When I'm not riding in the backseat of my Grandpa's restored vintage car "Mable," I'm doing other things like...
rising to most adventure occasions my husband proposes /
chasing our toddler around Brooklyn /
enjoying neighbors, strangers, and friends /
making countless trips to the laundromat /
writing for various publications and for personal reflection /
loving and serving our local church /
cleaning the bathroom /
hosting small and big crowds in our home /
meeting up with a friend for coffee /
thinking
Vocation is my strange frenemy. Though I have worked and existed in many stations/places, I am convinced that each day has good work to be done and that I am equipped and prepared to do that good work.
This blog explores the tension and the intersection of a constant vocational call - to good work, neighbor love, and living in the kingdom come.
My favorite things are coffee and creating and laughing (preferably with company). I love to listen to sermons and read biographies and make tea before going to bed.
“He is not here, for he has risen, as he said. Come, see the place where he lay.”
Matthew 28:6, emphasis added
God keeps His promises – He will do what He says He will do. He has never broken a promise, not ever.
This morning I am caught up in the rhythm of believing – the every moment proclamation that God is, in fact, trustworthy. He did what He said He would do… freely, joyfully, and painfully enduring the cross so that we could come close and be reconciled. He suffered, as He said He would, on our behalf and for our ransom.
Then He rose, as He said He would, in victory over the grave and to secure our souls’ resurrection.
Just as He said.
He conquered death and offers us the every moment victory over the same. We are united with Him in His resurrection and invited to see just how trustworthy is our God.
Every moment, trustworthy.
Every moment, gracious.
Every moment, forgiving.
Every moment, loving.
Every moment, joyful over our reconciliation to Himself.
Every moment, keeping His promises. I am moved to joyful belief because my God chooses to keep His promises to me.
Every moment, the God of all creation keeps His promises to His little, created ones.
I didn’t get to go to a Good Friday service last night.
I worked until 8:30 pm and then chased the last rays of Spring sunshine back to my neighborhood. I had my belly full of joy, satisfied with the abundance of His grace that carried me from Monday to Friday dusk.
The death didn’t set in until this morning and now I cannot dry my eyes. Jesus died. He was torn apart to satisfy God’s wrath and to secure my place of forever joy with Him. Jesus died and the next day He was still dead.
I don’t understand it.
John Piper tweeted this morning: “Still sovereign while dead. ‘Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.’ (John 2:19)” What does that mean – that He was sovereign even while He was dead? How could my Savior die?
I don’t pretend to understand it – the mystery of it all – but I do understand this: my belly fills with joy because I am redeemed. I am set free by the grace of God as He looks on the perfect sacrifice of His Son that satisfies His wrath.
I am set free because my Savior was torn apart and humiliated in death to pay the price of my ugly heart. Today, I’ll let the tears roll because my belly full of joy came at great cost.
My complete and abundant joy was secured when God’s complete and perfect wrath was satisfied in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.
I don’t understand this Holy Saturday, but I do understand this: the dead weight of Friday looks to Sunday for relief in the resurrection.
Torn apart you paid my price,
The wrath of God was satisfied
I traded sin, you gave me life
My hope is found on Jesus Christ
“The happy ending of the Resurrection is so enormous that it swallows up even the sorrow of the Cross.” – Tim Keller
Today is Maundy Thursday, which wasn’t any more than a funny word pairing until I read my holy week reflection. Mandatum means “command” or “mandate” in Latin and we celebrate Maundy Thursday because on the night before Jesus was killed he gave a “new commandment” (John 13:34).
Love one another, as Christ loved us.
What a great and impossible command he gave as his parting exhortation! Love as Christ loved? The perfect and sinless Jesus, who didn’t curse his enemies or get impatient at the market or cover up a white lie for his cousin? We are to love like this Jesus, who saw pain and brokenness and stepped toward it? The Jesus who associated with the lowly and the losers and the little children?
“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another” (John 13:34).
The Lord has been so gracious in these past few days to pour out His grace. The deeper I dig for gospel mercies, the more I find to fill my days. And I need it – every last drop of grace, I need it.
The substance of my work is not something one prays away – it is the fruit of a world torn by sin and a people tangled in deception. The prince of darkness works 24/7 to battle the life-giving joy of the Gospel message and all the ugly will be there tomorrow morning and the next. Sin is a hungry monster – it eats disaster and spits it out. Sometimes it feels like my days are walking in sin’s vomit. Believe me, it feels as disgusting as it sounds.
The Lord has been gracious, though, to give grace when I’m knee deep in sin’s sticky sludge. At the day’s end when I am realizing that everything will look the same in the morning and my heart wants to despair, I remember that Jesus promised abundant life and then I say, “Yes, I believe it.” But, my belief doesn’t transform my circumstances… it transforms my heart.
