II Corinthians 1:9-10 and 3:18

Beholding glory

Comfort, trust, sufficiency

God raises the dead

2-8-2011

Remembering when God cried . . .

This is the second part in my repost of a previous poem.

Before He took the final steps of His journey to the cross, Jesus had spent a great deal of time teaching His disciples what to expect. But they didn’t get it. Not even when He performed the amazing miracle showcased by John in chapter 11 of his account of Christ’s life on earth, not even when He performed that greatest of all miracles He had performed so far, not even then did they imagine in their wildest dreams what He was trying to tell them. Not even then were they even able to imagine the promise He was making to them. I don’t blame them for their lack of understanding. I have a hard time comprehending it myself–I who have read the whole story and know the ending–I have a hard time comprehending the promise of resurrection when staring hideous DEATH in the face. But Easter calls us to remember. And to remember than right before that amazing miracle which foreshadowed the greatest miracle of all time–right before He changed the fabric of space and time for the grieving family, as He met grief and anguish wreaked by DEATH, Jesus–God Himself–wept. It’s ok to cry.

Resurrection?

Rising from the dead?
Just doesn’t happen
Impossible
So improbable that our minds
Cannot conceive the thought:
“Your brother will rise again.”
“Yes, Lord, someday he will
when life as we know it
comes to an end and
You make all things new.”
“I AM the Resurrection
and the Life,” You reply;
and, though my mind believes,
my heart still cries:
“Lord, if You had been here,
My brother would not have died!”
I cannot help but weep.
And You weep, too—
You, who are Life itself,
Weeping over Death.
I know by Your weeping
that You loved him, too:
that Death can touch Your heart,
divine though You may be.
Perhaps Divinity is wounded
more by Death than is Mortality.
And for this moment,
once again, Death
trumps Victory.
And so we weep together.
What comes next?

“Where have you laid him?”

Renewed Youth

November 11, 2010

I just figured out tonight why Psalm 103:5 would need to happen.

I was reading the background Lois Lowry gives for her book Number the Stars in her afterword. She spoke of the courage of the Danish resistance fighters who dared to defy the Nazis in so many ways . . . and of the youth of so many of them. One young man she spoke of was only 21 when he was executed by the Nazis. Young, brave, and idealistic, he wrote a letter to is loved ones asking them not to lament the past that has ended but to work for the future they truly longed for (and needed). So young. So brave!

And it hit me that I have grown old at heart. Afraid to risk, afraid of the pain, afraid that all I’ve done and risked in the past was a mere foolish waste after all. All that pain, that fear, that doubt is crippling. Because when you’re young you know that the risks are there but you haven’t experienced them firsthand. And you tell yourself that you are proceeding in spite of the risks when really you are simply throwing yourself out into the fray as though there are no risks. Because for the young, the risks don’t exist. But when you have experienced the risks, you grow up, you become conscious of the cost, and you grow wary.

And before you realize it, you’ve grown old.

Perhaps you become more strategic, but maybe that’s a nice way of saying you play things safer.

And perhaps that’s why we need God to renew our youth like the eagle’s–so we can launch ourselves out again and take the risks as though they aren’t even there. Because in the real world, the world that matters, the risk of loving others is great, the greatest, but it’s the one ideal that is the most important. Because if we are going to act like God does, we are going to have to love like He does–in spite of the risks. And–like those young, brave, Danish resistance fighters–perhaps even because of them.

 

Cast me not off in the time of old age; forsake me not when my strength faileth. Psalm 71:9

Who satisfieth thy mouth with good things: so that thy youth is renewed like the eagle’s. Psalm 103:5

Lately . . .

