The Winnings of Losing

“I can do it myself!” 

According to my dad, this was my first complete sentence.  I think most of us come into the world wanting this to be true.   Even now, decades later, I still fight the tendency to order my life in and around my very first statement. 

To be inadequate or needy is like defeat, and defeat stinks.  Nevertheless, the state of defeat has an essential purpose.  Bitter as it is, and as much as I’ve tried to avoid it, resignation of self-sufficiency has proven over and over to be the catalyst for spiritual fertility.  For me, Truth’s incubator has been personal defeat—the more seemingly permanent and complete, the better.

To keep me mindful of the understandings which have been quite costly to be grafted into, I’m writing them down (again).  It’s not that they fill me completely (though that is the hope), or that I’ve mastered them in any way (because I am not the conqueror); but being mindful of my incomplete nature and remembering surrenders’ fruits helps bring me back to the gateway of the eternal Reality which I desire to be ordered in and around now.  The following is some of what took root in me after accepting multilateral defeat:

  • I concluded that God was God and I was not. 
  • I was compelled to sincerely seek out the eternal good, and stop focusing on the “getting” of short-term goods.
  • Defeat made me willing to submit more holistically; and it fostered acquiescence—the place where God becomes able.
  • Defeat offered me the key to everything: humility.
  • It taught me how to hope and wait without an agenda.
  • It quelled the temptations to judge.
  • It united me with the crowd that Jesus sought after.
  • It created a more appropriate level of desperation for salvation—salvation from the flesh, not from the mere failure of it (our patient God usually waits for us to want who He is, and I began to see my despair as a gracious nudging toward knowing what to want).
  • I caught a glimpse of my multi-layered incompleteness once I saw through the façade of my physical reality.  For example, I cannot discern the will of God, I cannot do the will of God, I cannot offer the benefits of the will of God, I cannot be saved unto God… without God.

This is the beginning.  It’s a good start, though I remain subject to derailment at every turn.  These are the things that I learned once; now, for the diligent practicing of it all. 

We weren’t intended to “do it ourselves”.  If we are truly blessed, then this truth is a relief to us, not a threat.  In times of unknowing, or hopelessness, or loss, or endless waiting: be encouraged—we’re moving closer to the Truth.  Defeat enables us to be grafted further into the Truth, and the Truth gives us much more than whatever we’ve lost along the way.

Safety In Numbers

Don’t count the number of people on the contact list.  Don’t count blog readership.  Don’t count the number of clients in the wings.  Don’t count the number of people in the group.  Don’t count the money.  Don’t count the days left of misery or goodness.  Don’t count the number of times of being right, or the times of having been wronged; or the list of attributes or failures. 

 

Don’t count these things as if to establish the flesh, or console the mind. 

 

We were never in danger when numbers were low, and were never secure just because they were high.

 

Instead, count on the provisions of God.  Depend on His comfort, His grace, His love and His power.  Bet on God’s plan to manifest His goodness throughout creation.  Be certain that His corporate purpose is also uniquely perfect for each one of us.

 

The safety we look for in finite numbers will be granted eternally if sought for in God.

If Sin is Sin…

We’ve heard it before, the idea that “sin is sin”, but it’s quite counter-cultural not to rank-and-file an action or thought.  Unaccustomed to God’s infinite perspective, it isn’t natural for us to see sin as merely a single, level dimension.

1 John 5:17 says “All wrongdoing is sin”, though it is plain to see in this world that some sins have worse consequences, and some are more destructive.  But all sin condemns.  It is the evidence of a shortsighted mindset.  It is the byproduct of eyes which are not on God.  It is the fruit of being born of flesh.  It is everything we do and the reason we do it when our head is turned. 

We were born with a turned head.  It’s a genetic trait which we inherited from our first earthly father.  Our nature begins minded of the flesh.  Romans 8:8 “Those who are in the flesh cannot please God”.  Nothing we do from this restricted vantage point yields any delight from God.  We are born a slave to the finite, and all deeds which serve this master can be no more fruitful than digging our own grave. 

