Category Archives: scripture

Displaced

Leave a reply

Confession: I spent a few weeks avoiding dropping off gifts for three families I love. The members of our small church each sponsored various family members from three Afghan families we have come to know and love. The gifts collected in a corner of my bedroom while guilt collected in the corners of my heart.

When our displaced friends first arrived about a year or so ago, it was easier to prioritize setting aside longer periods of time to visit with them or serve them. The urgency was felt on all sides as news reports continually reminded me of the trying circumstances that led them to flee. Their needs were obvious: They needed food; they needed apartments; they needed beds; they needed shots; they needed to get into schools.

A year later, the news has largely moved on. Our families are more settled. They know bus routes and have licenses. They have rugs on their floor. Their children are in school and learning the language well. But they are still displaced.

Displaced

Displaced.
Dislocated.
Shuffled.
Temporarily housed in a tent.
Relocated.
Placed.
Housed but still not home.
I haven’t moved, but your courage moves me.

Now that their physical needs are largely met, it is actually harder for me to see them still experiencing homesickness and the lingering effects of having left everything they knew. Their needs are more relational. They need time. And, as I am realizing, my heart is quicker to buy clothes than to sit for conversation. It costs emotional energy to listen to their stories of trauma which are often redundant because healing requires repetition. To love their kids often means time away from my own. Thus, my avoidance during this busy holiday season.

Delivering gifts to two families and attending the zoo with another in the past few days, I am freshly reminded of God’s command to his people in Deuteronomy 10. Before Moses reminds his people of a list of significant commands (the imperative), he spends time reminding them of the very nature of their God and all he has done on their behalf (the indicative).

“Behold, to the Lord your God belong heaven and the heaven of heavens, the earth with all that is in it. Yet the Lord set his heart in love on your fathers and chose their offspring after them, you above all peoples, as you are this day…He executes justice for the fatherless and the widow, and loves the sojourner, giving him food and clothing. Love the sojourner, therefore, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt” (Deut. 10: 14-15 & 18).

While I have read these verses many times, the Spirit made the word love stand out in technicolor this time. God does not call us to merely serve the sojourner. Rather, he invites us to love the stranger. The service flows from the love. The offering of clothes and food is a natural outpouring when we love people. But love goes beyond the offering of such things. Love offers the self.

The only way I will ever do this in a sustained way is by remembering God’s love for me when I was displaced – without hope and without God in this world (Eph. 2:12-13). God set his love on me and attached himself to my cause not on the basis of any merit in me. He did not do that for a moment and then move on. He continually sets his love on me and attaches himself to my cause. And he asks me to model my love for others on his love for me.

His love for me is costly. It is patient. It is time-consuming. It enters into my messes. It perseveres. It does not simply leave a provision at the doorstep and proceed to peace out. It offers presence. It keeps showing up.

I have so much to learn from my displaced friends. They remind that me that my ultimate home is not a place, but a person: the person of Jesus Christ.

Lord, help me to love those who are displaced in my life the way you have loved me. In a year in which 103 million people have been displaced by war, persecution, climate crises, and other unthinkable realities, may you attach each individual to one of your people as you attached your love to us. May your body live out the love that we have received in sacrificial ways. May those we love connect acts of mercy and justice to the God of all mercy and justice. May they find their permanent place in you. Amen.



One Dollar More

Leave a reply

Supposedly, John D. Rockefeller, the oil tycoon often considered one of the wealthiest Americans of all time, when asked what would make him happy, answered, “One dollar more.”

My husband and I live on the generosity of the supporters of the Campus Ministry that employs us. I love thrift stores and we try (try being the operative word) to keep to a tight grocery budget. At first glance, we are a far cry from the Rockefeller lifestyle; however, my heart is infected with the same sickness that seems to have plagued him.

While I don’t find myself clinging to the next dollar, I do find myself clinging to and hanging my hope upon the next article I write, the next exciting adventure or the next way to be more organized.  For my kids, it can look like one more Lego set, one more goal, or one more Starburst.

neonbrand-258972

Just one more.
For some it may be one more pound lost or one more sports car. For others, it may be one more child or one more promotion. For others, it might be one more compliment or five more minutes of fame. While it manifests in the widest spectrum of symptoms, the disease distempers each of us who inhabit this spinning rock.  At some point after achieving that achievement or possessing that possession or reaching that milestone, we find ourselves creating a new one more to add to the ceaseless series.

