Call...Rescue...Glory!

I tried to say what I meant, but it didn't come out that way...or maybe it did, but there was a filter and it wasn't understood.  It really mattered to me.  I wanted to be understood.  I may never know exactly what went awry, but what I do know is that communication is tricky and there have been a thousand times in my life when it's been hard.  Too hard.  I've made all kinds of "agreements" in those moments.  An open door for discouragement and heaviness to creep in.

My fingertips have been silent for a week.  I wanted to write, but it seemed the well had run dry.  I didn't like it.  Speaking, declaring, writing...words of hope unleashed in any form make me vibrantly, passionately alive.  The nasty double whammy is that heaviness, by it's very nature, makes it hard for us to find the key to precisely what is amiss.

Then call on me when you are in trouble,

and I will rescue you,

and you will give me glory...

I called.  And called.  I'm not always good at listening right away.  Quicker to make accusations about whose fault is what, to play the blame game.  A futile game that's not actually fun so I don't know why it's called a game...

Four days later I listened.  Really listened. Quietly.  Then I knew.  Pain had come because of who said what, but the heaviness came because of what I agreed with..and it wasn't what any human said.  It was the voices that say, "You don't make any sense.  You say stupid things.  You're really bad at communicating..."  It sounded enough like the truth that I believed it.  That was enough to shut down the flow.

I repented to the One who has filled me with words...sorry, so sorry, that I've believed the stupid lies again. Forgave the one who misunderstood.  I'm not always good at communicating.  I need grace.  Lots of it.  But I have been given something to say and I need to say it...no one else will say it in quite the same way or to the same people.  Because the words He gives are spirit and life, they're powerful.  Of course, the enemy will assault, attack, and undermine at every opportunity.

You have an assignment too.  It's unique to you and no one else can do it.  When you're on assignment you may feel terrified, but also vividly alive.  Perhaps you too can recognize that this gift gets horribly assaulted from time to time.  Call on Him when you're in trouble.  He will rescue.  Cast off the lie and shine.  We need you.

The rescued ones give Him glory!

He taught me how to sing the latest God-song,

a praise song to our God.

More and more people are seeing this:

they enter the mystery, abandoning themselves to God.

Psalm 40:3 MSG

Psalm 50:15

Laying Aside Dread

It was really hard to get out of bed this morning.  Fact:  My body and brain have already had a full week but I need to do one more day before I get to relax a little.   Remember how I wrote about the ways our enemy can sneak in and take advantage of the facts?  Well, I forgot.  So I lay there feeling like I didn't have what it would take to get through the day.

"Lay aside the thing that 'so easily besets'."

I recognized those words.  How do you lay aside exhaustion...or was there something else?  (I was starting to remember!)

Dread.

Yep, that was it.  The thing that snuck in through the fact door was dread.  And dread doesn't belong to me, it's not the truth that applies to my life.

So I adapted Hebrews 12:1 for my life today:  "I am stripping off every weight that slows me down, especially the dread that so easily trips me up.  Let me run with endurance the race God has set before me.  I do this by keeping my eyes on Jesus, the champion who initiates and perfects my faith."

Dread was blocking out the sun.  My day contains many duties and responsibilities, but it also holds the promise of good things.  He's already appointed times to meet with me and refresh my spirit.  I'd miss it all with my eyes and hands clenched shut with dread.

Let me hear of your unfailing love each morning,

for I am trusting you.

Show me where to walk,

for I give myself to you.

Teach me to do your will,

for you are my God

May your gracious Spirit lead me forward on a firm footing.

Psalm 143:8 & 10

(If you can relate to this post at all and feel like you need a musical boost, click here for a song guaranteed to get you going!)

God With Us

"...The virgin will conceive a child!  She will give birth to a son and will call him Immanuel (which means 'God is with us')."


Most people in the English-speaking world are probably familiar with these words, even if they've never cracked open The Book.  I wonder how many aware of the context...


"...the hearts of the king and his people trembled with fear, like trees shaking in a storm."  They were surrounded by an enemy that seemed so much bigger and stronger than they.


Sounds familiar.  Does your heart tremble?  Are there situations in your finances, family and friends that cause your heart to sink?


Isaiah was sent to, "...tell him he doesn't need to fear the fierce anger of those two burned-out embers..."  


I guess their enemies didn't exactly appear to be "burned-out embers."  Neither do mine.  The enemies of fear, anxiety, discouragement...fill in the name of your enemies...seem alive and well and quite capable of overwhelming.  I forget that they are, in fact, a defeated foe.  Their power destroyed by the cross.  Power and authority over them granted to me.*


In the face of his doubt that these fierce enemies (who had a frightening track record!) were powerless to harm him, King Ahaz was challenged to ask for a sign, "Make it as difficult as you want--as high as heaven or as deep as the place of the dead."  He refused to ask for such a sign, but he was given one anyway.


"All right then, the Lord himself will give you the sign.  Look!  A virgin will conceive..."  Yep, that's pretty difficult.  Now I can't prove to you that, in fact, a virgin did conceive.  Naysayers abound.  I believe.  This I know for sure--He is indeed Immanuel, God with me!


Signs of His presence surround me.  I hear it in the laughter of my children.  I see it in the glory of orange and pink splashed across the evening sky.  I see it in the lives of my friends Paul and Judy who are spending Christmas on the other side of the world caring for the heart-broken and hungry.  I hear it in the peaceful voice of my sister-in-love who still waits for her miracle. 


For all the promises I still wait to see fulfilled, I have the comfort of the fulfilment of this one.


He is present, with us, in the midst of the mess of life.


Immanuel.

