Like Air and Water

Every morning, I carve out the first part of my day to spend alone with God.  I've actually had people tell me how good I am to do this...as if I'm doing some good deed.  It would be like someone inheriting $1 billion and another person saying, "That is nice of you to accept that money."  And this alone time with my Father is worth far, far more than any amount of money.  It is a deliciously sweet time of conversation.  And here is what most people miss: it is a time when God reveals His secrets, His plans, His very specific Will for that day or season.  The only one who can find a diamond is the one who is searching in the mine. 

These pages have wisdom, comfort, instruction.  But, deeper still, they have very specific direction for ME.  If I'm facing a crisis or if I simply need to know something specific for my life, I can ask God and then open His Word in expectation.  It's by far one of the most mysterious and wonderful things I've ever experienced.  HE DOES STILL SPEAK if we have ears to listen.  I can ask Him if I'm supposed to have a chiropractor appointment today or tomorrow.  Do you think He cares about those details?  His Word says He cares about all the details of our lives, and it says if we come to Him for wisdom (and EXPECT Him to answer), He will give it to us.  So, why would I want His answer about a ridiculous appointment?  He may have someone at the chiropractor's office that He wants me to talk to today, so He will lead me in that direction specifically.  He may want me home to receive a certain phone call from someone who desperately needs encouragement, so He will lead me in that direction.

This book is powerful, and it absolutely baffles me why anyone would begin their day without digging into it.

So, you won't find a Scripture that says, "You shall go to the chiropractor on September 20."  So, how do I know His direction?  It comes from an ongoing conversation with God.  I speak to Him all the time, and I have learned to be quiet enough to hear Him.  When I need to know His direction for a decision or my day, I simply ask Him to give it to me...and then I wait in expectation.  Sometimes it will be in a Scripture passage I will read, and His Spirit opens my spiritual eyes to see His answer in the text, even if it's a chapter I've read 100 times before.  Do you really believe that the Bible is a LIVING BOOK?  It is.

His answers also come from my being aware of things all around me.  At times, He has given me an amazing truth when I watched a spider building a web or when a yellow jacket was intimidating me.  In those moments, it's as if He opens my spiritual eyes, and I see something deeper than what I'd see with my physical eyes.  It's a quiet, "Look at this" that I hear deep in my spirit that makes me stop to see something He wants me to see.  Once, when my soul was wrestling so fiercely about something (almost threatening to derail my entire day), I watched a large bird flying very high above.  His wings weren't flapping, but he was gliding on the wind.  We had studied this in zoology, but that day, He opened my eyes to see it through spiritual eyes instead of physical eyes.  As I looked at that bird, and the quiet stillness surrounded me, I heard in my spirit, "Be still and know that I am God.  Those that wait upon Me will soar with wings like eagles."  His Words from the Bible that I had hidden in my heart by constant reading and digging in His Word was brought to the surface in my spirit.  HE WAS SPEAKING.  All the restlessness settled, and peace bathed me.  I could walk into my day without letting my wrestling spirit ruin my day.

These are the things that you cannot touch with your fingers...the invisible things that come only to a heart fixed on their God.  The rush of this world, the schedules, the classes, the workplace, the ongoing churning of daily routine can make the still quiet voice muffled if we aren't stopping purposely (and often) to hear Him.

I cannot imagine starting any day without dipping into this never-ending river of wisdom...not just general wisdom but also very specific direction meant just for me that day.  Walking into any day and into any decision without this guide would be unthinkable.

You don't have to make me drink water when I'm thirsty, and you don't have to remind me to take a breath of air into my lungs...it's simply necessary for life.  His Word is more necessary that air and water to me.  And to you too.

The Investment of a Life

Two weeks ago, we found ourselves in a funeral home in Texas.  My father-in-law had battled pancreatic cancer for one year and had gone on to His Heavenly home.  And no matter how long you've been prepared, it is always breath-stopping to walk into the room and see the casket.

