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The Thick Fog of Suffering & The Sight of the Savior

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Our youngest son is already dreading the days when his beloved older brothers fly the coop for college. Last summer, in an attempt to create a hopeful experience of life with just the three of us, we took a trip to San Fransisco while the bigs were at camp. I came terribly unprepared. My sundresses and Birkenstocks were a terrible mismatch for the cold and the fog.

Apparently, the fog in SF even goes by the name Carl. Carl taught me a few things on that trip: when going to SF, always bring a hoodie, Birks are incompatible with hills, and fog is a powerful reality.

Just as Carl had the ability to completely hide a massive, fire-engine red bridge from sight, suffering obscures sight. I love Elisabeth Eliot’s simple, yet profound definition of suffering: wanting what you don’t have or having what you don’t want. God cares about all human suffering, even the kind we bring upon ourselves.

A few weekends back, I spoke at a retreat on suffering. The preparation, the delivery, and the stories I heard over the weekend were a heavy reminder of the reality of suffering and how quickly suffering obscures our view of our Savior. I’ve been bent over by brokenness, which is why the following verses and quotes have been balm to my soul this week.

God Lives with & Lifts the Lowly

Through the prophet of Isaiah, who served as the mouthpiece for a fair amount of hard realities, God offers precious words of hope and comfort to his sin-laden, brokenness-bound people. He reminds them (and us) his essence and character even and especially as we walk through brokenness.

“I dwell in the high and holy place, and also with him who is of a contrite and lowly spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly, and to revive the heart of the contrite. For I will not contend forever, nor will I always be andy, for the spirit would grow faint before me, and the breath of life that I made.” (Isaiah 57:15–16).

The Lord loves to live with the lowly. The Hebrew word daka translates as “broken, crushed, beaten, small, and trodden down.” Though our God is high and holy, he does not stand aloof from the hurting; rather, he stoops to offer succor. David captures the same sentiment when he writes, “The Lord is near to the broken-hearted and saves the crushed in spirit” (Psalm 34:18).

It’s not just that the Lord loves to live with the lowly and dwell with the devastated, he loves to restore and comfort. A few verses later, Isaiah continues, saying, “I have seen his ways, but I will heal him; I will lead him and restore comfort to him and his mourners, creating the fruit of the lips” (Isaiah 57:18).

He dwells with the lowly, but he also delights to lift them, not based on their perfect or even mediocre response to suffering, but based on his character. Despite seeing (Hebrew raah) the backsliding, closed-eared way of his people, he still chose to heal them (rapha). He sees and knows us completely, sin and all, but he still chooses to mend us by sewing us together. Just a few chapters earlier, the prophet Isaiah had hinted at the way this would happen: One would come who would be crushed (same root word daka) to mend the crushed (Isaiah 53:5).

Not Seeing, but Still Trusting

Isaiah looked ahead to a coming Suffering Savior; we look back upon him. Yet even for those who know him well, suffering acts like a thick fog that obscures the eyes of our hearts. When we suffer, we struggle to see, something the Apostle Peter understood well.

When seeking to comfort a terribly hurting people, he wrote, “Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not see him now, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls” (1 Peter 1:8–9).

It was true in a double sense that the beleaguered believers had not seen Chris. They were one generation removed from actually having laid physical eyes upon Jesus. They were also struggling to even see him through the eyes of faith due to the thick fogs of suffering.

In his sermon entitled “The Eloi,” George MacDonald writes the following powerful words regarding striving to believe when we are straining to see:

“Troubled soul, thou art not bound to feel, but thou art bound to arise. God loves thee whether thou feelest or not….For he sees through all the gloom through which thou canst not see him.”

When my son and I had trekked miles (in the aforementioned Birkenstocks) to the bay to get a picture of the iconic Golden Gate Bridge, we were deeply disappointed by the fog. Carl was ruining our plans, so we decided to sit until we could see. We sat stubbornly for an hour to catch grayed glimpses of the bridge. Finally, the sun began to break through, allowing us to see glimpses of the beauty for which we came and of which we had heard.

