Of Snowfall and Forgiveness and All Things New

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They keep calling for snow, and it happens this way every year, waiting for the first deep blanket of white to hide the bleakness of Winter. It’s like the world has been reduced to its bare bones, and shivers beneath the gray sky, waiting for a covering. And after the rushing around and the beauty of the holiday decorations sometimes it feels like everything has come to a dead stop. You can catch a glimpse of huddled hearts, just trying to survive in this world…putting on a good face and waiting for something to change…feeling like a failure…wishing for a chance to start fresh.

The tree and the holiday decorations are still here, because now I can actually slow down and soak them in. The lights shine bright in the Winter gloom. Every time I see the field of stars and the soaring angel in the nativity, I remember telling the children about Jesus’ birth, and how creation itself sang out, “Welcome, welcome, we are so happy You are here!” It was the best present ever. I think of how often I have yearned for the happiness of Christmas to cover all the aching broken places– but there is only so much you can fix, and don’t we all wish the Peace on earth, goodwill to men could go on after the calendar page turns? I want to believe that the wounds of this world can heal. It’s seeing hearts change, and souls mended, lives turned around for good that keeps me hanging onto hope. And as I contemplate the rough wood of the stable in this Winter light, I see the cross there, too– it is beautiful awe-full Mystery, how the stuff of creation becomes an altar upon which the Creator offers Himself up.

And January hangs on the wall: an invitation to new beginnings, the anticipation of new possibilities whispering in our hearts because of Emmanuel, God with us forevermore. Listen hard, and you can hear the longing for God to make a way where there seems to be no way, as we search for our One Word, and dive into new projects, and refocus on healthy habits. We are all in the same boat, wanting reassurance for the regrets of the past year, and a hope for the year to come…that somehow these months will be meaningful and count for something of worth in the long run. By now I have learned that filling in those days with my own ideas and efforts is only a recipe for exhaustion; it is His presence that covers each moment with significance. So I wait and listen for His voice. And the song of the Musician-King keeps running through my head: “The Lord is my shepherd; I have all that I need. He lets me rest in green meadows; He leads me beside peaceful streams. He renews my strength. He guides me along right paths, bringing honor to His name….” (Psalm 23:1-3) I couldn’t want anything better for the New Year.

The snow comes in the night, silently overlaying yesterday’s footsteps, and we wake to a world made new. It makes me think of what we have been talking about in our small group, how the original meaning of the word righteousness was more about God making things right than about us doing things right. God is showing His righteousness when He delivers His people from the enemy; when He provides for them; when He brings justice and upholds the needy; when He covers them with His love and says I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. (John 15:15) Blessed are the people who hunger and thirst for righteousness the way a dying man longs for water, because God has given us Himself at Christmas, to make everything right again. The past that you wish you could escape; the loss you are trying to survive; the fear that hangs over your head; the hard angry feelings you just want to let go of…this is why Jesus came, to bring us His righteousness, His making-things-new, and He’s saying Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. (Matthew 11:28)

We walk into the New Year, and there is His covering of grace everywhere I look.

Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.

Isaiah 43:18-19

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?

Here Again, Elevation Worship

Hope Does Not Disappoint

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It seems like everyone has big hopes at Christmas. About getting that amazing present. About glittering holiday events. About making special memories with family. But there are all these outcomes you can’t control, and sometimes everyday life falls so far short of what you had hoped. Seems like Mary might have known something about that, finding herself on the road when her first Baby arrived, instead of back home surrounded by women who knew what to do in these situations.

And I wonder if she even realized how close her time was, as a young girl who had never gone through this before…. or if the Baby made it to full-term at all, considering the stress of the journey. We don’t know the personal details of Mary’s story, but we can certainly appreciate her circumstances, when the pains began and there was no place to rest, and sometimes there is nothing else to do but hang on and get through it the best you can. When you are hoping for something good with all your heart, receiving the unexpected and difficult can send you reeling– feels like a slap in the face. But this is the beauty of unexpected gifts at Christmas, that God’s grace is bigger than all our hopes and fears, and He is thinking far beyond our moment’s comfort, painting His glory in the night sky for shepherds and kings and camels to witness.