No matter how many times you've gone through it ahead-of-time in your mind, the funeral procession is a surreal please-not-so-soon drive.

And the men...the friends...the sons in whom he said he was well pleased...arms bearing the weight of the body, hearts coming to terms with the loss of someone they would never see this side of Heaven... 

The flowers and the neatly lined neighboring headstones...

The casket topped with the flowers solemnly pulled out of each pallbearers' suit pockets...the goodbye...  

It's all. so. very. final.  

No matter how expected death is, we all wish for just one more minute, one more Christmas morning all together, one more meal together of smoked brisket and sweet tea and grandchildren giving kisses laced with sugary dessert,  one more fishing trip.  And I wanted just one more sound of "hi sweetheart" echoing on the other end of the line late at night, the signal that our father-in-law relationship had been mended and blessed and showered with affection to become father-in-love.

For death is not where we focus. But on life.  Yes, the memories...but far far more than that... 

Jim's life, as attested to in his funeral service, was filled with messes and guilt.  He had rocky relationships with many people, and he had pride that he couldn't seem to lose.  He had professed Jesus as Savior early in his life, but the evidence was not visible...the fruit was not there.  But something came along that was the catalyst for change.  Pancreatic cancer.  It's one of the ugliest and most painful cancers, and yet in the hands of a loving Savior, it became a long-awaited come-back-home for a prodigal son.  We are all just one decision away from that relationship with our Father. 

Jim's life took on a new focus.  As his pastor said at his funeral, all the things he had focused so much on for his entire life...his passions of music, coffee, weather and astronomy...no longer consumed his mind.  His interest in them faded to nothing, and his focus became Jesus.  He wanted to share his hope in Jesus as the only means to eternal life, and he shared it with everyone he could.  Guilt had kept him away from his Savior, but he had discovered that his guilt was washed away in the forgiveness of Jesus.  And he wanted to share that hope with everyone he knew.  

He realized what we all should know every day of our lives: all that matters is what will last for eternity.  This is our life in God.

After the funeral, a nice Texas BBQ meal was served at the house (Texans are always Texans!). Quiet conversation was stitched together with giggles of grandchildren eating rainbow cake and discovering that they could pour water into open-ended fence posts in an experiment with evaporation.  Sadness laced with happiness...the beginning of the heart's healing process.

And that night, the sons in whom Jim was well pleased played their guitars in praise music, remembering that God really does never let go...sun and rain, joy and pain...He never lets go.

Our memories will always be filled with Jim, and especially the love and hope he shared during his last months on this earth.

And in the days after we returned home from Texas, as things were unpacked and life slowly began to fall into a rhythm again...we determined to fight that comfortable rhythm...the everyday familiarity that lulls one's soul to sleep.  We had been ever-so-close to the veil between this life and our Heavenly forever home.  Death has a way of pulling you to that doorway, a way of focusing the lens of the heart to pull into view the things that matter.  A casket has its own language that seems to echo over and over: "What are you doing that will last for eternity?  What will remain after you are in a casket?"

And we wanted to shift our focus entirely, to somehow invest our lives into His Kingdom work on an every day basis.  

I recently read that Mother Teresa's mom taught her the principle that "any moment not somehow dedicated to Christ to be wasted" (From the Time magazine edition of Mother Teresa).  That has me thinking seriously.  What would my life look like with that level of dedication?

Because one day it will be me in that casket.  One day my life's work will be tested with fire, and only the things done for His Kingdom will last for eternity.  Why in the world would I waste my time focusing on the things the world says are important?  Money, cars, houses, retirement plans, collections of tea cups or trophies, titles and corporate ladders, styles and mainstream American ideals...none of it will go with me.  All I will have is the eternal investments (those I led to Christ, those I stopped to help, those I took into my home, those I fed and clothed and loved like Jesus).

How can I live today as an investment in eternity?  How can I make every moment somehow dedicated to Jesus?