And today as I reflect on Maundy Thursday – the new commandment Jesus gave to love as He loved us – I think this is exactly the place I need to be. This great and impossible command to love happens as we believe Christ for the glorious work of the cross.
Loving one another does not mean ignoring sin or downplaying deception or denying evil – Christ certainly didn’t ignore, downplay or deny. And anyone who works in social services must know it is impossible to make less of the helpless state of things. Please, don’t ask me to look an addict in the face and say sin really doesn’t have a hold of him. Instead, because Christ knew the depth of our sin, He also knew the cost of love towards us.
Loving one another as Christ loved us means that we are willing to walk toward the hurting. Loving one another as Christ loved us means that we see the sin and deception and evil as darkness, but we believe in the power of light to expose fruitless, dark deeds (Ephesians 5). Loving one another as Christ loved us means that we speak truth about the death grip of sin and speak truth about the offer of life.
Christ was not politically correct. He was not the greatest orator. He did not consult ratings before and after a public address. Christ concerned Himself with the Truth because He was the Truth. He held all things together and still does. But, he walked toward the hurting. He sat with the broken. He listened to the wicked. He held disobedient children in his lap.
Christ got so close to the hurting that they hurt him. His loving us cost Him his life. He got so close to the broken that they broke Him. We broke Him.
If we are really going to love one another, we have to get close enough that it will cost us our lives.
Just a string of sad days here in the middle of Iowa and “whoa-o-oa” is about all I want to sing. It’s just not getting better – the circumstances, I mean.
The bad news just keeps coming and it feels like death. It feels like thick, heavy, black death.
Whoa.
So, how is it that my soul can again feel light and breathe freedom? Honestly, today I wondered. I was clinging to God’s promises through tears… but still clinging.
There was once a death that killed death. The death that my sin deserved was nailed to the only One undeserving of wrath so that the debt could be paid and I could be free. God sent Jesus to feel the full weight of His wrath and to embrace the full victory of His glory.
Christ stepped into the place of wrath where we should have stood so that we can step into the place of light where He now stands.
Whoa.
God sent Jesus, who buried death in His grave.
Whoa.
I’ll sing when it feels like death because Jesus buried death in His grave and then He rose again.
Mmm let these melodies sink into your soul. They are like medicine to mine. Some of them are straight from the Good Book and others sound more like foreigners, but each is part of what keeps me singing and I thought I’d share with you.
Here is an album I’m really excited to get to know more. Songs for the Book of Luke is an album “by the church, for the church” and it accompanies the Gospel Coalition’s National Conference in Florida coming up in April.
This is a song I like to sing to chase fear away. Maybe it will help chase some of yours away, too.
Sometimes it gets dark, real dark… and you forget that the night is followed by morning. Well, I forget that God has promised dawn – a bright and beautiful dawn in the work of Christ and it is sealed in our hearts. This is for those times when I need to be reminded.
And this is for those days when you just feel like you need…. more time.
The evil pressed in, breaking the seams of a gloriously beautiful, blue-sky day. It’s like poison warring to claim a body fighting for life and health.
The parking garages are always dark and quiet and cold, but today my brisk step met sunshine on the other side of the sidewalk. I stepped out from the garage’s shadows and under a warm blue sky for the 5 minutes it took to get inside the courthouse.
And in those 5 minutes, I claimed Christ – one promise after another in step with the clicking of my heels. Breathe, step, Christ. Breathe, step, Christ. Into the courtroom I went and out of the courtroom two and a half hours later into the same warm blue sky. Breathe, step, Christ. Breathe, step, Christ.
The joy of my slow, pre-work morning was distant and slippery now against the evil pressing in on all sides. I looked up and warmed my face against the sun and let my lungs fill with a heavy sigh.
No morning resolve will last the whole day through – it’s not strong enough to overcome the evil. My morning resolve wore off about one hour into my work day. One hour and I needed another promise to battle and overcome the opposition.
No, the gospel is not meant to be taken as a one-a-day prescription.
We’re meant to drink it all day long – to be satisfied in our souls with the richness of His grace. He pours it out and bids us come and drink. Today, I needed so many spoonfuls.
There is so much evil that threatens to rob us of joy and strength and resolve. And if we’re not drinking in the grace God has poured out, we will take a different medicine and fear will be our portion, worry will be our cup.
As I was driving away from one client and before I drive to the next, I rehearse the moments in which I need to believe.
In pain, Christ.
In fear, Christ.
In joy, Christ.
In hope, Christ.
In trembling, Christ.
In love, Christ.
In grief, Christ.
In failure, Christ.
In heartache, Christ.
Every moment, Christ.
I am being sanctified from one degree of glory to the next (2 Corinthians 3:18) as this very moment rolls over into the next moment. And for all moments, Christ is sufficient and abundant to pour out grace enough to fill my soul to overflowing. For all the promises of God find their “Yes” in Christ (2 Corinthians 1:20).