Sin is sin, or as Forest Gump might say, “Sin is as sin does”.  It covers the eyes, it deadens the nerves, dulls the mind, and shuts the soul.  It reinforces the misdirected gaze.  Even sin’s ripples are expectant with destruction, and are opportunity for more sin.  It is done out of greed or impatience as I seek to indulge my human desire for temporal goodness.   

Once I make a decision to live for an eternal reality, I become transformed.  I no longer choose myself as my means and end.  Not only do I face a new, eternal direction, but that eternal power comes to “BE” in me, and the thoughts and deeds that occur in me as I live in that reality are of an eternal source, for an eternal source.  I am gifted a new nature, but I still have the freedom to choose whether or not I will live according to it. 

Old habits die hard, but I have no good reason to dwell in my old nature, or my confessed sin.  To take back my old ways and reassume my old actions is likely a sign of distrust, or a lack of understanding.  It reveals my delusional egotism, impatience, my inclination for ruin, and lack of belief in God’s power of renewal, and God’s sufficiency. 

I John 3:9 suggests that those who are born of God “cannot sin”.  The commentaries seem to hem and haw over this one.  There’s a backpedaling to try to explain the obvious-seeming inaccuracy.  They suggest this is hypothetical, or speaking of a general practice of not sinning, or of an idea that not sinning might be our goal.  Maybe all of this is true.  “Cannot sin”?  But I sin moment by moment!  Might this mean that I must choose to live “born of God” moment by moment? 

Anyway, one day as I was dusting and vacuuming and toilet scrubbing, strangely content (for a moment) with the idea of servant work being the height of my grand purpose, I contemplated the following:

If sin is sin, then good is good. 

It might not be a new or revolutionary concept, but culture certainly doesn’t reinforce this.  By “good” I mean whatever it is that results from being born of God—that state of being which pleases God.  Is this a dimension where cooking a meal for someone yields the same decibel level of stadium-style angelic shouts as a person donating millions of dollars to help fight human sex trafficking?  With our eyes fixed solely on God, isn’t there only, simply, good?  When a person chooses to forgive an enemy, or extend grace to the lost neighbor boy and his very lost mother—is that decision celebrated every bit as victoriously as when a group of people unite in compassion to feed a starving village?  Or a starving country?

It’s true; God does make some delineations with regards to the principles of being born of God.  For example, Matthew 22:37 says the first and greatest commandment is to love the Lord.  When it comes to celebrations, heaven rejoices more over repentance than righteousness (Luke 15:7).  In I Corinthians 13 we learn that the greatest gift to possess, above faith and hope, is love.  In I Corinthians 14:1 we see that some spiritual gifts are more desirable based on their potential to be more edifying to a body of believers.  But, if we are in Christ and of these ways and gifted in whichever ways God sees fit, is there one better way than another for this to manifest?

The Bible seems to reference “good works”, “fruit” and “good deeds” without specifying which produce, or are of, a more loved or more spiritual person.  For example, if out of love for Christ, a person helps out at church, and another offers to watch a friend’s children for a few hours, it’s all good!  Participate in benefit concerts, affirm your spouse, or offer a listening ear to a friend at work… all good!  Give, receive, rest, work, prayer, study—yes, yes, yes!  There is only that which does not please God (anything which stems from the flesh); and that which pleases God (all fruit born of His vine).  When we are in Christ, there are no classifications or magic percentage of good works to achieve throughout the day, and no higher or lesser sanctioned venue to operate within.  A good deed done according to each one’s ability, done from love for Christ, is a good deed. 

We know good works don’t save; they are just indicators of a righteous heart.  We act like they save, though, when we wonder whether our good is good enough, or when we act as if to outdo someone else.  These doubts and misunderstandings have us running around as if we’re trying to fulfill a quota, or fumbling over ourselves to figure out exactly which good we’re supposed to do. 

Which good were we specifically designed to do?  Which is God’s will for us?  How much good should we do?  We should first consider the idea in 2 Timothy 3:17, being that the end goal—that state of perfection—is to be fully equipped to do all good works, or that we would “bear fruit in every good work” as it says in Colossians 1:10.  Far be it for God to limit Himself in us.   

Through Him, we are able to generously have and give love, grace, joy, peace, wisdom, discernment, forgiveness, and more.  We are enabled to trust, obey, pursue, be humble, have faith, and do all of this even just inside our normal daily activities.  Are these not some of the essences of God’s goodness which are seeded within all good deeds, no matter the composition of the deed?