Wrestling of This Soul

"This is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith." 1 John 5:4

I was lying on my bed this afternoon trying to grab some moments of rest, but my spirit was struggling too severely to find rest today.  I hate those days of wrestling, crying, battling the unseen.  Today I was feeing much like a boxer lying bloodied and bruised on the mat, with the referee's count at 6...7...8...  I reached a weak hand up to grab a devotion book that I keep in my room.  The referee's counting paused.

I read:
"To trust in spite of the look of being forsaken; to keep crying out into the vast, whence comes no returning voice, and where seems no hearing; to see the machinery of the world pauselessly grinding on as if self-moved, caring for no life, nor shifting a hairbreadth for all entreaty, and yet believe that God is awake and utterly loving; to desire nothing but what comes meant for us from His hand; to wait patiently, ready to die of hunger, fearing only lest faith should fail---such is the victory that overcometh the world, such is faith indeed."  --George MacDonald  (excerpt from Streams in the Desert)

The words hung in the air all around me: to desire nothing but what comes meant for us from His hand...

The truth is that today is one of the few times in my life that I am actually scared of the thing I believe He wants to give me.  From my limited human perspective, I see the weight of this thing in His Hands, and it *appears* that if He drops it into my life, everything precious to me will break and crumble into a million fragments.

Here's a word picture:

Let's say that I have a delicate crystal table that I adore...it has some broken pieces and has been mended here and there...it is fragile and in need of some TLC.  And He seems to be asking me if I'm willing to trust Him to drop a 1,000-pound wrecking ball onto my crystal table.  The wrestling is agony because I love my crystal table dearly. The wrecking ball swinging above it is nerve-severing, as I want to pick up my table and run the opposite direction.  

Remember that I'm human and have very limited perspective.  What I feel is what is SEEMS from my point of view.  He is asking me to trust Him with something far bigger than I've ever had to trust Him for in my life.

And I'm scared.  I feel sick.  I'm running the opposite direction.  And there is no peace when you run away from Him.

Am I willing to truly, really desire nothing but what comes meant for me from his hand?

The tossing and turning in my spirit continued on this afternoon, wearing into the evening.  And I read on in my devotion book, skipping ahead to tomorrow's devotional thought.  It was about Abraham not withholding his son Isaac from God when God asked.

"Because thou hast done this thing, and hast not withheld thy son, thine only son...I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven...because thou has obeyed my voice."  Genesis 22:16-18

"And from that day to this, men have been learning that when, at God's voice, they surrender up to Him the one thing above all else that was dearest to their very hearts, that something is returned to them by Him a thousand times over."
"That is just the way God meets every real sacrifice of every child of His.  We surrender all and accept poverty; and He sends wealth.  We renounce a rich field of service; He sends us a richer one than we had dared to dream of.  We give up all our cherished hopes, and die unto self;  He sends us the life more abundant, and tingling joy."  --C. G. Trumbull

And another quote on the same page:

"We sometimes seem to forget that what God takes He takes in fire; and that the only way to the resurrection life and the ascension mount is the way of the garden, the cross, and the grave.  

"Think not, O soul of man, that Abraham's was a unique and solitary experience.  It is simply a specimen and pattern of God's dealings with all souls who are prepared to obey Him at whatever cost.  After thou has patiently endured, thou shalt receive the promise.  The moment of supreme sacrifice shall be the moment of supreme and rapturous blessing.  God's river, which is full of water, shall burst its banks, and out upon thee a tide of wealth and grace.  There is nothing, indeed, which God will not do for a man who dares to step out upon what seems to be the mist; though as he puts down his food he finds a rock beneath him." --F.B Meyer

Soul, please quit wrestling...please surrender...

When You're Up at 3 a.m...

Why?

It's 3am, and I may very well be the only person awake in town.  I cannot sleep.  I WANT to sleep.  I NEED to sleep.  But I simply cannot.

So, I sit to let thoughts tumble...

Five years ago, God took my unborn son Elijah home to Heaven.  Soon afterward, He led me into orphan ministry, showing me that the hole in my being matched the hole in an orphan's being when they lose their parents.  Point taken.  I accepted the challenge with determination and passion.  I released my Elijah and walked into God's plan for my life in orphan ministry.