My lowly, brokenness-bent, suffering friends, the fog will lift and your eyes will behold your Savior. In the meanwhile, he sees you as you strain to see him. He longs to lift you and delights to comfort you.

The God who Sees & Hears: Atonement & Attunement

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One look from my most loved ones can level me. A look of fear from my son on the pitching mound makes me ready to climb the fence and rescue him. A silly look of affection from one of my teenaged sons covers a thousand little irritations and miscommunications. The upturned, attentive face of my husband when I am hurting says more than a million missives.

Those who live together in close quarters know that there is a language without words. An upturned chin, a sharp glance, a tender gaze– these speak volumes in closely-attuned relationships. In fact, just this past Sunday at church, a dear friend caught on to our inter-family communication (which happened, at that moment, to be the frustrated-mom signal). He then proceeded to make crack us all up with his very fine-tuned impression of my silent signal to one of my sons. Maybe we need less-easily-intercepted signals. But I digress.

This Easter Monday, a stanza from George Herbert’s “Prayer (III)” reminded me of the accessibility of our incredibly-attuned God:

“Of what an easy access,
My blessed Lord, art thou! how suddenly
May our requests thine ear invade!
To show that state dislikes not easyness,
If I but lift mine eyes, my suit is made:
Thou canst no more not hear, than thou canst die.”

Though I’ve read this poem before, the last two lines struck me anew, perhaps because we had celebrated Christ’s inability to stay dead the day before. Christ can’t die, and he can’t not hear his children. In fact, he died so that God could, without separation or hindrance, hear directly from his children. He offered himself in atonement so we might know the Father’s attunement.

I’ve been musing on those two little lines for a few days now, alternating between awe and disbelief. That the God of the universe notices my needy gaze is hard for me to believe, but I long to believe it and become completely persuaded of this precious reality. My mind knows it, but I long for my emotions and body to join my brain in believing this kind of security.

Unlike me when reading my children’s various gazes, God has not only depth of care but also complete control. I can’t help my son pitch or heal a hurting heart or secure peace, but the God of the universe most assuredly can.

He hears sighs as loud, clear cries (Romans 8: 26–27). He reads looks like letters. He knows what we need before we do. Before a word is formed in our mouths, his mind knew it (Psalm 139:4–6). In the book of Exodus, God reassured the captive Israelites that he was the God who saw and heart his people: “And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. God saw the people of Israel– and God knew” (Exodus 2:24).

Though it is only one verse, there is enough fodder here for the fires of our faith: God heard. God remembered. God saw. God knew.

In his short but powerful book With Christ in the School of Prayer, Andrew Murray wrote that all true prayer begins when we are able to say and mean: “My father sees. My father hears. My father knows.”

I don’t know how to translate sighs, and I can’t see your looks of pleading desperation. But there is One who does. I pray that you would know the astonishing attunement of his love today.

How Teenagers Have Changed My Prayer Life

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Before parenting teenagers, I would have given myself a passing grade at prayer. I felt, at least, moderately faithful and fervent in prayer. I have Scripture cards in my purse for praying in carlines and at halftimes. I journal prayers for my boys weekly during my Sabbath time. All in all, I thought I was doing pretty well. However, recently, I have discovered that as my teen’s worlds are expanding, God is doing a similarly expansive work in my prayer life.

Shifting from Prosperity to Presence

My limited knowledge of the future and my extensive knowledge of our budget has had me praying about college funding for my boys for the past few years. As the distance between my sons and graduation diminishes, academics and athletics have, for better or worse, become pressurized. I am embarrassed to admit it, but my prayers for one of our boys, who happens to be very fast, have been inching toward prayers that sound like, “Keep him fast, Lord.” Thankfully, the Holy Spirit, who does his convicting work both excellently and gently, has been shifting me from the fearful prayer, “Keep him fast,” to the hopeful prayer, “Keep him near to you.”

