Today is the 16th anniversary of the September 11th attacks and the 16th anniversary of my first shift as a registered nurse. I think its fitting that today is my first day of "class" in my online RN to BSN program at Grand Canyon University.
I completed my virtual classroom with my university counselor, Simon, and finished my first online assignment and bio. Day one of going back to school as a 43 year old- done.
I listened to a podcast while doing dishes today (yes, we wash our dishes by hand) where the podcasters speculated about how a day a work in their individual careers would be different if it was 1985. I don't know that I wish 1985 back, but I do feel more comfortable with a manual, real-paper-book, life than I do with the online, technology driven life. Getting online with my school counselor to do a virtual tour of my "classroom" had me feeling like... a 40 something year old college student. I'm excited to learn, but I admit I'm intimidated by the technology. Next: Learn Powerpoint.
Got a voicemail from an FFA student in Globe, AZ who asked her FFA group could market my soap for a agri-business marketing project. I've also had several people email, text and message me asking what soap I have available. I haven't made a batch of soap in several months. I want to make soap. I like it that people benefit from and enjoy my soap. But I feel like making soap and selling soap right now is distraction from the direction I'm going right now, which is pursuing a higher degree in nursing.
Going back to school, having people inquiring about my soap, having people at work encouraging me to promote into a leadership position, having two sons in the throes of puberty, having a troubled marriage (which is currently better than it has ever been), having a church family (finally!) that I've committed to investing myself in... all of these have me seeking God for what it looks like for me to run the race set before me, eyes fixed on Jesus.
The school, soap and work could drop off the planet for me right now. They're not eternally important. But the sons, and the husband and the people I'm getting know and serve at church, they are. When I think about my "race"- the life God has set before me to run by faith, I don't think about school or soap or work very much (although I do think about my witness as a Christian in those arenas of my life). What I do think about is the people I live with everyday and the people throughout history and geographically who will be my family eternally. The desire for those to be one group is a burden I take to the only One who can transfer anyone from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of his Son.
And the Lord's servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, after being captured by him to do his will. - 2 Timothy 2:24-26
I don't wake up full of vision and motivation. Actually, what motivates me most is the idea that my french press and single-origin coffee from Guatemala are just minutes away from awaking my senses with it's warm, toasty aroma. And on those days when I get my stiff, puffy-eyed body out of bed and make my way to the cabinet to prep the press with my favorite coffee and find we're out, I feel great motivation to get dressed and drive to the local store so I can hurry up and get back home before too much time has passed and get my coffee going.
Basically, coffee motivates me to get up in the morning.
Mixed in the grogginess between eyes open and that first cup of coffee I remember who I am.
I am not my own. I am a Christian. The weight of meaning in that word falls on me like gravity on the fledgling attempts of a young eagle to fly every morning.
I feel myself falling. Falling. Squawking out a cry, "Help! Help Lord! I am yours. Let me hear your loving kindness in the morning lest I be like those who go down to the pit!" Sometimes sooner, sometimes later, but never failing, my faithful Helper and Friend, my God, my Father, the one who made me a Christian and bought me out of slavery to the law of sin and death, he swoops down and lifts me up on his everlasting wings.
I don't always get a chance to reflect on the truth of what God has done in calling me his own daughter like today. Usually the day marches on and I struggle to fix my eyes on the One who wrote this story. He's the author of my faith, and since he is, he's also the one who will finish the story he started in me. He's not an inconsistent blogger or an aspiring writer. He's the author of life, and the writer of faith, and the one who began this good work in me. And he will be faithful to complete it.
Every morning the struggle is real. And that's no cliche. I need to get my eyes on Jesus every morning and remember who I am, and the promise that He who began this good work in me will be faithful to complete it. I need to remember that God gave me life in Christ and I am destined to be with him forever. I need to remember because I'm called to die daily. I'm called to follow Jesus in taking up my cross daily. I'm not here for my best life now. My life is not all about me and getting all the pleasure and comfort and ease I can squeeze out of the day and people in my world. I'm a Christian, my best life is already and not yet. I taste it here in every little resurrection, when I deny bitterness and embrace forgivenesss, when I deny ease and choose serving, when I feel the sorrow and the pain of my own sin and others' sins and rejoice in the promise that the One I love, who I have never seen, He will make all things new.
If I could just get my eyes on the Author today I'll be OK.
"...let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith," - Hebrews 12:1-2
I've been thinking a lot these last few months about what it means practically to take refuge in God. Refuge isn't a term we use often personally. On a political level we may think of refugees, and the place they go to flee the danger in their homeland as a place of refuge. But for the Christian, the idea of God being a refuge should be very real, personal and practical.
Christians are not at home with the ways of this world. We feel like foreigners here. We don't have the same desires we used to have. We once partied like the world, were greedy like the world, sought self above all like the world, and hid from the pain and brokenness in this life in various ways. Those ways were once our refuge. Before Christ shone on our hearts and broke our chains we hid from the suffering of death, betrayal, loss and pain in people, temporary pleasures, mind-altering substances, sleep, money, withdrawal, food... and many other various cotton-candy hiding places. In those days, we found that hiding in those places gave us an escape from one pain only to be bound by the chains of another. Since Christ has come into our lives, we know that only he can truly hide us in times of trouble. We fail many times, running back to old hiding places that can't shelter us from the storms of this life. But ultimately, it is Christ that we run to, because as our brother quick-fall-Peter said, who else is there to go to? Only Christ has the words of life.
But what does it look like to hide in Christ? What does it look like to run to God as refuge?
The Psalms are full of declarations that God is the psalmist's refuge. The psalmist runs to God when he's betrayed, when he's chased, when he's surrounded, when he's found in sin, when he's sick, when he's in pain, when he's depressed, he even runs to God for refuge when he feel like God has forgotten him. Why? And how?
There's definitely more than one blog post worth writing on this subject. Just taking the time to read through the Psalms and notice how often the writer calls on God as a refuge could be a devotional for a year. I want to focus on one particular Psalm and think about how we as Christians take refuge in God.
Psalm 57 has a small title under it in my Bible that says, "To the choirmaster: according to Do Not Destroy. A Miktam of David, when he fled from Saul, in the cave."
David wrote this psalm when he fled from Saul in a cave it says. Saul was the king of Israel God had told was no longer going to be king. He was loosing his mind and was murderously chasing David to kill him, knowing David was to be the king in his place. Now that's a situation to feel like one might need to find refuge somewhere. I've never had to flee physical danger, but like David, I know the feeling that my soul is "bowed down", or "in the midst of lions."
