Giving Thanks

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The cobalt glass on the windowsill.
The tree slowly turning to flame across the way.
The smells of cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg and ginger.
Crisp, juicy-sweet apples.
Hugs that let me know I am not alone.
These are things I am thankful for today–
The offerings of praise lifted up
To recognize Your beauty, Your goodness,
painted across the canvas of Your creation.
I can taste and see that You are good,
And I will lift up my worship against the Darkness,
Hold fast to the Truth that has overcome.
There is hope that waits for the Morning,
And thanks-giving is our battle song.

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I will bless the Lord at all times; His praise shall continually be in my mouth….I sought the Lord and He answered me and delivered me from all my fears. Those who look to Him are radiant, and their faces shall never be ashamed.

Psalm 34:1, 4-5

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…’God is good’ is not a stale one-liner when all’s  happy but a saving lifeline when all’s hard….And every time I give thanks, I confess to the universe the goodness of God.

Ann VosKamp

The Most Important Thing for Women to Know

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“I know all the right things in my head, but when it comes down to it, I am not really convinced God loves me.” She said it quietly across the table, almost hesitantly, as if afraid to say it out loud. But I understand, and have said it myself, that it is not His power or ability that we doubt, so much as His heart. And it’s like we are all back in the Garden standing beneath a tree with the whispering in our heads…. Maybe God isn’t who He says He is… and maybe He is not really good… and what if His love is not something we can trust, after all? It is the place we are stuck, that one moment in history working itself out in our individual lives over and over again, and our experiences in this world confirm that true love is an iffy business, and trust is a risk.

Even after we have been to the cross and have been re-created, we are often left with the lingering fear. Because knowing your sin and being forgiven is only a starting place in many ways, and feeling safe and truly loved is something different that might take a lifetime to gain. And we can explain all the practical ways to learn about God, but the only way for a woman to know for sure that she is loved, to sink that Truth deep into her heart, is to connect what she is learning about God to everyday life, put her theology into practice, till the old whispering lies have faded and she can hear a new voice saying, “For the Lord your God is living among you. He is a mighty savior. He will take delight in you with gladness. With his love, he will calm all your fears. He will rejoice over you with joyful songs.” (Zephaniah 3:17) 

We talked about Mary’s anointing of Jesus, the way she has become the example of lavish, unrestrained giving, holding nothing back in her adoration. What lies beneath her gift often goes unnoticed, because we (along with the disciples) get completely sidetracked by the value of her perfume.  But Jesus considered her a friend, knew her as well as He did any of the Twelve, knew her heart and her struggles, and the whole thing is really about relationship and what she believes.

So we backtrack to discover how she gets to this dinner-time story, and we see her sitting at her brother’s bedside, watching him die… and Jesus ignoring her summons. We see her grieving at home when He finally comes asking for her. We hear her honest acknowledgement of bone-deep pain and loss: “…if you had been here, my brother would not have died. (John 11:32) Some struggles break you to your knees, and oddly enough, if you are looking for Truth, that is often the best place to find it. “You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart. (Jeremiah 29:13)

It’s not so much a matter of looking in the right place as it is how much you want to find the answers; and in the wilderness– in the dark places of the soul– when your need is most desperate, there is nothing you want more. Mary is desperately searching for answers and she finds them in the Son of God standing right beside her, weeping. God’s Words echo down six hundred years with His promise: “Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you! See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands…” (Isaiah 49:15-16)

So here at the dinner table, with the fragrance of incense filling the room, we find Mary at Jesus feet, like she was the first time we met her… and her sister Martha is still doing what she does best by serving everyone. But this time Mary comes in worship, and in complete confidence of Jesus’s love and acceptance of her unexpected outpouring.

When she wrestled honestly with God’s plans for her life, because she could not understand what He was doing or how this could possibly be for the best, it was in her relationship with Jesus that she found her answers. He was incomprehensibly Other-than-human, and still the close friend who sat and talked for hours in their living room. He was powerful enough to raise the dead, and still able to feel their pain. He had His eyes on an eternal Plan for the universe, and He heard His friends in Bethany asking for help. It was her sister Martha who said it straight out, in the midst of her own grief, “I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, who is to come into the world.” (John 11:27) And they stood together, those two sisters, and watched their brother walk out of his tomb, while their Friend stood beside them and looked ahead to His own soon-coming fight with Death.

In this dinner-time story we see a woman who knows Jesus as Friend and Savior; who can live out her faith in confidence to serve Him, even when it goes against cultural standards; who knows above all that she is loved and accepted by the One who matters most. In a matter of days, Jesus will demonstrate unequivocally what God’s love looks like, in all its world-changing power. As the Disciple John will write later, “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.” (John 15:13) All our names, written forever on His palms as a sign of His love.