In Christ, there is no scarcity, deficiency, or fallibility for the good deed at hand.  And there is no missing out or losing out by doing good as opposed to doing something else.  There is flesh in the way, or disrespect toward God when I wonder if my good is good enough.  It never is me making goodness, it is Christ in me.  And we are either in Christ or we are not.  And when we are in Christ, we are equipped with Christ Himself so that in abiding in Him, we are good in His eyes before we even do a single thing.  Then, as we seek to love God first (not the deed), we are in the right posture to let our calendars begin to evolve—to empty or fill—according to our unique abilities and resources, and the hopes of our new nature. 

Now let’s just say (and this is completely hypothetical, of course), but let’s pretend, that between writing the last paragraph and this, I snapped at my husband and disciplined my girls from a completely unloving disposition.  What’s more, (let’s say that) as I write, I’m mostly just fantasizing about lots of people liking me for my wit.  Clearly, this is evidence that my heart is not turned toward Christ.  I am of the flesh!  I have aligned myself with my old nature, yet I’m sitting here trying to crank out some “good”.  Can there be any hope for this essay?  Can these words be pleasing to Him?  Can God use this for His ultimate good, even though I waffle in and out of abiding in Him? 

Here’s a working theory: God can inhabit whatever he wants to inhabit.  God can breathe purpose and meaning into dirt, or bad decisions, or stale deeds, or a lifeless grouping of words.  He works for the good in me—even in my moments of disloyalty!  “I have equipped you for battle, though you don’t even know me”, Isaiah 45:5.  He can inhabit hell if He wants to.  He empowers me to make good fruit, but He can also take my rotten fruit and make it good for someone else, and good as well for that part of me that is born of God.

God is good.  He creates goodness, and He has created us to do good things.  And in the act of doing good we reap more goodness!  Our good deeds can actually yield nourishment for us.  His desires for us are good.  Even when we are acting outside of God, He, like a loving parent, chases down our misguided measures and shortcomings, and grave-digging deeds, and recreates them into something good in hopes that it might turn us back to Him, so that we might know true goodness. 

These are thoughts that fill me with humility and awe and gratitude, when I consider how intentional and active God is.  It’s true, some good deeds affect a larger population, or may appear more sensational, but all good is evidence of righteousness—God’s righteousness.  God’s goodness opens the eyes, awakens the mind and rescues the soul.  Doing His good work reinforces a right direction.  They are byproducts of being born of God.  They are evidence of an eternal mindset, and are proof of God’s restoration and abundant provision.  When we are slaves of the eternal One, everything we do in His kingdom is life-giving.

Sin is sin, but God is good.

Dedication Day

The big, dreaded, highly anticipated, inevitable day finally came: Dedication Day.  Speaking just for myself, I confess to having dragged my feet.  I hemmed and hawed for years, claiming a bad season, or that a formal ritual was unnecessary.  But like a dart to the wall, the date for Gigi’s and Gabi’s Dedication Day was thrown toward the calendar, and it landed on Sunday the 20th.  I think we were waiting until the joy and hope in anticipation of the occasion outweighed the fear and anxiety.  Why so nervous?  Because we knew exactly what we were doing.  To dedicate something is to offer it completely.  Seven years ago we had a small dedication ceremony in a hospital room, once for Ava, and then again for Bella.  We offered them both to God, and God took them.

This past Sunday, as the pastor talked about the history of dedications and intent of the ceremony, and as he held Gigi’s and Gabi’s hands, and prayed for us, there was an inaudible creaking sound echoing inside the church building.  It was my heart prying open, releasing, surrendering my most precious gifts.  It wasn’t the first time I’d made a conscious choice to relinquish Gigi and Gabi from my fateful grasp, and it certainly won’t be the last; but we did it once again on Sunday.  We symbolically unclenched our fingers from Gigi and Gabi, and offered them to something bigger and better than our own end.  God gets them.  He gets all of them to the extent which one person can give another person to God. 