My Dad sent me the link to this song and I had to laugh because it’s been me lately. The more tired I get, the harder it is to filter out the little things and maintain serenity and sweetness. It was a nice reminder that “this is the stuff” God uses to make me what I really want to be–more like Him =)

Please ignore the Mormon add–if that’s the one you get at the beginning :/

the ultimate signature

“My dear Jesus, my Savior, is so deeply written in my heart, that I feel
confident, that if my heart were to be cut open and chopped to pieces,
the name of Jesus would be found written on every piece.” – St. Ignatius
of Antioch

qtd in NBBC Alumni update 10-22-2007

For this to be true in any heart requires a rewrite of our spiritual DNA! But that’s the beauty of the promise in Jeremiah 31 and in Hebrews 8–God promises to write His law into our very hearts. That’s the promise I love best in Scripture!!!

it’s not over yet

Oh, every year hath its winter,
And every year hath its rain—
But a day is always coming
When the birds go north again.

When new leaves swell in the forest,
And grass springs green on the plain,
And alders’ veins turn crimson—
And the birds go north again.

Oh, every heart hath its sorrow,
And every heart hath its pain—
But a day is always coming
When the birds go north again.

‘Tis the sweetest thing to remember,
If courage be on the wane,
When the cold, dark days are over—
Why, the birds go north again.

~ taken from Streams in the Desert (copyright 1925) October 9

from Streams in the Desert March 5

In the bitter waves of woe
Beaten and tossed about
By the sullen winds that blow
From the desolate shores of doubt,
Where the anchors that faith has cast
Are dragging in the gale,
I am quietly holding fast
To the things that cannot fail.

And fierce though the fiends may fight,
And long though the angels hide,
I know that truth and right
Have the universe on their side;
And that somewhere beyond the stars
Is a love that is better than fate.
When the night unlocks her bars
I shall see Him–and I will wait.

~Washington Gladden

ministry quotes

Funny how God brings things together from different sources! Last week, His topic seemed to be “ministry.” Here are two quotations that He used to get me thinking, two quotations from different sources.

>“The place God calls you is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.”
~Frederick Buechner (qtd by Richard M. Webster in “Study to Enrich Inquirers and Candidates” Presbyterian Church U.S.A.) From Sunday School class (a study on our calling to ministry as Christians)

God is always working where the world’s deep hungers are located. Sometimes they’re buried very deeply, but He knows just how deeply they’re buried. I want to be where He is, doing what He created me to love doing.

> “Ministry is only an outward manifestation of our relationship to God.  Without the relationship, ministry is just dust.  With it, ministry is gold.”
~from an e-mail to me by a friend and former teacher, Jody Wong

I love this quotation the most. Sometimes when ministries change, we start to feel that perhaps we have made God unhappy with us or feel as though our closeness to Him is dependent upon what we are doing for Him. Over this past year, He has been showing me that my relationship to Him is the thing that will always go deeper than any ministry.

what’s my measuring cup?

Grandma broke her measuring cup the other day–one that she’s had for a long time. She had put hot tea into it (it’s one of those glass pitchers that measures up to two cups) and then, after pouring that out, had put cold water into it. You guessed correctly: it cracked down the middle! (last week was a bad week for breaking glass containers! I had done a similar thing a couple days before!)

That incident sorta connects with a quotation I found in Oswald Chambers’s writings a couple days ago:

“Wherever one’s hopes are founded, there will that person’s idea of prosperity be. And whatever the soul conceives to be prosperity will become that person’s measurement of hope.”
~ April 18 Devotions for a Deeper Life Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1986.

I didn’t even finish reading the day’s reading right away; I had to stop and ponder that statement. What do I consider prosperity? How do I measure my hope? I know what the “Sunday School” answer is. But the “Sunday School” answer gets its bad rap from the very fact that it’s pat rather than practical, easy rather than real. I have a vague notion of what I’d like the answer to be. But I wonder what the answer really is, what my life shows it to be. And I wonder what it is becoming, what God is making it into.

How do I measure success? Am I a success because I averaged 10 minutes per book that I had to write assignments in tonight? I think it’s a good average by the estimates I have heard, but will my boss think so when she arrives on Monday morning to find that there’s still a little more to do to get ready for the evening? Do I measure my success by my own estimations or by others’ opinions? or both? or neither? Not “how should I measure them?” but “how do I measure them?”

It’s got me pondering–not morbidly, but curiously; not fearfully, but interestedly.

