an American citizen, but he wasn’t born here. He’s from some other country.” I was only half paying attention, but it was her tone that caught me. Dismissive. Contemptuous. As if that explained everything, the young man who came from Somewhere Else to wreak havoc and destruction, because our own young men would never do such a thing. As if we were made of different flesh and blood in this country.

And suddenly I wanted to say that he is made of exactly the same stuff as us– that at the core we are of the same genetic material handed down from our first father and mother, and citizens of the same realm of Darkness. This boy grew up here, was educated in our schools, won scholarships and dreamed of the future just like our own children, and is he not our own responsibility? How is he so very different from any of us, and how are our own sons and daughters immune from the string of seemingly trivial choices, mile-markers that shape who we are becoming even though we don’t have the eyes to see it?

It made me want to weep outright, never mind that we were in public, in a crowd, and I hardly knew her. That young man, younger than my own, with his dark serious eyes and thoughtful face, now certainly panicked and grieving– how did his heart get him here? What choices had he made, one step at a time, till there was no turning back and he was running for his life? “He won’t come out of this alive,” she went on decidedly…“they’ll hunt him down and kill him before this is all over.” And isn’t death waiting for us all, apart from God’s grace, because we all carry the same bent nature? It could so easily have been my children out there on the streets, deserving the anger and censure of others.

I wanted to tell her that the only thing that makes us different is being born into a new Family, the only citizenship that matters is the one in an unseen Kingdom, the eternal country that Abraham was looking for. And until we are safely Home there is no real safety. But it was not the place to say any of that, and she would not have understood anyway. So I pray tonight for the mothers of lost children, and the sons who walk in darkness, and the daughters who are making choices that will lead them on many hard roads…from every country on earth, because we are all the same under Heaven and all so in need of Grace.

I pray that this boy would live, and that he would find both healing and justice; I pray for second chances because none of us deserves one, but there is a Savior who keeps offering one.

 

 

“Everyone needs compassion. A love that’s never failing. Let mercy fall on me. Everyone needs forgiveness. The kindness of a Savior The hope of nations …” (Mighty to Save, Hillsong)

Approaching Sunday

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Here I am on Your doorstep,
With all my earthly belongings–
Nothing more than daily graces;
All I have is Yours,
And this my only home.
I’d rather stand on Your porch
Than go build a palace of stone:
I am dust to dust, clay to clay,
So I will stand before You,
Clutching grace
With both hands,
And be satisfied with Your presence.

 

 

“A single day in your courts is better than a thousand anywhere else! I would rather be a gatekeeper in the house of my God than live the good life in the homes of the wicked.” (Psalm 84:10 NLT)

Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes

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“Thank you, thank you for saying that! God sent you to me today!” she said with the intensity of a proclamation, and stopped in the middle of her work-out to give me a tearful hug. I was dumbfounded. Really? The music picked us up again and we kept pounding out the beat while my mind wondered over our conversation, looking for the words that meant so much to her, and all I could think of was what a humble blessing when God uses you unaware.

I knew her only casually, as another mom-of-young-adults, a bond that made us look for one another through the crowd at the gym, and ask about our fledglings occasionally. Today we happened to be the only two there in a lull of activity and before I knew it a question about who would be home over Easter turned into a heart-spilling of anxious concern for decisions being made, and all I did was share what I am learning: that the burden isn’t ours to carry any more, that God is faithful to work in our daughters’ lives as He has always done for us. Truth that bolsters my heart, and shouldn’t His goodness be shared? Such a small thing to offer, multiplied to abundance received by His Spirit.

It never ceases to amaze me how God puts the puzzle pieces together, and how He turns His making of us into blessing for others, so that the struggles of one heart can encourage another, all of us woven together in unexpected ways, and His Resurrection life still flowing outward from the Cross. It is the mysterious way the Body of Christ works when each part is fitted together as He chooses, each part different but necessary, and Him the Head. It is how we share the Good News with others– just living in His grace and telling what He is doing in our own hearts, because other hearts are hungry in ways we don’t even know.

We sing that old song with the children upstairs on Sunday mornings, “This little light of mine, I’m going to let it shine” and maybe we need to bring it downstairs to the men and women too. Who knows how God might use each willing part of the Body to pour out this Resurrection Life everywhere?

