When Mary reached the place where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet and said, "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died."
When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled. "Where have you laid him?" he asked.
"Come and see, Lord," they replied.
Jesus wept. Jesus, once more deeply moved, came to the tomb. So they took away the stone. Then Jesus looked up and said, "Father, I thank you that you have heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I said this for the benefit of the people standing here, that they may believe that you sent me."
When he had said this, Jesus called in a loud voice, "Lazarus, come out!" The dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen, and a cloth around his face. Jesus said to them, "Take off the grave clothes and let him go.
John 11:32-35, 38, 41-44
The God outside of time had already seen and rejoiced in the miracle of life waiting. But for now, He wept with them.
Just because God has a plan for our lives, it does not mean He is callous to our grief. He wails with us now. And tomorrow, when life blossoms again, and hope is restored, and laughter rings in our world, His joy will be the wildest and the loudest.
The sorrows He allows for our benefit and for God's own great glory give Him no delight. The pain we carry in a broken world breaks His heart. He delights in hope, faithfulness, and a voice that has lost everything and still cries out, "I will obey!" And He delights in the miracle coming.
The presence of the Lord in our life is not a shield from sorrow. It is compassion standing in the suffering at our side and a promise for tomorrow. You are not alone in your grief. His eyes have wept over you. One day, He will also dance with you.
Saturday, May 28, 2016
Friday, May 27, 2016
Canning the Spirit
Our last garden produced dozens and dozens of tomatoes. Plump, sweet, and juicy, we decided to can all those homegrown, fresh, delicious virtues and savor them in the cold winter months. By the time we finished the canning process we had over twenty jars of tomatoes lining a shelf in our kitchen. They became decor. We would look at those bright red fruits in sparkling glass jars, and think of how blessed our garden was.
Galatians 5:22-23 - But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control; against such things there is no law.
What I think many of us miss in this beautiful metaphor is that fruit is meant to be eaten. It's purpose is to entice, delight, and satisfy. God does not fill us with blessings and fruits so that we can put such virtue on the shelf, useless to all. We are meant to grow in the light, bear beautiful fruit, and draw in the needy, the hungry, to feast in the bounty He provides.
God does not give us faithfulness to bottle and place out of reach. We bear faithfulness so the timid, the doubting, and the troubled can taste of honest trust in the King and be satisfied. God does not pour out peace in our life to sparkle aloof in the eyes of men. We have the fruit of peace, so our fellow believers in this tumultuous life can eat and be filled.
There is no winter with God. If we give fruit of the spirit to the hungry, an abundance more will spring up in its place. When we can the fruit of the spirit, seal it away for our own cold days, they will surely come icier than we imagined. If we let the hungry come to us (really to Him, who gives us the fullness of everything), we will never be in need before the God who is all sufficient. He is enough. So we are enough. Enough for others.
Has your joy been pickling on the shelf until it tastes of sour indifference? Has your gentleness fermented into passivity and indulgence? How can you offer ripe fruit of love and kindness to those starving for grace? You need save none for yourself. The great Gardener always provides.
Galatians 5:22-23 - But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control; against such things there is no law.
What I think many of us miss in this beautiful metaphor is that fruit is meant to be eaten. It's purpose is to entice, delight, and satisfy. God does not fill us with blessings and fruits so that we can put such virtue on the shelf, useless to all. We are meant to grow in the light, bear beautiful fruit, and draw in the needy, the hungry, to feast in the bounty He provides.
God does not give us faithfulness to bottle and place out of reach. We bear faithfulness so the timid, the doubting, and the troubled can taste of honest trust in the King and be satisfied. God does not pour out peace in our life to sparkle aloof in the eyes of men. We have the fruit of peace, so our fellow believers in this tumultuous life can eat and be filled.
There is no winter with God. If we give fruit of the spirit to the hungry, an abundance more will spring up in its place. When we can the fruit of the spirit, seal it away for our own cold days, they will surely come icier than we imagined. If we let the hungry come to us (really to Him, who gives us the fullness of everything), we will never be in need before the God who is all sufficient. He is enough. So we are enough. Enough for others.
