I’ve had some rich conversations over the past two weeks. Some friends are in challenging places, and when it came time for me to respond to their stories, words were hard to find. I hope that compassion was communicated.
Perhaps you are in a crushing experience. You’re tired of fighting. You’ve held on to hope and clutched your dream. You’ve not let anyone too close for fear that your resolve would be challenged. You’ve controlled things quite artfully. No one knows that your iron will is fragile.
No one can predict the moment when someone will stop fighting. Resolve to make things work will crumble. The hardened exterior of sheer grit will melt away, and surrender to God’s providence will creep in. The humility of true surrender will mark a stunning turning point as you raise your hands toward heaven. “I place all I am, all I have, and all I want into Your hands, God.”
Dreams are fragile things in a fallen world. Perfection here is impossible. The cancer of sin metastasizes and touches everything I want. While good things do happen and pleasurable seasons come for a time, everything perfect is meant to be a taste of things to come. My hope is deferred. And ultimately, loss and grief will consume me if I don’t learn to invest all my dreams into the storehouses of heaven. David said, “And now, O Lord, for what do I wait? My hope is in you.” Psalm 39:7 Abdicating my dreams into the hands of a God who will give me all things brings me peace.
The cataclysmic moment of surrender is messy. At first, there is despair as I acknowledge that my dream is broken. But then, misplaced hope gives way to rock-solid hope, culminating in the restoration of Eden. Everything I long for will one day be mine.
It is the week to think about being thankful. If things are going well, we welcome the topic. That’s because God’s goodness and our levels of gratitude are often defined by the nature of current events in our lives. If this is how I look at it, God offers lens correction.
His goodness is not measured by circumstances, it is measured by the cross.
Even in the worst of times, a child of God can send up a torrent of praise to a good, good Father. More about that tomorrow.
He died for all, so that they who live might no longer live for themselves, but for Him who died and rose again on their behalf. 2 Corinthians 5:15
Do you know that some words are so powerful that we shy away from them? It’s true. Our voices get soft to the point of whispering when we speak specific phrases for the first time. Words that are associated with atrocities and tragedies, the stuff that hell unleashes on earth, are avoided until we have the strength to say them out loud. When we do, mountains move. We are changed in those split seconds.
I was thirty years old when my mother died of cancer. When telling someone that she was gone, I would use every descriptor except the word ‘died.’ I would say that she passed away or that she went home to be with Jesus. It wasn’t until a year later that I finally admitted, ‘My mother died.’ As soon as I said the words, I sank into a chair and sobbed. My ability to grieve was no longer stuck. My blank and stoic exterior melted.
Yesterday, I was driving down a back road and was thanking Jesus for various things as they came to mind. I said, “Thank you for dying for me.” I realized that I said it way too easily. They were spoken like a cliché. Familiar from childhood. Familiar from hymns and pulpits. Familiar as well-worn nursery rhymes. I was upset and began to ask myself, ‘Should this phrase not cause similar reactions as when I spoke about the death of my mother?’
I went to bed thinking about the religious language that sits so comfortably inside us. God wants to shake it loose from stoic mental crevices. His death is not just part of ancient history. It is part of our personal history. Was there not a moment when it became real? Didn’t the love that propelled Him to the cross penetrate our hearts to the point of repentance and gratitude? It still can.
Resurrect the language of the Gospel until it has full effect in us. Amen
It doesn’t naturally occur to me to think of God as having a churning heart. His heart aches when He draws us with gentle cords of love only to find us unresponsive. It’s when He offers everything but we are bored and distracted. It’s when our worship fills His ears with collective mumbling.
Have you ever loved someone more than they loved you? Maybe it was your parents. There is a standard narrative in some families. The ones who cause trouble get all the love and attention, while the children who love to please are overlooked. There are few things more painful than to live as a child with arms extended only to be refused.
There have also been many broken engagements because one cared more than the other. Only one of them loved with their whole heart. The other couldn’t generate anything but casual friendship.
And what about marriages where the love in one spouse has grown cold! The other keeps loving, hoping, and dreaming of mutual love re-kindled.
While we will manipulate to get the love we want, God will not. He could, though. He could scare us with a demonstration of His power and extort anything from us that He wanted. But He woos gently and gives us the freedom to choose Him. He gives everything He has and hopes we’ll respond with a love of the same kind ~ a love that abandons all other loves ~ just to have Him.
Tearfully and joyfully, I love You with my life. Amen
Several weeks ago, I wrote about something that had changed me deeply. Since then, everything has been different and perhaps you’ve sensed it in the writing. If you missed that devotional, here’s the link. It all started when I heard a pastor tell this story.
