Joyful are those...

This week I have heard two stories of God's faithfulness...and a few huge prayer requests.

My friend writes to me about her new job and her message is full of happy faces and words like "superb...hilarious...incredible...ridiculous...happy!"  I feel full of laughter that's half choked with tears as I read.  Months ago she boldly turned down a job that didn't seem right, but then there were no other offers.  We prayed.  She did a mission trip.  Waited.  Prayed.  Wondered.  Did she make the right decision?  Her bank account dwindled and she dared to give some more.  Still no job.  Then suddenly!  The job is perfect--all she hoped for and more!

I think of her heavenly Father smiling on her all those months of waiting and wondering.  I think of the angels cheering her on as she took courageous, faith-filled steps that seemed only wondering and trembling to her at the time.  All the while her Papa knew that He had this wonderful surprise in store for her.

The second story is of praying parents watching their daughter stand at a crossroad in her faith walk, knowing they can only pray and love and wait.  The daughter has taken small steps toward the light.  The parents have lain awake, praying in the darkness.  This week they met a total stranger who had encountered their daughter months ago...and has been praying for her ever since.  The parents are filled with joy realizing that God is at work, has been at work all along, and they don't need to be afraid.

These stories encourage and excite me!

But what about...

My friend who has a lump in her breast.

A friend who believes God has abandoned him because the circumstances of his life are so difficult right now.

The baby girl I've been longing to see healed for two years but open-heart surgery is now imminent.

A woman is still barren...a marriage is still falling apart...

When my thoughts dwell on all these things something icy cold fills up the center of me.  I want to crawl back into bed and pull the covers over my head.  These challenges are big.  Real people are in pain.  How can I rise up and face the day?

Unless I surrender my right to understand for now.  Unless I believe that God is at work, even now, behind the scenes...that glory is yet to be revealed...that I'm someday going to use words like "superb...hilarious...incredible...ridiculous...happy" to describe the end of the story.  Unless I believe His promise that He is willing and able to make something beautiful out of messes.   Unless I choose to give thanks before I see the miracle.  Unless I begin to worship the One who is my only Hope...  Then a fire fills me and I overflow with laughter.

That is how we can rise up and face the day.  Worship.  Giving thanks in all things.  Remembering what He has already done...which gives rise to more worship.  Then we are filled with hope and laughter...and it's contagious!  It's a hope and a confidence that you can bank on.

Let all that I am praise the Lord.

I will praise the Lord as long as I live.

I will sing praises to my God with my dying breath

...joyful are those who have the God of Israel as their helper, 

whose hope is in the Lord their God.

Psalm 146:1-2, 5

Exposure to Glory

"When all the people of Israel saw...
the glorious presence of the Lord filling the Temple,

 they fell face down on the ground and worshiped and praised the Lord,

 saying, 'He is good!  His faithful love endures forever!'"

2 Chronicles 7:3

When I read this passage this morning the thought that struck me was that exposure to the glorious presence of the Lord didn't fill the people with fear--not even these people of the old covenant.  Rather, it provoked recognition of His goodness and love.  You might expect them to run in terror.  You might expect that exposure to the glory would make them self-conscious, aware of their own sinfulness.

If you're feeling afraid of God or focusing on your own sorry state, it may be that you haven't tasted or aren't currently tasting of His glory.

This glorious presence fell on them after the Temple was dedicated as a place of worship.  It came as a response to the worship-filled dedication spoken by Solomon.

That Temple is no more.  Now YOU are His temple.  And His glorious presence still fills the temple when we offer ourselves with worship and praise.  The glorious presence never condemns or inspires fear, but fills us with awe of his goodness and mercy.

Happy are those who hear the joyful call to worship,

for they will walk in the light of your presence, Lord.

Psalm 89:15

1 Corinthians 3:16

Holy Moment

My favorite part of Thanksgiving dinner is when we pause in between the main course and dessert so everyone around the table can take a turn expressing gratitude for something significant in the last year.  There are always a few tears as well as a lot of laughter.  Sometimes it's a little awkward for a guest new to the tradition--until they've experienced it.  Something holy happens in those moments of giving thanks.

