Category: Life Insight

less, but never nothing

It is never a question of whether “processing” happens when I spend time with Alejandra, but how much of our time will be spent opening Scripture and asking questions of the Lord. This past weekend was no exception.

One of the zillions of processing thoughts floating around in our brains and souls and conversations was from this passage in 1 Thessalonians.

Finally then, brethren, we request and exhort you in the Lord Jesus, that as you received from us instruction as to how you ought to walk and please God (just as you actually do walk), that you excel still more. 2 For you know what commandments we gave you by the authority of the Lord Jesus. 3 For this is the will of God, your sanctification; that is, that you abstain from sexual immorality; 4 that each of you know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor, 5 not in lustful passion, like the Gentiles who do not know God; 6 and that no man transgress and defraud his brother in the matter because the Lord is the avenger in all these things, just as we also told you before and solemnly warned you. 7 For God has not called us for the purpose of impurity, but in sanctification. 8 So, he who rejects this is not rejecting man but the God who gives His Holy Spirit to you. 1 Thessalonians 4:1–8, ESV

Specifically, Paul’s admonition in verses 4 and 5, “that each of you know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor, not in lustful passion, like the Gentiles who do not know God.” In this scenario, Paul equates the Gentiles with those who “do not know God.”

Gentiles = do not know God = do not know how to possess their bodies in sanctification and honor = live in lustful passion = reject God.

So, this progression begs the question, “What is the alternative?”

Knowing God.

Do believers, who do know God and are being sanctified, eventually get “cured” of lustful passions and impurities? It might seem like our sanctification (sealed in our salvation) looks like the kind of progress that makes struggles like lust eventually obsolete in our lives.

Paul writes in verse 1, “Finally then, brethren, we request and exhort you in the Lord Jesus, that as you received from us instruction as to how you ought to walk and please God (just as you actually do walk), that you excel still more.”

We know from Scripture how we ought to walk (Micah 6:8), what pleases God (Hebrews 6), and that our walk looks like actual steps (Galatians 5) and not just philosophies or cultural expectations. We also know that God promises to be faithful in sanctifying us from one degree of glory to the next (2 Corinthians 3:18). As we obey (not because we obey), in His grace He sanctifies and allows us to excel still more.

But, here we reach that cumbersome impasse.

If we are knowing God in increasing measure and living a life that reflects that knowledge, will our sin eventually disappear? Will we eventually be completely free, by way of sanctification, of the sin that tangles and ties us down?

I wonder if that answer is yes and no.

Yes,
We must believe God when He says He is sanctifying us and that He will not stop until that work is completed. We must believe God when He says “excelling more” is possible. We must believe God when He says there is grace enough and strength enough to overcome whatever tools Satan wields against us. We must believe that His power is always greater, every time.

No,
We must know that our sin on this side of heaven will never be nothing. I don’t care if you are a pastor or a prince or a peddler – your sin will never be nothing on this side of heaven. No one will make weekly trips to church with nothing to confess.

But before we start taking a measuring stick to our spiritual success, let’s consider where our eyes ought to be focused – on the author and perfecter of our faith (Hebrews 12:2), on what is unseen (2 Corinthians 4:18), on the eternal weight of glory (2 Corinthians 4:17).

We do not believe God is faithful to sanctify us by fixing our eyes on our progress, but by fixing our eyes on the One who progresses us from one degree of glory to the next.

Should our sin become less as we are being sanctified? Yes, but we are not consumed by the amount of “less” sin because we are too busy being consumed with the amount of “more” life we have in Christ.

He said abundant and I believe Him for it.

Living in abundance feeds a hunger for more abundance – life gives breath to more life and our eyes are fixed on the Giver in the already, not yet part of this salvation story. Our sin can be less but never nothing on this side of heaven. Knowing God should mean less sin, but the measuring stick is always Christ. He accomplished (past tense) our sanctification, so none of our efforts can aim to accomplish anything. Our obedience is a testimony to His faithfulness, His provision, and His promise-keeping.

Just to be clear…

I’ll add this little caveat that might be helpful as we process the idea of sinning less and enjoying Christ more. If we sin at all, we are in constant and desperate need of salvation. So, since we sin at all (less or more makes no difference) on this side of heaven, there is no room for boasting and no room for pride. Our boast is in the Lord alone, whose grace is sufficient to cover our sin even as we are believing God as He completes the sanctifies work in us. Our sanctification hangs on grace and not on our efforts – it depends on what Christ accomplished through the cross and not what we can accomplish by keeping the law.