If only I could be more.
As we approach New Year’s resolution season, my case of the Just One Mores tends to become exacerbated and is joined by an acute case of the “If only I could be more…” If only I could be more disciplined, I could lose those extra inches. If only I could be more laid back, our household would be more light-hearted. If I only I could be more consistent, my walk with God would more closely mirror Mother Theresa’s.  If only I could be better at keeping in touch, I could be a better daughter and friend.

In theory, I love the fresh slate of an approaching new year; however, in practice, I find the turn of the calendar paralyzing on account of the Just One Mores and the If Only I Could Be Mores.

Antidotes.
As I come into the home stretch of 2017 and stare into 365 days of an unknown and unknowable 2018, I want to hang my hope and happiness, my security and success on the all-knowing God is who eminently knowable.  In His revealed Word and the fullest revelation of Himself in the person of Christ, I find the antidote to my sin-sickness.

But godliness with contentment is great gain, for we brought nothing into the world, and we cannot take anything out of the world. But if we have food and clothing, with these we will be content.  1 Timothy 6:6-8. 

Physical food and actual clothing, yes. But we have an eternal food and clothing completely provided for us by the person of Christ.

When Christ was on the earth, He gave us hints into the secret of His contentment with his early career of carpentry and his second career as an itinerant preacher.

Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work. John 4:32. 

Through Christ, we are given the righteous robes that cover our ragged attempts at self-righteousness and self-improvement.  In Christ, we are given the opportunity to make God’s will and ways our bread.

In Christ, we have food and clothing and the antidote to our cases of One Mores and If Only I Could Be Mores.

As we look to a new year, we trust not in our own efforts or strength, but in the completed work of the Risen and Resurrected Christ.

Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all we ask or think, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen. Ephesians 3:20-21. 

One More can become One More Chance to lean on the God who can do far more than I could ever dream or plan.

The King Tide & The King of Tides

Leave a reply

In the midst of the holiday season, there is an event that has become its own quiet holiday in my heart: the king tide.

Once a year, the sun and moon align perfectly, thus combining their gravitational pull on the tides. The king tide is the pairing of the highest and lowest tides of the entire year. For the past five or six years, I have looked forward to this tide like a child looks forward to Christmas.

In the quiet, salty air, you get to poke around to see what happens all the time in the tide pools beyond our gaze. There are whole worlds down there in small crevices that the Lord constantly sees and enjoys but we get to see a few times a year.

Simply by reading the tide charts, you can pinpoint the absolute lowest and highest points of the year down to the minute and the meter. Doing so made me wish the weather and tides of souls were so precisely predicted.

Madeline L’Engle’s poem “To a Long Loved Love 3” talks about the peculiarities of the weather of the soul.

“I know why a star gives light
Shining quietly in the night;
Arithmetic helps me unravel
The hours and years this light must travel
To penetrate our atmosphere.
I count the craters on the moon
With telescopes to make them clear.
With delicate instruments I measure
Secrets of barometric pressure.

Therefore I find it inexpressibly queer
That with my own soul I am out of tune,
That I have not stumbled on the art
Of forecasting the weather of the heart.”

L’Engle’s wishing for instruments that can solve and predict the mysterious weather of her own soul resonates with me, especially during the holiday season, especially when I think of the king tides.

If only we could read a chart to discern our souls’ yearly king tides, we might find the strong pull back and the powerful push forward exhilarating rather than exhausting and scary. We could brace for them; we could count and celebrate each demarcation line.

But God has not seen fit to give us such a chart. He prefers we live by faith and in dependence day by day. We don’t know when the a storm will settle in our souls; we don’t know the peaks until we reach them; we don’t know how long we must sit in low tide before recession reverses to procession.

If I don’t know this about my own soul, I most assuredly cannot predict or understand the mysterious weather of the souls who share my household. Yet, so often, I try. I feel such pressure during the holidays and on breaks to have all our high tides align in glorious evenings together. I want to know their low tide times so I can prepare to love and serve them well.

But neither I nor they are so predictable. This reality forces me to move from attempts at control to a posture of care for all the distinct soul atmospheres in my family.

God did not task me as their mother with being the regulator of their moods and tides, as if sentient souls could be directed with an air traffic controller. Thank goodness! If he had there would be wreckage everywhere. I am not qualified for such a role. Only God can go to those sacred spaces (1 Corinthians 2:10-11; Romans 8: 26-27).

God invites me to step toward the weather of their souls (and my own) with what Eugene Peterson calls, “a stance of wonderment.”