One of the prayers I have been praying over my boys for years comes from Psalm 104.

“These all look to you, to give them their food in due season. When you give it to them, they gather it up; when you open your hand, they are filled with good things. When you hide your face, they are dismayed; when you take away their breath, they die and return to their dust. When you send forth your Spirit, they are created, and you renew the face of the ground” (Psalm 104:27–30).

I memorized this particular psalm precisely because it emphasized our ultimate dependence upon God for every breath, every success, and every blessing. After all, every good thing given comes down from above from his opened hands (James 1:17). However, even while praying the Scriptures, I find ways to try to twist God’s will toward mine rather than bending mine toward his. I cannot tell you how many times I have asked God to open his hands for my children (in provision, in protection, in blessing).

Recently, however, I have found that I am praying for God to open his hands, not first so he can bless them, but first so that he can hold their hands.

Of course, I want good things for them, and I know from whence all good things come. But I am increasingly, ever-so-slowly realizing (for myself and for them) that his nearness is our good (Psalm 73: 28). Yes, I want my children to have prosperous lives; I long for their provision. However, I most long for God’s presence and nearness in their lives. Keep them near, Lord. Open your hands, so they can hold them..

Shifting from Safety to Security in Christ

We have always prayed in the morning on the way to school and before trips for God’s protection and safety. I have prayed prayers for safety so often that they ought be tattooed on my palms by now. As my teenager’s worlds get bigger, the dangers they face grow proportionally. Yet, I have found myself surprised by the Spirit’s help in beginning to shift those prayers for safety to prayers for a more robust security in Christ. Just when I thought i would be a puddle of desperate prayers for safe driving and street smarts in a fragile world, I find myself begging for my boys to know sturdy security in Christ (Colossians 3: 1–4).

My prayers have shifted from a bubble of protection to a boldness of faith, a resilience of spirit, and a cemented confidence in Christ. By God’s grace, I am learning to let them risk and beginning to believe that experience really is a trustworthy teacher. I find hope and courage in the father from the parable who, rather than bolting the doors and battening down the hatches, entrusted his son to the Lord and let him wander off (believing he would wander back home transformed).

The Scriptural truths upon which these boys have been raised stand up under suffering and storms. The Spirit of the living God dwells within them and goes where I cannot and ought not go (1 Corinthians 1: 10–13; 3: 16). They are secure even when, from my vantage point, things feel less safe, predictable, and controlled. I am learning to pray with Moses, “There is none like God, O Jeshrun, 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” (Deuteronomy 33: 27–28).

Shifting from Solutions to Questions

Finally, I find that my prayer for my teenagers consists much more of honest questions than sincerely offered solutions. I still think that I have some insight into my boys and their lives, but I am less likely to storm into the throne room like its a war room roundtable with my plans and potential solutions. I am much more like a tired parent/child longing to rest in the presence of one immeasurably more responsible, wise, and good than myself (Hebrews 4:16). .

The Spirit is helping me replace, “Lord, please do x, y, and z” with “Lord, what are you trying to teach son x, y, or z?” The following are some of the question/ requests I frequently bring to the presence of God for my teens:

  • Lord, in this situation, what is mine to do? Theirs? Yours?
  • Lord, how have you wired them? What wisdom might you have for me in this situation?
  • Lord, what are you trying to do and how can I come alongside you?
  • Spirit, bring to mind specific Scriptures I can pray for them, offer to them, and./or discuss with them.
  • Lord, to what are you calling them? Give them that which will help prepare them for just that.

I love that we will never reach the end of growth in prayer this side of glory. I love that I am growing spiritually alongside these boys of mine.

Early in the Morning

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To know me well is to know that I am not a morning person. I want to be because of the early bird and the worm and such, but my mind and soul come alive after the hour of 10 am even if my body is up earlier. Six am feels early to me and anything before 5 am feels unthinkable. At this point, all the morning people in my life start telling me about the stillness of the morning and the rising sun and how productive they feel before the rest of the world is awake. I hear them, but my body does not seem to get the point. I have stillness in my bed. My sleep is very productive in its own kind of way.