Read Piper’s thoughts in the sermon, ‘This is the Will of God for You…’ and then please share your own. The best part of processing is being challenged and sharpened!

Posted on by Caroline 0

don’t tell me to “grit my teeth”

I’m sure there are times when “grit your teeth” is an appropriate idiom for motivation or encouragement. Most of the times that come to mind are situations where small children refuse to eat broccoli or swim underwater or share a toy. Problem is, at that age, idioms don’t really make sense anyway.

What I do know is that “gritting my teeth” right now to muscle through my life-transplanting-across-the-country anxiety is not appropriate or motivational or encouraging.

My life is folded up in suitcases and boxes again and I feel like someone dumped all my emotional luggage out on the front lawn. It came on like waves today – doubts about my current job, doubts about my future job, doubts about doubts. This isn’t the normal level of anxiety I believe my way through. This anxiety hasn’t gone away for good when I believe against it, it just hides until I can be caught by surprise again.

Today, it hit me between the eyes and I couldn’t really put a good sentence together to explain it. I pushed against the temptation to say, “It’s just a phase, it’ll pass” because I know that it won’t. Worry and doubt and anxiety are not phases because believing is not meant to be a phase, either.

The hard work of believing happens while doubts and worries and anxieties hit us between the eyes with questions about worth and future and all the ways we are desperate to be acceptable before God.

God will do the fighting, I’ll do the believing.

I’ve never been more convinced of the power of present tense belief. The Gospel is ongoing salvation and I need to preach it to my soul in an ongoing sermon. When I get hit between my blues with questions about packing lists and budget lines and apartment hunts, my response must be to believe God for the salvation He has promised.

When He covenanted with Abram (Genesis 15), God was the only one who walked through the halved animals – symbolizing that He would keep His promise even if Abraham failed. He would keep His promise unto death… and He did. I received that same promise from the Lord – that He would be faithful to keep me even if it (and did) cost Him his life.

My salvation is sealed and so is my redemption from all the ugly anxiety I met today.

I believe the salvation He promised is the breath He’s breathing into me and the future unfolding before me. I believe the salvation He promised is my security as the millions of moments happen these next few weeks. And I believe the salvation He promised is my hope when all my life’s luggage gets dumped and scattered.

There’s no “grit my teeth” about it. I can’t muscle through it.

And I don’t have to – that’s what believing is all about. Any of my own attempts at survival is evidence of unbelief. I believe God has already promised to keep me, carry me, sustain me, fulfill me. I believe.

I love this encouraging word from John Piper in Future Grace where we read about Jesus Keeping His Sheep.

Posted on by Caroline 2

sweaty mess and sci-fi

Sometimes there is no way around it – my legs stick to the driver seat, my hair twists around in a knot atop my head, and a pool of sweat collects on my lower back.

#summer

But, I’m gonna be real honest right now: I feel like I’m lost in a sci-fi film. Every other moment I’m drowning and in the opposite moment I’m waking up like a child. I guess you could describe the whole disturbing scene stretching out these days as exciting, but I’m just barely hanging on.

Turns out, all that talk of preaching to myself better be more than blog posts, better be more than resolutions and more than my typical free-spirited whimsy. It better be more, because it’s getting serious. Every other moment (the drowning ones) require serious rescue and lip service won’t do the trick, ever.

Believing moment by moment is a catchy concept and one I can get behind – trusting that God is providing and will provide the strength to go on in His future grace.

We are banking on the overflow of future storehouses and you’ll always find me saying “Amen” to that.

But riding around in my car with kids I love so much it tears my heart out, that’s not a concept. Having to say goodbye to these kids is not a concept I can either agree or disagree with, it’s just going to happen. Looking at my bank accounts is not conceptual – the numbers are like Shakira’s hips, they don’t lie. Trying to sell my car Eddie, trying to juggle transition, trying to get hired… those are not concepts.

This is my reality. I’m not sitting in a church pew, throwing out “amens” when the pastor is on point and scribbling my sermon doodles about theological connections.

Believing is not a concept, it is reality. It has to be, or I sank a long time ago.

Every other moment (the drowning ones), I reach out for the reality of future grace. I have to believe with my mind, praying all unbelief into captivity (2 Corinthians 10:5) because otherwise I would be paralyzed with fears that everything won’t work out. I have to believe with my heart, trusting God’s protection and that He will complete the work He has started (Philippians 1:6). I have to believe with my soul, hoping with certainty in what God has promised for the future (Psalm 42:11). I have to believe with my strength, convinced that acting out of this belief is the best thing to do (Hebrews 12:14).