As I read through this Psalm I find three practical ways to run to God for refuge:
"Be merciful to me O God, be merciful to me, for in you my soul takes refuge. In the shadow of your wings I take refuge 'til the storms of destruction pass by." -Psalm 57:1
God is not a big, fluffy teddy bear to run to when you need to throw a tantrum. He's not a neutral zone where anyone can come and get away from trouble. He's almighty and holy. He's a righteous judge and knows the heart of every man. He's unable to be OK with sin in any amount or kind. He's perfect. He is to be feared. And anyone who might try to stand before him would find themselves toast without the means he has provided to cause none of that righteous anger against sin to be aimed at them. And that means is Christ. Christ is the propitiation (big, church word) for us who believe in him, that is, he takes all the condemnation aimed at us from God. To say it another way, Christ satisfies the need for God to destroy sin and sinner. If God were to ignore sin he would not be a good God or a just God. God's perfect justice demands the destruction of sin and the sinner. Otherwise the malignancy of sin (which we all see everyday in our broken world and in our own lives) would spread unchecked, and God would not be sovereign or good. But God is not only perfectly just he is also gloriously gracious and merciful. He is love. Therefore he humbled himself to be what we could not be and do what we could not do. That is mercy. And for the Christian, calling on God's mercy as displayed in Christ, is to call on the only power strong enough to shield our souls from the lies and traps and chains we so easily believe and turn to. We call on this mercy in our prayers every day. We call on this mercy when we face our failures once again. We call on this mercy when we feel the threat of fears that we were once controlled by. In calling on God's mercy we remind our souls to hope in the God who died for our sins so that we could be in friendship with him and no longer fear his judgement.
Remember God's Sovereignty
"I cry out to God Most High, to God who fulfills his purpose for me." - Psalm 57:2
Whatever we flee to for refuge must be more powerful than the situations we're fleeing from. Only God can be that. I don't claim to understand the workings of God's sovereignty or the whys. But I know that when I face the sting of death, or the fear of rejection, or the terror of an enemy, or the betrayal of a companion or any other hard and painful suffering, there is only One who can do anything about it. The Creator of the universe. It's in knowing that the very God I run to for refuge is the God who has designed this suffering in my life to purify my faith and make me more like Christ that I find a true place to hide. He may not take away the pain of this suffering, but he's the only one who can. And one day he will take it away. It may not be now. But it will be. In the mean time, I run to the One who rules over it and trust him to use it as a tool in my life for my good. He cares. He hears. He loves. And He will rescue. In remembering God's sovereignty I hide my soul from the lies that God is punishing or God has forgotten or God is helpless. He rules over what hurts me and he uses it to fulfill his good purposes for me.
Expect God's Faithfulness
"He will send from heaven and save me; he will put to shame him who tramples on me. God will send out his steadfast love and his faithfulness!" Psalm 57:3
Knowing God's faithfulness requires a history with God. If you don't have much of a history with him, look to the book of his-story, and look to his people both living and dead. The God of the Bible has a long history of unbroken promises and faithfulness to unfaithful people. As the psalms say so often, his faithfulness reaches to the skies! If I were to try to write out the zillions of ways God has shown he is faithful there wouldn't be enough atmosphere to contain the words! But when we find ourselves in the midst of the storms of destruction God's faithfulness comes into question in our minds. Has he forgotten us? Is he even there? Does he care? This is where the Bible points us to a cloud of witness who say: God is faithful! He will not abandon! Hebrews 11 is famous for being the hall of faith, calling to account the names and stories of the people of old who have lived by faith. But as you read through these stories and names it is not the faith of these people so much that encourages ours, but the faithfulness of the One they had faith in. Noah built an ark from faith, believing what God warned him. But it was God who saved Noah and his family from the storm of destruction that came on the whole world! Abraham ultimately believed God when his body was as good as dead despite his failed attempt to fulfill God's promise for him. But it was God who did the miracle of giving Abraham and Sarah Isaac despite their dying bodies. And I could go on and on to recount how God was faithful to Joseph even in the betrayal of his brothers and the lies that landed him in Pharaoh's prison. And how God did not forget his people in Egypt but prepared and sent Moses, hearing their cries for deliverance from slavery even though they were a stiff-necked people. And how God heard the humble confession of a prostitute in a wall of a city he was about to destroy and saved Rahab. Not to mention Ruth and Noami or Esther or Daniel or Paul or the many who have died as a result of their faith and who's deaths have been the seed through which a harvest of souls were faithfully rescued by God. I remember God's faithfulness as I read my Bible, look to the lives of Christians throughout history and in my life today and look back at my life as I've imperfectly walked with him. He is faithful! Remembering this is sure refuge for my tired soul.
I may not be able to see my soul like I see my body, but just as my body would run to a strong structure to hide from a destroying storm, my soul runs to God to hide from the destructions that threaten when I face pain, death, betrayal, temptations, my sin, weariness, anxiety and many other soul-storms. My soul runs when I open my mouth and call on his mercy, when I recall God's power over all things, and when I open my Bible and remember his faithfulness.
It's not that other days with a broken heart aren't painful. It's just that on Valentine's Day everywhere you look, go or listen pink shiny hearts and candy pour like salt on your wounds.
I've waded my way through the gushing pink day with my own busted up heart many times. This year I do it again. If Valentine's day feels like a mockery of your broken heart and a deceitful allure to try and find love in cheap thrills I offer these three rescuers:
1) The Lord whose heart was pierced right through is with you and me.
I don't know what broke your heart. Maybe it's the death of someone you love. Maybe it's the betrayal of a dear friend. Maybe it's a prodigal child. Maybe it's a divorce or a breakup. Maybe it's a daily hard keeping of your covenant. Maybe it's the rejection you've endured time and time again. Whatever pierced you through and is causing your physical body to hurt and reel from the wrongness of what has happened or is happening, Christ has felt it in his body too.
"But he was pierced for our transgressions;he was crushed for our iniquities;upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,and with his wounds we are healed." - Isaiah 53:5
Blessed are those who turn to our wounded Savior for healing. For us, he is enough. We don't look for healing in chocolates, or wine, or romantic cards, or a dozen perfect thorn-less roses. Jesus is enough for us. We hurt, but we know our hurt is not the end of the story. His brokenness has redeemed ours. Every weapon formed against us will fail. Every trap laid, every betrayal, every rejection will only be for our formation into the likeness of the One who saves us.