Obviously, I’m not measuring my success by how early I get to bed at night. Maybe I ought to . . . =)

under the circumstances . . .

“If we cannot believe God when circumstances seem be against us, we do not believe Him at all.” – Charles Spurgeon
qtd in NBBC Alumni Update: January 28, 2008

I’ve been studying the life of Job lately. (Actually, the whole church was, and the children’s class got behind: we’re still studying that book along with the Psalms that the rest of the church is studying. We’re having a great time figuring out what each of the characters in Job is saying and getting quite an education on the behavior of people discussing things!)

If anyone had a hard time with circumstances, Job was the one. And he had so many questions for God. Questions I find that I have–sometimes even without knowing I’m wondering them.

“God, why are you punishing me? I’ve been doing my best to serve you!”

“God, if things are really truly ok between us, why these circumstances?”

“How is it considered punishment when it happens to others but not to me? It appears the same!”

“How can you still be ok with me when everyone else seems not to be? and when my world seems to be falling apart? and when I can’t tell up from down?”

Yet, before we begin the series of discussions between Job and his friends, we know the answers to some of the questions. As I say to my kids, God was really bragging on Job.

God: “Satan, see Job down there? He’s my friend. He’s such a great guy!”

Satan: “Yeah, he’s just your friend because you’ve given him everything he wants and needs and even some things he didn’t know he wanted or needed. Take all that away, and you’ll lose his friendship.”

So God let it be tested. And He had something more to brag about when Satan returned from carrying out the terrible deed of stripping from Job everything that he had.

God: “See, I told you he was my friend! You took away everything, and he’s still my friend! What a great guy!”

Satan: “Yeah, but he’s still healthy. Make him sick, put him into some real, physical pain, and he will start to curse you.”

So God allowed that, too. And still Job didn’t stop being God’s friend. And then (as an added “bonus”) Job’s friends misunderstood him. And they added misunderstanding to misunderstanding. And Job didn’t stop being God’s friend.

But He began to wonder if God was still his friend.

And I guess that when I’m under the circumstances, I begin to wonder that, too. I’m looking forward to the end of the book, looking forward to seeing how God answers some of these questions.

a batch of brownies–the first Christmas “cookie”

God rest you merry, gentlemen,
Let nothing you dismay,
Remember Christ our Saviour
Was born on Christmas Day,
To save us all from Satan’s pow’r
When we were gone astray;

O tidings of comfort and joy, comfort and joy,
O tidings of comfort and joy.

Am I the only one that finds this song ironic? It tells of rest and comfort and joy in a minor key and is sung either as a funeral dirge or as a race to the sales table (depending, of course, on who is leading the song). In fact, my favorite arrangements of this piece give the sensation of being swept off my feet and into . . . the great swell of traffic on the freeway . . . the harried atmosphere of a busy workday . . . the frenzied rush to finish things before due-dates . . . any moment but a restful moment.  I don’t dislike the song. I enjoy it (especially an older arrangement on a cassette tape with the Mantovani choir we had when I was a child). I simply find it ironic. Ironic like the whole Christmas season: in what other season of the year do we rush around desperately trying to make life simple, beautiful, and peaceful?

“Rest . . . Let nothing you dismay . . . Remember . . . Comfort and joy”

The Christmas season, like no other season in the year, reminds us of the important things in life: generosity, peace, love, and simplicity. We set out to make it a special time for ourselves and those around us, planning the perfect party, seeking just the right present, focusing on giving rather than on receiving. Yet, we find ourselves so tired. Somewhere in the midst of it all there is no rest–not physically, not emotionally, not spiritually. Somehow, in the midst of the focus on giving, there is little peace. And in a season that is supposed to be merry, many of us are left feeling disappinted somehow. By the end of the Christmas season, we are left wondering where in the world the “comfort and joy” could have been hiding. Did we miss them at the store? Were the malls sold out of them? Are these “tidings” no different than the sale ads we see on television and get in the mail? Maybe the comfort and joy are in limited quantities: only those who are first in line for the food at the Christmas party get them; only those willing to camp out on the steps of the stores the night before the sale can afford them.