But today, I stepped into the garage to get a breather from our summer's orphan ministry experience.  It had been a rough couple of weeks, and I needed some quiet and space for a few solitary moments.  The door of the garage was open, and outside, rain was coming down gently.  The water was running down the driveway in little currents.  And all at once, as if the walls of a dam were suddenly broken, a hundred little thoughts of my little Elijah came flooding to my mind...the silent heart monitor, the quiet birth, the gaping loss.  

These thoughts had come to me earlier in the day too, and they had caught me entirely off-guard.  See, I had determined from day one that I would NOT be defined by the loss of my child.  I would not wallow in self-pity or pain.  I would never be one of those people who just cannot ever seem to get over a hurt. I would heal and move on.  And I have.  I truly have.  And yet, it's part of my fiber...part of me, as he was part of me.  But why now were the thoughts coming, entirely surprising me?

The exhaustion of the past couple of weeks must have ripped the sleeping emotions by the roots.  And I cried.  I gritted my teeth and prayed, "WHY??"  Here's some gut-hitting truth:  Today I wanted to erase everything...go back somehow...plead with God to not take my son...explain to Him that I'm simply not the right one to serve orphans...ask Him to please give me Elijah and give the orphan ministry calling to someone else, someone who would be better at it.  Today, for reasons I don't even understand myself, I just wanted my baby back...and everything else that I seemed to have lost when I lost him (things I cannot share with anyone else).

Because the reality is this: serving orphans requires suffering.  And today I was weak and tired and entirely sick of suffering.  And there, in that weak point, my mind somehow made connections back to my loss of Elijah.  And I no longer wanted to accept it.  I wanted to undo it, erase it, beg for a different path.  

Then the enemy's words planted:  Maybe I heard wrong.  Maybe I'm not supposed to be in orphan ministry.  Maybe I misunderstood.  Maybe this was some big mistake.  The battle in the mind is the hardest battle sometimes.  We fight not against flesh and blood but against the unseen.  My MIND recognized that this was a spiritual battle, but I was entirely too exhausted to stand tall today.

I wallowed.  I clenched my jaw.  I let tears come.  And I asked, "WHY??"  I just wanted to crawl into bed and come out a few days later when the winds shifted directions.  

Mostly, I just wanted my son.

But, like so many times before, I came back to the reality that I had to release him again.  I had to accept the fact that my life took an unexpected turn that only God understands.  And I had to wipe my tears and walk back into the house and into the next minute of service to Him.

We could have chosen an easy summer.  In fact, we gave up a very anticipated vacation because everyone in our family agreed that, instead of pouring into ourselves, we would pour into one of God's precious children.  We CHOSE to follow Him into service to "the least of these."  And sometimes that can sound glorious and impressive, but the truth is that it's sacrifice, raw and painful at times.  

He suffered for us.  We choose to suffer for His Kingdom work.

Here I am, Lord...even at 3am 4am.

Reputation

In Revelation, John writes letters to the different churches, with God's message to them.  To the church of Sardis, His message is: "I know your works; you have a reputation for being alive, but you are dead.  Be alert and strengthen what remains, which is about to die, for I have not found your works complete before My God.  Remember, therefore, what you have received and heard; keep it, and repent.  But if you are not alert, I will come like a thief, and you have no idea at what hour I will come against you." (Revelation 3:1b-3)

We recently heard Francis Chan give an example that hit home.  I will pass that along to you.  Take a few minutes to think about this:

If I were to interview your friends and the people you hang around, what would they say about you?  If I were to ask them to list everything they thought about you and your character, what would their list look like?

Now, let's pretend that I could go to God and ask Him everything He knows about you...inside and out, all the public and private stuff...what would that list look like?

Think on that for a bit.  In your mind, place the 2 lists on a balance scale, with one side being the list your friends would say about you and the other being the list of what God knows about you.  What does the scale look like?  Is it balanced or lopsided?