Whatever we are hoping for this Christmas season, there is this certainty, that we are no longer alone. Because God has come down to be with us in all our outcomes, and we cannot even dream of what will happen next. However things turn out in our days, we have the promise that never fails: “…in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to His purpose.” (Romans 8:28) The Musician-King knew it all along, and set it to music, “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) However big our hopes, God’s plans are bigger, and in the end we will not be disappointed. The prophet wrote down what He said, centuries before He arrived in a stable: “‘My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts,’ says the Lord. ‘And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine. For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so my ways are higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts'” (Isaiah 55:8-9).

So we set the star at the top of the tree and light the candles;place the nativity figures around the creche and read the old old story yet again; and let Hope shine out into all the dark places.

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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?

Here Again, Elevation Worship

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Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, 21 to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.

Ephesians 3:20

Longing for More

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We take a hard right turn and slide into December this week, barely a minute for catching our breaths after Giving Thanks with family and friends. And suddenly the stores are a glittering Christmas frenzy, and the calendar is filling up with parties and events, and it’s downright hard to find peace when the season demands so much…promises so much. But we talk about it in our small group, how there is this longing inside all of us for something bigger than this world– something better and more enduring than what we find here. And if we have that insistent hunger for something outside our experience, shouldn’t we assume that it’s there for a reason? That there is a corresponding satisfaction for that desire?

So we light the first Advent candle on a cold Winter morning, and in our hearts we echo the Musician-King’s songs: Those who seek the Lord lack no good thing. (Psalm 34:10)…I wait for the Lord, my whole being waits, and in His word I put my hope. (Psalm 130:5) We believe what He has promised, and if faith is the substance of things hoped for, then here is faith made flesh– the longing of all of us, lying in a manger. Maybe if we just stop for a moment, and quiet the holiday jingle, we can still hear the angels’ chorus in the night sky: Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace to those on whom His favor rests. (Luke 2:14)

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Hope isn’t about about thinking something will get better. Hope is about believing Someone better is already here. 

Ann VosKamp

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…put your hope in the Lord, for with the Lord is unfailing love and with him is full redemption..

Psalm 130:7

When It’s Hard to Put into Words

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People tell me all the time that they don’t know how to pray for themselves. Don’t know what to do in a hard situation? Can’t find the words amid the jumble of thoughts and mixed feelings? Yeah, I get that.

But I know how we tend to fall into thinking we need to pray the solution, and that’s just hard and overwhelming, not to mention that we have it all backwards. Prayer isn’t about us figuring it out, so we can ask God to do the proper things. As if He will stand helpless until we know just the right answers to pray for. Nor is it a matter of finding the formula that will enlist God’s service on our behalf. He is already on our side, and ready to pour out abundance, if we will only be still and receive it. Like Paul writes to the early believers, “If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up for us all—how will He not also, along with Him, graciously give us all things?” (Romans 8:31-32)

Prayer is about pouring out our hearts to God and then filling it back up with His truth. And truly there is nothing better for that than the Musician-King’s songs. If circumstances shake your world, pray his songs of faith. If your heart is broken over sin, pray his songs of repentance. If the voice of the Enemy is whispering dark in your head, pray the songs of deliverance and victory. And in all things, at all times, pray his songs of praise that shift your eyes from the difficulty to the One who loves you.

So when you are running out of hope, or running out of words, or just plain running scared, pray the heartfelt prayers that have stood the test of time, and let them point your heart in the right direction. We don’t have to know how to pray for ourselves, we just have to come into His presence, because Paul is writing in the same letter about how “… 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.” (verses 26-27)

How wonderful to know that our difficulties are on His mind, and He is expressing our struggling hearts in just the right ways to the Father, who is working all things out for our good and His glory.

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Trust in Him at all times, you people; pour out your hearts to Him, for God is our refuge

Psalm 62:8

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Take this fainted heart
Take these tainted hands
Wash me in Your love
Come like grace again

Even when my strength is lost
I’ll praise You
Even when I have no song
I’ll praise You
Even when it’s hard to find the words
Louder then I’ll sing Your praise
I will only sing Your praise

Take this mountain weight
Take these ocean tears
Hold me through the trial
Come like hope again

Even when the fight seems lost
I’ll praise You
Even when it hurts like hell
I’ll praise You
Even when it makes no sense to sing
Louder then I’ll sing Your praise
I will only sing Your praise

And my heart burns only for You
You are all, You are all I want
And my soul waits only for You
And I will sing ’til the morning has come…

Even when the morning comes
I’ll praise You
Even when the fight is won
I’ll praise You
Even when my time on earth is done
Louder then I’ll sing Your praise
I will only sing Your praise

Even When It Hurts, Hillsong United

The Work of Love

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This thought keeps coming back around, this week, in articles and Scripture, and around-the-table discussions….and when an idea comes at you from all sides, it is wise to pay attention. So we sit up and take note of this concept that of all the things we do, prayer is the most effective, however small it may seem.