I give this as context because, as I was studying the last few days of Jesus’s life, the phrase the Lord used to draw me toward him in wonder was “in the morning.” Of all the things in the living and active word of God, it was the Greek word proi, which means “early in the morning; at dawn.” God certainly has a sense of humor!

Two Very Different Morning Motivations

In Mark 15, we hear that the chief priests, “as soon as it was morning,” held a counsel after which they “bound Jesus and led him away and delivered him over to Pilate” (Mark 15:1). In the Greek, the words are much stronger: “Euthus proi” begins the verse. Euthus means straight away; immediately; without any unnecessary zig zags or delay.”

As much as it may seem like mincing words, the strength of these words shows the organizing passion of their lives. Straightaway, as soon as they could, before dawn, without delay, the priests had to meet to get rid of Jesus. What made them rise early was their need to stop the one who was threatening their power, position, and tradition.

We hear proi again with a different additional descriptor a chapter later, in Mark 16. The Marys and Salome “brought spices, so that they might go and anoint him” (Mark 16:1). “And very early on the first day of the week, when the had risen, they went to the tomb” (Mark 16:2).

This time, we see in the Greek lian proi: very early, exceedingly early, utterly early. The emphatic lian adds intensity of intention to the women rising early in the morning. While the chief priests rose early and with straightaway intensity to destroy the body of Jesus, the doting women rose exceedingly early to show their devotion to the torn body of Jesus. Of course, the Spirit was quick to prod me with the questions, “What makes you rise early in the morning?” and ” What are the ordering passions of your life?”

The One who Rose Early for the Father

These are not the first occurrences of the phrase “early in the morning” in Mark’s gospel. Way back in the first chapter of his gospel, Mark writes the following of Jesus:

“And rising very early in the morning, while it was still dark, he departed and went out to a desolate place, and there he prayed” (Mark 1:35).

In the Greek, we have lian proi (like we saw with the ladies heading to the tomb), but we also have the added ennuchos, meaning “while it was still night.”

Again, it may seem like splitting hairs, but words create worlds. Underneath that rising-early-before-the-dark-Jesus, we sense the passion, the urgency, the priority of being with the Father.

Long before Jesus rose from the tomb, he was raising early to be with the Father. Love for the Father, hunger for his nearness, and readiness to obey him were the organizing passions of Jesus’s life. What got him out of bed every morning was the existing, eternal smile of the Father and his desire to live ever-pleasing the Father while walking the earth.

Jesus never wavered in his morning motivation. I do. Jesus never missed a moment of being with the Father. I do. Yet, he rose from the dead that I might be empowered by the indwelling Spirit to rise with the desire to please the One already fully at pleasure with me through Christ. No matter how early I rise, there is one already waiting for me.

I was reminded of one of my favorite George Herbert’s poems, “Easter (II).”

“I got me flowers to straw thy way;
I got me boughs off many a tree:
But thou wast up by break of day,
And brought’st thy sweets along with thee.

The Sun arising in the East,
Through he give light, and th’ East perfume;
If they should offer to contest
With thy arising, they presume.

Can there be any day but this,
Though many suns to shine endeavor?
We count three hundred , but we miss:
there is but one, and that one ever.”

Herbert recognized that no matter how early arose on Easter morning to greet Jesus, Jesus was already risen and ready to greet him. The same is true of us daily.

Van Morrison, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and Union with Christ

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As most of my current job description is driving my children to all the things, I have plenty of time to listen to alternate between praying and listening to music in the car. In this current season, I have been listening to Van Morrison’s greatest hits. When I get to Crazy Love, I inevitably tear up when I hear, “I can hear her heartbeat from a thousand miles.”

At first, I thought this somatic response strange. I certainly enjoy Van Morrison, but tears on cue at a particular phrase?