I recently heard someone say that "complaining can only come out of a heart of unbelief".  I've pondered it a bit and I think it's true.  If I'm complaining, it's because I don't believe His promise that He can and will work all things out for good--I'm not believing that His plans for good in my life trump the difficulty I'm facing in that moment.

The holy thing that happens when we pause to give thanks is that our faith is strengthened.  The God who accomplished these good things in our life is able to accomplish great things in and through the challenges ahead.  We believe.

My biggest "thankful things" this year are the fun of a surprise trip to California to visit our far-away family, the way He's led us into and blessed us in our homeschooling adventure, and the way He provided for our family through a very lean financial time.   Remembering these things, I believe that He'll be there for us until the calendar comes around to this holiday again--with surprise blessings and help through difficulties.   He is good!

Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours.

Give thanks to the Lord and proclaim his greatness

Let the whole world know what he has done.

Sing to him; yes, sing his praises

Tell everyone about his wonderful deeds.

Exult in his holy name;

rejoice, you who worship the Lord.

Search for the Lord and for his strength;

continually seek him.

Remember the wonders he has performed,

his miracles, and the rulings he has given.

I Chronicles 16:8-12

He's Devising a Way

My recent venture into homeschooling has given rise to much thought on how God the Father relates to us, His kids.  My recognition of the need to love more like He loves has increased dramatically. (He's incredibly long suffering and patient--I am not!)  I've been spending a lot more time meditating on His love and what it looks like...which is guaranteed to make one fall more and more in love with Him!

I came across a verse that I feel I've never seen before.  (Don't you love it when that happens?)

"But God does not just sweep life away;

instead, he devises ways to bring us back when we have been separated from him."

2 Samuel 14:14b

He doesn't sweep life away...He devises ways to bring us back.  Wow.

He doesn't get angry or offended, rather He yearns to draw us back to Him.

For the soul aching with shame...He has no desire to sweep you away.  He's longing to restore your connection to Him.

For the one who feels they've messed up and wrecked things beyond repair...not so.

If your heart feels despair over one was has wandered and you've lost hope for restoration...take comfort.  He is, at this very moment, devising ways to bring that one back to Him.  Pray with renewed faith.

Comfort and conviction.

I sometimes want to "sweep away" those who irritate or inconvenience me.  This alone separates me from Him, but He has devised a way...  The capacity to sustain love for the unlovable isn't instinctive or human.  To love like He loves means soaking up His love for me so I can extend the same love to others.

 We love each other because he loved us first.

1 John 4:19

Grace

"Why are you putting those letters there?"

The shelf has been there as long as we've lived in this house.  It's a weathered board, a piece of an old grainary, once the storehouse of someone's bounty, now it holds treasured keepsakes, each a memory of a special friend and a unique blessing bestowed.  It hangs at the main intersection of our house, between kitchen and dining room, where all our intense living happens.

On this day, I placed five letters below.

G R A C E

I need the bold reminder.

I need grace.  Badly.

I'm so not perfect.  I hate it.  I find myself wishing I was a better wife, mother, friend.  To make matters worse no one else around me is perfect either!  Sometimes in this space of intense living frustration brews and impatience stews.  Sometimes it bursts out and shrapnel rips and wounds.  Sometimes a sense of inadequacy drains all my energy.  All my wishing accomplishes nothing.  The only thing that will make any difference is grace.  I must open myself to receive it, acknowledging my failure/inadequacy and His tender desire to come and redeem.  Apart from Him I can do nothing.  I can't make myself better so He'll receive me.  I need to make myself humble so He can restore.  I need to receive grace for myself.  I need to extend grace to the imperfect ones I love.