See, the more we get to know God and see Him at work in our lives, the more we know His love, and the more we realize we can trust Him– and this is what every woman needs to know above all. God loves us…”He loves us, oh how He loves us”…this is the song we will keep on singing.

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So amazing to think about my life;
And after all that I’ve walked through,
I still see that
All I’ve ever known is Your love, Jesus.
Doesn’t matter the ugliness of the past;
Doesn’t matter the pain of the past;
This is how great Your love is,
How redeeming Your love is…
All I’ve ever known
Is a love that runs to the ends of the earth
Just to find me.

Coming Through, Kim Walker-Smith

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This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins….And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world we are like Jesus. There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment.

1 John 4: 10, 16-18

Who Are You?

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We are born connected, us women….wired for relationships and emotional sensitivity from the very first day. We are children of the first Woman, who was shaped from the stuff of the only other creature like her, and given the name Helper-who-is-just-right. Like her, we are made to live in relationship to others, and it is in coming alongside others that we find our highest satisfaction and purpose. It is our strength, as women. Maybe that is why we so often define ourselves by those relationships and the roles we fill in the lives of others: daughter, sister, friend, wife, mother, grandmother. I know who I am in those frameworks, and it makes me feel safe and loved.

Where does that leave me then, when those roles shift and dissolve, relationships grow or fade or get hopelessly tangled with time, as relationships tend to do… how do I find myself in the muddle, or hang onto a sense of Self that is slipping away in the current of changing circumstances? Who am I, on the inside, when I am alone and quiet at the end of the day– and isn’t it easier just to keep covering up that silent question with rushing around from one thing to the other and shopping and media?

Maybe all that connectivity blinds us to the bigger reality, that man and woman were made to be Image-Bearers, to reflect an invisible God to the rest of creation and rule over it on His behalf. Before I ever connected to any people, or took on any roles in their lives, I belonged to the Creator, was fashioned by His own hands and heart. As the Musician-King David wrote, “…You formed my inward parts; You knitted me together in my mother’s womb….my frame was not hidden from You when I was being made in secret.” (Psalm 139:13, 15 ) Even more, designed purposefully and skillfully to be in this place at this time in history to do His work here. David speaks plainly of the Creator’s knowledge of each person: “You saw me before I was born. Every day of my life was recorded in your book. Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed. How precious are your thoughts about me, O God. They cannot be numbered!” (Psalm 139:16-17)

So where else would I discover who I really am, except from the One who made me and knows me best? I am His craftsmanship– it is He who decided everything from the color of my hair to the details of my personality. When I look at others to tell me who I am, to define me and give my life meaning, am I not putting their perspectives above His? Superimposing the definitions and values of the Created over the blueprint of the Creator King? How easily the strengths we have been given as women can slide down into simple idolatry.

We are born connected to others and the world around us, true. But we are born to be connected to the God who loves us and names us His, first of all, and it is in Him we find out who we really are. We find out who He made us to be– how He sees us– and who we are becoming as we follow Him. And the Church-planter Paul writes about how it is so much more than we ever would have dreamed: “For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.” (Ephesians 2:10)

So lift up your head and look the world square in the eye, you beautiful creature. You are known intimately by the God of heaven and earth. You are loved with a Forever-love. You have been chosen for a purpose that cannot be taken away.

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He whispers in my ear, tells me that I am fearless.
He shares a melody, tells me to repeat it.
And He makes me whole, He reminds my soul-
I am all He says I am…
And He says I am His own.

All he says I am, Gateway Worship

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And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep His love is.

Ephesians 3:18

Of Leaky Boats and Honest Faith

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

No Other Name (Unhindered)

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

Psalm 63:1-2

Reminders for The Race

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There is just this to say, to those running hard in the faith-race and maybe losing perspective:

You are never too far along to shed your skin and be made new. And neither is anyone else.  Because “we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.” (2 Corinthians 3:18) He is still calling people closer to Him and He will not stop till the final breath. Don’t give up on our ability to change, in the Creator’s hands.

God’s promises are not too big for ordinary people to lay hold of. His resurrection power is at work in this world, and in us, whether or not we have eyes to see it. He is the Creator of all this ordinary who says “I have loved you with an everlasting love” (Jeremiah 31:3), and promises that He is working every last little thing into His good plans for us, and the ordinary will all be made extraordinary, in the end. That’s why Jesus came down here, remember? “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no mind has imagined what God has prepared for those who love him.” (1 Corinthians 2:9)

The words He gave us are not simply inspiring thoughts and lofty ideals. No, they are  breathed out by His Spirit into the concrete limits of ink and paper, and yet by His power remain “living and active, and sharper than any two-edged sword…and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.” (Hebrews 4:12) They are wisdom and reality, meant for us to take hold of and put into practice, despite what society may call normal and our experiences may tell us to settle for.

