Author Archives: Laurel

Enough

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In all the days that I am Not Enough

I hear You say I AM…

“From the ends of the earth I call to You, I call as my heart grows faint; lead me to the rock that is higher than I.” (Psalm 61:2)

“Every attribute of God, every revelation of His character, every proof of His undying love, every declaration of His watchful care, every assertion of His purposes of tender mercy, every manifestation of His loving kindness– all are the filling out of this unfinished ‘I am.’…I believe it includes everything the human heart longs for and needs.” (The God of All Comfort, Hannah Whitall Smith)

What Do You See in the Ordinary?

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It’s the ordinary days that make it hardest to persevere, sometimes. The day-in, day-out unending of a burden that erodes faith a grain at a time, wears away the edges of what you know and who you are, until the least upheaval could topple you right over. Maybe it’s the way we are wired, as humans, to rally in a crisis, and be ready to resolve it quickly– it’s the ongoing little stresses that often get the better of us. It takes focus to keep walking in faith through the mundane, the unresolvable, and every small choice that confounds us.

It reminds me of a saying I heard once that “the devil is in the details,” meaning that the details that you ignore are the ones that will make the whole project go up in flames in the end. True in business and event planning, and true in life as well. Sometimes the most important details are quite small and ordinary, and could escape notice entirely. It is what our Enemy, the devil, is counting on, so that in the end a whole life could blow away like smoke before you realize. Ironically enough, it is also in the everyday wearing-down details that you can find the devil whispering that you are stuck here, that you aren’t good-enough strong-enough smart-enough, that there is no purpose to this endless maze, that you may as well give up because it’s just too hard to keep trying. And so Peter warns in his letter, “Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.” (1 Peter 5:8)

However, the saying is relatively new in society, and for a hundred years before, the original phrase also spoke truth to people’s hearts: “God is in the detail.” Pay attention to the details because there is significance and beauty and meaning there that you won’t want to miss. The God who made the billions of stars and hangs them in their places, calls them by name…the God who made the billions of fish in the sea, all colors and shapes and some of them so deep that they are never seen…the God who knows when every wild animal is about to give birth…the God who weaves together each of us and knows all our days before we are even born….Yes, of course we can see Him in the details, because He made all the details, down to the last atom. And here in the details of my day it makes all the difference to know that He is present and active– nothing too small and mundane for Him to care about. If I could just keep my eyes on that, how would it transform the ordinary into something More?

Knowing what to look at is truly the secret of persevering. Like the letter writers of the New Testament said over and over again to the early believers suffering persecution: “For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.” (2 Corinthians 4:17-18) Keep looking at the glory to come and keep on walking each day in obedience, not just through times of crisis, but through all the little aggravations of ordinary life and the unresolved burdens we wake up with day after day. Pay attention to the big picture and it changes the way you see the ordinary details. Pay attention to the ordinary details and do them well, and the big picture falls into place. God is in the detail.

And it’s odd, but when you learn to fix your heart’s eyes on what is unseen, you begin to see all kinds of details you never noticed before, in the world around you, as if spiritual sight and physical sight were connected– and maybe it is supposed to be that way. Even the most ordinary details are woven through with threads of glory, glimmers of the One who made them, and an undercurrent of spiritual cause and effect running beneath all we do, the movement of the Spirit affecting the ordinary in remarkable ways that are easy to miss if you are not looking.

So I look for God in the details, ask for opened eyes-of-the-heart to see His face and hear His voice in the ordinary days. Devotional writer Sarah Young expresses it well when she talks about how to keep from falling in a world of fast-changing circumstances: “The only way to keep your balance is to fix your eyes on [Him], the One who never changes. If you gaze too long at your circumstances, you will become dizzy and confused. Look to [Him], refreshing yourself in [His] Presence, and your steps will be steady and sure.” (Jesus Calling) Not only stability is in that focus, but joy, peace, thankfulness, hope– all that overflows from being conscious of His constant presence and help. That’s where strength comes from. That’s how we persevere through another ordinary day.

“The dawning of each new day is a gift from Me, not to be taken for granted. The earth is vibrantly alive with My blessings, giving vivid testimony to My Presence. If you slow down your pace of life, you can find Me anywhere.” (Jesus Calling, Sarah Young)

“I am thankful for right now. God, I AM is present in this moment, and in His presence is fullness of joy.” (Ann VosKamp)

Keep on Walking

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An oil painting hangs in my living room, in a heavy gold frame.  The foreground is dark forest, with tall trees obscuring the sky, but there is a path winding away into distant light that streams through the branches. An older friend who was a painter showed up in my kitchen with it, years ago, and gave it to me, said she called it Walk Toward The Light. The painting has hung on my wall ever since, a visual representation of Hope. It is one of my favorite possessions.

I can see how that particular theme of perseverance and following the light has threaded its way through the years, become part of me and shaped my perspectives. At the time, my friend was struggling with a difficult marriage to an unbelieving husband… I was struggling with the pressures of ministry and preschoolers, fighting depression…together we leaned on Jesus and encouraged one another to keep on going. And that one thought took up residence through the years, an anchor for the heart: Don’t focus on the dark trees of despair, but on the light of His love….You don’t need to understand these circumstances, just walk in the light of His guidance, one step at a time…. In the midst of pain hold onto the strength of the One who is Mighty to save….Wait for the Lord, wait for Him to act, and put your hope in Him, because He is faithful….When other voices confuse and batter at your heart, look for God’s Truth shining clear. Keep walking toward the Light.