This ceremony did not alter their destination.  Things like this don’t increase their odds for earthly success, or cast a safety bubble around them.  No, this day was an outward sign of our commitment to bring ourselves and our responsibilities and gifts under the governance and nurture of God.  With our friends and family standing alongside us Sunday and everyday, we will continue to make a lifestyle of learning to align all that we are, with reality of who God is. 

So actually, this day was more for Lance and me than the girls.  I know from personal experience that anything I am unwilling to surrender has the potential to become my god—more swaying and influential to me than the God.  While the young lives entrusted to us might be our highest earthly motivation or possession or occupation, they are not God.  So to keep things in proper alignment, we gave God Gigi and Gabi. 

As each new season creates new legitimate reasons to bring Gigi and Gabi back under a me-centered agenda, or into supposed safer arms, I must aspire to reach the same state of submission I had on Dedication Day.  The public declaration of this offering helps keep me accountable to this commitment. 

In my state of submission, I can have peace knowing that even if my girls should walk through the shadow of death, or into death itself, or if they endure insults, or aren’t invited to a birthday party, or got the wrong teacher, or ended up on the losing team, I ought not to fear.  I know that nothing—neither private nor public education, nor big or small house, nor competitive or rec league or no league, ability or disability, justice or injustice, achievement or failure, native or foreign land, six figure earnings or bankruptcy, nor sickness or health, can keep Gigi and Gabi outside of God’s perfecting love, because God is powerful enough to make all things work for the good of those who surrender to Him.  In God’s reality, even my child’s defiance can work toward the good of the surrendered me, which is the only appropriate state for me, especially if I am hoping for a surrendered them.  Should I burden Gigi and Gabi (or myself) with any ultimate hope other than their own surrender to God so that they might be made whole and complete? 

Inattentive and defiant as children are, my children are still my captive audience and willing participants.  I get to help them unlock the riddles of the ancient scriptures by living inside their truths today.  I get to train them how to seek God by doing it myself.  I get to demonstrate how to love and teach them how to think.  I get to show Gigi and Gabi how I face my fears, which are things like harm to their flesh and soul, so that they can learn to face their own fears, which are currently the thunderous, automatic flushing toilets at Whole Foods…

For all of us parents, may we be granted discernment.  May we speak in truths, discipline in patience, teach in wisdom, and do all of this in love, lest we be merely a noisy gong.  May we generously shower them with the fruits of the Spirit, and above all, seek God’s Kingdom so that we have the fruits of the Spirit to give.

I prayed for two children, and then two children more, and God answered my prayer.  So what I was forced to do twice before, I willingly did twice again, for I know that there is no real future for anything which hasn’t been entrusted to Jesus.  I know that the reckless self-defeat to Christ produces the sustaining order, and the grace and peace which I crave.  I know that sacrifice unleashes possibility, and that the point of submission is the birthplace of real hope.  I’ve seen for my own self what God can create, even from a most hopeless state, and so it is with exceeding joy and gratitude and assuredness that I dedicate Gigi and Gabi. 

Gigi and Gabi, dedication day was for you, too.  Out of love comes the courage to give completely, so that you may be loved completely.  I can’t help but hope that in our giving, you will find the same love we’ve found.

I know the right way to live.  God, give me the discipline to live rightly everyday.  And at the end of everyday, may I have the humility to say “Whatever He gives me in return is good enough for me”.  Amen!

Me Demons

Beware of “Me” demons, magnetic and clingy

Contagious, burgeoning, justified and sneaky

They smother the truth and obscure it with sin

And cover the place where light likes to come in

They press into sadness and go undeterred

In the doubt and entitlement shaping our world

They posture and grandstand, and all it will do

Is turn up the noise of your “Me” demons, too

That thing that I’m good at, that gift I’ve been given

They let it sustain me, by it I am driven

Oh, they’ll find a way to make self-satisfaction

My number one, central, enslaving attraction

They bother me so! Should I keep them inside

Where the other temptations and selfish thoughts hide?

Perhaps I confess my thoughts to another?

And expose the places where these demons hover?

But I’m drowning in kids, I’m busy this season

Now, what was I doing? And what was my reason?