God called me to start a church within the last decade. We were blessed and were enjoying a congregation of several hundred people. I wanted our ministry to grow, so, every day, I asked God to bring revival. This became the cry of my heart above all other things. I built regular fasts into my schedule and made the focus of each one ~ needed revival for my young church. Two years later, with nothing having changed in the size and spiritual depth of my congregation, I stumbled over unanswered prayer. I asked the Lord during my next fast why He hadn’t answered this when He loves revival, and, I had been so diligent in praying. In the stillness, I heard His answer. “In the last two years of praying for revival, you haven’t once told me you love me.” I fell to my knees. From that day on, I focused on loving Jesus. Prayer was centered around worshipping Jesus. Without intention, my prayer closet traveled from my home to the platform. That was when the power of the Spirit ignited the church. Exponential growth occurred, but the growth has not been, nor is, what is celebrated. I don’t track the growth, focus on it, and manage it. I teach my people to live – loving Jesus, and we are single-minded. We are a people whose passion is the love of the Bridegroom.
Daughters of Promise has been blessed. Its outreach has been built upon years of the slow drip of the Spirit touching one life after another. But with all ministries, the focus of leaders is usually on how to manage it, grow it, and maximize its outreach. It’s on the function and form of it. Over time, programs become templates. Routines can take over. There is a sense of well-being when God blesses. But after hearing this story in September, I realized I was missing the obvious. I was not spending more time loving Jesus than managing the ministry He gave me. I labored in prayer over every decision, often frozen in place, not knowing that if I focused on loving Him, intimacy would take care of the decision. I would know His mind on things ~ where to go and what to do next. My feet would intuitively step onto the right path. No effort.
So much of life can be about proven strategies. I’ll take this job because it’s a good stepping stone to the job I really want to have. I’ll accept this speaking engagement over another because it reaches more people. I’ll teach a Bible Study in the Fall because I have the gift of teaching. Spiritual common sense tricks me and gives me a false sense of knowing what Jesus wants from me. How can I possibly know if we aren’t close?
Over what do you obsess? Over how many things do you ask, ‘What should I do?’ Disengage. Get alone with the Bridegroom and tell Him what you love about Him. Study to know more so that you can love more. Take a walk. Look for the wonder of Him. Talk. Worship. Exclaim. Live with eyes full of tears. Beautiful tears. In the intimacy that grows, you will discover urges and knowings that only come from walking with the Lover of your soul. Questions about life and direction are erased.
P.S. It has taken me three days to write this. I wrote, deleted it, and then started over. Why the struggle? I couldn’t find the words to describe how revolutionary this is. Earlier this morning, my daughter, Jaime, came for a visit. She walked out on our sunporch and asked if I was okay. I had been reading, worshipping, and crying. Tears didn’t stop when she arrived. I explained that I was done in by the beauty of Jesus. We had a wonderful conversation, and she got it. She lives this way, too. So, I’m going to send this and ask the Holy Spirit to fill in the blanks and interpret what words have failed to say.
I love you and am praying for you. If only our hearts could live captivated – captivated as a way of life. How different everything would be.
Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. Romans 12:14
‘Bless those who persecute you’ can sound like a hollow command at a time when new levels of brutality have arisen. But we must have faith in the justice of God. He does not take persecution lightly. His nature is not passive, even if longsuffering. He does not love peace more than He loves truth. He does not love reconciliation more than He angers over injustice.
Setting this scripture alongside imprecatory passages can be confusing. Psalm 69:23-24 Let their eyes be darkened so that they cannot see and make their loins tremble continually. Pour out your indignation upon them, and let your burning anger overtake them.
Paul loved this Psalm and quoted it several times in Romans. Jesus also loved it and quoted it twice from the cross. Putting those who hurt me into God’s hands is to be assured that justice will be served. Either our enemies will come to the cross and repent (and Jesus will justify them through taking the wrath they should suffer upon Himself), or at the end of the age, God will fully pour His wrath and indignation upon them.
These Psalms are the practical applications of God’s justice and mercy here on earth. If I am more bent toward one than the other, I misrepresent the nature and character of God. If I’m soft on sin and have no righteous anger, then mercy stands alone, and God’s holiness is in question. If I live angry and cry out for justice, then the radical love Jesus showed on the cross is obscured.
We are usually more bent toward one than the other. God must work in us to make us like Him.
Lord, you know my personal obstacles, and only You can break through my conflicted heart. Amen
With joy you will draw waters from the well of salvation. Isaiah 12:3
Jesus, the well of salvation is deep for every child of the kingdom. Help me move beyond knowledge to experience.
Where I feed on fear and end up becoming small, lead me to confess it and drink from your well of courage. You promise me salvation from anxiety.
Where I feed on the torment of past failures, lead me to confess it and drink from your well of forgiveness. Your mercy is new every morning.
Where I criticize others to feel powerful, lead me to confess it. You love the one I am maligning. Even the unregenerate.
Where I feel angry over needs unmet, lead me to confess my entitlement and drink from your well of promises to those who are humble. You know my need and will bend low to save me.