Just because you haven’t found your happy ending, doesn’t mean there is no such thing…and let me tell you this: your story is not over yet. Life in this world may have wounded and disappointed, time and again, and I know what it is to build walls against the hurt, and to learn to walk carefully, but how can you live Real and still keep the deepest places walled up?  There is a choice there, and you have to know there is Someone who intends to be those protecting walls for you– the sooner you learn to run to Him as a safe place to hide, the healthier your heart will be.

The Musician-King knew all about loneliness, and grief, and betrayal, and his songs are about his own real life journey: “Those who live in the shelter of the Most High will find rest in the shadow of the Almighty. This I declare about the LORD: He alone is my refuge, my place of safety; He is my God, and I trust Him….He will cover you with His feathers. He will shelter you with His wings. His faithful promises are your armor and protection.” (Psalm 91:1-2, 4) God defines what is right and good and beautiful and true with the Person of Jesus, and all this is His Story, from beginning to end– the Hero who slays the dragon, rescues the girl, and brings her home to His Father the King to live happily-ever-after.

See, when you are still in the middle of your story, where the action and the conflict is, it is easy to forget that all of us Jesus-followers get happy endings. What you see now is only a few chapters so far, and all the characters aren’t even fully developed yet. The Author is the only One who sees the entire story from Beginning to End– so don’t get sidetracked, muddling through the pages, and conclude this is all there is. I’m with the Church-Planter Paul, on this one: “I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.” (Romans 8:18) 

So pick yourself up when people disappoint, and life hurts… and keep on running. Fasten your eyes on Jesus, pour out your heart to Him, and don’t give up. “…Hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.” (Romans 5:5) 

Remind each other of this, and keep on keeping on.

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Let us think of ways to motivate one another to acts of love and good works. And let us not neglect our meeting together, as some people do, but encourage one another, especially now that the day of His return is drawing near.

Hebrews 10:24-25

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Your vow’s a covenant unbroken
You’ve made it known through history
Your love will never be unfaithful
Never walk out on me…
I have no reason to doubt you
Who You’ve been You’ll always be
And though the future’s still unfolding
With everything I’ve seen
How could I not believe?

You are a promise keeper
Your word will never fail

Promise Keeper, Hope Darst

When You Feel Like Giving Up

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

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

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

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

PSALM 73:25-26

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

Amy Carmichael

Dying to Run Well

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With all this talk of what we believe, it might be easy to think that is all there is to living out our faith: just believe what is true and right and good, and off you go, running fast and straight. But Jesus said it clearly to anyone with ears to hear, that receiving His Words was only the first part of a process. “Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock.” (Matthew 7:24) We can listen and learn and accumulate understanding as if we are stockpiling treasure, but growth will not happen until our hearts and wills are engaged to put what we believe into practice– and this is where things get sticky. I heard a preacher say once that “Transformation occurs when we bring truth to bear on our souls….[it] is an active engagement, not a passive by-product.” (Rob Reimer) Change from the inside-out is more akin to battle…or the messy hard work of remodeling…or the labor pains of birth…actually, Paul says it is a death by execution. “Those who belong to Christ Jesus have nailed the passions and desires of their sinful nature to his cross and crucified them there.” (Galatians 5:24) 

It’s easy to skim over that sentence, make it symbolic and spiritual because it is hard to hear in that matter-of-fact tone, and it is definitely not the kind of thing I want to write on my To-do list for today. The thing is, the passions and desires of my sinful nature live fully and messily in this everyday world, and we can pretty much guarantee they will not go quietly to an execution. There is no tidy way to go about this process, and Paul doesn’t really make it optional. It will take God’s radical interior makeover of my heart to make me want Jesus more than I want my happiness/comfort/convenience….to make me begin to shed those hindrances that so easily entangle a runner’s feet.