The physical practice of enjoying the king tide this year reminded me that God alone is the King of tides, both physically and spiritually.

He is not scared by the storms that come upon me or them. He speaks into such chaos, calming soul storms just as spoke over the squalls on the Sea of Galilee (Mark 4:35-41).

It is his to control and mine to yield, wonder, and trust.

Growing Backwards towards Bethlehem

Leave a reply

In a culture that loves ascending ladders, hitting milestones, and surging forward toward progress, I often feel like one who is moving backwards. Not only am I not where I thought I would be, I sometimes feel like I am regressing in confidence, purpose, and direction. 

One of Flannery O’Connor’s most memorable protagonists, Haze Motes, is described as “going backwards to Bethlehem.” The phrase resonates with me and serves as a reminder that God’s growth cycle for his children does not follow organizational charts or ten-year plans. As I approach forty, I feel less sure what I want to do with my life than I did at twenty-four. I feel more certain of my weaknesses and foibles and silent vetoes than I do of my abilities. 

In her book The Coming of God, Maria Boulding wisely notes “Our strength can sometimes be a greater obstacle to God than our weakness.” If this is the case (and countless biblical stories verify such a reality; just ask Gideon what God did to his strong armies and false confidence), then maybe what I have felt like as regression is actually progression, the walking backwards to Bethlehem that O’Connor mentions. 

After all, who was available enough to put their own agendas aside to move toward the infant who was God incarnate? The shepherds shivering in the cold of night, apart from the bustling of the town, were quiet enough to hear the angelic herald. Their agendas were not so full of networking meetings to advance their own plan for self-actualization that they missed the chance to have a glimpse at the invisible God made visible. 

And the wise men from the East? They were dissatisfied enough with all their studies and knowledge to set out on a cockamamie plan to follow a star. I wonder what their peers thought as they began their journey, laden with food for the wandering and gifts for an obscurely-prophesied nascent king. They certainly did not appear as those who were moving forward on a straight line to progress. 

If I am uncomfortably honest, in the past, I trusted in my own intelligence, orienteering, and intuition to get me to more of Christ (sheer willpower and a steady diet of spiritual discipline). While I remain committed to the spiritual disciplines as ways of posturing myself for more of Christ, I am also learning more deeply that God cannot be approached even with pious spiritual transactions. 

In this season, I don’t even feel capable of walking myself to Bethlehem. On the surface, I am keeping up with the tasks and enjoying the sweetness of this season of life. Yet, simultaneously, I feel like the Lord has my soul in a bit of a chrysalis. (Initially, it felt more like a straight-jacket that I tried to escape to no avail; the Spirit has softened the imagery to a chrysalis as I have settled down into weakness and stillness). I feel stuck and quite swollen. Stuck and swollen don’t fit well in a society of beauty and blazing speed. I feel like the world is rushing around me and leaving me behind. 

As I woke up this morning, God gave me the sweetest image to console my heart which, yet again, felt a bit aimless in such an arrow-sharp culture of progress. 

I may be a chrysalis (which don’t really have any mobility on their own). However, if I am held in his hand or even to be found safety resting for renewal somewhere in the expansive space of his royal robe, I can be still yet still moving. He is the mover; I the immobile. He is the active initiator; I am the dependent one. 

I am learning this is what growing backwards to Bethlehem feels like. To be safely carried in weakness and dependence to the God who became weak and vulnerable to secure my safety in him, this is a good place to be during the Advent season. Waiting. Longing. Submitting. Staying. 

He is worth the wait. One day, we will vigorously join Isaiah in saying, “Behold, this is our God; we have waited for him, that he might save us. This is the Lord; we have waited for him; let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation” (Isaiah 25:9). 

Simeon Bears the Burden Bearer

Leave a reply

Simeon was a story gatherer. As an elderly man, he carried the weight of the stories of his people, both collective and individual.  Every time someone came and shared with him his or her story of loss or loneliness, a child born or a child lost, he surely felt the weight of his role.

He would do all he could under the Old Covenant to  bring those weights to God; yet, I imagine the cumulative effect of his job as an elder in a flock who had been waiting under 400 years of divine silence weighed his soul down.

Luke, whose gospel gives the most detailed accounts of the events surrounding and emanating from the birth of Christ, tells us the following:

Now there was a man Jerusalem, whose name was Simeon, and this man was righteous and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon him.
Luke 2: 25.