Where I feel hopeless over my own sin, lead me out of unbelief. I drink from Your well of salvation and acknowledge Your power to transform me.
Today, I run to Your well of provision. Let me drink of it as easily as I sit down to eat three meals a day. You see my level of thirst today. Open my capacity to want more, and receive more, so that I can live as one who proves that You are enough.
My abundant life starts at the well of Your salvation. Amen
Can you name the big thing that overwhelms you; that mountain you bring before God nearly every hour of the day? I know you wish it weren’t there, that He’d reach out with a sweeping wave of His hand to move it far from you. I know you are frustrated that He’s not doing that when all power is His to take care of it. You can’t understand how anything related to perfect love could keep Him from rescuing. Maybe you also fear that your tears fail to move the heart of your Father. I’ve been there.
God told His people when they were traveling through the wilderness to Canaan, “Little by little I will drive them out before you.” His plan for His child is that he would become wise and faith-driven, a child who trusts Him even when He looks guilty. Please know that slaying one giant at a time will build into your life these things, spiritual elements that are necessary for the unshakeable relationship He’s building with you. Never underestimate what is gained when you walk with Jesus and see progress characterized by baby steps.
May I speak deeply to your discouraged heart? (I wish it could be in person.) God is not stingy, nor is His power limited. It is His love that restrains His hand from completely delivering you from what seems crushing so that He can do something beautiful in your relationship. He knows that this mountain makes you tremble, even despair. But by dealing with your fear and choosing to stand in faith, you are being transformed into someone you will not recognize. When you can’t see your progress, He can. You have already changed more than you know. He wants you to know that today. In the meantime, keep trusting Him. Keep talking. Keep being real. Draw close to your High Priest, and don’t move for anything.
“Little by little I will drive them out before you, until you have increased enough to take possession of the land.” Deuteronomy 23:30
For the past several weeks, in my spirit, I’ve been hearing, ‘My children must go deeper in prayer.’
Spiritual health can largely be determined by the kinds of prayers that are prayed. Requests can be comprised of ‘fix-it’ prayers. What about deeper, more important things? God wants to do beautiful things in my distress, but my focus is all too often on alleviating all suffering instead of sharing in the sufferings of Jesus. Here are some examples.
If I’m sick, I usually ask God to make me well. God says, ‘Go deeper.’ The Holy Spirit would ask me if I’m angry that I am sick or am cross with people because they fail to empathize in the ways that I need. I should pray to learn God’s rhythm of grace in my illness. This matters more than my healing.
If I am being mistreated, I usually ask God to make my enemy nicer. God says, ‘Go deeper.’ The Holy Spirit would ask me to pray for, and love, my enemy. I should pray to learn the ways of the cross-centered life. This matters more than another’s respect.
If I am feeling shame from painful events, I ask God to take away the pain. God says, ‘Go deeper.’ The Holy Spirit would ask me how shame has shaped my identity. I should pray to discover the ways Jesus suffered shame and, also, how He bore my shame. This matters more than erasing the past from my mind.
Nobody likes pain. We weren’t created for it. But it is a great teacher. We won’t be spared from sharing in Jesus’ suffering. He asked us to take up our cross to follow Him. Jesus wants to do more than fix what is broken. He wants to be one with us in suffering. For that, we will have to look behind the things that are wrong to see the opportunities for deeper discipleship.
Behold, I have refined you, but not with silver; I have tested you in the furnace of affliction. Isaiah 48:10
The Lord will give you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, but your Teacher will no longer hide Himself—with your own eyes you will see Him. And whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear this command behind: “This is the way.” Isaiah 30:20-21
There will be a future date, far beyond the life of Isaiah when Jesus and his disciples will be in a boat in the middle of the sea. The opposite shore will be nowhere in sight. It will be dark, and the sea will be churning. Uncertainty and fear will overtake them. Jesus will appear and will be walking on top of the water. Knowing their terror, He will say, “It’s Me. Don’t be afraid.” Like a child whose parent shows up to take care of everything, fears will eventually dissipate. Pounding heartbeats will normalize. Adrenalin will subside. Awe and unworthiness will wash over them as the power of their Savior is made evident.
Our world is in a new season, a horrific season. There’s no visible light on our path without the Light of the world. There is no wisdom for the next step without the voice of the Counselor. There is no self-comfort strong enough to make a dent without the presence of the Comforter. There is no bright horizon without the One who writes a glorious future. Who can access these resources? The people who cry out to Jesus for salvation and ultimate deliverance. No one who calls upon the name of the Lord will be exempt. Israelis and Palestinians, Hamas and Hezbollah.
Where is Jesus now? He’s right there, where He’s always been. He’s never left. He’s wooing His people while the waves of missiles assault their shores. “It’s Me. Don’t be afraid.” May our prayers ascend for blind eyes to see and deaf ears to hear.
Daughters of promise 