"no weapon that is fashioned against you shall succeed,and you shall refute every tongue that rises against you in judgment.This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord and their vindication from me, declares the Lord." -Isaiah 54:17
2) Only the Heart-Maker can be your heart-healer
The only one able to heal our broken hearts is the one whose heart was pierced for our transgressions. Our hearts may break because death has inflicted a crushing wound or because betrayal has stabbed and turned in the place where we loved, but Christ's death and his sin-bearing body swallowed the power of sin and death. Only Christ, the Word made flesh, the Image of the Invisible God, only he can heal what was meant for destruction. Only he has the power to bind up our wounded hearts and bring real healing.
"The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor; he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound..." - Isaiah 61:1
Blessed are those who believe that Christ was not only wounded for our transgressions and has the power and the mission to bind up our broken hearts, but he is also the one who miraculously designed our brokenness that he might bring about our healing and the spreading of his glory in our lives. He breaks us and heals us to cause us to know him for who he really is- the One who lays down his life for us. There is a cycle of death and resurrection that spreads life in every way he works with his children. This is his design. This is his way.
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 that water the earth." - Hosea 6:1-3
3) Your broken heart poured out in love of Jesus is like priceless perfume spreading his aroma everywhere!
Your broken heart is not a waste! The pain you bear is not for nothing. Christ has borne our sin in his own body! He has made us one with him. He has joined us to God in peace and unbreakable covenant. When we pour out our bleeding heart on him and see our aching lives as his, for his use, for his purposes, for his glory, for an eternal harvest, our cracked up stories become a broken bottle of priceless perfume spreading the aroma of the worth of Christ to everyone in our lives. Not everyone will smell him as beautiful, but those who do will be drawn into knowing him too. As Ann Voskamp says, what some mistake for destruction is really growth. Our lives become a seed, planted and falling apart in this earth to spring up life-giving life. And Christ says that is a beautiful thing!
"And while he was at Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, as he was reclining at table, a woman came with an alabaster flask of ointment of pure nard, very costly, and she broke the flask and poured it over his head. There were some who said to themselves indignantly, "Why was the ointment wasted like that? For this ointment could have been sold for more than three hundred denarii and given to the poor." And they scolded her. But Jesus said, "Leave her alone. Why do you trouble her? She has done a beautiful thing to me." - Mark 14:3-6
Blessed are the ones who see their lives in light of God's great story. Blessed are those who don't say, "YOLO!" you only live once, and suck as much life for themselves out of this broken place as they can, but rather they say, "YOLF!" you only live forever, and let their redeemed lives be planted in this world that others might live and know the worth of the One who has loved us to death!
Dear Beloved Brokenheart, you walk the path of ever lasting life. You walk hand in hand with the author of such a life. Let every expression of love you see today be a reminder to you that your life is not your own, you are Christ's, and He is yours, and because of him all your pain is for the spreading of the priceless aroma of the God who so loved the world that he gave his only Son.
This past Sunday I stood in a high school theatre with dozens of people I don't know looking up at the screen where the band was projecting the words to the songs we were singing to God:
You're never gonna let
Never gonna let me down
You're never gonna let
Never gonna let me down
When I get to church, the words of every song we sing confront me. And I hang on every word preached. I can't mindlessly sing the songs. I can't snooze through the sermon. I'm too desperate. I'm too thirsty.
So when the words to King of My Heart were on the screen Sunday, and I was singing with hot tears, "You are good." I really meant it. I really believe Jesus is God and He is good! But when the words "You're never gonna let, never gonna let me down," came on the screen I stopped singing. I stood there with heart exposed to the Holy Spirit's searching work and I knew I could not sing those words with honesty. Instead I uttered a prayer, "Father you know me. You know I can't sing that. I confess I feel like you have let me down. But I know you are good. Help me to know you for who you really are."
I think I have a pretty good understanding of the God of the Bible. I say that with much hesitation. What I know is a glimpse, a taste of an infinity of truth. I'll spend eternity never exhausting knowing God. But I have been very blessed to have been taught by some great Bible teachers and mentors in the faith. I've spent many hours chewing on the Bible. I believe the Jesus I have never seen but love as revealed in the scriptures is the one and only God-Man, the Christ. My creed is the creed Christ's historic and worldwide church has believed and proclaimed for thousands of years. So when I read words like the words written in the song we sang on Sunday I realize something is amiss. Either something's wrong with me and my understanding of the God of the Bible or something's wrong with those words cause I can think of 23 years of prayers unanswered that have left me feeling like God has let me down.
I'm not alone in my honest conflict with the words, "You're never gonna let me down."
Throughout the Bible God's people have had to come face to face with the incongruence of the Sovereign God they believe in and the circumstances in their life.
Job had to reconcile the horror he was living through with the God he proclaimed. He felt the sovereignty of God in his boils and said, "Though he slay me, I will hope in him; yet I will argue my ways to his face." Job 13:15
Moses questioned God when he had obediently confronted Pharaoh and was mocked and blamed for making the people he was sent by God to free work harder. "Then Moses turned to the Lord and said, "O Lord, why have you done evil to this people? Why did you ever send me? For since I came to Pharaoh to speak in your name, he has done evil to this people, and you have not delivered your people at all." - Exodus 5:22
Noemi said it was God who had emptied her. "Do not call me Naomi; call me Mara, for the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me. I went away full, and the Lord has brought me back empty. Why call me Naomi, when the Lord has testified against me and the Almighty has brought calamity upon me?" Ruth 1:20-21
Even John the Baptist, who had looked at Jesus and declared, "Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world!" found himself in prison and sent messengers to Jesus to ask if was really the Messiah they were all waiting for.
Was I offended at Jesus in the words, “You’re never gonna let me down?” Was I offended that Jesus had let me down by not answering my prayer the way I wanted?
The word offended sounds like scandalized in the language Jesus spoke it. skandalizō.
Blessed is the one who isn't scandalized by me.
It means to be caused to stumble. To be caused to distrust the person you should trust.
Jesus is not a soft, yes man, who makes you feel good with positive affirmations. Jesus is the rock that many stumble over and are offended by. I stumbled over him on Sunday. And like Job, Moses, Noemi, David and John the Baptist I have a choice: leave him offended or let the mountain of truth that he is be to me a shadow in which to hide, a rock of refuge to which I flee.
Who Else Is There?