Monday came with a rush – like a wave upon a wave. And now I’m rushing off to a meeting praying my soul into steadiness.
And God is reminding me, in little and big ways, that He holds the future securely with His promises. He is guiding and directing and orchestrating and He is not worried about the outcome.
Steady.
A ship’s captain yells out in a storm to encourage the men at their posts, “Steady. Steady, now,” even as a massive wave threatens to destroy the ship and their lives. But the men stand steady because they trust their captain.
And so, I stand steady against the waves because the One encouraging me also commands the oceans. His hand steadies my heart as easily and swiftly as it also steadies the waves rocking me.
Steady.
Steady is the face Jesus wore when he set out for Jerusalem. He was not fearful that the Father had forgotten about Him. He was not afraid. He set his face to go to Jerusalem, steady in His resolve to do the Father’s will.
When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem. And he sent messengers ahead of him, who went and entered a village of the Samaritans, to make preparations for him. But the people did not receive him, because his face was set toward Jerusalem. And when his disciples James and John saw it, they said, “Lord, do you want us to tell fire to come down from heaven and consume them?” But he turned and rebuked them. And they went on to another village. (Luke 9:51–56)
Steady.
And there is grace enough today to steady my heart because all the commotion is not what anchors. My hope is in future grace – that Christ anchors in this moment as firmly as He does the next. And I am steadied.
I’m a fool with nothing left to lose.
I’m a fool with nothing left but you.
“Luke 12:32 is a verse about the nature of God. It’s a verse about what kind of heart God has. It’s a verse about what makes God glad—not merely about what God will do or what he has to do, but what he delights to do, what he loves to do, and what he takes pleasure in doing. “Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.”
(Love to the Uttermost Holy Week Devotional, p. 2)
I am wrong about a lot of things… and often. As I read the above from the Holy Week devotional, I asked the Lord to examine my heart and see if I was wrong about this one wondrous thing. Because of all things to be wrong about, the nature of God is pretty major – maybe the most major thing to be wrong about in all of life. A.W. Tozer wrote, “What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.”
Many people view the nature of God as one they must hide from at the risk of being smitten or they reject that God must be hidden from and stand defiantly in opposition.
The former view of God is a fearful one that hides not only from God’s judgment but also from His blessing. The latter view is a boastful one that defiantly exposes oneself to God’s judgment but also rejects His blessing with clenched fist raised high.
Can we hide from God – from His judgment or His blessing?
Where shall I go from your Spirit?
Or where shall I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there! If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there!
If I take the wings of the morning
and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
even there your hand shall lead me,and your right hand shall hold me.
If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me,
and the light about me be night,
”even the darkness is not dark to you;
the night is bright as the day,
for darkness is as light with you. (Psalm 139:1-12, ESV)
No, we cannot hide from God. We can find the deepest cave, the most secret tunnel, the most remote island and He will find us. The world and everything in it is His. We can never run so far that we are beyond His gaze. If He desires, His judgment will find us as easily as His blessing.
Can we defy God’s judgment and reject His blessing?
For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. (Romans 1:18-23)
Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. (James 1:17, ESV)
No, we cannot defy God. We cannot erase the righteous wrath of God by closing our eyes and raising our fists. He created us and imprinted His name on our hearts as a trademark of His craftsmanship. He will pour out His wrath and His blessing whether the world receives them with eyes open or closed.
There is no hiding from God and there is no defying God. But, if we understand the true nature of God, we will not want to hide or defy Him.
the kingdom is a wondrous thing
In Luke 12:32, we read that it is God’s good pleasure to give us the kingdom. God, in His very nature, is delighted to give us the most precious and beautiful and costly thing – Himself.
Today is Palm Sunday, when we remember that Jesus rode triumphantly on a humble donkey into the city that would betray Him. He had set his face like flint toward Jerusalem (Luke 9:51), determined to submit to the Father’s will and experiencing the joy set before Him as He endured the scorn (Hebrews 12).
It is futile and foolish to hold up clenched fists in defiance of this kind of precious, beautiful, costly love, but it is also foolish to hide from it. The enormity of God’s glory is a weighty and scary thing, but God purposed to cast out all fear with His perfect love (1 John 4:18) when He sent Jesus to satisfy His wrath for those He had chosen.
The cross uncovers a Father who provided a way for His creation to be reconciled, but not out of obligation or master schemery. His provision was not a plan B or a compromise. He did not need to make provision that any would be reconciled.
The Father provided a way for His creation to be reconciled because He is in His nature good and merciful, tender-hearted and loving.
God gave the kingdom to His creation willingly because it brought Him great delight. He gave His children the kingdom – His Son – out of the kind of joy we don’t have room in our brains to understand. His glorious face shone with pleasure when His Son paid the ransom due for His children to be reconciled to Him. Can you imagine? The God of the universe delighting in you coming home, delighting in the sacrifice of His own Son so that you could come home?