 

 

“My future hangs on this: You make preciousness from dust,
Please don’t stop creating me…
Oh, Your cross, it changes everything…”
(Second Chance, Rend Collective Experiment)

 

 

Milestones

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It was only a year ago when he was blazing a trail for himself into the unknown, my firstborn starting over, in the shade of the mountains along the Rio Grande, a modern pioneer into the frontier-land of the West. At least it felt that way when he packed his clothes and stepped onto a plane that would take him 1,760-and-a-half miles away, leaving all his belongings behind to be boxed up by the movers.

This morning I thought of how far he has come in just a year: how he has carved out a place for himself among his colleagues at work, made friends and grown hobbies that keep him busy most nights, and how the aching loneliness and chafing of everything-new has weathered through the months into belonging, and now he is home. The old has gone, the new has come.

I wanted to call him and remind him how it was then, and celebrate with him the good that it is now, but I knew he would just brush it off; that living-in-the-moment energy of youth simply accepts what is, and doesn’t think back to what was, or consider how different it might have been. That perspective is reserved maybe for people who have lived longer– long enough to see hard changes and understand the value of learning from where you’ve been, long enough to regret the past and appreciate Grace. Remember the old, and celebrate the new.

I don’t want to forget those milestones of growth, of choices made that changed everything, of turning, because they remind me that God is at work in my life for good, and He is faithful to His promises. Milestones keep me thankful, and I can’t ever stop remembering and thanking Him, or I might forget where I have come from and where I am going. The old has gone, the new has come, and remembering that will keep me on the right path. “Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.” (Romans 6:4) 

It’s what Yahweh told His people to do when they crossed the Jordan into the Promised Land and He made the water pull back from their feet: pile up stones of remembrance to build a memorial and in the future when the children ask what they stones mean you can tell them how God helped you there, how you stepped from wandering to being home. Purim, Hanukkah, Passover…all feasts to remember God’s power to deliver, to change the way things are and make them new. “For every time you eat this bread and drink this cup, you are announcing the Lord’s death until he comes again.” (1 Corinthians 11:26) Remember the milestones, because they are what have shaped you and they will mark your path as you go.

You can lose your way in the Dark so easily, slide into the half-truths of the Deceiver before you realize… and that’s what milestones are for, to mark the way by pointing to the One who saves. Jesus said “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.” (John 14:6) So we pile up stones of remembrance, and celebrate how He has marked our lives with His salvation, all the times He showed Himself to us more clearly, opened up the door to a deeper understanding of who He is. Don’t ever let me forget just how amazing Grace is.

 

 

“‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ says the Lord. ‘They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.'” (Jeremiah 29:11)

 

“The wind is strong and the water’s deep,
But I’m not alone on these open seas,
‘Cause Your love never fails.” (Your Love Never Fails, Jesus Culture)

…what ducks?

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“Truth is only understandable if spoken with understanding love.” (Ann VosKamp) So Christ spoke the Truth that He had come to save His people from their sins in the only language we could understand: pure Love, poured out red from hands and feet… so we could see it, touch it, share the agony of death with the immortal Creator. “This cup is the new covenant between God and his people–an agreement confirmed with my blood, which is poured out as a sacrifice for you.” (Luke 22:20) The stuff of life that He made to flow through our veins from the beginning, spilled out from His own to wash away our brokenness. Love shouted with His dying breath, “Father, forgive them!” and we saw it with our own eyes, written in flesh and blood and dirt…a language we could understand.

And as we follow in His footsteps, I see this, that if we want to speak Truth into a deaf world, we will have to use the language of love that understands pain, knows betrayal and confusion, plumbs the depths of repentance and grace. What good is it if we are plastic-perfect saints, all clean cut and smiling, the kind of people whose ducks know how to line up straight and tall? That is not a language that makes any intelligible sense to the dying, though it does make us feel a whole lot better about how far we have come.