But the God of the universe couldn’t possibly be that way, could He? Wouldn’t He have enough to go around to everyone–with more to spare? Enough rest for everyone? When He grew up, this baby proclaimed “Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” That’s a wide-open welcome. A sale that never ends. Maybe it’s like a batch of brownies: it doesn’t exactly fit the description of what we usully think of when we hear the word “cookie”; it doesn’t take a lot of work on our part; we simply bring the few ingredients we need to add and combine them with the mix (yes, I make brownies from mixes) then bake at the right temperature. Most of it’s been done for us. And around the Christmas season, I feel a little short on ingredients–time, for one! And so, maybe, having comfort and rest and joy is about bringing my few ingredients to the Chef and adding them to His mix: as simple as that! Could it really be that easy?

But are brownies allowed at this cookie party?  I can only really rest when I am comfortable and when I know that things are ok between me and those around me. And that is something we are short on–the knowledge that we are “ok,” not in the sense of mediocrity, but in the sense of acceptance. Are we allowed to come as we are? Somehow nothing in life seems to be good enough or done enough. And so we burn the midnight oil to accomplish the things that we feel ought to be done. And we have trouble being comfortable enough in God’s presence to rest.

Victor Hugo is quoted as saying this: “Have courage for the great sorrows of life and patience for the small ones; and when you have laboriously accomplished your daily task, go to sleep in peace. God is awake.” Maybe I’m so busy trying to find my peace and joy and wrap it up and put it under the Christmas tree for others (and maybe a little for myself) that I won’t take the time to unwrap God’s gifts to me–the very things I am looking for. Maybe it’s time to realize that I don’t have to be perfect to be accpeted by God. I can get into my comfy clothes around him and rest. Maybe it’s time to do that this Christmas.

And have a brownie. It’s ok.

the unthinkable boast

From Max Lucado’s book Traveling Light (Nashville: W Publishing Group, 2001):

“Do you feel a need for affirmation? Does your self-esteem need attention? You don’t need to drop names or show off. You need only pause at the base of the cross and be reminded of this: The maker of the stars would rather die for you than live without you. And that is a fact. So if you need to brag, brag about that.”

Lucado echoes the apostle Paul in Galatians 6:14 where he says “But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world.”

To be honest, such boasting is totally and completely unthinkable! How dare I boast that the God who made the stars should love me so very much? That’s akin to saying that Bill Gates is my best friend or that the king of Spain chats with me online every day. Yes, the Bible makes it very very clear that God’s love really is that big, but it’s really not something I can believe easily, especially since human love can’t and won’t and doesn’t fill every need.

It seems audacious to boast of God loving me so much He didn’t want to live without me. So much He would give up His very life for me. It really seems much more humble to boast about my own petty accomplishments. Deep in my heart, I realize they’re petty. In fact, that’s part of why we boast, isn’t it: to raise ourselves off of the dirt floor where the superiority of others has cast us? And so we boast, feeling that others view us as inferior, trying to give ourselves an “ego boost” (sounds like an add-in at a smoothie shop: “I’ll take an immunity boost, an energy boost, and an ego boost in mine, please.”).

Reading Lucado’s words, I realize that I’ve never really understood Paul’s ability to boast in the cross before. What kind of boasting is that? Doesn’t it sound a bit heartless to the rest of the world to tell about something that they don’t have and might never be able to obtain–a love like that? And if they could obtain it, wouldn’t it make my possession of such love less significant? I’ve wondered about how in the world the apostle John could have the presumption to call himself “the disciple Jesus loved”–didn’t that cheapen the relationship the others had with Jesus? Wasn’t that a slap in the face to them and their relationships with Him? And if I were to boast in such love, I would be sure to find out very quickly that someone else has more of His love to boast about.

And so I boast about everything else but the one true possession I have that gives value to my little life, the thing that God has reiterated over and over that no one will ever be able to take from me, the thing that He has promised is mine forever, the one thing that He has given me permission to boast about. Why don’t I boast about it?

I have to believe it first.