Really think on this because it matters...  What does your balance scale say about you?

This struck me.  I mean...this just cuts through all the airs and masks and pretense, doesn't it?

What is it that God sees when He looks through the outer shell and into the inner self?

Who's opinion really matters here?  Are my works complete before the Lord?  He will come like a thief at some unknown hour when I'm busy with life. What then?  Will the balance scale be the way it should be?  Will He be pleased?

Right now, is He pleased when He looks at the bare naked truth of my life?

"For am I now trying to win the favor of people, or God?  Or am I striving to please people?  If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a slave of Christ."  Galatians 1:10

Who are you really?  Reputation has absolutely nothing to do with it.  It's a false weight.  It is hay and stubble.  All that matters is what you are when you stand before a holy God.  Are we really serious about obeying Him, following Him and serving Him?

Or are we focusing instead on perfecting these masks that people see when they glance our way?

If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a slave of Christ.

Pressure-washing

As a homeschooling mom, summer is my "free" time to get things deep-cleaned and in order before the next school year.  Everything gets a thorough scrubbing.  Drawers and hidden cabinets are laid bare and reorganized.

A couple of weeks ago, we scrubbed our kitchen floors...the kind of scrubbing that requires hands and knees and lots of elbow grease.  The brush we use is stiff and unyielding, forcing dirt out of unseen indentations in the floor.

The murky water doesn't lie.  Filth was unearthed that day.

Outside, a similar story unfolded over the weekend...  Six years of dust and mold and outdoor filth had collected on our house and porches.  It happened so slowly over time...the piling over and over of small dirty particles...that we didn't even notice how different our house had become over the years.

Our back deck, covered in filth

No amount of scrubbing on our hands and knees would have remedied this built-up.  So, last weekend, my husband rented a pressure washer.  This thing sprays water so intensely that it took quite a bit of the old paint off the front porch banister!  It's the no-holds-barred sprayer.  I'm pretty sure that if you got in front of that stream of water, your skin might rip right off (don't try it!)!  :)  This thing means serious business, seeming to erase dirt and muck the moment the high-powered water makes contact.   

We watched our wooden decks reappear right before our eyes...stripped down to the bare wood.  The difference between the clean and dirty was amazingly obvious.  There's something very simple and beautiful about bare wood.

And bare souls...

Sometimes I need a wipe-down to remove a layer of filth.  Sometimes I need the scrubbing brush with its unyieldingly firm bristles.  And sometimes the pressure washer has to be applied...to the stubborn dirt, the filth of the ages that has collected...to the slimy mask that smothers the bare soul.

"Look! I am coming quickly, and My reward is with Me to repay each person according to what he has done.  I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End.


"Blessed are those who wash their robes, so that they may have the right to the tree of life and may enter the city by the gates."   --Revelation 22:12-14

What do my "robes" look like this day, right now?

There's beauty in that bare wood.  There's beauty and life in the purified soul.

"Surely You desire integrity in the inner self, and You teach me wisdom deep within.  Purify me with hyssop, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow." --Psalm 51:7

This Cross

"Then He said to them all, 'If anyone wants to come with Me, he must deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow Me.  For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life because of Me will save it."

Luke 9: 23-24

Excerpt from Crazy Love, by Francis Chan:

When Jesus calls us to take up our cross, He is doing much more than calling us to endure the daily, circumstantial troubles of life.  The people in Jesus' day were very familiar with the cross.  Having witnessed crucifixion, they understood the commitment and sacrifice of taking up a cross.

It is a call to radical faith.

Jesus is calling us to be willing to suffer anything and forsake everything for the sake of the gospel.  His call is to love those who have cheated us in business; those who have spread nasty rumors about us; those who would kill us if they could; those who disagree with us politically, practically, and fundamentally.  His call is to consider everything a loss for His sake.  His call is for total surrender.  He calls us to give up all that we have, to give even to the point of offering up our lives as a living sacrifice.  His call means realizing that His power is made perfect in our weakness, that when we are weak we are also strong (2 Cor. 12:9-10)

Many times, I want a different cross.