Then, I began slowly rereading Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Sonnets from the Portuguese and found myself with tears pooling at something similar in Sonnet VI:

“…The widest land / Doom takes to part us, leaves thy heart in mine / With pulses that beat double. What I do / And what I dream include thee, as the wine / Must taste of its own grapes….”

As I mused on the big emotions that I welled up within me in these two very different pieces of art, I realized that both help explain what union with Christ feels like.

The Mystery of Union with Christ

I remember exactly where I was sitting when the reality of union with Christ first started to sink into my mind and then my soul decades ago—that is how significant this theological reality is to me. After years of trying to imitate Christ, I learned that, through the Spirit, I get to participate in the very life of Christ right now.

While I continue to treasure and explore the glorious reality of union with Christ, I still struggle to comprehend and receive such a soaring offer. How does it work that I am here on this dusty globe and yet simultaneously seated with Christ above (Colossians 3: 1–4). What bearing does that have on my daily duties and the moments of my mundane days? How can I be two places at once? How can he be there, seated at the right hand of the Father, and also hidden up in the hearts of hundreds of thousands of believers on earth at once?

Both Van Morrison and Barrett-Browning’s phrases about two heartbeats in sync even though thousands of miles apart (which were both clearly referring to his experience of human love) help me to get hints of what union with Christ might feel like and mean.

As a mother, I have hints of the solidarity and union resulting from love. Last week, while my son was at a significant and highly competitive track meet in Los Angeles, I felt that twinned heartbeat. A hundred plus miles away from him, my heart pounded with his in nervousness, adrenaline, and anticipation. It felt like I was on the starting line with him. My life is wrapped up with the life of my children: their joys become my joys, their sorrows, my sorrows. To a degree.

As a wife, I have moments of such deep connection with my husband. When he is out of town at a significant event, it is as if we are both attending said event. Love binds us to the beloved in such a way that distance does not diminish our connection or closeness. The stronger the love, the stronger the connection even when we are physically apart.

The Pain of Parting & The Joy of Reunion

Jesus knows the pain of parting and the joy of reunion with the beloved. In the Incarnation, he left the secure, immediate embrace of the Trinity to become a man. He who had known no physical distance and had never felt the strange separation of time stepped into time and space. Though he was deeply attached to the Father throughout his earthly life (Luke 2: 49; Mark 1:35; John 7: 16–19 and 11: 41–42), he longed to be back bodily present with his Father. We hear this longing in the high priestly prayer when Christ says, “I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do. And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed” (John 17: 4–5).

Jesus’s heart beat as if with that double pulse of love that Browning captures in her sonnet to her future husband.

Maybe more shocking than the double pulse Jesus felt with the Father is the double pulse he felt with his disciples. Jesus felt the pain of departing from his friends. We hear his sorrow amid his resoluteness to return home to the Father:

“Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And If I go to prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also” (John 14: 1–4).

As his followers who have not seen him, yet love him, we daily feel the distance from him whose presence is our true home (1 Peter 1:8 and 2:11). Yet, in union with Christ, we are invited into that mysterious double pulse that is nearness to God despite distance. Christ has attached himself in covenant love to us. He is with us in our sorrows, in our joys, and in everything in betwixt. He who has numbered both the hairs on our heads and the numbers of our days can hear out heartbeat from a thousand miles. Despite our distance from him, our hearts can beat with the double pulse of devoted love until we are fully and forever united in the New Heavens and the New Earth.

Followers, Not Admirers

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We are approaching Easter weekend. Outside of Christmas, these days commemorating the death and resurrection are among the most approachable and accessible to the watching world.

For at least a few days, even those who would not consider themselves devout slow down to admire Jesus. While this is a beautiful access point, it was never Jesus’s end goal in going to the Cross. In the words of Soren Kierkegaard, Jesus does not want admirers, he wants followers.