No question about it, putting what we believe into practice might be the hardest thing we ever do. Bending mind and will and emotion to conform to ideas that go against your very nature (no matter how lovely and true they are), will not feel like a good choice in the heat of the here-and-now. It will require the battle gear of Faith’s shield and Scripture’s sword, determination to run this race well, and a steady focus on the end goal of pleasing our Father the King; it will require running this faith-race of life the way Jesus did…in complete trust of His Father’s love and plans. “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 12:2)

It is not a coincidence that Paul sandwiches his gory, earthy observation about the cost of living out our faith between detailed explanations of what it means to live in the power of the Holy Spirit. He knew that the only way we would ever have what it takes to put Self to death was by depending on our Divine Helper. He ends with this challenge: “If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit.” (Galatians 5:25) The very One who made us alive again and calls us to follow Him, also makes His home with us and enables us to run this race. If I believe that, and am willing to plant my feet on that bedrock of Truth to wrestle with my wild emotions and destructive thoughts till they bow in obedience to that Divine Power, Jesus promises to make it happen.

Paul says that living in Jesus’ presence not only enables us to throw off the old ways of thinking, but also causes new habits to spring up: “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control”  (Galatians 5:22-23)….Jesus’ own character traits taking the place of what has died, and enabling us to run the race like He did. Let’s just be careful not to confuse what is good with what is easy.

My free will, and His power and sovereignty, working together to produce transformation on the inside? It is Mystery, and it is Truth. This is way too big for my To-do list for today– but it is on God’s agenda for me, so the only question is how well I will cooperate. Lord, help me to grow in my understanding of You and to put it into practice, even when it means the death of Me and what I want. I want You more.

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Work hard to show the results of your salvation, obeying God with deep reverence and fear.

Philippians 2:12

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 The greatest burden we have to carry in life is self. The most difficult thing we have to manage is self. Our own daily living, our frames and feelings, our especial weaknesses and temptations, and our peculiar temperaments– our inward affairs of every kind– these are the things that perplex and worry us more than anything else, and that bring us oftenest into bondage and darkness….You must hand yourself…all over into the care and keeping of your God, and leave them there. He made you and therefore He understands you, and knows how to manage you, and you must trust Him to do it.

Hannah Whitall Smith

The Kind of Woman God Can Use

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We talk in our small group about how to be a woman that pleases God– often hesitantly, all too aware of how we might not measure up, comparing ourselves to others as women tend to do, and the unspoken worry running underneath…what if the way I am made can never be good enough? And I look around the circle at these women, so different but for their desire to do well for their families and please their Creator, and I wish I could speak straight into their hearts that they are made the way they are by God’s design.

We all get that ideal woman in our heads sometimes (probably an amalgamation of every woman we ever admired, real or fictional, and believe me, I know how exhausting it is to try to live up to that). But let me say it straight out that God has no such illusions, and He knows perfectly well who you are and what you can do. There is actually no perfect wife or mother out there to compare yourself to, and there are no absolute standards for personality or abilities. There is just each one of us…with our own strengths and weaknesses…put in a particular place at a specific time…and created to do the certain things God has for us to do here. Each one completely known and treasured by Him. Jesus said it this way: “What is the price of five sparrows—two copper coins? Yet God does not forget a single one of them. And the very hairs on your head are all numbered. So don’t be afraid; you are more valuable to God than a whole flock of sparrows.” (Luke 12:6-7) 

The person you are was hand-made by a God who saw you and loved you before anyone else did. He wired us all with endless diversity of expression. More importantly, the genetic traits that shape our bodies and minds, and the family influences that mold our thoughts are only the beginning. Like Paul says, “…if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.” (2 Corinthians 5:17) What freedom and abundance we are gifted with, at our second birth!

When we choose to follow after Him, He gives us so much more to work with: principles of beauty, guidelines of wisdom, boundaries of living well…. and then He says “Go and be yourself, fully alive in the power of my Spirit, the way I intended you to be.”

So the speak-before-you think one learns to listen. And the people-pleaser learns to set healthy boundaries. And the take-charge one learns to follow another’s lead. Each of us learning to serve and to surrender. Each of us choosing to put to death our own selfish bent. Each of us practicing obedience to God– whatever that may look like, moment by moment. No question that each of us will wrestle with our own private fears and our own personal griefs…no two alike, so no comparing of skill or blessing or gain. Better to focus instead on the wonderful truth that God sees and hears all of us. “O Lord, you have examined my heart and know everything about me. You know when I sit down or stand up. You know my thoughts even when I’m far away.” (Psalm 139:1-2) 

And I can look around the room and see how there is a beauty that grows in a woman as she grows closer to Jesus. It’s a light in her eyes and a softness in her manner that shows she has been in the presence of Grace. It has nothing to do with whether she tends to be talkative or reserved, organized or flighty. It is not a matter of personality but a matter of spirit. It is all about the company we keep and how we are growing. Again Paul writes, “And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.” (2 Corinthians 3:18)

I wish I could tell them all how they shine in His light.