A short sentence that clues us in to significant details of this man’s life. He was the ideal Jew, the best you could get under the Old Covenant. The Holy Spirit would come upon him and guide him, which was a rare occurrence. And he was waiting for the comfort of his people, for the One who could fully bear the weight of the stories that sagged down his soul.

The Greek word translated waiting is prosdechomai, an incredibly active word in the Greek middle voice which, according to HELPS Word Studies, signifies high personal involvement. It gives the image of someone leaning in towards something, actively ready to receive it warmly, or on tip toes looking for expected thing.

The word translated consolation, paraklésis,  is actually the same root word used to describe the Holy Spirit later in Luke’s gospel and the sequel Acts, in which the Holy Spirit plays a prominent role. This word means encouragement and comfort from close beside. When my son was in incredible pain after rupturing his ear drum, I spent the night curled up beside him whispering comfort to him as I rubbed his back.  This image is close to the idea portrayed by the word translated consolation in the above verse.

Elderly Simeon was leaning in, eagerly awaiting the Messiah whom the Holy Spirit had told him would arrive before his death. He longed to see his people consoled, to lay eyes on the One who would be able to bear the weight of their stories and console them from close beside in a way he knew he never could.  We have no indication that he knew to expect a baby.

amisha-n-425135

In walks a poor couple, most likely exhausted from traveling all the way to Jerusalem with their baby. They had come to consecrate their firstborn to the Lord, as the Law commanded. They could not afford the expensive offerings, so they had to settle for the pair of pigeons.

Simeon picks up the child and knows.

And he came in the Spirit into the Temple, and when the parents bought in the child Jesus, to do for him according to the custom of the Law, he took him up in his arms and blessed God and said, “Lord, now you are letting your servant depart in peace, according to your word; for my eyes have seen your salvation that you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel.”
Luke 2:27-32.

The Greek word, dechomai, translated into the phrase took up the child, is the same root as the word chosen for Simeon waiting eagerly for the Promised One.

All those years of eagerly waiting to warmly receive the promised one culminate in this one moment of him actually warmly welcoming an infant into his elderly arms. In a surprising moment, Simeon warmly received the Messiah that he can been eagerly, actively waiting for his whole life.

I imagine that as lifted up the promised Child, physically bearing the One who would bear the weight of the sins of the world once for all, the burdens of the stories he held lifted. This fragile, little, squirmy child, so frail and small he had to be held, could and would bear the weights that had been too much for Simeon.

With the weight of the world transferred to the One who could bear it, Simeon could depart in peace. The old man of the Old Covenant warmly welcomed the New child who would usher in the New Covenant of grace. All would be well.

Simeon

His weary eyes were tired, but even more so was his heart,
Longing to see the Lord’s anointed and then in peace depart.

Had he heard it wrong? Was the promise merely hopeful delusion?
Had decades of faithful service and waiting led only to confusion?

Interrupting his wrestling, two simple Nazarenes drew near,
Carrying their newborn son, filled with deep and reverent fear.

They came to obey the custom, but for a lamb they could not pay.
For the firstborn’s consecration, two pigeons would be offered today.

Simeon saw the approaching family and knew without a doubt,
This was the Christ, the Chosen One, Who the Word had told about.

At once his eyes glittered and his tense heart founds its  rest,
As he held the fragile baby so close to his shaking chest.

Looking to God, as tears streamed down his wrinkled cheek,
He praised the One, who being strong had willfully become weak.

God sent the promised salvation; He had been true to His word;
This child would open His kingdom to Gentiles who had not heard.

By grace Simeon was able to understand what so few others could;
This child’s perfect life would bring him to a shameful cross of wood.

Though they would make a sacrifice to consecrate him that day,
He would be the final sacrifice; the price of our sin he would pay.

They stood holding Him in the Temple, a building firm and sound,
Yet His body was the true temple razed to be raised from the ground.

Simeon’s frail hands lifted up the One who would be lifted high,
The One who would live a perfect life only our death to die.

The Redeemed hugged the Redeemer in an embrace of humble love,
For this was Jesus, God come down, the Provision of Peace from above.

Hope deferred may make the heart sick, this Simeon could tell,
But Desire coming is the tree of life; Jesus makes all things well.

Light Pollution & God’s Power in the Darkness

Leave a reply

I know. I know. I sound like Scrooge talking about light pollution just as people are going to great lengths to hang little twinkly lights all over their homes and hearths (I see you on your ladders and applaud your efforts!).

At first, Advent may seem a strange season to talk about darkness; however, the deep and persistent darkness set the backdrop on which the brilliant star pointed to the more brilliant Savior.