My focus, so finite, each new start, derailed

And my, what a marvelous color on my nails

The solution that says “Just do X, Y, and Z”

Tells me I rescue, I save, yes, me me me me

The time that is wasted, the life that is lost

They try to convince me “It’s no real great cost”

There is hope for sure (though hope’s tempting to hate)

If we humbly offload our agendas and wait

O, wretched demons!  I long to be free

But I’m caught up by wonder and worry for Me

The Enthusiast: Comparing the Quests of the Wine Lover and the Kingdom Seeker

There’s a story I think about when we visit the Napa and Sonoma valleys:  It’s the one that goes “Once upon a time… There was an evil king who set out to be the wisest, most powerful, most ruthless and feared dictator in the land.  Since he saw no possibility of improving himself, the king determined he would decrease the intelligence of his people, thereby achieving the disconnected, higher platform he sought for himself.  Interestingly, his strategy involved removing words from the people’s vocabulary.  If they couldn’t speak or express themselves, then perhaps they would become unable to feel or assess—in time, maybe they wouldn’t even be able to think!

I don’t remember where I heard the story, but it became applicable five years ago, when Lance and I took a weekend-long “sensory analysis” wine class at the Culinary Institute in St. Helena.  That weekend, we spent the first day of class categorizing the color, clarity and smell of wines.  The next day we tasted (and spit—we signed a statement that we would not consume) wines and ranked them in order of their acidity and classified another group for sweetness.  We arranged reds from least to most tannic.  We even learned how to identify wine defects by tasting flawed wines; for example, wines with a hint of sulfur or Bactine were likely a victim of improper winemaking or wine storing.  We tasted the difference between vegetal and grassy.  If a wine was fruity, what kind of fruit—stone fruits, citrus, berry, melon, tropical?  We picked our favorite wines without using the inappropriately dominant sense of sight—a sense we use mostly for label-reading.  We were given a “Wine Wheel” which listed hundreds of possible wine descriptors grouped by categories such as floral, animal, spice, household, etc.  All in all, being armed with this new vocabulary and newly refined (and newly discovered!) senses enabled us to experience wine tasting on a new level.

In the fall of last year, for our fifteenth wedding anniversary, Lance and I were gifted five days alone together in the Sonoma Valley.  I wasn’t sure how I’d handle all of this free time, so I brought my smart book, my dumb book, my journal and a magazine.  There was a threat of rain, but I didn’t care.  We didn’t have much spending money, but I didn’t care.  We arrived in the late evening after many delays, which I was tempted to care about, but the delays became nothing to care about once we were officially on vacation.  I looked down at the clean floor of the hotel room which would still be clean when I woke up the next morning.  I arranged my toiletries into a delightful vignette, and quickly assumed a horizontal position in front of the TV.  It was just me, Ina (Garten—Food Network), a heaping spoonful of Nutella, and Lance in the other room mumbling something about how none of my fantasies ever seem to involve him…

During a commercial break, I glanced at the local map of wineries and considered several options for the next day, including ditching it all for a trip to the beach.  Nowadays, we find no triumph in experiencing someone else’s itinerary of perfection.  With much practice, we’ve refined our skill of enjoyment to include any number of scenarios.  I don’t need perfect weather, I don’t need Robert Parker to tell me where to go, and I don’t even need to own everything I like along the way.  Tomorrow would be a good day, because it had no real threats.

There are roughly two types of wine tasters in the world: those who want to accomplish, and those who want to experience.  When we were new to the wine world, we were accomplishers.  We went places and did things other people told us to do because we didn’t know how to choose for ourselves, and we were fearful of a failed encounter (and having to pay for it).  Satisfaction was derived merely from crossing a winery off the list.  We had no sense of our own likes and dislikes.  We didn’t have the faculties or confidence to determine “goodness” for our own selves. 

Alright, so what’s my point in all this, besides being able to brag about having taken a wine class at the Culinary Institute?  I guess, somewhere between the evil king story, the wine class, and our most recent wine tasting getaway, I realized how many parallels there are between a wine enthusiast and a person seeking the Kingdom of God. 