Peter and the other ragamuffin disciples of Christ tripped over him too. When Christ offered the saving truth that he had come to suffer and die broken, like bread, people were offended. Those who had thought Jesus was there to feed their appetites in the form of miraculous power couldn't accept the idea that he had come to give life to their perishing souls in the form of a wrath-bearing substitutionary atoning sacrifice. When Jesus saw the offended folks leave he asked his chosen ones, "Are you going to leave too?" Peter- I love Peter, quick to speak and quick to trip and quick to fall Peter- opened his mouth and said words I say to Jesus not infrequently, "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of life. And we believe and have come to know that you are the Holy One of God"
Coming face to face with the reality of who Christ really is, is something we all must and will do. What we do with who he is is the test of who we really are.
The blessed, oh how happy ones, sorrowful yet always rejoicing, are the ones who look at his sovereignty in his willing brokenness and risen power and say with Job, "Though he slay me, I will hope in him." We feel let down, but we look up and we hope in him. We believe and have come to know he is the only one with the words of life. We know there is no where else to go. We see his scars. And we hear his risen promise to dwell in us and with us and we aren't offended. We love him. We want him. By his good grace we won’t leave him.
My sister once told me she believed God appointed to me the hard things I'm walking through because he is using my life to encourage other people to trust and obey him.
I want that, but I also confess I don't.
Part of me just wants a "normal" life with ease. No ongoing marital struggle. No conviction about things that the world around me, even my own family, think I'm being ridiculous about. But that part of me is a silent cancer in my soul and I choose to slay it with truth.
The truth is no one has a normal life. I get to hear lots of peoples' stories as a nurse. When you start talking to people you find out the abnormal things that are in everyone's lives. But the desire to have a normal life comes from something written in me, and in us all, that knows there is a normal. There is a life that is whole and right. There is a life that is good and desirable. There is a life full of pleasantness and pleasure. That life is Christ.
The idea that I should resist or flee the struggles I face to try and find a more "normal" life in another person, or a better income, or more convenience, or a better climate or withdrawing from people and getting back to nature, or whatever... that idea is a lie. It's a trick. It's a wild goose chase intended to keep you from facing reality. It's a wasting of your life. The reality is we are all messed up people. We all have to face the wrongs we and others do and the damage it causes in our relationships and in the world.
Without knowing Christ, the abnormal lives we all live have to be explained and managed somehow. Enter religion, atheism, humanism, or any other ism people use to try and manage the mess we all are. But with Christ, we taste of the normal life we long for.
Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good! Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him! - Psalm 34:8
The Bible talks about a new man, comparing Christ- the new man- with Adam, the first man, the man we all come from. Adam and everyone after him live abnormal lives with a longing for normal life. Christ came into the world to offer us his life. Real life. Christ's life is given to those who believe him and love him. As a Christian, I have the very life of the new man, the normal man, living in me. And whereas before, the first man, the abnormal man, was striving to hold on to some semblance of normalcy, chasing it wherever he caught a glimpse of it, the new man I am knows I have it already. So I can go through the trials and sufferings I face in life with an open heart and hand. I can do like Jesus said and let my broken life be used to bring new life.
Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. -John 12:24-25.
That's a very strange thing to say to us abnormal people, holding tight to our lives, trying to self-preserve and keep our lives as normal as possible. But to the Christian, it is the new way, the normal way to live.
Jesus is God in the flesh. The God Man humbled to dying human cells in an abnormal human family in a world full of the abnormal people damaging each other and the world around them. He came bringing new life. A life-giving life. A life united with the God who made us. And the way he did it was to die and over come death as the God-Man. Now his life is in us who believe in him. And his way is now our way. We can give our lives away because we know we already have life in Christ.
C.S. Lewis said "Nothing you have not given away will ever truly be yours."
I don't know what Lewis was eluding to. I haven't read the entirety of Mere Christianity yet. But he points to the truth that when you have life in Christ, you can deny yourself, you can loose your life, because its yours! Jesus said:
If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself? -Luke 9:23-25
We all want normalcy. But we all have to deal with an abnormal life. We'll do so one of two ways- futile attempts at self-preservation and chasing glimpses of ease, comfort and normality. Or Christ. The normal life I long for I've found in Christ. Now I can let my difficulties and abnormal realities be opportunities to give away the life that is mine forever.
Save me, O God! For the waters have come up to my neck. I sink in deep mire, where there is no foothold; I have come into deep waters, and the flood sweeps over me. I am weary with my crying out; my throat is parched. My eyes grow dim with waiting for my God. -Psalm 69:1-3
Psalm 69 is not exactly a common Bible verse quoted at Christmas. But I think it's perfect for Advent. At least it's where I'm at right now. Maybe you are too.
For lots of people, Christmas is not all joy and jolly. For many it's a very painful reminder that they long for things to be right and happy and light, but in reality they find themselves in a place where things are wrong and sorrowful and dark. If you find yourself in a place like that today, I pray this will encourage you as it has me.
I counted 11 times in my version of Psalm 69 where the writer asks God to save him in various ways.
Save me O God! For the waters have come up to my neck... (vs.1) ...answer me in your saving faithfulness. (vs. 13) Deliver me from sinking in the mire... (vs.14) ...let me be delivered from my enemies. (vs.14) Let not the flood sweep over me... (vs. 15) Answer me, O LORD... (vs. 16) Hide not your face from your servant... (vs. 17) Draw near to my soul... (vs. 18) Redeem me... (vs. 18) Ransom me because of my enemies.... (vs. 18) ...let your salvation, O God, set me on high. (vs. 29)
Obviously the person writing this was in some sort of circumstance that made him feel desperate for God to show up and do something! And apparently these circumstances had been there for awhile and the writer wasn't seeing God show up because he writes:
I sink in deep mire,
where there is no foothold;
I have come into deep waters,
and the flood sweeps over me.
I am weary with my crying out;
my throat is parched.
My eyes grow dim
with waiting for my God. (vs.2-3)
He's sinking. There's nothing to stand on. He can't keep himself up. He's overpowered by his circumstances. And it's not short lived so he's weary. His faith-eyes are barely able to see any kind of hope because he's been waiting so long for God to show up and do something about this overwhelmingly difficult, long season.
There's a lot here. The psalm describes the writers desperateness for God to do something about his circumstances. He's specific about the circumstances- overwhelming numbers of enemies, lies, reproaches, shame, accusations. He even says that even though he knows he's not guiltless- God knows the wrongs he's done- he knows these circumstances aren't because he did anything wrong. "For it is for your sake that I have borne reproach..." He's in these overwhelming circumstances because he is a God-representative. He's in this despairing situation because of his identification with God.