Born & Bored on the Same Day

People love a show; we always have. I remember being a little girl and watching the circus train arrive in our small town on the Jersey Shore. We would watch them unload the animals and scatter hay all over the muddy, trodden grounds. There was such a sense of eager anticipation that I thought my tiny heart would burst.

Entirely too much candy and popcorn would be consumed. There would be a few minutes of wonder. And then, we would head home and promptly forget about it for a calendar year.

Annie Dillard notices a similar tendency in the human heart in her book Teaching A Stone to Talk. She describes the crowds of people she joined to watch a full solar eclipse on Mount Adams. She remembers the screams of wonder, shock, and delight as the sun went dark. As shocking as it was to experience something so other-worldly together, she was equally shocked at how quickly everyone moved on:

“I remember now: we all hurried away. We were born and bored at a stroke. We rushed down the hill. We found our car; we saw the other people streaming down the hillsides; we joined the highway traffic and drove away.”

I fear that my heart often responds the same to the events of Easter each year: the build up, the anticipation, the emotion, the wonder, the disassembling and moving on.

We dress up; we prepare an extra full worship band; we up our signage game. Then we move on as admirers rather than pick up our crosses as followers. We are tempted to treat the resurrection of Christ as a day worth noting rather than the revolutionary day that it is. This day we remember, this day when a dead Savior breathed again, conquering death, this day demands a lifelong response not a check box on a response card.

Followers vs. Admirers

Pastor/poet George Herbert captures this conundrum we face at Easter so well in his poem “Easter (II)” :

“Can there be any day but this, 
Though many suns to shine endeavor?
We count three hundred, but we miss:
There is but one, and that one ever.”

An admirer says this day is significant and moves on. A follower says there is no day but this. According to Kierkegaard, “An admirer…keeps himself personally detached. He fails to see that what is admired involves a claim upon him.” He goes on to say the following convicting words about admirers of Christ:

“The admirer never makes any true sacrifices. He always plays it safe. Though in word he is inexhaustible about how highly he prizes Christ, he renounces nothing, will not reconstruct his life, and will not let his life express what it is he supposedly admires. Not so the follower. No, No. The follower aspires with all his strength to be what he admires.”

I long to be a follower, not a mere admirer. I don’t want to be born and bored on the same day. I want to be born and bored through by the reality of Christ’s life, death, and resurrection.

In the words of the Apostle Paul, “If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied. But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead” (1 Corinth. 15:19-20).

The right response to the life, death, and resurrection of Christ is to hidden in life, death, and resurrection:

“I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I live now in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me” (Galatians 2:20).

A Redeemer Who Runs

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I’ve always loved Isaiah 30. I cannot tell you how many times I’ve studied this chapter, yet the Spirit continually brings me back here, as to a favorite, well-loved spot. The imagery Isaiah uses to rebuke God’s running people is memorable and convicting, especially to a heart prone to feverish activity and idolatry.

Running to False Refuge

Isaiah calls out God’s frantic people who are bent on running back to Egypt for help and refuge. In one sense, you cannot blame them: Egypt was powerful, boasting resources and historic strength. God’s people have always struggled to trust an unseen source. In their infancy as a people, they smelted a statue that could be seen. In their “teenage years” as a people, they demanded to have a human king that they could see so they could be like everyone else. And now that they are a divided people on the verge of exile, the same stubborn pattern remains. They wanted physical help from what seemed to be a strong refuge.

In his prophesy, Isaiah tells them how foolish they look as they load their treasures on the backs of camels to head through a land of danger (lions, lionesses, adders, tight places) to a people who would not profit them (Isaiah 30: 6). Initially, I chuckle at the idiocy of their attempt — until I realize I am them.

I constantly look for places of refuge, security, safety, protection, and profit. Sure, I don’t physically load up a camel and venture to Egypt, but I do so proverbially all the time. I load up my hopes and quickly flee to would-be refuges: publishers, teams, organizations, opportunities, people, vacations, and the like.