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For You formed my inward parts; You knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are Your works; my soul knows it very well.

Psalm 139:14-15

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My heart and my soul,
I give you control;
Consume me from the inside out, Lord.
Let justice and praise
Become my embrace,
To love you from the inside out….
And the cry of my heart is to bring You praise
From the inside out,
Lord, my soul cries out.

From The Inside Out, Hillsong

The Weight of Caring

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

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

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

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

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

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

KJ Ramsey, This Too Shall Last

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

2 Corinthians 1:3-5

Up Abraham’s Mountain

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When Big-Brother James lays it out like he does, it is as plain as any road sign, and we’re all shaking our heads over how easy it is for us to lose sight of the simple Truth: faith and actions are entwined the way body and spirit are, and together they make up the life of a Christ-follower. Ignore either, and you are as lifeless as a corpse. It’s sad how in our sincere desire to be good we can detour off the path into wanting to be good enough or better than, until we find ourselves halfway up a useless tower with a hammer in our hands. It’s as if we’d never even heard the words of the ancient song, ” Unless the Lord builds the house, the builders labor in vain…” (Psalm 127:1) And it’s just as likely that we will veer into a careless swamp of familiarity with Grace that lets us indulge our emotions, our desires, above obedience to God’s ways. James is warning us that both are the subtle bent of the Enemy. How tragically ironic that among the ranks of the gloriously Born Again there would be those who are walking dead and deceived.

No wonder Jesus can state unequivocally, “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.” (Matthew 7:21) That may sound narrow-minded to modern ears, but He is only stating the facts, that you can spout all kinds of knowledge about God and build ministries that impress people, and still be dead as a doornail inside. Obedience that springs from a trusting heart is the only proof-positive of genuine faith. It’s as simple as that, and the signs of Resurrection Life in a person are that obvious: “… every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit….Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them.” (Matthew 7:17, 20) Big-Brother James challenges us to recognize fruit for what it is, and keep a close watch on our lives and on the Family of God in which we live. He warns, “Speak and act as those who are going to be judged by the law that gives freedom…”(James 2:12)

We might not be so surprised at the way real faith manifests itself, if we think back to the Beginning. Eve looked long at the beautiful fruit, and listened to what the Enemy whispered about it… let the doubts grow in her mind that maybe God was taking something good away from her, and maybe He did not have her best interests at heart, and maybe if she wanted to get what she desired she should reach out and take initiative, show herself strong and intelligent and capable of plotting her own course in life. She let emotion and desire grow large, and when she acted she revealed what she truly believed– what she was willing to stake her life on. But just because you stake your life on something doesn’t make it true, and even a woman made with God’s own hands can lose sight of His love. We’ve been following in her footsteps ever since, captive to our ancestry in both our living and our dying.

So James holds up heroes for us as examples of real faith; Abraham and Rahab both faced the same tangle of emotions that Eve had– the same strength of desire, the same confusion about God’s intentions. And like her, their choices also revealed what they truly believed, because they stepped out in blind obedience, trusting that His Words were true no matter what their circumstances were screaming. Abraham climbed up that mountain with his precious son and a bundle of wood because the God he knew told him to make the sacrifice. Rahab trusted a couple strangers to protect her family when the city fell because she believed in a God she did not know.

In their hearts, faith was both proven and strengthened by their choices to obey; in their actions, obedience was an offering of worship to God as Maker and Ruler. They declared Him powerful and just and righteous when they held onto His promises instead of their desires. They declared His glory when they valued Him over family and home and culture. They declared His right to rule by following when it didn’t make sense, by trusting the future to His plans. “And the scripture was fulfilled that says, ‘Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness,’ and he was called God’s friend.” (James 2:23)

And isn’t that what Jesus did for us in His suffering? He came to earth in order to obey God fully– in every confusing and painful circumstance, against every opposition, in spite of every human emotion He had. He trusted hard and said “Yet I want your will to be done, not mine.” (Mark 14:36) And He looked forward to our trusting obedience and the righteousness He was providing for us, and He called us friends who would follow His example. He proved once and for all that obedience is the best way– the only way– to demonstrate what we truly believe.

**For Abraham’s story, read Genesis 22; Rahab’s story is in Joshua 2.

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But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Romans 5:8

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As I walk into the days to come
I will not forget what You have done
For you have supplied my every need
And Your presence is enough for me
Doesn’t matter what I feel
Doesn’t matter what I see
My hope will always be
In Your promises to me
Now I’m casting out all fear
For Your love has set me free
My hope will always be
In Your promises to me

Your Promises, Elevation Worship