At that point you may say, "Well, I'm out. I'm in the situation I'm in that I wish God would show up for and do something about because of my own mistakes." That might be true to some extent. Like this Psalmist, none of us are free from the guilt of folly and wrongs that God knows about and may even be in part cause of our current suffering. I too am in a long-lasting difficulty that is in part due to my own sins. But in 1 Peter, Peter says something that always gives me hope and encouragement:
"Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice insofar as you share Christ's sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed." (1 Peter 4:12-13)
I know that the only person who can claim perfect sinless suffering for God's name's sake is Christ. But, we who bear his name and love him and seek and him hate our sin and, like the psalmist in Psalm 69 acknowledge our sins before God, we have an "insofar as" sharing in this suffering that Christ perfectly endured. And we need to see that and believe that, because that's where we will find the deliverance and redemption we long for from God.
The psalmist who wrote this was weary with waiting for God to come do something to deliver him out of these horrible circumstances. You might be too. I know I am. And that's ok. It's ok to long for God to do something to keep you from being swallowed up by the anger, bitterness, hopelessness and guilt that your circumstances threaten to bring. What I find amazing in this psalm is that the writers very cry to God to save him and answer him and deliver him and draw near to him and redeem him and ransom him and set him on a high place, is exactly where he finds God giving him hope and a song and a word of encouragement for other fellow long-sufferers.
He doesn't find that his faith-dim eyes suddenly see because God comes in and changes his circumstances. He finds that in his crying out to God, God is there with him, strengthening him to endure.
By verse 30 of the psalm the writer turns from crying out in desperation and vulnerable confession to praising God with his words.
I wil praise the name of God with a song;
I will magnify him with thanksgiving...
When the humble see it they will be glad;
you who seek God, let your hearts revive.
For the LORD hears the needy
and does not despise his own people who are prisoners.
Let heaven and earth praise him,
the seas and everything that moves in them.
For God will save Zion
And build up the cities of Judah,
and people shall dwell there and possess it;
the offspring of his servants shall inherit it,
and those who love his name shall dwell in it. (vs.30-36)
This is what we, who are waiting for God this Advent, need to do: SING and GIVE THANKS!
SING
I can't even tell how many times the simple act of opening my mouth and letting my soul sing, even while the tears flow, has caused me to find God is there. He's there as I sing reviving my heart and reminding me of his promise: He will conform me to the image of his Son (Romans 8:29) He will make all things new (Rev. 21:5). He will not reject me or leave me (Hebrews 13:5). He will judge rightly all that happens to me (1 Peter 2:23).
Don't know what to sing? Don't have a great voice? Here's a couple of my favorites to sing when I'm overwhelmed with my circumstances and sadness:
GIVE THANKS
This is harder for me. Singing seems to come out of me (with the assistance of YouTube or iTunes) more easily, and lifts me almost instantly into hope. But the psalmist says he will magnify God with thanksgiving after telling him how dim his eyes had grown waiting for God to show up.
When the flood of hopeless thoughts, accusations and heartaches barrages you and threatens to take your faith down, you need to open your mouth Sheila and speak out loud what you are thankful for, or write it if you can't talk! It will be a gasp of oxygen to your soul and some light for your dim eyes!
It's Christmas. Everyone is decorating trees and you may feel like the world should be painted grey not red and green and glitter right now. But what if you took out a piece of paper and started writing what you're thankful for and put it on a tree, or on a wall and decorated your hard, painful, weary-with-waiting-for-God Christmas with words of thanks to God.
Don't know where to start Sheila? How about the fact that you have access to God's words that pulled you out of a sinking pit this morning? How about the fact that you've been provided food and clothing and comfort and song and family and... the pieces of paper should cover the tree, or the wall.
Join me today in pouring out desperate cries for God to show up, singing songs of worship and longing and faith, and writing or speaking words of thanks to God that make you and I remember how big and good he is.
I just threw that title in cause it's a crazy presidential election season, but I should have titled this post: We're giving up the goats.
Yep, you read correctly. Our family's 3 plus year adventure with dairy goats is coming to an end.
If only had once sentence to explain why I'm doing this it would be this:
I believe God is leading me to use my time, resources and skills as a nurse to serve others in His name more.
*****I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO SAY! The above was the beginning of a long, thought-out post about why I've decided to give up the dairy goats in pursuit of more time available for serving God with my life as a nurse... or however He leads. But, the Mac locked up and I had to force quite and that is all that's left! I guess I don't need to post a long thought out post. Deep sigh.
I guess I'll just post pics from our years with the goats and say, I'll miss the cheese and yogurt and milk. I'll miss the kidding seasons and those floppy-eared personalities. But I'm looking forward to laying aside the good to pursue the best in what God would lead me to do right now.
FYI: For my soap customers and friends: I'll still be making soap. Goats Make Soap Co. will have a new direction and operate a bit differently, but we'll still be making our amazing soaps.
“If we really have too much to do, there are some items on the agenda which God did not put there. Let us submit the list to him and ask him to indicate which items we must delete. There is always time to do the will of God. If we are too busy to do that, we are too busy.”
I was thinking the other day about the patterns in my life. I have bursts of creativity that tend to fizzle and fade. But writing has been a steady pattern of unsteadiness since I was about 10 years old. I have bursts of creativity in writing that still fizzle and fade but they don't stay gone forever. They return.
I have a theory. My theory is when I am meditating on God's word daily I produce bursts of creativity in writing. And when I skip reading my Bible or don't stop to really meditate on something I've read that creativity begins to fizzle and fade. So basically, you can look back at my patters of writing and almost create a direct correlation between how much I write and how much time I spend chewing on God's word. So it's been what... 4 months. Yeah. Not good.
Which came first the lack of Bible or the depression? I don't know, but they definitely spin each other into a dark spiraling pit.
So life has been dark and hard lately. But in the darkness and silence of God that is so hard to live with for me I am being held up by truths that are laid under me like a firm foundation.
As I was plodding through my Bible readings the other day, longing to drink something that would quench my parched soul, it struck me that I need to speak out loud the truths I'm standing on even though I don't feel the refreshment of them right now. And in doing this I feel the break in the dryness give way to a burst of life-giving water.
It's the way it works. It's the way faith works. It's the way living by faith works.
When you say what God says in agreement with him, believing him, it builds the faith you had to believe what he said in the first place.
But what does it say? "The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart" (that is, the word of faith that we proclaim);
because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. -Romans 10:8-9
So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ. -Romans 10:17
It's the truth: The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost. - 1 Timothy 1:15
I need a savior. And I have Him! And He has me! And He would have you too if you would have Him. He's the bedrock foundation I'm standing on in this darkness.