The whole thrust of this chapter is a God who says, ”In returning and rest you will be saved; in quietness and trust shall be your strength” and a people who say, “No! We will flee” (Isaiah 30:15). Through Isaiah, God uses all the strength of vocabulary and imagery to warn his people that their bent to run to false saviors will not only not profit them, but will harm them (Isaiah 30: 3–5).

Rahab who Sits Still and a Redeemer who Runs

This week, what struck me was the name God gives Egypt (and our current collections of false saviors): “Rahab who sits still” (Isaiah 30: 7). The Hebrew word for “sits still” literally means “to sit indolently or proudly.” Even as we run to false saviors, they don’t move towards our help: they sit haughtily and powerlessly. 

Juxtaposed with Rahab who sits still is our Redeemer who runs to us. In the incarnation, the Second Person of the Trinity comes to us, moves towards us in an unthinkable condescension on an unbelievable rescue mission. Though we keep running to false refuges and refusing to return to him, he came to seek and to save us (Luke 19: 10).

Earlier in his gospel, Luke records the parable Jesus told concerning the lavish forgiveness and love of God. The prodigal son, having blown his money and bottomed out, comes to himself and heads home. Upon his return, the father is not sitting on his property with arms crossed and a ledger of the losses he has incurred at the expense of his rebellious son. Instead, “while he was still a long way off, his fathers aw him and felt compassion and ran and embraced him and kissed him” (Luke 16: 20).

In Isaiah 30, we see a similar response from God. Though his people are actively running towards Rahabs who sit still, he longs and waits to show compassion on them:

“Therefore, the Lord waits to be gracious to you, and therefore he exalts himself to show mercy to you” (Isaiah 30: 18).

The picture that comes to mind is a damn storing up the potential energy of God’s love until it is released in the Redeemer.

May the Holy Spirit show you this week when you are acting like Israel, loading up your camels to flee to false refuges. May the Spirit invite you to return and rest in the Redeemer who runs towards you.

Dealing with Disappointments

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This one is for those who feel a little behind on dreaming and goal-planning for a new year. This one is for those who are sitting paralyzed in an attic of boxed-up disappointments, feeling the clutter of the crowded past year.

I am very slowly learning that the best gift I can offer my husband and children is the plodding progress of my own soul. As I am learning to healthily deal with my own disappointments, I am modeling for my family an honest way forward into the presence of the Lord. As I identify and speak openly about the two ditches I can fall into when dealing with disappointments or hopes deferred, I offer my children a map towards their own maturity.

Two Ditches when Dealing with Disappointment

Every year is full of its own delights and disappointments. As a culture, we have a place-holder for the joyful moments, the celebrations, the goals achieved, the awards received. We smile for insta-gram and post about them. We brag on them in our Christmas letters. But what about the dead ends, the disappointments, and the setbacks?

When we deny that they happened or ditch them too quickly, we end up carrying them much longer in the transmuted form of distance from God. After all, he knows our hearts and our desires, so pretending or preemptively trying to move on serves neither him nor us. 

On the other hand, we may be tempted to drag them along with us everywhere When we hold on to the negative emotions that comes with disappointment too long, they have a way of warping our view of reality and our approach towards God.

I’ve tried both over the years and am very slowing learning a better way through the mire of disappointment: to dry them out in the warmth of his presence and the light of his truth.

This is terribly uncomfortable at first, as it requires admitting our own fears and perceived failures. It requires a level of intimacy and vulnerability with God that feels risky. Yet, I am learning though experience that his delight begins to disarm all my false coping mechanisms. 

In the security of the trinitarian love, I can let out the unruly emotions and speak the irrational lies. He receives them and swallows them up in truth and grace, with all the calmness of one who has long ago settled all my accounts. 

It takes awhile for the old disappointments to dry up, as I imagine it would take fresh fruit to fully dehydrate in the sun naturally.  But, at the end of this process, he has seeds to plant in my life and I have space to dream again with Him.

Sun-dried Disappointments

Lay out your losses before me. 
We can count them one by one. 
Don’t hide or grasp them tightly;
Bring them out to dry in the sun. 