The enthusiast’s arena is anywhere he or she is willing to participate.  Wine enthusiasts know that great wine is not limited to any specific type of grape, pedigree, country, terroir, tasting room, media, distributor, personality, or price point.  Great wine itself (which is just one piece in the gestalt of the tasting experience) is dependent on the winemaker having followed really, only a few fundamentals: 1) They must have an understanding of the laws of nature in order to work with them, and 2) They must devote themselves to the practice of what they learn.  The first begets the second, and the second compels a deeper study of the first. 

The wine tasting “accomplisher” is always in danger of having a false sense of fulfillment or defeat.  Not yet knowing any differently, accomplishers journey toward the same fulfillment we all crave, by way of appeasing the ego.  Nothing could be more suffocating to the spirit!  An accomplisher mindset breeds restlessness and rigidity.  A “speed before accuracy” approach is often observed.  It’s true, this was my skiing slogan, and my tennis serves still align with this method, but one cannot serve in the Kingdom of Heaven with this mindset.  In fact, it will cause harm, both to the Kingdom seeker and the wine enthusiast!

The “experiencer” journeys toward fulfillment by pushing the preconceptions and ego aside in order to make room to assess what truly is.  

For the enthusiast who seeks experience, the goal is not to reach an end, because there is no destination, except to journey more.  Is there such a thing as a wine enthusiast who ceases their quest upon the completion of a certain goal?  (Somewhere I just heard a Frenchman spit).  They quest because it is a lifestyle, and it does not get derailed by setbacks or victories.  To stop would be to say that they’ve experienced finality in one way or another.  But isn’t it possible that there is enough of God to make life as we know it, and our ability to live it, immeasurably better than wherever we are right now?  Christianity has been called a “race” and a journey.  If it wasn’t so, Satan would stop tempting us once we became believers.  Fortunately, a mere profession of our belief in Jesus is far from the infinite destination which God has planned for us. 

Because a finite mentality yields finite conclusions, I wonder if we’ve strategized our way to accomplishing nothing.  On the culturally acceptable path for seeking the Kingdom of God, it seems we’ve whittled away our vocabulary and the use of our faculties such that we only look for God in one or two places, and only express our understanding of Him in ways which were scripted by someone else, or determine His goodness based on undeveloped assessment skills.  Does an unused ability to express what “is”, dull our gifts of being able to assess it?  Or perhaps even diminish our spectrum of being able to experience it?

What would it be like to seek God with all of our heart—that forsaken, atrophied muscle?  Or with our soul—what does that even mean?  Our ability to understand the Kingdom requires using all of the faculties we’ve been given in order to experience life more fully; faculties like intuition, which some may write off as wishy-washy, exclusive giftings, wholly unreliable, or perhaps the devil himself.  With practice, comes the courage to employ more appropriate senses, as well as the confidence to determine “goodness” for our own selves. 

At some point, the quest for the Kingdom of God must become our own search.  At some point, we need to seek it with everything we are, because the Kingdom is designed to be indwelled by us personally, and to dwell within us completely.  It is intended to be experienced by us first hand, and we are designed to express it.  The fact that “Jesus loves me this I know” should come from a deeper knowledge than just “for the Bible tells me so”.  The Kingdom was not designed merely to be read about, or only to be studied from a book, or to observe in someone else, or to reach finally when we leave earth.  When we seek the Kingdom of God, we come to discover that it is personal, present, and exquisite.  It is nourishment to for the hearty appetite of the soul.

There comes a time to experience for ourselves grace, restoration, and our own end.  Participation in the tasting experience and all of the risk therein, enables God to develop our ability to discern, recall, live in and seek God’s Kingdom more accurately.  So what would be a risky new experience for you?  Praying?  Trusting?  Resting?  Confessing?  Ministering?  Repenting?  Retreating?  Asking questions?  Asking for help?  Oh, so many tasting opportunities!  All of which might present themselves as torture for the undeveloped palette.  But do you know what will actually happen if you engage in one of these experiences?  Taste and see for yourself!

Dear Ava

I thought of you today.  You would have just turned seven. 

Right before you and your sister were born, God said to me “Get ready to see something wonderful”.  But do you know what I saw when I looked at you?  Disease.  Injustice.  Hopelessness.  Anguish.  Uncertainty.  Fear.  Insecurity.  Pain.  Zero chance of survival.