Well, it's 10 O'clock, and everyone is in bed and it's finally quiet so I can think. I'm trying to stave off some bug that's decided to give me a dizzy-headache and sore throat in the last hour. Hot tea and lots of vitamin C I'm hoping will do the trick.
Today, joy. The third Sunday in Advent the preacher preached on joy. And I'm glad he did it the way he did. Cause it's not that easy. It's not a health and wealth gospel the joy of advent speaks of. It's not, "Jesus will make you happy." Or, "Jesus will give you what will make you happy." It's, "Jesus, Man of Sorrows, he knows. He knows you. He knows what caused things to not be the way their supposed to be: sin. And He came to take care of that problem. And believing that about Him brings something much more real than circumstantial happiness, something you can bank on, something warm and hopeful in you even when you feel sorrow: joy. Real. Lasting. Unstealable. Joy."
I'm glad he did it the way he did it because honestly, I walked in that building today and when he asked the congregation if we had to pic an emoticon what would we be, I mumbled, "Depressed" under my breath.
It comes like a heavy fog that rolls in. There's no control about when or how or why. Depression is a real deal that I've been dealing with for awhile now. And for the past several weeks it's fog has been gone. Really gone. Light and pleasure and smiles and singing have filled my days even in the mundane things that can get a person down. But a few days ago it rolled in again. I felt it. I did a little inventory to see why. Is it a female hormone thing? (Note to self made about what day it fell on the calendar). Did I forget to take my medications? Is it my diet? Am I eating too much junk? Could be any and all of that and more. But this time, when it rolled in, I did not mindlessly keep wandering through the fog. I pulled over and preached to myself. "Self," I said, "Why are you so downcast? Put your hope in God!" And then I sang it. Out loud. In the kitchen.
"Why so downcast oh my soul. Put your hope in God. Put your hope in God. Put your hope in Go-o-o-d. Why so downcast oh my soul. Put your hope in God. And bless the Lord oh my soul. Bless the Lord. He's the lifter of my countenance. Bless the Lord. He's the lifter of my head. Bless the Lord. He's the lifter of my countenance. I will never be ashamed..."
The fog didn't clear. But I was OK with knowing it was there and that, as in the past, it would clear. I'll wait it out. The joy in me is the hope of Christ: He came. He destroyed sin and death's power over me. He is committed to conforming me to the image of the Son and He has given me His Holy Spirit as a deposit, guaranteeing that when I see Him, I will be like Him and I will be fully alive and live fully with him perpetually and not one drop depressed. No fog. No sin. That's the joy of Advent. It's massive. It's greater than all our sorrows. It can handle sorrow and depression and loneliness and grief and pain. It knows Who came and Who's coming again.
For his anger is but for a moment, and his favor is for a lifetime. Weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes with the morning. -Psalm 30:5
For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery. ...For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. - Galatians 5:1,13
I've been thinking about this a lot today. I used to read these verses and sort of feel lost. "It's for freedom Christ has set us free"??? Ok. What does that mean? I mean, yeah, I'd agree that Christ set us free from the condemnation coming against us, but free? Free from what? Doesn't God restrict, not free? If Christ has set us free are we "free" to do whatever we want? And if we're not, is that really freedom?
If I'm honest those questions have gone through my head many times over the years. But today, after pouring my heart out to one that I love, I heard those verses in my head and it made total sense! Sin is slavery. Christ's blood bought freedom. Freedom from sin! He didn't die to serve us our favorite, chosen sin on a silver platter. He died to give us the power to kill sin, to break free from it's chains, to turn to him when we find ourselves in a sin. He didn't come to leave the dead, dead and the sick, sick and the broken, broken. He came to give life to the dead, heal the sick and restore the broken.
Until we see him face to face we will be in a battle to fight sin with faith. We have been given the power to look the slave driver of sin in the face and say, "NO MORE! I will not give myself over to you!" And when we fail, and we will fail, we have been given the grace to cut off the arm that causes us to sin and turn our minds and hearts back to the One who died to set us free.
Freedom in Christ is freedom to no longer be poisoned by the lies of sin. It's the freedom to be sober again, to see clearly the beauty of God in Christ and realize we've been feasting ourselves on vomit and rottenness and poison. When we have that freedom we recognize sin for what it is and we hate it and we fight it and we turn from it when we find ourselves in it. And we can do that now, because Christ has come and purchased with his own blood the ability for us to taste the goodness of God and despise the putridness of sin. He bore or sins in his body to free us to love God and love one another not to turn ourselves back over to the destructive things that he had to die to free us from in the first place!
So when I read these verses now I exclaim, "Yes! Yes! Yes he really has freed me." Now I hate the thing I used to think he was unfairly keeping me from. I now know he's freed me from the thing that was keeping me from really loving Him and really serving and loving others.
And because of all this, this Advent, I'm thinking a lot about my longing for the coming again of Christ. Until that day he's freed me to fight the fight of faith. To stand. To change my thinking. To turn to him. And when he comes and I see him face to face, the fight will be over. Until then I cling to the promise that he came to set me free and I press on to fight the good fight of faith in who He is and what He teaches me to do.
Summer break is over. The kids begin their first full week of school tomorrow. The first day of school was Wednesday last week. Made for a nice testing of the waters before the full fledged dive in this week.
I've had much on my mind. Heavy things. Hard things. I can't speak it. I can't write it. I'm just... heavy.
James has been selected to fill a temporary sergeant position at work. He'll be switching from a 6 am to 4 pm, Monday thru Thursday, come home for lunch if you want, get called in at 3 am and not come home till 9 pm the next day schedule to a 8 pm to 6 am four days a week schedule. Yep. Night shift. Which means two parents will be working nights in this house. I don't think it's gonna fly.
I spoke with my supervisor at work Saturday night to see if I could possibly switch to a days shift position. I don't really want to work days to be honest. It's much more... chaotic. Too many doctors and therapists and managers asking you to do this and that on top of what you need to do to actually see the people in the beds and care for them. I'm not very good at switching from one task to the other in rapid succession without lots of balls being dropped. And when the balls you juggle as a nurse involve people's lives, dropping is not an option. Needless to say I feel a bit nervous about possibly going to days. We'll see.