Isaiah 7
*Ephesians 2:6

The End of the Story

We're definitely fans of Narnia around here. Starting with the now-tattered copies of the books I received for my birthday in 1977, to the unabridged Radio Theater version my kids have practically memorized, to debates over the merits of the recently-released movie versions...we know Narnia.

When The Voyage of the Dawn Treader came to theaters and a friend gave us two-for-one coupons we decided to take the kids to see it--an unprecedented treat! However, the decision wasn't made without some hesitation. We knew there would be some fairly intense scenes. My son scoffs at my concern that he could possibly be frightened, but we've sat up many a night with one of the girls after watching a movie that was a bit too much for her. She insisted she would be fine.

Sure enough, she was. Through all the excitement and drama, we sat with wide-eyed enjoyment until the final climatic struggle with the sea serpent. My little one buried her face in my shoulder a few times, but never for long. She would inevitably be drawn back by her longing to see this huge enemy defeated. After the movie, I expressed my surprise that she was able to watch all of that action.

"It was okay, Mom. I was a little bit afraid, but I knew the end of the story," she declared with enthusiasm.

I know the end of the story.

Sometimes I get afraid. And weary. Sometimes it seems like that serpent is beating me down. Or taking out people I care about. It'd be easy to give into discouragement, despair, or even outright panic! But I know the end of the story. I need to remind myself of what is going to happen.

"Don't be afraid! I am the First and the Last. I am the living one.
I died, but look--I am alive forever and ever!
And I hold the keys of death and the grave...
It has come at last--salvation and power and the Kingdom of our God...
The accuser of our brothers and sisters has been thrown down...
they have defeated him...
Look, God's home is now among his people!
He will wipe every tear from their eyes,
and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain.
All these things are gone forever.
Look, I am making everything new!
There will no longer be a curse upon anything.
Come.
Let anyone who is thirsty come.
Come, Lord Jesus!"

Reading these words strengthens me and I'm ready to reenter the fray with a shout of victory!!

Today we hang a new calendar. Twelve pages of the unknown. But I'm not afraid--I know the end of the story!

Liberation

My father was born in an occupied country. Life was lived as the enemy dictated. Hunger and anxiety were constant companions. All of that was normal, the only life he'd known. He remembers enemy soldiers taking the little food they had and soldiers sleeping in their barn. He remembers huddling with his father against a wall while bombs were being dropped all around. The only life a five-year-old had known until one day...

The best memory, the one that's poignant and stands out above all others, is of the liberation celebration and his first piece of chocolate. A whole bar of chocolate wrapped in shiny gold and blue paper--all his. A smiling Canadian soldier in a green uniform. Music playing. Girls in white blouses and orange sashes. Exuberant joy! A whole new beginning.

Things didn't change overnight. Reconstruction took years, but the atmosphere was transformed by freedom.

We too were born into "occupied territory". Restlessness, dissatisfaction and anxiety are normal. Most live according to the dictates of the enemy. They've heard that a Liberator came and signed a Freedom Proclamation, but they don't believe it. There's so much evidence to the contrary. Collaborating with the enemy seems like their best hope of satisfaction. Some believe, but they don't think they'll experience freedom until "someday" and so they huddle in darkness hoping to survive until the Liberator returns.

Others have seized the Proclamation and claimed it as their own. They are shouting and waving it around, singing songs of freedom. This Resistance band is determined use the weapons provided by the Liberator to push back the enemy, to be part of the reconstruction, and to live according to the truth of the Proclamation regardless of evidence to the contrary until the Liberator returns.

May you be like the little blond boy receiving with wide-eyed wonder the shiny morsel of gold-wrapped truth that Freedom has come. Taste its sweetness. Be revived and celebrate. Declare it to those still sitting in darkness--He has come! Your freedom has been won!

You were dead because of your sins
and because your sinful nature was not yet cut away.
Then God made you alive with Christ, for he forgave all our sins.
He canceled the record of the charges against us
and took it away by nailing it to the cross.
In this way, he disarmed the spiritual rulers and authorities.
He shamed them publicly by his victory over them on the cross.
Colossians 2:13-15

Letters from the Enemy

Have you had a letter from the enemy lately? I have. In fact, they're as regular as junk mail and many are as easy to toss, but once in a while you get one that has a way a grabbing your attention and you think it's actually for you.

King Hezekiah got a letter from the enemy too.* Even though it was written about three thousand years ago, it sounds a lot like the ones I get. The gist of the message is a two-pronged attack. First, will God really do what He says He'll do? (Brings to mind a conversation in a Garden...) Second, is "look at all the times I have conquered in the past". Clearly, in six thousand plus years he hasn't changed his tactics a bit--probably because they often work!

Hezekiah took his letter "to the Lord's Temple and spread it out before the Lord and...prayed." His prayer included an acknowledgment that the enemy has indeed succeeded before, a desperate plea for deliverance, and worship. And that's pretty much what we need to do with the letters the enemy sends our way.

After Hezekiah prayed, God made a promise of protection to him which concluded with these words: "The passionate commitment of the Lord of Heaven's Armies will make this happen!" How can we lose if we have the passionate commitment of the Lord of Heaven's Armies! Sure enough, not even an arrow struck the wall of Hezekiah's city. God sent an angel to destroy his enemy.

If you have any letters from the enemy lying around, I suggest you follow Hezekiah's example. Go before your Father and pray. Strengthen your faith by reminding yourself of ways God has defended you in the past. Encourage yourself with testimonies from others. And praise Him. Always praise Him. You have His passionate commitment that He will come and save you.

They will fight you, but they will fail.
For I am with you, and I will take care of you.
I, the Lord, have spoken.
Jeremiah 1:19

*2 Kings 19, 2 Chronicles 32, Isaiah 36