Someone said in our Small Group how shocked they were to see the people in the Bible as they really were, pulled out of the prim pastel Sunday School pictures and into the real world of sweat and grime and sin. And I thought how it really is shocking to confront our humanity in all its grittiness, and maybe we have lost the sense of who we are in our modern world. Covered as we are in this veneer of wealth and education and civility. Underneath it all, we are still humans created out of dirt, run-aways fighting for survival in a world that no longer bows to our rule, people just trying to meet the deepest emotions and needs of our hearts any way we can. We may as well admit it, because that is the Truth and where we will find Someone who can help.

We have come a long way in scientific explanations and technological conveniences and polite ways to express our conflicts, but maybe we are not better off for the masks. Truth makes more sense to people if it is whispered from someone who labors alongside and weeps with them. Truth rings loud and strong coming from the wounded and the weak, from marriages in process and parents looking for wisdom…from people who need God just as much as everyone else in the world. And maybe it’s okay that sometimes we can’t even find our ducks, if it helps us use the plain and simple language of love to tell people the Truth that Jesus is the Savior of us all.

 

“Everyone needs compassion,
A love that’s never-ending–
Let mercy fall on me .
Everyone needs forgiveness,
The kindness of a savior,
The hope of nations…
My God is mighty to save.” (Mighty to Save, Hillsong)

 

“One reason we do not understand holiness is that we do not understand grace. The ultimate degree to which holiness flows through your life will depend…on your willingness to yield to the nature of God in humble surrender. You possess no holiness apart from God.” (Russell Kelfer)

‘Tis the Season

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There’s something about Spring that makes us want to shake off the old and paint everything bright and new. It’s a cyclical thing, this restless itch to take down the curtains and vacuum into corners and redecorate the bedroom. Fortunately, just noticing the recurrence of that effect keeps me from spending boatloads of money on re-doing the house every year. I really do like my home and feel comfortable in it, so I can content myself with a thorough cleaning and rearranging, knowing it is just the change of seasons at work.  But that inner energy is worth harnessing, can be useful elsewhere if I am not afraid to let it root into dark closets and throw up the shades on musty rooms of the soul.

A youth pastor from the UK wrote in his devotional this week that the seasons of our life are valuable, even purposeful– orchestrated by God to do much-needed housecleaning in our minds and hearts. He pointed out that when circumstances change radically in the everyday, it forces us out of the mind-numbing routine, jolts us out of the ruts we tend to wear down into life. New seasons “awaken our spiritual values…challenge us with the realities of life and death…help us to look at our Christian commitment and connection…help us look at what God would have us do with our lives.” An energizing opportunity, if we can accept it for that.

The One who set the sun and stars in space and decreed that seasons change; the One who keeps the world turning in its place, and the miracle chain of life and death at work in sea and earth and sky– He is the One who holds my days and knows every one of them. Dare I believe that He marks this season of my life with just as much purpose and design? King David wrote it down: “How precious to me are your thoughts,God! How vast is the sum of them! Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand— when I awake, I am still with you.” (Psalm 139:17-18) 

What if the season of life we are going through right now is God’s opportunity to speak to us, shake out the curtains and open up the closets of our hearts, set some issues of life and death before us? What is here for me to learn, in the busyness…or the solitude…or the seeking…or the pain? What do I need to grieve and let go of, so that something else can live? And what if all the painful digging up is only loosening the soil of my heart for something new to grow, shifting the boundaries of my little world to stretch it bigger? If I could open up the eyes of my spirit to see the Wind of change blowing through, could I catch a glimpse of His purposes for me, of what He wants to accomplish in me?

We rest in the faith that You are at work through every long Winter, and it will again pass into Spring; we hold on to the hope that Spring will come and new life will sprout under life-giving rain. “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) Stir up our souls till we long for You to make everything new, in this season of life that comes from Your hand.

 

“Peace be still, You are near;
There’s nowhere we can go
That You won’t shine redemption’s light,
Our guilt withdrawn.

