Author: Christine Wyrtzen

The first way to live as a daughter of promise was meditating.  The second way was to pray about everything.  (Catch up on the past two days if you missed them.)

The third is:

3.) Pursue the redemption of broken places. Our Father is out to give His children abundant life and because He is not bound by time, He can travel back to our past as well as move ahead into our future. He longs to fix what has been broken. He loves to find what has been lost. He desires to resurrect what has been declared dead. What are we waiting for? Sometimes, we believe the death sentences others have pronounced and fail to believe that our lives are to be lived outside the tomb, not in it.

Childhoods and early adult years are fraught with pinnacles and painful valleys. By the time we’re in Kindergarten, we have dreams in our hearts. By the time we’re seven years old, we have a good feel for whether or not our world will support or attempt to kill the dreams God has put there. Someone who wants to be a doctor is told he should be an engineer like others in the family. Someone who is artistic is told that artists starve and he should pursue something else that pays the bills. The person we were was often not acceptable and because every child believes what they’re told by those who shape their realities, they set their dreams aside and pursue what will earn them love in their family circle.

In late adulthood, even in mid-life, the dreams that were driven underground begin to nag us. We feel it’s too late. Half of our life is gone, perhaps more, and what can God do about it now? It appears that we are to live second-rate lives and grieve over what God just might want to restore.

When I was four years old, I had a pair of red, toy eyeglasses. I thought they were fun and dramatic. I used to put them on and tell my friends that I could read any book, even an encyclopedia. I couldn’t read a thing. I was four! But I would wear the glasses, open a book, and weave a long tale for anyone who would listen. I loved telling stories. One of my parents, for some reason, didn’t like what I did with the glasses. They made a disparaging remark about them and being a sensitive child, I threw the glasses away and stopped being who I was. I withdrew into a quiet place and never embraced my calling of being a teacher and storyteller until I was way into my forties. God reminded me one day in prayer, “Remember the red glasses? Be who I made you to be. I am your Father who made you!” So, I bought another red pair and they sit in my office as a way of reclaiming the gift.

Is it too late to become who God made me to be if I’m 50? How about 70? Not in God’s kingdom. We have only started to live. In the new heavens and on the new earth, we will reign with Christ and get to do what we were created to do from the beginning. How about if each of us starts now!  Of what consequence is 70 years of age when eternity stretches out in front of it?

What are your ‘red glasses’? Talk to your father about it. Be His child, not some re-fashioned person others preferred rather than the original little person God created. God rescued you because He delighted in you. Psalm 18:19

You do not have, because you do not ask. James 4:2

A daughter of promise should live praying about everything.   There are many reasons though that I don’t. Here are a few.

1.) I’m shy to trust God for what He’s already promised. While traveling several years ago, I had dinner with a family who had recently adopted a ten-year-old boy from Russia. They were telling me some of his story. He had lived his entire life in an orphanage. Food was never plentiful and so he learned to live hungry. Though there was a refrigerator in the orphanage’s kitchen, it was padlocked.

When this family brought him home, they explained to him that he need never be hungry. They showed him the refrigerator in the kitchen and told him that he could go to it whenever he wanted something to eat. For the first few years, he never took them up on it. Why? He wasn’t yet sure of their love and couldn’t fathom good news. What keeps me from praying boldly? I’m unsure of God’s love. Insecure children rarely ask for much.

2.) I go to people first, give them all the details, and make prayer a generalized after-thought. When something bad happens, it’s easy to text a friend, call a spouse, even put bad news on Facebook. Out of habit, I learn to rely on friends for guidance, comfort, and validation. My father asks me to come to Him first, just like a child does when he’s hurt. He runs to Daddy and recounts the event that led to his tears. I might argue that God already knows but it’s not He who benefits when I communicate at length, it’s me. I need to say things. I need to ask. By asking, I’m affirming my trust in Him and getting to know my own heart as I speak at length.

3.) I believe that God is sovereign and is going to do whatever He wants anyway so prayer is not necessary. Prayer is cooperative. God hears my prayers. He changes His mind on matters because of my steadfast prayer. He withholds judgment from those who might otherwise experience harsh consequences because I, like Daniel, like Moses, plead their case, ask God to forgive them and stay His hand. Prayers change the course of history and God is sovereign. They are not mutually exclusive.

God is my King. He is my judge. But first and foremost, He is my Father. He delights to see me coming. The more I need Him, the more He likes it. Joni Eareckson Tada said, “Jesus is strong but He’s also approachable. He is able to carry our load but He’ll never make us feel embarrassed or defeated for asking.”