Four hundred years of prophetic silence. No fresh “Thus says the Lord” upon which to hang their hope. Even a recent correction proves the presence of the loving Father, but there was not even that for four hundred years.

The famous Isaiah 9 passage that we love to hear children quote in their precious voices begins with “The people who have walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness on them light has shone” (Isa. 9:2). It seems a prerequisite to enjoying the light is understanding and experiencing the darkness. As much as I want to rush the process, the Lord has been covering me with his hand and holding me in what feels like darkness.

I’ve been wrestling with God’s goodness even though I know deep-down that He is altogether good. My mind knows it, but my heart often struggles to keep pace. I’ve been doing my part, dragging my doubts and questions and stubborn struggles into his presence. I’ve been digging deeply into the Word, asking for my community to pray for me. I was beginning to get frustrated with the Lord until he gave me an image that has helped me.

He reminded me that we pay great amounts of money and expend great energy as city-dwellers to get away from the distractions, the light pollution, the busy pace. We rent cabins and drive to far-away trail heads. Our family literally did this last week with a few other pastor friends and their families!

Sometimes, in order to show us the brilliance of his light, our gracious God willingly and wisely leads us into dark places and spaces.

Light Pollution

When we are surrounded by scores of other lesser light sources, we don’t appreciate the sun by day and the moon by night. My life is so busy with so many illuminative blessings that, sometimes, they obscure my hunger and need for the Light of the world.

How sweet and intimate of the Lord to lead my soul into dark places and hold me there. My eyes are beginning to adjust to the darkness and are beginning to see the outlines of glories and graces even in a dark cave.

David, who literally dwelt in dark caves for a good season of his life, understood the light of the Lord’s presence even in darkness. Countless psalms he wrote attest to the light of goodness of God seen even in the darkest of circumstances.

“If I say, ‘Surely, the darkness shall cover me, and the light about me night.’ even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is bright as day, for darkness is as light with you” (Ps. 139:11-12).

The minor prophet Micah, who served Israel during one of its distinctly darker seasons, wrote along the same lines:

“Rejoice not over me, O my enemy; when I fall, I shall rise; when I sit in the darkness, the Lord will be a light to me” (Micah 7:8).

The Lord allowed me to stumble upon the following quote from Alexander MacLaren which expresses beautifully what I have been experiencing.

“He who patiently endures without despondency or the desire to ‘recompense evil for evil,’ and to whom by faith even ‘the night is light about him,’ is far on the way to perfection. God is always near us, but never nearer than when our hearts are heavy and our way rough and dark. Our sorrows make rents through which His strength flows. We can see more of heaven when the leaves are off the trees. It is a law of the Divine dealings that His strength is ‘made perfect in weakness.’ God leads us in to a darkened room to show us His wonders.”

When the Lord sees fit to draw my soul out of these caverns, what a gloriously blinding light I will see! If you find yourself in dark circumstances, may you know God’s power even in the darkness!

The Light of the World will return in his glory. Until then, let us hold fast to His promises!

Lighting the Star

Leave a reply

Familiarity breeds contempt, which is why a sanctified imagination is an important ingredient in the Christian life. When we get over-used to the stories, the miracles, and the wonders, we miss opportunities to go deeper into the knowledge of God (Col. 1: 10).

Every year for about a decade, I have prayerfully written an Advent poem to help refresh the wonder and glory of the incarnation of Christ. C.S. Lewis, in his book Miracles, calls the incarnation of Christ the central or grand miracle of the Christian life. “We believe that the sun is in the sky at midday in summer not because we can clearly see the sun (in fact, we cannot) but because by it we can see everything else.” While we will never fully understand the miracle of the incarnation, by the Incarnate Christ, we are invited to more fully understand the very nature of our God (Heb. 1:1-3). The reality that God, the creator of time and space, would insert himself humbly into his creation for our salvation deserves a lifetime of wonder and intentional inspection.

As I have been reading Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling, my heart has been pulled toward Abraham and Sarah. I love how God, like any incredible writer (or rather, every incredible writer gets his cues from the ultimate story writer who is our God), ties in the details in a masterful way.

The promise Abram received in Ur was to become the father of many nations (Gen. 12:1–3). Abraham and Sarah’s story, set on the backdrop of a desert and including the profound imagery of numbering stars and sand, focused on the receiving of a promised child (Gen. 13:14–17; Gen. 15: 1–6). The story of Abraham finds its climax when God asks Abraham to sacrifice his beloved, only, miraculous son, Issac. Without a moment to spare, God steps in and stays the trembling father’s hand, providing a ram (Genesis 22).