Yet, there was God alongside me in this turmoil—exuberant; jumping up and down in a triumphant celebration.  This was part of why I was so angry at Him!  His joy was so disrespectful to my reality!  He was actually giddy at the thought of you coming into the world, but it seemed to me like such an act of cruelty to create something that would only suffer.

You were a thrill for Him to bring to life.  It never gets old for God.  You were waited for with eager anticipation.  He held His breath in the excitement of revealing you to the world.  I’m sure He was aware of the things my eyes saw, but they were no threat to Him.  Nothing is a threat to Him—not age, nor disease, nor statistics, nor sin, nor poverty, nor grief, nor our constant failure, not even death.  Nothing can prevent us from being alive in His mighty love, which hasn’t decreased for us a bit since the day we were born.

My eyesight is changing.  I’m starting to see what He saw when He created you.  In fact, I’m beginning to see it underneath all of our doomed flesh:  Opportunity.  Hope.  Power.  Love.  A stage for victory.  A place to receive joy.  A display of beauty, grace, and truth.  A reason to jump up and down.  Purposeful, vibrant, undefeatable life.  I am finally seeing that “something wonderful” He promised when He created you. 

Are you great in the kingdom of heaven?  I found the way to where you live.  You helped me find it.  You left behind everything I thought you would need.  I’m learning how to do that, too.

You still “are”, and that gives me joy. 

I love you,

Mama

Break!

Break from your burdens. 

Break from flaws, shortcomings, defects, imperfections, and disappointments.   

Break away from current understandings and misunderstandings.

Break free from the suffocation of common decencies. 

Break stubbornness. 

Break out from the comfort of ignorance.

Break from doubt, defeat, the human pace, and fear.

Break through the lies which shape urgent needs.

Break the focus on insufficiency, or the pride of sufficiency. 

Break out from under the layers of protection, because they are really layers of prevention.

Claim brokenness.  Strive for brokenness.  Accept brokenness.  It’s the only way to see beyond the present senses and into the true reality.

Break!  It only looks scary to the human eyes.  It’s only a threat to the things that were powerless anyway.  It is only foolishness according to the things that won’t last.  It is only painful for the things that aren’t eternally useful.

Break!  Because we weren’t designed to carry the weight and consequence of separation.

Break!  Because when everything begins to break, we discover the only thing which cannot break.

Break!  Because the voice from our wilderness will teach that the prepared way of the Lord is a street of rubble—and He will only be triumphant in the hearts who cry out “Save us!”

Break!  For He finds His way in through the holes of our wounds; and His eternity fills our piercings.

Break!  Because His light shines through the cracks of our brokenness.  So break in as many places as possible. 

Break until there is nothing left to break.

Sacrificing Isaac

It made no sense.  God had promised him more descendants than there were stars in the night sky, yet this promise seemed to have expired.  So, at the suggestion of Abraham’s wife, Abraham attempted to assist God in bringing this plan to fruition.  But God needed no assistance.  In His own time, God gave Abraham one miraculously conceived descendant to mark the beginning of God’s promise of the abundant lives to come; yet now, God was asking that this one and only hope be sacrificed. 

As we know from the story, Abraham was obedient and willing to surrender Isaac, even though God’s demand defied all worldly logic in light of His promise.

God asks us for our most precious things.  Do you know this God?  Do you follow God and accept this?  Or do you follow God except for this?  With good reason, many have worshipped God with fear and trembling, because they know of the ruthlessness, tenacity, and jealousness of God.  And it is better to worship God cowering in fear of this, than to close our eyes to this part of who He is. 

Those who follow God except for His call to surrender are perhaps trying to earn their Isaac, or are busy proving that their Isaac ought not be taken from them, perhaps because all they really want is Isaac. 

Those who follow God in acceptance of His high demands know that this is often the only way a good God gets a stubborn, self-centered, self-dependent people to keep their eyes on Him.  Maybe, they follow because they have tasted the fruits of sacrifice.

Sometimes we are tempted to assist God with the fulfillment of His promises, but God needs no assistance.  He needs no specific thing, or circumstance, or person to fulfill His promises—only our surrender and obedience.  Consequently, we too, need no thing, no circumstance, and no person to experience the fulfillment of God’s promises for us—only surrender and obedience.