Disappointments left in darkness 
Tend to fester or mold or grow. 
Naming them in my presence 
Invites me into all I fully know. 

You need not be brave with me.
I don’t want your stiff upper lip. 
I want your honest, alloyed tears;
I want you clinging to my hip. 

My purposes may elude you, 
But you must trust I am good. 
For I am God outside of time;
I don’t do things as you would. 

Your sun-dried disappointments
You may safely entrust to me. 
I’ll plant these seeds of sorrow 
To grow gardens you don’t see. 

So, open up your clenched soul;
Let me linger with you a spell. 
For even amidst your sadness,
I continue to do all things well. 

If you find yourself holding a clammy handful of past disappointments, perhaps it is time to bring them into the presence of a God who already knows them and who has good plans for them. His radiance, purity, and delight have the power to dehydrate those disappointments, making space for new dreams.

Pattern over Perfection

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It’s January 2. Some of you parents are already feeling beat up and discouraged as your perfect plans for family worship and devotion have already been shot through.

Don’t let the ghosts of (Bible-reading) plans past rob you from the present power of the Word of God for you and yours.

You’ve likely heard the adage “The perfect is the enemy of the good.” As a recovering perfectionist raising at least one, maybe more, of my own, I have another to add, specifically when it comes to family devotions: “Perfection is the enemy of pattern.”

Pattern vs. Perfection

When Paul wrote his last and poignant letter to Timothy, his spiritual son and gospel ministry partner, he reminds him twice of the power of pattern: first in the beginning of his letter in reference to their relationship and again at the end in reference to his relationship with his mother and grandmother.

“Follow the pattern of sound words that you have heard from me, in the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. By the Holy Spirit who dwells within us, guard the good deposit I entrusted to you” (2 Timothy 1: 13–14).

Here, Paul draws Timothy’s attention to the pattern of sound words he observed, both in season and out of season (to borrow a phrase from later in the letter) as he lived and worked alongside Paul. The Greek word hupotupósis literally means ”an outline” or “a form.” Paul essentially says, the trends of my life and my time followed a certain form that was bent towards and around God and his Word; when I am gone, fight to keep tracing that pattern in your own life. Pass it on.”

Later in the letter, Paul reminds Timothy of the power resulting from patterns set by Lois and Eunice in his younger, formative years:

“But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you have learned it and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus” (2 Timothy 3: 14).

We don’t know the exact delivery system by which Lois and Eunice surrounded Timothy with God’s living words, but we do know that there was a habit and a pattern which led to his early acquaintance with the Scriptures.

The Source of the Soundness

The soundness is in the God-breathed, unchanging, inimitable Word of God, not in our shaky systems of devotion or our own structure. In both aforementioned verses, the power clearly belongs to the Word and to the Spirit, not to ourselves or our systems and plans.

Systems and plans (and constant reboots of said systems and plans) are necessary, but they are not the main event: the pattern of sound Words which point us to Jesus is the central reality. If we can wrap our minds around this reality, we will be freed from the two ditches we will most likely fall into: excessive structure that leads to rigidity or excessive freedom which leads to chaos. Loosely structured systems with ample room for repentance and with adaptive power for different learning styles and dispositions help us build the pattern of sound words in our homes and hearts.

We have one son who errs on the side of rigidity, another who errs on the side of chaos, and one who prefers to draw his devotion to the Lord rather than journal it. We have tried many different systems, and we just began a new one a few days ago. The plan is not iron-clad, and we will not perfectly follow it; however, the plan shows our prioritization of Christ and his Word and the plan offers a chance to model repentance and returning with and before our children.

Hopefully and prayerfully, our boys will be able to look back on our imperfect plans for family devotion and trace the pattern of sound teaching that are able to make them wise for salvation.

Happy January 2nd to you. Get back on that imperfect plan that points to a perfect Savior. He is more sound than all your shaky devotion.