Sometimes, I fall under the weight of my own cross and have a pity party.  "Lord, if You ask me to give up all my earthly possessions and move to the mission field, I believe I'd go...with a spring in my step, even!  But this cross I have been given to carry is too heavy, too binding, too unfair."

When rejected, I must pick up this cross and offer loving acceptance.
When neglected, I must pick up this cross and offer loving attention.
When misunderstood, I must pick up this cross and offer unconditional love.

Oh, but my flesh fights it with fury.  Temper flares, and stubborn heels dig into the ground. Every cell in my being cries, "This is truly not fair or right!  This cross is all too confining!"

Jesus is calling us to be willing to suffer anything and forsake everything for the sake of the gospel. 


This part has confused me.  Perhaps THAT is why I'm willing to sell everything and move to the mission field.  Because I can see how that sacrifice is indeed for the sake of the gospel.  Hence, no matter how very difficult it is, the exchange is worth it because it is for the sake of the gospel.  But what if that isn't the cross I'm allowed to carry?  What if my cross this week, this year looks different?  And the question that absolutely stops me in my tracks: What if my cross doesn't seem to me to be for the sake of the gospel?

For example, what if my cross is to be mistreated by an old friend...or to offer forgiveness to someone who has deeply hurt someone dear to me...or to be pushed aside by someone I love?  I've struggled with this:  How are these things "for the sake of the gospel?"

Oh how I have begged for a different cross!  I scream, "I'm made for more!  Send me!!  Let me go to the ends of the world to further Your gospel!"  And I believe it's RIGHT to offer ourselves like that...to be WILLING...to volunteer to be sent.  So many people stay in their safe little boxes their whole lives, never risking anything, never experiencing anything beyond their own safe world, their own country.  I have a different take on life, mainly because of my wide experiences: living in 10 different states, traveling through many more states in the U.S., traveling to 7 different countries.  Every place, every person encountered, every food, every language barrier, every different experience has molded me into someone who is willing to live on the edge for His Kingdom work.  I crave it.

Many times, I want my cross to look similar to Mary Slessor's or Gladys Alyward's or Hudson Taylor's...KNOWING that they carried very very difficult crosses...but that they lived on the edge for His Kingdom work.  They did what few have the courage to do.  It is easy to see how their crosses were indeed for the sake of the gospel.  The sacrifice is worth it when it's for the sake of the gospel.

The struggle inside me intensified...   And after all the crying, complaining and wishing, I came full circle:
"Then He said to them all, 'If anyone wants to come with Me, he must deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow Me.  For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life because of me will save it."


I have to deny myself.  DENY MYSELF.  I have to take up my cross.  MY CROSS.  So, albeit unattractive, I must take up my cross.  Today that may mean offering forgiveness for being accused wrongfully or loving someone who has not loved me.

And how is taking up my particular cross "for the sake of the gospel"?  I believe it's because it reflects Him.  He forgave those who mistreated Him.  He washed the feet of those who would betray Him.  He suffered rejection at the hands of men, and He loved in return.  That was Him...His ministry, His life message.  Can I not pick up this undesirable cross and follow Him in those very things He Himself experienced?

Sometimes I can get too focused on wanting to know His Will for my life and wanting to do necessary work to further His Kingdom that I neglect and altogether forget the moment-by-moment following of Him.  I'd rather pack a bag to move to a primitive hut to spread His gospel than to look an offender in the eye and forgive sincerely.  I believe He wants us to be willing to follow Him to that hut...I really do.  But THIS moment, right here, right now...He wants me to follow Him in the very next step on this road.  If that means forgiving or loving or suffering, then THAT is His Will for that step.  And it reflects Him and furthers His gospel to those in my path if I am doing as He does, loving as He loves.  Step by step.   And whether that path meanders beside a primitive hut somewhere, that is for Him to decide...and for me to simply follow.