Lighting the star

I love how God allows a uniquely bright and perfectly-timed star to show off the birth of the better Isaac, the ultimate fulfillment of God’s covenant promise to Abraham. I love how Jesus’s story involved lots of desert and dust. I cannot imagine what those realities must have meant to Abraham as he watched from the presence of God as God’s promise came to full fruition through Christ.

Lighting the Star

Did Abraham watch in wonder as you lit the star?
Did Sarah’s laughter of joy serve as kindling?
Desert sands, promised sons, stars afar!
The chasm between promise and fulfillment dwindling!

The pulsing promise of a miraculous son;
Progeny more numerous than lights in the sky;
In Isaac, immediate fulfillment had begun,
But the ultimate fulfillment now drew nigh.

A strangely bright star, so recently spun,
Indicating the arrival of the Lamb,
The eternally-begotten beloved Son —
This time there would be no ram.

The father of nations sees the Son of Man,
As Sarah erupts again in holy laughter! 
This Son was the zenith of God’s plan!
He is the Savior long sought-after!

Shine brightly, star! Show off his birth!
Weary world, receive Him of infinite worth!

May Christ kindle a fresh curiosity and wonder in our heart as we approach the Advent season. May we hear his voice over the clarion calls of consumerism. As we decorate our homes, may we be reminded that our deepest, truest home is being hidden with Christ in God (Col. 3:3).

When Questions are Your Company

Leave a reply

It’s funny. In the toddler years, I expected the near-constant series of “Why?” from my curious children. Yet, I am learning that the teenage years and the adult years are equally marked by lingering, loitering questions. While the questions may be less constant, they make up for the infrequency with the increasing sobriety attached to them.

Teenagers and adults, on the whole, are less interested in the mechanics that make the sky blue or the reason for the chameleon’s colors. They want to know why God made them this way, why a good God allowed evil, why life isn’t fair, and a litany of other significant questions. As a curious learner who loves certainty, I like the former questions far more than the latter.

It seems God is far more comfortable with our questions than we are most of of the time. After all, God saw fit that the earliest recorded book of the Bible was the book of Job: a raw, reeling account of questions, first from a deeply confusing man and then from a compassionate yet transcendent God. Likewise, God graciously provided us with the questions posed by so many psalmists and prophets: Why do the nations rage? How long, O Lord? Why does the wicked renounce God? Will you forget me forever? How long, O Lord, will you look on? Will you be to me like a deceitful brook? (Pss. 2:1; 6:3; 13:1; 10:13; 13:1; 35: 17; Jer. 15:18).

Their Spirit-inspired and sovereignly-recorded questions serve as pavers to lead us through the weeds of confusion and heartache back towards the presence of the God who can handle our questions.

Far from being signs of lack of faith, these questions are often a right response to living in a world where what we know to be true about God doesn’t seem to square up with a crooked reality (from our limited, finite perspective). It would be more alarming if we were not asking these questions when we see, feel, and experience dissonance during our exile on earth.

Three Literary Helps When Questions Are Your Company

Lately, three very different writers have helped me feel less crazy in my sea of questions. They, along with the aforementioned prophets and psalmists, have been my company among in the land of questions marks.

In her book Suffering Is Never For Nothing, Christian writer Elisabeth Elliott reminds her readers that our reflexive question of “Why?” when suffering wreaks havoc in our hearts and homes is a gentle reminder that we aren’t the product of chance. If we are merely evolving organisms, why does not make sense, especially is there is no supernatural Creator ready to receive our questions and attempts to make sense of brokenness and pain.

In his book The Town Beyond the Wall, Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel offers us an invitation to listen as Michael, the protagonist (who is also a Holocaust survivor) seeks to make sense of insensible evil. After surviving the concentration camps, he finds himself imprisoned in a Soviet town on the wrong side of the Iron Curtain. In his cell with him is a devout Jew, Menachem, whose friendship and encouragement keeps him from losing his faith in God altogether. Though Menachem does not have answers, he continues to bring his deep, knotted questions into the presence of God. When Michael accuses him of blaspheming by asking such hard, honest, direct questions of God himself, he responds, saying, “I prefer to blaspheme in God than far from Him.”