As You rise, we come alive;
The grave has lost, the old is gone,
And You’re making all things new…” (All Things New,Elevation Worship)

Seize My Heart

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Now that we are talking about strength it jumps out at me everywhere. A devotional I read this week contained a line from one of the Shepherd-King’s songs: “Wait for the LORD; be strong and take heart and wait for the LORD.” Psalm 27:14 (NLT)

Maybe it is the season, but I keep thinking about people waiting, and the strength it takes. Not to do the waiting itself, but to keep the heart whole and not despair. To abide–set up a tent– in the presence of God and stay there for the duration, stay focused on His plans and purposes by faith while the days drag on with no resolution. “Faith is the confidence that what we hope for will actually happen; it gives us assurance about things we cannot see.” (Hebrews 11:1)

When I look at these women waiting in faith for husbands to turn to Jesus… for children to make wise decisions… for babies they haven’t met yet in faraway countries but already counted as belonging… for answers to “what comes next in life?”…I see focused faith that holds on to God with all their might, because Who else is out there who listens and helps those who wait for Him? It is a kind of desperation of the heart, perhaps, but really when it comes to the deep heart-cries, all that matters is that Someone is listening and Someone has the ability to do something about it.

And when the time drags long and hope falters, and even the fiercest faith burns low, it is His own voice that whispers inside that we are not forgotten: “Wait for the LORD; be strong and take heart and wait….” Let your heart take courage– the word is hazaq, and in its root form it means to seize, to fasten upon, to make strong. It’s what women do with the strength of desperation. It’s what God does for us when we can’t hold on ourselves– fastens onto us so we won’t fall, can’t slip away into despair– His own strength that circles all around when you could just drop right there and not try any more: “The eternal God is your refuge, and His everlasting arms are under you.” (Deuteronomy 33:27)

I keep reading on down the list of definitions… to heal, repair, make whole… and somehow it is all tying back into Easter. For Christ has come, not just to be with us, but to save us: to repair these sin-bent hearts, to heal these wounds that run so deep, and make us new people that can believe and hope and live in Resurrection strength.

So we will pray for our sisters-in-waiting. We will live in His presence and let our hearts be repaired day by day by the One who makes us strong. And we will keep on waiting, until we see His power at work in our lives. “For since the world began, no ear has heard and no eye has seen a God like You, who works for those who wait for Him!” (Isaiah 64:4 NLT)

 

 

 

“Hope is found: You are here.
Our hearts forever sealed
By this love that came for us–
Now we are Yours.

As You rise, we come alive;
The grave has lost, the old is gone,
And You’re making all things new…”
(All Things New, Elevation Worship)

 

Making Love Real

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We have been given everything in abundance, and it was all free gift, but it will cost us our hearts. “Owe nothing to anyone–except for your obligation to love one another. If you love your neighbor, you will fulfill the requirements of God’s law.” (Romans 13:8) This gratitude that is our only right response to the Giver will bend us to carry the burdens of others, will push us into uncomfortable places, and pull us out of ourselves till we begin to look like Someone else more and more. It’s what happens when our hearts become completely God’s. It’s the way love really works.

It’s the way His real Love works in us.

 

 

“That thundering question of Where is God? Is best answered when the people of God offer a hand and whisper: Here I am.

That thundering question of Where is God? Is best answered when the people of God tear everything else away and take the time to show it: Here’s His love for you – beating right here, right here in me, right here for you.” (Ann VosKamp)

Standing Still

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The one line from John Milton that has stayed with me since college is the last line of the sonnet On His Blindness. The famous poet scholar wondered what God would require of his life, in light of his disability, and the patience he has learned reminds him that God doesn’t need his labor or his abilities, but is served best by surrendered hearts…“They also serve who only stand and wait.” And he kept on writing, producing by dictation the poetic works that would be his literary legacy to the world. To a young adult studying literature with high hopes and a suitcase full of goals, it slowed and stilled the air like a prayer; although I could not fully appreciate Milton’s wisdom till much later in life, it planted a seed of Truth in my spirit. Weakness bowing down before God, building an altar of worship from the broken pieces of a heart– this was all that was required, and everything He wanted from a man.

I looked up wait as I was studying this week,and wrote it down: “stay stationary in readiness or expectation”… and I remembered Milton. Because when I am waiting on God’s answers, usually staying right here is the last thing I want to do– that is the very reason I am calling out to Him, and I would rather move anywhere than here. But then I would not be ready for Him to move, would not be here to see what He will do for me in this place. Trusting God means knowing when it is time for me to stop trying, being willing to wait and accept where I am, knowing He is present and powerful in any circumstance.