Has your joy been pickling on the shelf until it tastes of sour indifference? Has your gentleness fermented into passivity and indulgence? How can you offer ripe fruit of love and kindness to those starving for grace? You need save none for yourself. The great Gardener always provides.
Monday, May 23, 2016
Germ Faith Planted
Luke 17:5-6 The apostles said to the Lord, "Increase our faith!" And the Lord said, if you had faith like a mustard seed, you would say to this mulberry tree, 'Be uprooted and planted in the sea'; and it would obey you.
Have you ever bemoaned the smallness of your faith, mountains unmoved, trees still firmly planted, oceans undisturbed by the invasions of various faith tossing articles? Like the disciples, we long to search inside ourselves for the magic lever, the red button, that multiples faith like bacteria. If only an infection of God's grace would radically stir the microscopic faith inside!
Grace is not a quantity. We are under abundant, lavish, immeasurable grace or we are dead in sin. God's grace cannot be bought, earned, multiplied, or grown. Grace never fails because it is the gift of the unfailing Almighty.
And so is faith.
Somehow our quantifiable reality believes that this salvation is a joint effort: God supplies the grace, we supply the faith. Even your faith is a magnificent and undiminishing gift of God.
For the first time in history size is not the issue. God does not declare to his disciples, "This is how small your faith should be." Rather he compassionately reminds us that the focus is not our minuscule faith.
The focus is our enormous God.
A small faith planted in a great Lord rattles reality. It rips up mountains, churns oceans, and transforms lives. A big faith in God as we imagine Him (an idol, which is really nothing at all), is less than empty. It consumes, decays, disappoints, and despairs.
What effort are you pouring into finding faith, grace, and goodness in yourself? Imagine what our worlds would be if instead of seeking gifts we already have, we put all that labor into knowing the Savior, the incredible source of goodness, the matchless object of faith, the gushing river of grace.
Have you ever bemoaned the smallness of your faith, mountains unmoved, trees still firmly planted, oceans undisturbed by the invasions of various faith tossing articles? Like the disciples, we long to search inside ourselves for the magic lever, the red button, that multiples faith like bacteria. If only an infection of God's grace would radically stir the microscopic faith inside!
Grace is not a quantity. We are under abundant, lavish, immeasurable grace or we are dead in sin. God's grace cannot be bought, earned, multiplied, or grown. Grace never fails because it is the gift of the unfailing Almighty.
And so is faith.
Somehow our quantifiable reality believes that this salvation is a joint effort: God supplies the grace, we supply the faith. Even your faith is a magnificent and undiminishing gift of God.
For the first time in history size is not the issue. God does not declare to his disciples, "This is how small your faith should be." Rather he compassionately reminds us that the focus is not our minuscule faith.
The focus is our enormous God.
A small faith planted in a great Lord rattles reality. It rips up mountains, churns oceans, and transforms lives. A big faith in God as we imagine Him (an idol, which is really nothing at all), is less than empty. It consumes, decays, disappoints, and despairs.
What effort are you pouring into finding faith, grace, and goodness in yourself? Imagine what our worlds would be if instead of seeking gifts we already have, we put all that labor into knowing the Savior, the incredible source of goodness, the matchless object of faith, the gushing river of grace.
Friday, May 20, 2016
Dragging straw
Like a scarecrow in a cucumber field are they [idols],
And they cannot speak;
They must be carried,
Because they cannot walk!
Do not fear them,
For they can do no harm,
Nor can they do any good.
Jeremiah 10:5
We see the foolishness of idolatry. Is there any greater idiocy than turning your bracelet into a statue of a cow and declaring this is the god who saved me? We parade these things before us; we drag them along behind us. We wrap them against our chest because of the cold. We sacrifice to them and for them. We lug the weight of their nothingness and slavery, dripping sweat onto them, which we will have to wipe away. There is no crueler god than the indifferent master. Everything we worship that is not the living Savior is viciously heavy and maddeningly silent.
We feel abandoned when we shout to our God, when we plead in earnestness and tears, and He does not act how we have determined He should. It is better to receive a heart breaking answer, even no discernible answer. Than to ask, beg, and plead, and have no one even hear. In the anger and the trembling and the blistered faith ready to burst, God is. He gathers up our wounded words and is not careless with our tears. He does not run from our wrath, nor pour out His own. He is. And He loves. And because He is, it is well.