Later, after Menachem has been released, Michael begins to understand the lesson his friend taught him as he seeks to help a younger prisoner. He writes that man must “as the great questions and ask them again, to look up at another, a friend, and to look up again: if two questions stand face to face, that’s at least something. It’s at least a victory.”

As believers in Christ, there is ample room for two people full of questions to look at one another and sit with each other in their questions. Sharing our questions and inviting others in to the mysteries which have us wrestling is a victory that honors our God. When my sons comes to me with a hard, “Why is this happening?” question, at best I can meet him with my own question and usher us into the presence of the God who will one day replace every question mark with an exclamation mark.

Lastly, in his Pulitzer Prize-winning book Tinkers, Paul Harding’s thoughts about uncertainty have given me great solace as I wrestle with my own feelings of dis-ease and uncertainty.

“Your cold mornings are filled with heartache about the fact that although we are not at ease in this world, it is all we have, that it is ours but that it is full of strife, so that all we can call our own is strife; but even that is better than nothing at all, isn’t it? And as you split frost-laced wood with numb hands, rejoice that your uncertainty is God’s will and His grace towards you and that that is beautiful, and part of a greater certainty.”

I love thinking about God using our uncertainties and even our deepest wrestlings to believe to draw us into deeper grace. The more we wrestle with him, the more intimate we become with him. Questions do not have to break our fellowship with God; refusing to bring them to him creates the distance, not the presence of the questions themselves.

If questions are your company right now, remember that you are in good company. Find a friend who will sit with you in the question and gently prod you into the presence of the One who invites our wrestling (if you are not sure, just ask Jacob who literally wrestled with the angel of the Lord).

Bringing questions to God shows faith, not a lack thereof. Press on, weary friend. He will come to us as sure as the sweet spring rains. What he has torn, he will heal. What he has stirred (or allowed to be stirred), he will settle.

“Come. let us return to the Lord; for he has torn us, that he may heal us; he has struck us down, and he will bind us up. After two days he will revive us; on the third day he will raise us up that we may live before him. Let us know, let us press on to know the Lord; his going out is sure as the dawn; he will come to us as the showers, as the spring rains water the earth” (Hosea 6:1-3).

God answers our questions with a loving question of his own:

“How can I give you up, O Ephraim? How can I hand you over, O Israel?…My compassion grows warm and tender…for I am God and not a man, the Holy One in your midst, and I will not come in wrath” (Hosea 11:8-9).

Parenting Teens: Growing Together

Leave a reply

My middle fella turns fourteen in a few days. My oldest fella recently experienced a big disappointment over which I had zero control. We have come a long way from organized play dates and tightly-swaddled lives. When I was pregnant, I was warned about swollen feet, but no one told me that my heart would swell like this. Maybe they tried; I probably was not ready to hear. After all, I had read all the books and I thought myself to be a capable human. Love hadn’t wrecked me yet.

Everyone did say that your parenting was the age of your oldest with whom you experience everything first. As such, we are experiencing high school together. And, I swear, I think its harder the second time!

God is teaching me so much about his heart for me as I feel all the feels with our teenage sons. My heart feels so deeply entangled with theirs, yet my involvement and vested interest in their lives is a drop in a bucket compared to God’s covenant-involvement in the lives of his children (parents included).

If I being rock-hearted am shattered with sorrow for my children, how much more does God’s heart ache when his children hurt. If He takes no delight in the punishment of the wicked, he certainly does not stand back stoically watching his adopted sons and daughters suffer (Ezek. 18:32; Lam. 3:31-33).

If I, limited in wisdom and power as I am, stand ready in the wings to step towards my children in relief and response, how much more does God Almighty stand ready to rescue his hurting children.

There is none like God, O Jeshurun, who rides through the heavens to your help, through the skies in his majesty. The eternal God is your dwelling place, and underneath are the everlasting arms (Deut. 33. 26–27).

Lately, my mind has been musing on the mysteries of quantum entanglement, but my heart has been experiencing the entanglement of love which is even more profound. God so orders the unseen particles that make up all matter so that two electrons that interact briefly are forever entangled even when they are light years apart. If Einstein didn’t get it, I surely won’t. However, I know what it feels like to have one’s heart willingly entangled by love in the lives of others. If we, being human, feel this reality, how much more does God himself who has graciously tied himself up with his children?

Entangled

If unseen electrons remain entangled
Even as they travel light years apart,
If tiny particles stay tied and coupled,
Then what hope has a mother’s heart? 