It’s a little hard to grasp, that mere words, poured out and often not even spoken aloud would have the power to change the way things are. It makes more sense to do something tangible, that we can measure and others can see– share what we have, to fill up what is lacking somewhere else. It makes us feel better about life if we can count the money for refugee relief, pile up the shoeboxes for children, build a ramp, or buy a gift. It counts for something, piles up as evidence for good, but underneath I wonder if it isn’t more about this urgent need in all of us to regain some sense of control. In a world of overwhelming evils, doing something visibly good makes me feel that I have some influence over the situation. And I like the thought that we are equipped to combat the darkness, that if we work together and harness all our good intentions we could make a sizable difference. But when it comes right down to it, we are fighting a losing battle if all we are using is our hands and feet.

The Church-planter Paul quotes the prophets and they are all speaking the plain truth that our best efforts are not good enough in any way that matters. We just don’t have what it takes to make a long-term difference: “No one is truly wise; no one is seeking God. All have turned away; all have become useless. No one does good, not a single one.” (Romans 3:11-12) And maybe it takes something as big as loss or illness to make us realize what we can’t control; there’s something about getting to the end of your own abilities that inspires you to reach for More.

But right there, over and over again, Paul is urging the early Christ-followers to reach out in love and do the most powerful thing in the universe that they can do: “Pray in the Spirit at all times and on every occasion. Stay alert and be persistent in your prayers for all believers everywhere.” (Ephesians 6:18) Because when we take our concerns for the people we love, and shape them into prayers, we are surrendering our desires for them into the hands of Someone who loves them even more and has the power to do the things we cannot. We might be able to wrap up a toy for a child, but the God who came to earth to rescue that child can rearrange circumstances that will help him to grow strong. We can raise money for clean water, but the Creator who shaped the earth can raise up someone to spread the gospel of Living Water in that place. We can clean houses and cook meals, but the Healer who bore our pain in His own body can give strength and hope to the sick. It is a miracle and a privilege, how He allows our concern for others to take on lasting influence and form when we offer them up to Him. It is scary to admit how little we can control, but we have a real God who can make real life-change happen for good when we put needs into words.

So by all means, let us do what is before us in the tangible Everyday to help others, and may we do it gladly in Christ’s name; but may we also be quick to pour out our heart’s desires for their good in our prayers, and wait in anticipation to see what our Father in Heaven will do for them.

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“Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us, to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.

Ephesians 3:20-21

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There is no factor in prayer more effectual than love. If we are intensely interested in an object or an individual, our petitions become like living forces. Not only do they convey their wants to God, but in some sense they convey God’s help back to us.

AB Simpson

Every Kind of Prayer

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We are learning to craft our prayers from the Scriptures we are reading, and rejoicing in the beauty of God’s truth, the way it turns our full attention on Who He Is and the power of His Word spoken into each other’s lives. And sometimes we find that when our own spirits are dry and we can’t find the words to say, it is hearing the prayers of our fellow travelers that stirs us, lifts us up into God’s presence. So thankful for the Family of God, and I can hear the Church-planter reminding us again: “Never stop praying, especially for others. Always pray by the power of the Spirit. Stay alert and keep praying for God’s people.” (Ephesians 6:18)

Today this beautiful lyrical prayer is running through my head…

From the love of my own comfort
From the fear of having nothing
From a life of worldly passions
Deliver me O God
From the need to be understood
And from a need to be accepted
From the fear of being lonely
Deliver me O God
Deliver me O God
And I shall not want, no, I shall not want
When I taste Your goodness, I shall not want
When I taste Your goodness, I shall not want
From the fear of serving others
Oh, and from the fear of death or trial
And from the fear of humility
Deliver me O God
Yes, deliver me O God
And I shall not want, no, I shall not want
When I taste Your goodness I shall not want
No, I shall not want, no, I shall not want
When I taste Your goodness I shall not want
When I taste Your goodness I shall not want
I shall not want
I shall not want

Audrey Assad

His Answers

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Savoring this wisdom today, and seeing the truth of it working out all around me in this bent world. Because the Savior who came to give us new hearts is making all things new, for our good and His everlasting glory…

And yes, we pray for healing, and we know that by His stripes we are already healed in eternal ways. We pray for restoration, and we know that by His mercy we know complete restoration and no condemnation. And we pray for more time, and we know that by His grace, we have been given time that goes beyond all time.
The miracle that always happens in prayer happens in the most important place: the heart.
Prayer isn’t so much about outcomes, but about us coming much closer to God.