We talked about persevering last night in small group, about the constant need to trust and keep walking– every time we meet pain or difficulty or disappointment it is a crossroads of decision, an opportunity to choose faith, to choose hope, to choose obedience. To keep walking into the Light of God, out of the-darkness-all-around and into new life, into a deeper relationship with Him. Every situation is a question: Can you trust Me with this? Do you believe that I AM WHO I AM and that I am the same yesterday and today and forever? Do you truly believe that I am Goodness itself and have your best interests in mind? Because you can’t keep walking in this life if you can’t plant your feet on something that solid– and until you take the first baby steps you can’t learn to run strong and proclaim to the watching world that your faith is real and there is a God who deserves all the glory. So start with the step in front of you and then keep on going.

One of my favorite old hymns is Turn Your Eyes upon Jesus (Helen Lemmel)– in a way it is the musical version of my painting: “O soul, are you weary and troubled? No light in the darkness you see? There’s light for a look at the Savior, and life more abundant and free.” That’s what enables us to find the lighted path through the forest: We focus on Jesus who persevered through this world and finished well, who promises to never leave us or forsake us, and tells us to lean on Him for strength. This is the one important lesson to learn if we are going to keep our faith strong through the upheavals and stresses of living.

It is no accident that the New Testament writers made perseverance a recurring theme, encouraged their readers to keep walking into the Light of Christ. They knew exactly how hard this world gets and how our minds and hearts can get turned around and overwhelmed in the dark, how easy it is to lose sight of Hope. And I read their letters and think again of the old refrain…“Turn your eyes upon Jesus, look full in His wonderful face, and the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace.”  Keep walking toward His light, dear sisters, for in His presence there is joy, and hope that will not disappoint.

 

 

“So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day.For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.” (2 Corinthians 4:16-18)

 

“Child of My love, lean hard,
And let Me feel the pressure of thy care;
I know thy burden, child. I shaped it;
Poised it in Mine Own hand; made no proportion
In its weight to thine unaided strength
For even as I laid it on, I said,
‘I shall be near, and while she leans on Me,
This burden shall be Mine, not hers;
So shall I keep My child within the circling arms
Of My Own love.’ Here lay it down, nor fear
To impose it on a shoulder which upholds
The government of worlds. Yet closer come;
Thou art not near enough. I would embrace thy care; 
So I might feel My child reposing on My breast.
Thou lovest Me? I knew it. Doubt not then;
But loving Me, lean hard.”

(Streams In the Desert, September 12th devotion)

Under God’s Big Sky

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The sky is bigger out west, blazing blue and gold like a beacon. I wonder if it is what the shepherd who became a king saw, above the rocky hills of Judeah: “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.”  Something about the absence of the enclosing trees that lays bare the heart under His immensity. Similar maybe to the curving horizon of ocean waves when you stand small at its fraying hem and dig your toes into the sand to stay in place, letting the rhythm of the world wash away the jumble inside.

I thought I would go away and write, with more time and without the pull of everyday chores, but under that sky I found no words. Just space to breathe, to rest, to think…just to be, beneath His brilliant canvas. It is all a matter of perspective, against the sheer size of His creation; without a word you know that your thoughts and struggles will pass away and there is Something bigger at work. David sang it well…“Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they reveal knowledge. They have no speech, they use no words; no sound is heard from them. Yet their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world.”

I didn’t realize how much I needed that space and vast stillness, till I got there and found it soaking into my spirit, and now looking back, I wonder if maybe it was not just the large uncluttered physical space but the inside space that I needed. When my days get crowded with tasks and people and noise and needs, I end up chasing from one to the next without time to sit and look at Him, no way to be quiet and listen. And it’s all a matter of perspective, because what you are looking at is what will get bigger, as any child with a magnifying glass knows. Maybe as we grow up we forget that; it becomes a universal case of losing sight of the forest for the trees. “The law of the Lord is perfect, refreshing the soul.” What a huge thing to lose sight of for the sake of cluttered countertops.

No wonder He gave us a Sabbath rest once a week, the gift of a whole day to stop and breathe… look at His creation, divine words made physical and concrete to spread out all around us…look at His law, divine words  powerful to bring about His will in us…look at who He Is and rejoice in His blessings. “The precepts of the Lord are right, giving joy to the heart.” 

I know from experience that the sense of that brilliant expanse of blue-gold will fade with time, and the expanse of peace from a vacation will gradually get gnawed away by the needs of Everyday. But I want to hang on, this time, to the reminder that it’s all a  matter of perspective– that I can stop and breathe and look up into His sky any time, look into His Word and just be in His presence, let the jumble of life untangle. Because whatever I look at, that is what will be magnified in my life, and the best part is, I get to choose.

 

 

“The decrees of the Lord…are more precious than gold, than much pure gold; they are sweeter than honey, than honey from the honeycomb. By them your servant is warned; in keeping them there is great reward.”

**All Scripture taken from Psalm 19.

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)

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)