When life punches you, I bruise.
When your dreams break, I shatter.
Our seconds and souls are bound
As mother-son entangled matter.

One look of pain from you slays me;
I read the stories behind your eyes.
When life knocks you down, I fall, too;
But we’ll crawl to the Greater prize. 

The fire that singes you scorches me,
Removing from us doubled dross.
I grieve and grow right alongside you,
As we prayerfully process each loss.

One day, He’ll answer every question,
He’ll wipe every tear from your face.
Then we will be fully, forever, freely,
Entirely entangled with His grace.

May you know that the Maker of quarks and atoms has set his love on his children and involves himself in their cares and causes. May such an unbelievable reality stretch and pull you towards your Savior!

Paparazzi: Posturing Ourselves to Experience God’s Presence

Leave a reply

I have limited experience with paparazzi, but the amount of time I spend glancing at the National Inquirer in grocery lines is enough to gather the basics.

There are people who spend a great deal of time studying and stalking the lives of high profile people simply to steal a fleeting glance or an off-center camera shot. They know the rhythms and preferences of the subjects they seek to find – the coffee shops, malls and vacation destinations they frequent, the times they get up and go to sleep and other seemingly extraneous details – in order to get a passing glance at said subject.

IMG_5192-2
Last night I studied Psalm 119. When I first came to faith, I loved this psalm for its fierce excitement, zeal and resolve. The psalmist makes many bold, sweeping declarations of intent.

How can a young person stay on the path of purity? By living according to your word. I seek you with all my heart; do not let me stray from your commands. I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you. Praise be to the Lord; teach me your decrees. With my lips I recount all the laws that come from your mouth. I rejoice in following your statutes as one rejoices in great riches. Psalm 119:9-14.

As I have grown in the knowledge of my own inability to keep even the most well-intentioned resolutions, I have grown an aversion to Psalm 119. As I reread parts of the psalm, I found myself alternating between waves of confusion and conviction.

Does the gospel fit into and speak into a psalm with so much focus on law and decree and statute? The psalmist saw only parts of redemption, so what applies to us on the other side of the full revelation of God in the gospel? Are we to be as giddy and excited about the law and the commands as the psalmist? If so, why aren’t we? What sentiment, what state of soul and longing caused the psalmist to pen this meticulous psalm?

It seems that the answer to the latter lies in the deep longing of the writer to know and please God, to live every aspect of life under His smile and steady gaze.

In the time he was writing and musing, the law was the clearest manifestation of the character of God; the commands were merely extensions of the character of God. One can learn a significant amount of information about someone by studying their preferences and aversions, their passions and their pet peeves.

It seems to me that the psalmist was obsessing about the law out of an even deeper desire for and obsession with the God who spoke them. A deep desire for God’s pleasure and presence led him to make vows about keeping His word and following his law down to the littlest detail. It is as if the psalmist is saying, “If this is what God loves, then I want to love it; if God detests this, then I will avoid it at all costs. If God says these are the pathways He frequents, then I want to stay on those paths so I can experience His nearness.”

If this is the case, how does Christ inform this psalm? Is it nullified as an antiquated attempt to please God who cannot be pleased apart from the perfect life and undeserved death of Christ?

When the law-loving Jews of his day questioned what Christ’s life and bold declarations of diety would do the law, the answer came straight from the mouth of Christ himself: “I did not come to abolish the law, but the to fulfill it.”

We don’t get to toss Psalm 119 into a trash heap of ill-informed, immature theology, though our flesh, mine included, would love to do so.

If the psalmist, who only knew bits and pieces of the character and will of God, desired him so deeply, how much more should we, who have the fullest revelation of his character on the cross where love and justice kissed?

In the commands, we have glimpses into the preferences and aversions of the king who loved us enough to live and die for us while we still abhorred him. In the gospels we get a crystal clear, color image of what was a fuzzy, black-and-white image to the psalmist.

We do not obey the commands to find acceptance with God; our acceptance with God was secured for us by Christ. That being said, we do not ignore the law or His commands. Rather, we resolve to follow His commands as they are the clear paths God loves to frequent, the places we are most likely to see and experience Him in this life.

Seen in this light, purity becomes a favorite coffee shop where glimpses of God can be captured; humility becomes a sure fire place where one will find God’s nearness; dying to selfish desires in order to serve others who may not deserve service becomes a regular hangout for the presence of God.

In light of the clarity of God’s character in the cross, we have incredible motivation to want to be the paparazzi of His presence, those who do whatever it takes to be where God frequently shows up.