Suicide has left it's deep, debilitating scar on my life. When I was 15, one of my best girlfriends from 8th grade shot herself on her elementary school playground. I had just come home from a mission trip to Mexico with the youth group at my church. Something, at the time, I really didn't want to do, but was pushed into by my parents who were worried that I was hanging out with the wrong crowd. I'm so glad they pushed me. It was a turning point in my life. A turning toward my Savior. I'll never forget my mom sitting with me in the parking lot of Fred Myer in Roseburg, Oregon telling me that Julie was dead.
Julie is not in this photo. This was take at my 15th birthday just a year or so before I went to Mexico and before Julie took her life. My best friend at the time, Delcina, is to the right and one of my other "Mod" friends, Laura, is on the far right. Both of these girls were part of the group of kids I was hanging out with that had my parents so concerned. They were good friends. We were stupid kids. Completely self-centered. Totally absorbed with our own inane thinking. Nothing we obsessed about was worth taking our lives for. We were thinkers though. We wanted to be different. We wanted to live outside the box. We thought were breaking away. We had no idea we were dead in our trespasses and sins or what that even meant. We had no idea we were utterly loved and rescued by the One who created us. We had no idea we were created to know and be known by God. We had no idea real life was someone who really was outside the box- a new Man. We had no idea how He loved us!
Julie was a poet, an artist and a drama queen. She was fun loving and reckless. When she decided to end her life, her violent act struck the many who loved her too. It didn't just take her life, it destroyed parts of ours. My heart aches for Mr. Williams' wife and family and friends. My heart aches deep in that wound Julie left for Mr. Williams and the dear ones I have known who bought the lie and in the darkness and poison of that lie took their life and irreversibly wounded the lives of those around them.
The Bible says there is Liar out there. A Father of Lies who's sole mission in this time and space is to kill, steal and destroy. His lies are alluring. Violence looks inviting. Death looks like hope. Destruction looks like pleasure. A trap looks like freedom.
The Bible also says there is One who is the way, the truth and the life. He has come that we might have life... to the full. And at his side, beyond the cross we bear as we die to ourselves and follow him, are pleasures forevermore. He is right, if you desire to keep this life you will loose it, but if you loose it for his sake, you'll keep it.
Every time I read the account of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead, I'm taken back by his exchange with Martha. I see in Martha's words my inevitable human inclination to not get God yet act like I've got him figured out.
It's what Martha says. Jesus has finally showed up at the scene of his grieving friends' home where Lazarus has been 4 days dead. Martha, the busy-in-the-kitchen sister, runs to Jesus not for comfort, not for help, but to protest. "If you had been here my brother wouldn't have died!" She accuses. I can hear the anger and disappointment in her voice. She believed Jesus was powerful enough to have healed her brother when he was sick, but she didn't believe there was a thing he could do now that her brother was dead.
She throws out a hail Mary, "But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask." When I read the rest of the exchange she has with Jesus it's apparent that she doesn't think Jesus will be able to raise Lazarus from the dead. So what does she mean by this? Maybe she's just saying what she thinks she's figured out about God: God gives his Chosen One whatever He asks, but the Chosen One doesn't himself raise the dead. She's declared what she thinks she's got figure out about God.
Jesus tells her that her brother will rise again and she quips back with more of her authoritative knowledge of God, "Duh! I know that! I know he'll rise from the dead in the end when everyone else does!" (My paraphrase).
Then Jesus, the only One who really knows God inside and out and who says with absolute authority the exact truth about God declares, "I am the resurrection and the life. Anyone who believes in me will live, even after dying. Everyone who believes in me will never die. Do you believe this Martha?"
In my version: I know you think you have God down to a science Martha, but here's the truth. Do you believe it?
Martha, Martha, Martha. I'm just like you. We're all just like you. Even when face to face with the undeniable truth about God, even with Bible opened, hymns sung, prayers muttered, and orthodox church attended we still take what God has revealed about himself in Jesus, and in stubborn unbelief, hang our heads when faced with what we don't understand and can't do a thing about. We quote in wrote what we know we're supposed to know and think we have a full handle on. But we don't really believe a word of what we say we know.
"Yes, Lord," she told him. "I have always believed you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one has come into the world from God."
She didn't know a single thing she just said. But she said it. She was orthodox. She knew the right answer. And if she was in a debate with a person who declared what they knew about the gods she would have put them in their place with her authoritative declaration that there is One God and His Messiah would come and set them straight! If only she really believed what she said. If only she really knew who it was standing there in front of her. But she really didn't.
I'm a Christian. And if you need adjectives I'm an orthodox, Calvanistic, reformed Christian. I believe there is one God and that He is Father, Son and Spirit. I believe in the Christ, the only begotten son of the Living God. I believe I'm made right with God simply and impossibly by my belief in Christ's death as the only propitiation that satisfies the wrath of God for my sins. I believe that Christ rose from the dead on the third day and that the Spirit of the Living God dwells in me. I believe one day I too will be raised from the dead and will live forever in abundant life where fullness of joy and pleasures forevermore are mine because I'll be in the presence of my Savior. And beyond understanding, I believe that in that day, when I see Him, I'll be made like Him- sinless, an Image-of-God Bearer, a Redeemed One. I believe right now I'm being transformed into that image and am being led by the same God through many tribulations as I follow the steps of my Savior. And finally, I believe all this that I believe, I only believe, because God made me alive to Himself when I was dead as a doornail. Even my belief is a gift from Him.
Now that's a loaded paragraph. I claim to believe all this. I say I know God to be these things. But the reality is, like Martha, I claim a lot of things I really know nothing about. This is not to say they are not true, but that the mountain of truth that they are is greater than my puny understanding.
Like Martha, my belief, my proclamation about God does not show my all encompassing knowledge, but rather, shows that an all-knowing God has rocked my world. Like Martha. And despite my unbelief in the things I claim I believe, He's still proving himself to be to me the resurrection and the life.
I've been thinking a lot about today. Today, 2000 years ago. The entire center and source of all things, all the purposes of time and history and existence culminating in one Man's abused and slaughtered body hanging on a Roman cross. There is no god like mine!
All the religions of the world acknowledge that there's something wrong with us humans. And they all give their prescription for making us better, which like Propaganda said is like spraying perfume on a corpse and pretending it doesn't still stink. But for all the religions and the good ideas man has come up with for how we can be pleasing to God or just be better people, none of them propose what my God has done in Christ.
So maybe you scrap religion altogether. It's a crutch that weak man needs, but you're too intelligent for that. God, if he (or she) exists is just a nice concept to help us be better people. Ignoring problems never solves them. If we're all just godless products of chance and time why do we even care? But I digress, that's another blog post.