But they are not. And nothing can ever be well in their service.
Why do we cling to these dumb and immobile gods? Do we think our image, our life, our needs, our pets, our fixes, our loves are so very precious?
"We don't worship ourselves and our idolotrinkets because we esteem them so highly. We do it because we esteem ourselves, our true identity, and the one true God so lowly." Jennifer Rothschild, Hosea.
May we have more faith in the God who is, who sees, speaks, hears, delights, and saves. We need no other master. We need no other purpose. We need no other fix. They are heavy, indifferent, and silent lords, but He...
For You, Lord, are good, and ready to forgive,
And abundant in lovingkindness to all who call upon You.
Give ear, O Yahweh, to my prayer;
And give heed to the voice of my supplications!
In the day of my trouble I shall call upon You,
For You will answer me.
There is no one like You among the gods, O Lord.
Psalm 86:5-8a
Wednesday, May 18, 2016
Tumbled
When visiting family in Florida, I walk the beaches looking for shells. Most of the beaches are all picked clean of shells; however, there is new treasure to find in the sand: sea glass. Broken glass bottles, tossed in the ocean are tumbled over and over by the waves. The salts and tides frost the glass and smooth down all the sharp edges. Perfect sea glass has been tossed end over end by the current so many times that all the shine is worn away and it is smooth as a river rock.
How many days will we spend tumbled in the ocean, dulled by the gnawing salt, thrown onto the sand only to be dragged back to the waves?
If only we could make decisions that matter.
"...Choose for yourselves today whom you will serve... but as for me and my house, we will serve Yahweh." Joshua 24:15
One of the most telling symptoms of adulthood is the number and severity of decisions we have to make everyday. Having managed to somehow survive the day dressed, fed, and relatively uninjured, we reserve very little energy for less immediate, but far more important decisions. Instead, so many human beings collapse into the waves, tossed here and there, preferring an aimless life of drifting and tumbling to the effort and risk required in standing firm or pressing back against the current.
It seems we have forgotten that not choosing is very decisive.
Believers cannot wander into their day obtuse to spiritual battles, too tired to pick a side, too soft to claim holiness. A flippant Christian will be consumed and dulled in the waves. The clarity and brilliance of life in godliness will be frosted over in the elemental crust of ease.
If we are to live a life that matters, a life of purpose and light in a dark age, we have to decide every morning who our God will be. Love and meaning are not passive. They require decisiveness and courage. We either choose to stand against the tide, to crack it in half and howl the wind and waves back to the sea, or we choose to be lost in it.
Where have you neglected to choose whom you serve? On what days do you drift into life with no footing beneath you? Has your world been dulled and frosted, perhaps pretty, but ultimately useless, or do stand radically opposed to the waves, unbending, unbroken, firm on the Cornerstone? Choose for your self this day, but as for me, on Christ, the solid Rock, I stand.
How many days will we spend tumbled in the ocean, dulled by the gnawing salt, thrown onto the sand only to be dragged back to the waves?
If only we could make decisions that matter.
"...Choose for yourselves today whom you will serve... but as for me and my house, we will serve Yahweh." Joshua 24:15
One of the most telling symptoms of adulthood is the number and severity of decisions we have to make everyday. Having managed to somehow survive the day dressed, fed, and relatively uninjured, we reserve very little energy for less immediate, but far more important decisions. Instead, so many human beings collapse into the waves, tossed here and there, preferring an aimless life of drifting and tumbling to the effort and risk required in standing firm or pressing back against the current.
It seems we have forgotten that not choosing is very decisive.
Believers cannot wander into their day obtuse to spiritual battles, too tired to pick a side, too soft to claim holiness. A flippant Christian will be consumed and dulled in the waves. The clarity and brilliance of life in godliness will be frosted over in the elemental crust of ease.
If we are to live a life that matters, a life of purpose and light in a dark age, we have to decide every morning who our God will be. Love and meaning are not passive. They require decisiveness and courage. We either choose to stand against the tide, to crack it in half and howl the wind and waves back to the sea, or we choose to be lost in it.