Sometimes we have to sacrifice that which we think we need most in order for God’s plan to come to fruition.  If we are truly seeking God, then our one and only necessity is God. 

Sometimes God blesses our sacrifice and then gives it back to us.  Sometimes He breathes life into the new space within us.  Sometimes God takes Isaac without asking us first, and waits for us to realize the only real response: surrender.  Sometimes He transforms a sacrifice into something else entirely.

There is another story similar to this in history—one with an even more extraordinary conception.  As we read the Christ-as-man story, we see that Jesus’ only focus, His only will, was God.  He modeled the life of surrender and obedience, serving as a conduit rather than an assistant to God.  He was to be the one and only hope of a people who desperately needed a leader.  He was promised to be a greater king than David.  So imagine the thoughts of His disciples on the day Jesus let himself be killed.  He offered Himself to God’s higher plan even before his followers had any real understanding of His kingdom.  It was a despairing moment which defied all earthly wisdom.  It made no sense.  And yet today, in place of this sacrifice, we are offered eternal life.

Lent: Mourning our Plight

The Lenten season can often magnify the plight of our human nature: strive, fail, guilt, repeat. 

I had the audacity to attempt to fast from “avoidance” this year.  At first, I thought the idea was incredibly godly, but now I’m thinking it was born of youthful ignorance and cockiness.  I set out to refrain from using or doing all things which drew me away from the true purpose of each present moment.  I thought I had the upper-hand going into this, since I was already fairly certain that the purpose of every moment is to yield submissively to God.  However, the actual act of disallowing my unyielding nature to meddle in this striving for perfect submission was essentially an attempt to fast from all sin—only I didn’t realize it until I tried it. 

I would stand in my ready position as each moment came at me.  I tried to meditate on the purpose of the present and my intent of submission, but I had no attention span for this kind of constant awareness.  I tried to determine my appropriate outward responses in light of a submissive mindset, but found that I suddenly had no discernment whatsoever.  Analysis paralysis was all I had to show for my practice.  The “tug” was tangible—in this moment, was that God wanting me to act, and Satan sabotaging my will?  Or was it Satan wanting to distract me, and God pulling me back?  Without discernment, I relied on my “oughts and shoulds” to dictate my actions, and fell into a depression-like state of fatigue.  Or maybe it was my allergies?  Or the kid’s fifth round of fighting before breakfast?  Discernment!  Come baaaaaaaack!

I grew tired from the striving, and heavy in my failure, and hopeless in the knowledge that humanness was looming in each next moment.  I was doomed to guilt, and guilt doomed me to start the same process over again.  Cease all sin?  By noon, on the second day of Lent, this discipline caused an all-system shut-down.  Jumbled fragments came out of my mouth, I walked in circles, coiled springs popped out of my ears…  Perhaps I should have selected something less ambitious, like fasting from calories for 40 days. 

Christ suffered when He became like us, and we suffer as we become like Him.  There is such an impossible chasm between us and God!  How gracious of God that He should sustain us at all as we live according to our old nature!  We are so wrought with sin, we can’t even see it against the backdrop of more sin.  How gracious is His patience with us!  How gracious is He to become our strength as we strive to be in His presence.  How gracious is His love which saves us from the bond of failure, and frees us from the weight of its guilt.

As we approach the day that stands for triumph and salvation from our failing nature, we also have to approach the reality of our need for that salvation.  As says my husband Lance, in order for us to accept restoration we have to first accept that we are broken.  

So for all you fellow guilt-ridden friends who have failed, blessed are you who mourn.  Perhaps it means you are seeing the true reflection of your brokenness.  It might mean you are experiencing the doom of imperfect nature.  If you have tasted the goodness of the kingdom of heaven, then maybe you are remorseful of the diversions you have entertained, and the moments wasted, and the interruption of life that occurs when broken off from God’s reality. 

Blessed are you who mourn the ways which have kept you apart from God, for He turns the sadness for your brokenness into gratitude for your present salvation.  Blessed are you who mourn the truth of who you are apart from God, for he will transform your inadequacies into perfection as you dwell in His presence.  If you are seeking the presence of God because you mourn the plight of our human nature, then blessed are you, for you will be comforted.

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