Grace floods in when we open the door!  In spite of my weakness, because of His greatness, amazing things happen.  Relationships are strengthened instead of eroded.  Love grows instead of bitterness.  It's an inside out, upside down economy where the deficit of failure, and the zero of my ability to do things perfectly are turned into treasure...because of grace, amazing grace.

Grace.

To receive and give.

Because he first loved us.

If death got the upper hand through one man's wrongdoing,

can you imagine the breathtaking recovery life makes,

sovereign life,

in those who grasp with both hands this wildly extravagant life-gift,

this grand setting-everything-right,

that the one man Jesus Christ provides?

Romans 5:17 MSG

The Difficult Obedience

When He asks something of us and we choose to obey...in that moment we only know what we are giving up, letting go of, surrendering.  We may have hopes and ideas about the fruit of our obedience, but the only thing we know for sure is what we are giving--and hopefully the One to whom we are giving.  Therein lies the guarantee.

The boy with the loaves and fish was sought out by the disciples and asked if he would give what he had.  Five loaves and two fish sounds like a huge lunch to me, but I imagine his mother packing a lunch for him as I do for my son.  Some boys need to eat a lot.  They love eating!  As I picture this young lad in my mind, I wonder if he was reluctant to give up his lunch?  My son would be--he's always hungry.  Or perhaps when he looked into the eyes of the Son of God his hesitation melted away?  Whatever the case, when he put his "little" into the hands of the Master something profoundly amazing happened.  I'm sure he had no idea in the moment of "letting go" what was about to unfold.  We still talk about it two thousand years later.

Sometimes the giving asked of us feels huge and we wrestle with it--whether it's our tithe or our time or, you know, whatever it is He's asking of you.  In that moment all we can see is what it's going to cost us.  Unless we look at the One to whom we give it.  The greatest we have to give is nothing in comparison to the One to whom we give.

Sometimes I struggle because I place such a high value on what I'm letting go of...as though He wouldn't turn it into something far greater than I could imagine.  Sometimes what I have to give seems paltry or even pathetic in the face of the need.  Much like five loaves to feed five thousand.

The world is in desperate need of what He can do with our "little".  Given, blessed, broken, nourishment for many.

And he took the five cakes of bread and the two fishes and,

 looking up to heaven,

he said words of blessing over them, and when they had been broken,

he gave them to the disciples to give to the people.

Luke 9:16

Shining and Doing

"How do I let my light shine?"

He is intense and frustrated.

"How do I know that I'm doing it?"

He has a ferocious scowl when he's this serious.

I know, little son, I know.  But how do I explain it to you when it's a dance I'm still fumbling through myself?  I know the direction of the steps, but execute them better some days than others.  It'll be no help to explain the grammar of "letting".

I know it's not about doing.  And yet we crave the doing.

Check.

Yep.

Got it right.

There's so much safety in defining the doing and then checking it off as accomplished.  Never mind the security of knowing that those who choose to judge me will come to the conclusion that I'm getting it right.

Therein lies the essence of the Pharisees.  And exhaustion.  It's only attractive to those with the same disease.  To everyone else it looks like oppression.

It's more about being...which feels a bit too vague until you get in the habit.  Choosing gratitude, believing that He is good and His plans for us are good.  Living aware of His presence.   Meditating on His love and grace.  Every act becoming an act of worship.  Falling in love all over again.  Joy begins to bubble up and suddenly the light is shining whether you're rescuing orphans or holding the door for someone. Scrubbing the floor (again!) or feeding the homeless.   Light is shining!

It's not an excuse for not doing.  It's just that the doing comes out of the being.  It's the response of a lover rather than a laborer.  It's joy.  It's a beacon of hope.

And so I told him about the moon and the sun and how the moon reflects the sun when its face is turned to the light.  How living with our faces turned to the Son is what makes our light shine no matter what we're doing.  That might seem too abstract and complicated...to an adult.  His little brow smoothed and he snuggled in with a sigh.  He may not be able to explain it to someone else, but something deep inside resonated and he rested.

I'll walk with you, little man, and we'll learn the steps together.