Where have you neglected to choose whom you serve? On what days do you drift into life with no footing beneath you? Has your world been dulled and frosted, perhaps pretty, but ultimately useless, or do stand radically opposed to the waves, unbending, unbroken, firm on the Cornerstone? Choose for your self this day, but as for me, on Christ, the solid Rock, I stand.
Sunday, May 15, 2016
Waiting for beauty
Ecclesiastes 3:11 - He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.
We are designed for eternity. Our essence is designed to exist in forever and to understand mysteries and complexities only recognized outside of time.
How often do we fail to see beauty because we are so consumed by time? Perhaps the true loveliness we desire comes in the arms of patience and endurance.
Modern thought claims that personal morality is the only form of authentic ethics any human can have. This present age claims that right and wrong are entirely a matter of the present culture, the persuasion of the time, the preference of the temporal. There is no essence, there is no other, there is no more. There is only me. Therefore, we strive, struggle, lie, steal, and kill in order to manufacture beauty out of our own reality in this moment. But the ugliness of our selfishness cannot delve it's fingers into the softness of truth and mold beauty of out squalor. It takes patient hands, working in subtle pressure and fierce fire, to create beauty from mud.
We know only God constructs beauty. We know eternity awaits our final breath. We know He works from beginning to end.
But human beings hate the knowledge of beauty we have not made with our own gnarled hands. We hate the wait. We hate what patience requires: malleability.
Submission. Bending to Him. Spiraling into His plan. Leaning into His thoughts. No resistance. Our hearts know that eternity exists. Our souls sing to patience. But our will just cannot manage the endurance and malleability required for hope.
Do you live with eternity in your heart? Are your will, your spirit, and your life soft to the hands of God who works for beauty in His time? Can you wait long enough for loveliness?
We are designed for eternity. Our essence is designed to exist in forever and to understand mysteries and complexities only recognized outside of time.
How often do we fail to see beauty because we are so consumed by time? Perhaps the true loveliness we desire comes in the arms of patience and endurance.
Modern thought claims that personal morality is the only form of authentic ethics any human can have. This present age claims that right and wrong are entirely a matter of the present culture, the persuasion of the time, the preference of the temporal. There is no essence, there is no other, there is no more. There is only me. Therefore, we strive, struggle, lie, steal, and kill in order to manufacture beauty out of our own reality in this moment. But the ugliness of our selfishness cannot delve it's fingers into the softness of truth and mold beauty of out squalor. It takes patient hands, working in subtle pressure and fierce fire, to create beauty from mud.
We know only God constructs beauty. We know eternity awaits our final breath. We know He works from beginning to end.
But human beings hate the knowledge of beauty we have not made with our own gnarled hands. We hate the wait. We hate what patience requires: malleability.
Submission. Bending to Him. Spiraling into His plan. Leaning into His thoughts. No resistance. Our hearts know that eternity exists. Our souls sing to patience. But our will just cannot manage the endurance and malleability required for hope.
Do you live with eternity in your heart? Are your will, your spirit, and your life soft to the hands of God who works for beauty in His time? Can you wait long enough for loveliness?
Friday, May 13, 2016
In the arms of the thunder
There was a fierce storm here the other night. My son is afraid of the wind, rain, and thunder claps. As I lay listening to the howling, pounding, and roaring engulfing our home, I prayed to the kind Almighty that my boy would continue sleeping, that He would wrap my child in His gentle arms against the violent outside. In that moment I was struck by the irony of my request: would the God who thunders, protect from the thunder.
It is a divine paradox: the One who unleashes wrath, is the One who shields us from it.
2 Peter 2:9 "...The Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials and to hold the unrighteous for punishment on the day of judgment."
The eyes that blaze against sin, gently thaw our stony hearts.
The hand that wipes out nations, also wipes away our tears.
The feet that tramp out judgment on the earth, walk beside us in every need.
The voice that thunders, also whispers.
What do we have to fear in the perfect, patient, gentle arms of God? Even as His just wrath destroys, His perfect salvation is indestructible.
It is a divine paradox: the One who unleashes wrath, is the One who shields us from it.