There's no answer like the answer found in Christ.
The perfect One, swallowing up the sure judgement coming against me because I'm not right. I'm made to image God, but I don't, and He has a right to scrap His creation turned against Him. But He doesn't. Instead, He stands in my place. Stands between me and the place of my sure judgement.
Only my God redeems. Only my God does not count my wrongs against me and promises me a new heart. Only my God is working to conform me to the image of His Son. Only my God came, not to be served, but to serve and give His life as a ransom for many. Only my God became a man and knows what its like to bear the weight of my fallenness. Only my God bends down to lift me up. Only my God gives not just a way for me to live right, but the power to live that way by His very life living in me.
There is no god like mine!
What love is this.
To send His own.
To die for sin.
And take us home.
Got me feelin' good.
Forget my feelin's.
When you heard a story bout the hero dying for the villain?
- Trip Lee
So we are Christ's ambassadors; God is making his appeal through us. We speak for Christ when we plead, "Come back to God!" For God made Christ, who never sinned, to be the offering for our sin, so that we could be made right with God through Christ. - 2 Corinthians 5:20-21
Moses in his mothers arms' by Simeon Solomon (1840-1905)
What do you do as a mom when you know your child grows up under the influence of authorities in their life who dishonor God and His Word? Who mock the Christ and the whole concept of sin and the need for a Savior? Who think of the Bible as old, out-of-date stories? Who offer the short-lived pleasures of this world as the ultimate pursuit of your child's life over and against the foolish call of Christ to deny yourself, take up your cross daily and follow Him to a kingdom that they cannot see where true riches and never-ending pleasures abide in uninhibited relationship with the Living God?
I look to a woman named Jochabed.
The nearly 4000 year old story of Moses is not only a pivotal story in the history of the people of Israel, it's also the heroic story of a mom who put her hope for her son in the Living God and whose influence, no doubt, was God's means of grace to plant faith in Moses.
We only get a few short verses about Jochabed's influence on Moses. But we get a thousand upon thousand year old legacy of faith in Christ because of her faith.
By faith Moses, when he was grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter,
choosing rather to be mistreated with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin.
He considered the reproach of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking to the reward. - Hebrews 11:24-26
Mary Elizabeth Baxter (a Christian woman long gone to glory) wrote a commentary on Jochabed that I find tremendously encouraging. Here is an excerpt:
Christian mother, does your home influence counteract the sin, the untruth, the impurity, the hollowness of the world, so that your son finds the home life a haven of rest from temptation and shame?
Is there so much of God in your life that it more than outweighs other influences which surround him? Blessed mother, if it is so!
Pharaoh's daughter said to Jochebed: "Take this child away and nurse it for me, and I will give thee thy wages." (Exd 2:9.)
This is the last we hear of Jochebed, Moses' mother.
THE RESULT OF HER LIFE's WORK was the man Moses.
The true mother lives again in her son. There is the answer to her prayers; there is the result of her watchfulness; there is the true correction of her own faults reproduced in her son. Moses might never have been the man he was had it not been for Jochebed.
Who knows how many a leader of God's people may be at the present time in course of training by some pious mother? Who knows but that the little James or John or William, who is playing with the kitten on the hearth, may some day become a man to whom hundreds or thousands may look for help and direction?
Oh let every mother who reads these pages understand her vocation when a higher than Pharaoh's daughter says to her: "Take this child and nurse it for Me, and I will give thee thy wages."
But the wages of Jochebed were not to be given by the princes of this world. To be the mother of a Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face, like whom there arose not since in Israel (Deu 34:10): this was an honour which none but God could give.
I often get discouraged. Almost to the point of giving up... whatever that would look like. I guess every paralyzation of indifference or hopelessness that I choose is a giving up of sorts. I let the lie that my influence means nothing, even more, that God's word and grace is not powerful enough and God's Sovereign goodness is not really sovereign or good, numb me into just sitting there rather than saying something.
There was a time when they nursed at my spiritual breast. There was a time when I had a captive and eager audience of two boys under 5 who fed on the truth with gladness. But that season of nursing is passed. Now they are in Pharoah's house. Now they have the opulence of the world at their fingertips and the temporary pleasures of sin to worship the false gods of this age with.
But I remember Jochabed. I remember the God of Jochabed. My God- the God who purposed Moses' life even when it was full of the fleeting pleasures of sin and the treasures of Egypt.
I often wonder how Jochabed endured those years in Egypt, knowing her son was gaining rank in the house of the ruler who enslaved her and her people. Surely it was painfully difficult to go about the laborious tasks of slavery knowing that her son was enjoying riches, entertainment and power in a house which attributed all it's power and riches to false gods. I wonder if she thought there was no way her son Moses would remember all that she taught him at her breast. I wonder if she seriously doubted that he would ever turn his back on Pharaoh's gods to worship the God of his enslaved kin. There must have been years of tight-throated, eyes-burning-with-tears prayers and pleas to the God of Joseph to not forget her son and let him rot in the riches of Egypt.
Even in this season, hard as it is to endure, I know my God is able to take what was (and is) planted in my sons, my ongoing prayers (feeble as they may be) and the faith (microscopic as it is) that He has given me, and make all that tempt to ensnare my boys serve the purpose of bringing them to the place where, they too, can choose the reproach of Christ as greater wealth over all that gleams and glitters (and becomes enslaving chains) in this world. And if, when, they do that, it will be a miracle! No one chooses the reproach of Christ over the fleeting pleasures of sin and the wealth of this world without a miracle!
Oh God of Jochabed! God of Moses! God over Pharaoh! My God! You who rule the universe. You who do not let a single sparrow fall from the sky without your okay. You who designed motherhood and know the heartache of sons and daughters who leave your goodness to go after the cotton-candy rot of the world. You who gave me sons and a heart to know you. You who used my sin to bring me to the knowledge of my need for a Savior. You who called me out of darkness into your wonderful light, who brought me from death to life despite my angst towards you and my wandering from you, who gave me taste buds to taste your goodness when I was intoxicated with the poison of the pleasures of sin. Oh merciful God who loves and is just and poured out all judgement against sin on your only Son to save us from what we could never endure. Hear my prayers for my sons. Let no one keep them from coming to their Savior. Give them the faith to choose the joy of You over all this world has to offer. Give me the faith to stand when I want to lay down; to believe when I'm mocked. May Christ be magnified in me! Let my life bring you glory!
Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us, and establish the work of our hands upon us; yes, establish the work of our hands! - Psalm 90:17