Ann VosKamp

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Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written: “For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Romans 8:34-39

When You Call My Name

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Originally published on January 8, 2015.

By the end of the day it feels like a tangible knot inside…that growing heap of small worries and what-ifs, the prickling irritations of things gone wrong, the ruffled feathers of getting along, and the nagging list of tasks left undone. Each one wasn’t much at the time, and I told myself that I could handle it, press on, deal with it all some other day (or maybe it will go away on its own if I can ignore it long enough). But even tiny snowflakes can add up to an avalanche, and by evening that pile of little things is enough to crush the heart of a person. And Jesus’ words come in a whisper, clearly and persistently: “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” (Matthew 11:28) He calls through the noise and the motion, like someone standing on the doorstep knocking, until suddenly I stop to wonder why I would want to ignore this weight of living, when Jesus is telling me to bring it to Him? And how often have I soldiered on, trying my best to manage, when He is offering rest?

I know that Jesus is holding out God’s grace and forgiveness, as a release from the weight of trying to measure up to impossible standards of holiness. I understand that a rabbi’s “yoke” was the sum of his teachings, and that Jesus was calling us to a new way of living, inviting us to follow Him: “Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.” But here at the beginning of a new study group, as we read and focus on prayer, it sinks in that He means it quite literally, as well. Come. Just come here and let it go, dear Child. Every day. Give up anything that is too heavy for you, and let Someone Bigger carry it, and then you can rest.

Knowing He is with me is not the same as addressing Him personally. Believing He can help me is not the same as asking Him for help. And knowing He cares is not the same as giving up my burdens to Him and resting in His love. What I know has to move me to action, if my life is truly going to change. Not sure why I so often fail to take that necessary step towards Him, though I feel sure it has something to do with the Enemy’s battle plan to distract us from God’s greatness.So I bow my head right there, in the middle of running from one thing to the next, and I tell Jesus about every one of those small weighty things, put into words why they trouble me and ask Him to take care of each one. And suddenly it is easier to breathe.

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On my bed I remember You;
    I think of You through the watches of the night.
 Because You are my help,
    I sing in the shadow of Your wings.
 I cling to You;
    Your right hand upholds me.

Psalm 63:6-8

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If you have not much time at your disposal, do not fail to profit by the smallest portions of time which remain to you. We do not need much time in order to love God, to renew ourselves in His Presence, to lift up our hearts towards Him, to worship Him in the depths of our hearts, to offer Him what we do and what we suffer.

Francois de la Mothe Fenelon

Chasing After Great Things

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We’re talking about prayer around the table, and how God invites us to call out to Him. And I feel sure that most of us are thinking of those pressing things we’ve been asking about– maybe feeling relieved to hear that God actually wants us to pour out those needs to His listening heart. But the song lyrics keep running through my head: “As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for You, my God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God? ” (Psalm 42:1-2) And it seems to me that all these verses we are reading have more to do with relationship than they do about fixing our problems.

When He says “Keep on asking, and you will receive what you ask for….” (Matthew 7:7), Jesus was talking to hearts that are hungry to be close to God, people who will continue knocking on doors of opportunity to know Him better, who persist in wrestling with the deep questions of life in order to understand them in His light. When we persevere in coming to Him as the needy people that we are, we discover His heart toward us, an abundant flow of grace. This is how the Church-planter could claim “In everything…present your requests to God, and the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 4:6-7) And it strikes me how that peace is not a passive feel-good vibe but an active transforming Presence within us. Whatever circumstances are on our hearts, when we answer His invitation to come, He gives us the best answer we could hope for in return– Himself, who is the very Prince of Peace. “Keep on seeking and you will find…” (Matthew 7:7).