Webster’s goes on: “Remain temporarily neglected…” and that catches me off guard completely. That small phrase captures all kinds of meaning. Again the staying put in a difficult place, a hard choice to do the hard thing. Neglected calls up Milton again, and his lonely descent into blindness before he turned sixty. But it is the word in between that says it all, the reason for the remaining and the answer to the thing left unused: temporarily. Because when you are waiting on an eternal God, all these earthly things are temporary, only a flash in the face of Forever, and the waiting does not seem so very long any more. The Apostle Paul breathed it this way: “For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison…” (2 Corinthians 4:17)

And Webster finishes with the best one yet: “to serve someone” and it almost makes me laugh aloud at the delicious irony. Webster was thinking of waiting on someone’s needs, a servant or a waiter at a table. John Milton saw it too, only he was looking deeper. To wait upon God is to serve Him, but not by meeting physical needs. To wait upon God is to show Him complete and utter trust, to surrender my wishes to His, my timetable to His eternal plans. And if He wills for me to stand and wait, then I serve Him by doing just that with a peaceful heart, no matter what the hindrances are that force me to a standstill. “He also serves who only stands and waits.”

Funny the lessons that stick with you through the years, and how they grow as you do. I have a much greater appreciation for Milton’s words now than I did thirty-some years ago, understand more of what it cost him to make that declaration of surrender as an aging and impoverished writer, depending on others for the outlet of his brilliant mind. But I am still learning to listen and do what is mine to do; still learning to trust Him to weave His plans together, still learning to wait patiently for His timing. Learning to be still and know that He is God.

 

 

“I wait for the LORD, my soul waits, and in his word I hope; my soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen for the morning, more than watchmen for the morning.” (Psalm 130:5-6)

 

“When God brings a blank space, see that you do not fill it in, but wait.” (Oswald Chambers)

 

All Things New

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These last days of Winter drag long and slow. It feels like swimming against an undertow and it takes every bit of will to pull out recipes for dinner, make progress on this quilt, study for the next lesson, vacuum the floor, when I would rather just hide away with a book and ignore the phone. I feel like I am fading away in this middle-grey land of almost-March, and I know at times I am only going through the motions and it is bound to show. But there’s a restlessness deep underneath. “Awake, my soul…wake up and live”…the Spirit calling me back from this dull slide into lethargy. And I know it is only a season, and this too will pass, so I plod along through another day, and watch and wait for the change. Sleeping Beauty, waiting for her Prince to come.

At some point through the years, Advent and Lent connected in my head– parallel seasons of remembrance and waiting– waiting for God’s coming into our darkness; waiting for God’s deliverance from our darkness. And the restlessness itself is preparation for His coming, because we so quickly go to sleep in this world: “This is why it is said, ‘Awake, O sleeper, rise up from the dead, and Christ will give you light.” (Ephesians 5:14)

This is what Lent is for, to wake up numbed and heavy hearts, to welcome in the restless urging underneath that wants More. Not an exercise in self-discipline, or giving up some habit that I should probably give up anyway. It is a season of turning, preparing my heart to recognize God’s deliverance in all the dead and darkened places of my life; God with us, Emmanuel, and now Christ within us, Savior. And the Holy Wind rushes through dusty rooms, whispering Resurrection Life…“for the light makes everything visible….,” stirs up a holy discontent until all we really want is for everything to be made new. Who says that the Prince who can awaken us from our sleep is only a fairy-tale?

So I will keep pressing on in the dull days of this season, and weep over all the silent cold places in me…the earth itself longing hard…because there is hope buried in the ground and Your purpose is working where I cannot see it, Your Voice calling my name. “My beloved speaks and says to me: “Arise, my love, my beautiful one, and come away for behold, the winter is past; the rain is over and gone.” (Song of Songs 2:10-11) Spring is coming to the world and Christ is risen indeed, our heavenly Prince come to set us free from the curse of sin

 

 

“So now there is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus.And because you belong to him, the power of the life-giving Spirit has freed you from the power of sin that leads to death.” (Romans 8:1-2)

 

“I can hear you,
You’re calling my name; 
The ocean between us erased.
And salvation, 
It pours down like rain, 
Flooding my walls till I break.

I give my life to you, 
My heart to you, 
You’re all I need– 
Come and make me new…” (Give My Life to You, Elevation Worship)