2 Peter 2:9 "...The Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials and to hold the unrighteous for punishment on the day of judgment."
The eyes that blaze against sin, gently thaw our stony hearts.
The hand that wipes out nations, also wipes away our tears.
The feet that tramp out judgment on the earth, walk beside us in every need.
The voice that thunders, also whispers.
What do we have to fear in the perfect, patient, gentle arms of God? Even as His just wrath destroys, His perfect salvation is indestructible.
Thursday, May 5, 2016
The kindness of His discipline
"For those whom the Lord loves He disciplines, and He scourges every son He receives...All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, after wards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness." Hebrews 12:6, 11
The latest secular "science" states that parents should never punish their children. No negative consequence should every be laid out, even in the face of outright rebellion. While I see many points worth arguing in this research, I believe the primary problem is a failure to see the steadfast and sacrificial love of firm discipline.
When filled with her own independent spirit my daughter rips her hand from my grasp, shrieks, "Me!" and darts across the street, she will face consequences. I can assure you they will be negative consequences. This is not because I am mean-spirited. It is not because I have a violent temper. I discipline my daughter because I value her precious life above her temporary happiness. I discipline because I am kind. I discipline because, despite how it hurts my heart to see her cry, I would sacrifice my own wants, needs, and desires for my daughter's benefit. A moment of sorrow now can evaporate a torrent of sadness lurking in the future.
When she chooses to be compassionate, patient, and brave, I applaud my daughter, heart near to bursting with love, with every positive and encouraging statement I know. But when she chooses to behave badly, I reprimand her with that same heart, the one that values her life with the deepest and most immovable affection.
How much more does the God of Ages, who poured out His precious blood for us, discipline us from a heart of steadfast and sacrificial love. God is not mean. He does not delight in our misery. He is kind.
Daniel chapter 4 recounts heavenly discipline on an earthly man. King Nebuchadnezzar looks out in pride and claims all the glory around him for his own. God sentences the greatest man on earth to eat grass like a cow and wander like a madman for seven years. Nothing negative in that. Upon acknowledgement of God and a heart revolutionized for worship and humility, God returns Nebuchadnezzar to dominion and blesses him even more than before.
Imagine if God did not intervene. Imagine the path this proud man walked and the dark destination to which it led. Years later another king ruled in pride. He refused to acknowledge God, and Belshazzar, rebellious and undisciplined, saw the writing on the wall. His life was required of him.
Do you see the grace of God to Nebuchadnezzar? His discipline though severe, brought about a crop of peace, virtue, and blessing. Is there anything more we want for our children? Is there anything more that God wants for His children. Peace. Virtue. Blessing. These are the gifts of discipline.
When you feel divine discipline on your life, remember the kindness of God. He blocks the destructive path with thorns. His grace is never more prevalent in the believer than when He is actively sanctifying us, changing us to resemble the righteousness He has already wrapped us in. Let us have joy in the trouble that corrects us. His scourging tears away the rotting flesh of our old self, to unleash the bold, faithful, and incorruptible disciple underneath. After all, "He is a good, good Father."
The latest secular "science" states that parents should never punish their children. No negative consequence should every be laid out, even in the face of outright rebellion. While I see many points worth arguing in this research, I believe the primary problem is a failure to see the steadfast and sacrificial love of firm discipline.
When filled with her own independent spirit my daughter rips her hand from my grasp, shrieks, "Me!" and darts across the street, she will face consequences. I can assure you they will be negative consequences. This is not because I am mean-spirited. It is not because I have a violent temper. I discipline my daughter because I value her precious life above her temporary happiness. I discipline because I am kind. I discipline because, despite how it hurts my heart to see her cry, I would sacrifice my own wants, needs, and desires for my daughter's benefit. A moment of sorrow now can evaporate a torrent of sadness lurking in the future.
When she chooses to be compassionate, patient, and brave, I applaud my daughter, heart near to bursting with love, with every positive and encouraging statement I know. But when she chooses to behave badly, I reprimand her with that same heart, the one that values her life with the deepest and most immovable affection.