See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. I John 3:1

In many cultures, and perhaps in one where you grew up, children were to be seen and not heard. Their value was less than the adults in the group. Not so in God’s kingdom. He tells all adults, even highly educated ones, that they should become as children. The child is definitely the biblical role model in scripture. Jesus referred to us as His children. How humbling. Children need guidance and instruction in wisdom. Children need role models. God offers all that in Himself as our Father. The only way for me to mature from a baby child in the kingdom to a mature one is to live in my Father’s Word and ingest it on every level.

That being said, the 1st way to live as a daughter of promise is to meditate. Many Christians believe that meditation is synonymous with ‘new age’. It is not. It originated with God and it is His concept. Satan hijacked it. Meditation is a practice where scripture simmers constantly in my thoughts. If I am out for a walk, having lunch with a friend, sitting at my desk working, or straightening up my family room, thoughts of scripture co-exist with living.

Meditation is Father/Daughter time. It’s about being close, bonding, listening, feeling and thinking. The Hebrew word for meditate is ‘hagah’ which means to savor slowly. “Taste (hagah) and see that the Lord is good.” Psalm 34:8 To savor a bite of food means that it sits on my tongue and I chew it slowly. I engage with the taste of it in every way possible before swallowing. Jeremiah said, “Your words were found and I ate them; and they were the joy and rejoicing of my heart.” Jeremiah 15:16

As God’s child, I must learn to think in whole new ways, ways that are opposite to how I currently think. My Father, through scripture, must redefine my perception of everything. God must fashion a whole new mindset in me since the philosophy of this world is not of heaven.

In scripture, God tells me the way things work. He tells me who He is, who I am, the way the world works, and the way the kingdom operates. Doesn’t this sound like basic instruction between a parent and a toddler? We begin teaching our baby how to recognize mama and dada. God tells us after adoption that He is our Abba.  (Daddy)

In the messiness of life, meditation is imperative. When I feel abandoned by God, meditation has me focus on His faithfulness. When I fear He hasn’t heard my prayers, meditation zeroes in on His promises to answer prayer. When my feelings trip me up, meditation reorders my thoughts.

As human parents, we don’t hand our small children a textbook to learn life. That would be tragically impersonal and disastrous. Instead, we offer them relationship and a learning environment within the context of a loving relationship. As God’s child, why would I think that studying scripture as God’s textbook would shape me in any significant way? God, also, desires to parent me in the context of a tender relationship.  He whispers in my ear through meditation.

Jesus is a lovely and beautiful Savior. He is full of glory and this upcoming series is to make so much of Him that there is no doubt in our minds that the only One who transforms orphans into sons and daughters is Him. Orphans are of the earth. Children are begotten of God and are made in heaven.

Our emotional wells are deep and living on this earth leaves gaping holes that only God can fill. It takes us a long time to learn how to hear Him speak to us. Until then, we hide from Him. We blame Him. We search for Him in wrong places. We mis-perceive Him and judge Him. But ah, when we find Him, everything changes. This glorious God becomes our new Father, through Christ, but what it looks like to be raised by an invisible God can be somewhat confusing. We call ourselves His children, but do we live and thrive with all the privileges of fully adopted children? Do we function, consciously, as children who are being parented by God?

And that is the reason for this series. Personally, I am not whole yet. But I am not crippled anymore. I often limp but I’ve found my legs and I feel God’s wind behind me. The healing journey of fully living as God’s child will take me a lifetime but I’m grateful for what He’s taught me so far. Each piece of instruction has felt like the golden whispered secrets spoken between two who love each other and can’t stop talking late into the night.

It is this journey which I long to share with you. God knows my heart for you. I’ve seen your faces in my dreams; curious, tentative, even a little hopeful that God’s love is for real and His power is available to you in all the places where powerlessness has snuffed out the promise of an abundant life. My prayer today is that God will prepare your heart; prepare to break through the fog of pain and misunderstanding that obscures Him so that you may see His glory and hear Your call to live.

It is time to consider coming out of the shadows to live life loved. On Monday, we’ll begin exploring the ways we are invited to partake in a holy Father/daughter relationship. Each principle is a privilege but each is also activated by an act of faith. It’s the call to put down the sword against those who couldn’t, or wouldn’t, give us what we needed. Instead, it’s the call of the Father to raise our eyes to the One who can be everything to us as He walks us, step by step, to our home with Him in heaven.

“Your fame spread among the nations on account of your beauty, because the splendor I had given to you made your beauty perfect,” declares the Sovereign Lord.   Ezekiel 16:14