Both hiding from and defying God are rooted in fear. And fear (the unrighteous kind) has no place in God’s reconciliation mission of our souls.
Will we let the perfect love of Christ cast out all fear?
Will we admit where we are wrong about this wondrous thing?
Lucy Pevensie is a teacher of the sweetest kind because she leads the way in innocent and curious discovery. I can almost hear her gasps as she uncovers truths and mysteries, walking boldly toward light inside dark.
Have you ever watched the face of a little one building with blocks? The careful consideration and slow motions always surprise me. You would think (I would) that children are impatient and impulsive when it comes to block building, but it is not so. They must have reasons in their little minds for going slowly, considering thoroughly, and placing thoughtfully every piece.
Last week, I watched a little one put one block on top of another and each time he would look around and squeal with arched eyebrows as if to say, “Look! Can you believe this tower?”
I couldn’t help it. My response was always in kind with a gasp for effect, “Wow! Look at that! What a great tower!” I was legitimately impressed with the height he achieved before it toppled over and he started again – the same exclamations each time he placed a block on top of a block.
Oh, Lucy Pevensie would be proud, I think, of the way the little one is teaching me a lesson about depth and joy and mystery. In The Last Battle, Lucy was talking with her friend Tumnus the Faun as they overlooked the garden wall.
“I see,” she said at last, thoughtfully. “I see now. This garden is like the Stable. It is far bigger inside than it was outside.”
“Of course, Daughter of Eve,” said the Faun. “The further up and the further in you go, the bigger everything gets. The inside is larger than the outside.”
…
“I see,” she said. “This is still Narnia, and, more real and more beautiful than the Narnia down below, just as it was more real and more beautiful than the Narnia outside the Stable door! I see … world within world, Narnia within Narnia…”
Do we see the world this way, believing a million little dazzling mysteries are tucked inside mysteries? And do we live like these mysteries change the shape of our hearts, the expressions on our faces, and the excitement of discovery?
Oh, the answer always has to be “No” because the mystery of endless depths is that they are endless. But, the discovery that these depths are worth the dive begs the question: will you dive?
Even if (and because surely) you will never reach the bottom – will you dive into the endless depths to discover they just keep going?
My answer to this, I hope, is always “Yes!” with the expression of the little one who wonders at blocks balancing on top of blocks and with the determination of Lucy who is not afraid to believe that a bigger world can fit within a smaller world.
“Further up and further in you go, my child.”
I imagine God saying this as I follow Him into the grace upon grace (John 1:16) I received from the fullness of Christ.
“Yes! Further up and further in I go!” I want to respond.
Each glorious mystery appears to be the most deserving of superlatives, but then there is more and deeper and greater and another most beautiful.
This post was inspired in my reading of Jared C. Wilson’s book, Gospel Deeps where he shares the same excerpt from C.S. Lewis’s classic The Last Battle. Well, that and my amazing little clients.
There is a line in one of my favorite hymns, Count Your Many Blessings, that sings this melody in the second verse,
“Are you ever burdened with a load of care? Does the cross seem heavy you are called to bear?”
And it is this song that came to mind as I read from 1 John that “his commandments are not burdensome.” The weight pressing on top of hunched, wearied shoulders is not the weight of God’s commandments.
Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the Father loves whoever has been born of him. By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome. For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world.
And this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith. Who is it that overcomes the world except the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God? (1 John 5:1-5 ESV, emphasis mine)
Because we are freed to follow, freed to love, freed to obey, freed to hope in believing the power of Christ’s death and resurrection.
Freed.
If a slave is released from the toil of one yoke to another – from the demands of one set of chains to the demands of another – we do not proclaim him free. He is not free. The nature of his slavery is that he must work to live.
The nature of our freedom in Christ is that Christ’s work grants life. The work is accomplished and freedom is gained in believing.
So, when we read that our love of God is expressed in our keeping of His commandments, it is not because our law abiding secures our life.
Did you hear that, friend?
There is not one law-abiding thing you can do to make your life more secure. Christ has done all the work and offers you all the reward.
This is the victory – the glorious, weightless truth that Christ broke the slave chains of sin and destroyed the yoke of death. And He did all this without our help, while we were helpless.
Today, remember that keeping God’s commandments is what we are freed into and that Christ stands in the gap when we obey imperfectly. When we believe that Christ truly conquered and canceled sin on the cross, our righteousness rests on the burden he bore on our behalf. Let’s love Him and keep His commandments with this kind of grace hemming us in.
The cross might seem heavy that you are called to bear, but there is no cross so heavy as the cross Christ bore on our behalf to free us to love Him, obey Him, serve Him, and enjoy Him.
MUSINGS IN THE MIDST 