How much more does the God of Ages, who poured out His precious blood for us, discipline us from a heart of steadfast and sacrificial love. God is not mean. He does not delight in our misery. He is kind.
Daniel chapter 4 recounts heavenly discipline on an earthly man. King Nebuchadnezzar looks out in pride and claims all the glory around him for his own. God sentences the greatest man on earth to eat grass like a cow and wander like a madman for seven years. Nothing negative in that. Upon acknowledgement of God and a heart revolutionized for worship and humility, God returns Nebuchadnezzar to dominion and blesses him even more than before.
Imagine if God did not intervene. Imagine the path this proud man walked and the dark destination to which it led. Years later another king ruled in pride. He refused to acknowledge God, and Belshazzar, rebellious and undisciplined, saw the writing on the wall. His life was required of him.
Do you see the grace of God to Nebuchadnezzar? His discipline though severe, brought about a crop of peace, virtue, and blessing. Is there anything more we want for our children? Is there anything more that God wants for His children. Peace. Virtue. Blessing. These are the gifts of discipline.
When you feel divine discipline on your life, remember the kindness of God. He blocks the destructive path with thorns. His grace is never more prevalent in the believer than when He is actively sanctifying us, changing us to resemble the righteousness He has already wrapped us in. Let us have joy in the trouble that corrects us. His scourging tears away the rotting flesh of our old self, to unleash the bold, faithful, and incorruptible disciple underneath. After all, "He is a good, good Father."
Sunday, May 1, 2016
When the worship clots in your throat
My husband came home from the ICU, showered, and drove us to church. On the way he shared a story about a boy now on the unit. In an instant everything can change. In one moment normal can be shattered, reality forever remade. If he lives, this boy will not walk again. Machines will breathe for him, eat for him, think for him.
And with that swirling in my consciousness, we entered a worship service. The songs today were:
"You are wonderful, You are Wonderful
Oh God, there is no one more Wonderful."
and
"It is well with my soul."
and
"Sing a new song
To Him who sits on
heaven's mercy seat."
When it comes to suffering, blame, and questioning I feel like God's champion. I believe without question because I have seen without fail that He is sovereign, good, and overflowing in grace. I have every answer to every question that demands "WHY!?" Salvation, faith, and hope forged in the fires, acids, and pressure of a dark world declare daily to my soul that it is well, that He is wonderful, that He always sits upon a seat of mercy.
But there is a boy in the hospital. And it was hard this morning not to choke on His praise.
Knowledge of God is all we have in a life that feels horribly unfair. When the torrent of emotion, and the flash flood of anger, and the waves of sentiment threaten to drown us; it is the knowledge of God that grows only stronger under our feet. Loving God has nothing to do with feeling love; it has everything to do with knowing Him. In knowledge we find trust. Who could doubt a God so good, so wise, so powerful, so concerned with me, and my children, and my church, and a boy who will not walk again? I don't feel like worshipping. But I know. And so I do.
"Though He slay me, yet I will trust Him." Job
And with that swirling in my consciousness, we entered a worship service. The songs today were:
"You are wonderful, You are Wonderful
Oh God, there is no one more Wonderful."
and
"It is well with my soul."
and
"Sing a new song
To Him who sits on
heaven's mercy seat."
When it comes to suffering, blame, and questioning I feel like God's champion. I believe without question because I have seen without fail that He is sovereign, good, and overflowing in grace. I have every answer to every question that demands "WHY!?" Salvation, faith, and hope forged in the fires, acids, and pressure of a dark world declare daily to my soul that it is well, that He is wonderful, that He always sits upon a seat of mercy.
But there is a boy in the hospital. And it was hard this morning not to choke on His praise.
Knowledge of God is all we have in a life that feels horribly unfair. When the torrent of emotion, and the flash flood of anger, and the waves of sentiment threaten to drown us; it is the knowledge of God that grows only stronger under our feet. Loving God has nothing to do with feeling love; it has everything to do with knowing Him. In knowledge we find trust. Who could doubt a God so good, so wise, so powerful, so concerned with me, and my children, and my church, and a boy who will not walk again? I don't feel like worshipping. But I know. And so I do.
"Though He slay me, yet I will trust Him." Job
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