This invitation to come near is about taking our eyes off our needs and problems, and instead focusing our minds and hearts on Jesus. He is calling us to long for Him– to leave our cares in His capable hands and pursue relationship with Him. He understands what we need most and is ready to tell us, if we will only learn to come and to listen.

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Call to Me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know.’

Jeremiah 33:3

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How we direct our eyes, minds, hearts, and hands in the everyday will determine who we ultimately worship and what we ultimately become.

Ruth Chou Simons

When The Answer Is No

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(Originally published on March 28, 2015.)

I must have absorbed it by osmosis through the years, this idea that answer to prayer was a synonym for receiving from God what I had asked for. And unanswered prayer somehow became just another way of saying “I haven’t received what I want” I don’t remember being told that, specifically, and if you had asked me I would have said with certainty that God doesn’t always do what we ask of Him. Any praying person figures that out pretty quickly. And yet there it was, that use of the term that implies the only answer that matters is the one we want.

As we study prayer in small groups, we have talked about this particular oddity of church culture, and we have found our understanding of God’s answers widening. God promised His people, “Call to me and I will answer you…” (Jeremiah 33:3) So whatever God gives us in response to our prayers He must consider a sufficient answer, even if sometimes it does not look at all the way we thought it would. Sometimes the answer is a promise for the future; sometimes a charge to repent or take action so that He can bless us; sometimes His tender mercies toward our heartache, or provision for our need; and much to our dismay, quite often His answer is No, my dear child.

Indeed, sometimes when the need is most pressing and it feels as if the world is collapsing around us, still the answer can seem to be No, and hearts can lose their faith in the rubble, unless we can be still and listen to His promise: “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” (2 Corinthians 12:9) Because when we ask anything of Him, the unspoken question between us is always whether we will trust Him in this, and which we want more– the thing we desire, or more of Him. It is not an easy thing, to say with the Church-Planter Paul, “For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” (2 Corinthians 12:10)

We can blame it on perspective, maybe, because we are very bad at knowing what is good for us, and our prayers reflect both our short-sightedness and our dependency on the world we can taste and touch.  Quite often our prayers are more heartfelt than wise, and we should be glad that the God who lives in Eternity knows what is actually good for us in the long run, knows all things inside and out. As Sheldon Vanauken observed, in his account of love and loss, sometimes our great tragedies are but “a severe mercy” from the hands of a compassionate Father. Job was honest about the impact of his life-changing losses: “For sighing has become my daily food; my groans pour out like water. What I feared has come upon me; what I dreaded has happened to me.” (Job 3:24-25) But I wonder, in the long run, whether he would have traded those long dark months of grieving, in light of his glimpse of God’s glory and the wisdom he gained through it. You can’t have one without the other. I heard a preacher say once that God allowed the worst thing he could imagine to happen in his life, because it made him desperate…and desperation brings about transformation. In God’s book, it is always okay to be desperate.

What does it mean in practical terms to pray “Thy will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven,” like Jesus taught us to do? That phrase has a ring to it, and it rolls off the tongue very poetically when you are reciting The Lord’s Prayer in a group. But to be able to pray that with face to the earth, in total surrender to the Lord of heaven and earth, requires us to dig deeply into our desires and motives. It’s not the kind of prayer one should pray lightly, without counting the cost. Yet when you think about it, is God’s will not the end goal of all true prayer? If prayer is abiding with Christ and communicating heart-to-heart with Him, then each of our petitions, from the simplest childish request to the deepest struggles of the human heart are a seeking for Him, a crying out for the Father to respond to His children. And every answer He gives (no matter how it comes) is a way to know Him better, a glimpse of His heart and His plans for us. And the more we know His heart, the more we trust Him and embrace His will, till everything in our corner of the world bows in submission and worship, as it does in the heavenly places. With Jesus we will be able to pray, “Father, if You are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but Yours be done.” (Luke 22:42) and know that even when the answer is No, God will be there still, and He will be Enough.

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“He must often seem to us to be playing fast and loose with us….And the danger is that when what He means by ‘wind’ appears you will ignore it because it is not what you thought it would be– as He Himself was rejected because He was not like the Messiah the Jews had in mind.”

CS Lewis in a letter to Vanauken

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“‘Though the mountains be shaken and the hills be removed, yet My unfailing love for you will not be shaken nor My covenant of peace be removed,’ says the Lord, who has compassion on you.”

 (Isaiah 54:10)