I try not to flail about, but I do very few things gracefully and getting rescued is not one of them. I scramble and scurry, but every inch of me knows that believing conceptually is not life-saving.

Real believing is a sweaty mess, a gasping-for-air ordeal that can make a person extremely unattractive in all the near-drowning desperation. But believing is also the only thing that will make us beautiful, as we become more and more like Christ.

Then there are those glorious every other moments (the waking up ones) when I slip into childlike skin and the believing is less work. These are great gifts and I cherish them, sandwiched between near drownings. God’s preservation of our childlike-ness is a very beautiful thing.

This is the little sci-fi memoir I’m living at the moment, making my life a sweaty mess. It’s probably just this heat getting to me.

Posted on by Caroline 0

have you ever seen a tree dance?

Psalm 1 is one of my favorite word pictures in the Bible. Trees are a reminder of what happens when the Lord provides – the deep roots, lush leaves, and sprawling canopy flourish because of the Lord’s care.

Blessed is the man
who walks not in the counsel of the wicked,
nor stands in the way of sinners,
nor sits in the seat of scoffers;
but his delight is in the law of the Lord,
and on his law he meditates day and night.

He is like a tree
planted by streams of water
that yields its fruit in its season,
and its leaf does not wither.
In all that he does, he prospers.

The wicked are not so,
but are like chaff that the wind drives away.
Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment,
nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous;
for the Lord knows the way of the righteous,
but the way of the wicked will perish. (Psalm 1, ESV)

But every analogy has something in common: a limit.

A tree is inadequate to describe what we are completely “like” as we follow the Lord. As we move from one degree of holy to the next, we are not just rooted deep in the ground and stretched out to bear fruit. A tree as a picture of our sanctification is limited, even if it is a tree that prospers in and out of season and whose leaf does not wither.

Our Christian life is “like a tree,” but it is also more than this. We are rooted and established in love (Ephesians 3:17-19) but we have also inside of us the brilliant excitement that caused David to dance with all his might (2 Samuel 6:14). We have access to abundant life (John 10:10) in Christ, the kind that makes us want to sing and praise and laugh and shout (Acts 16:25, Psalm 98:4, Psalm 47).

Yes, loving the Lord and growing in this love means being like a tree, but it also means being like the bride and groom at the wedding I went to yesterday.

His gleeful squeals with outstretched arms and smile-covered face looked nothing like a tree. He was not composed and stately. He was drowning in joy and his bride was radiant with expectation. They were both very un-tree like when they bounded down the aisle after the “Mr. and Mrs. Groves” announcement and jumped into the air under the cloudy sky.

Their joy spilled out… it got into our hearts as we watched them celebrate. The love that was rooted and established in their identity as children of God was now displayed in their commitment to one another as united by God.

I have never seen trees dance.

I have seen the glory of the Lord spilling over our ability to describe it. Yesterday, watching Riley and Brooke get married, was one of those times.

 

Posted on by Caroline 1

oh, hey fear. welcome to the party.

My friend Nicole wrote recently in an email,

“let’s chat soon! which party of nyc are you moving to?”

I don’t think it was intentional, the party part, but I loved it because I’ll be moving to the party in Brooklyn very soon. I spoke to my future roommate again on the phone a couple nights ago and God could not have orchestrated a more beautiful combination (we’re both planning to use hammocks as beds and our phone convo ended in prayer). But I’ll tell you something that might surprise you – fear is moving with me.

bat-crazy-mad-fear

Yes, bat-crazy-mad-fear is a real thing and when it comes, I either bury or break it because those are the only two options. I can bury it in the proverbial luggage I carry around and hope it stays hidden or I can break it with the sword of Truth. Bury or break the bat-crazy-mad-fear, those are my options.

And then there are times like now when it all gets so woven in I don’t know where to swing the sword. The joy and the bat-crazy-mad-fear and the contentment happen all at once. I know because it happened to me this week – like my affections were marbles and some sticky-fingered kid threw them out on the cement where they all ended scattered in asymmetrical, haphazard fashion.

I guess this is some strange sort of confession (more personal than my previous posts on fear here and here). It’s good to be honest about this sort of thing – not having “it together” and not being able to muster the bravery all my fear requires.

It’s good to be honest because bat-crazy-mad-fear is not something you can ignore or bury. Not for me, anyway.

It’s all the bold questions about saying goodbye to my cases and buying a plane ticket to the Big Apple and feeling so small under the starry Midwestern night sky. It’s the realization that I may never be as adult as the world requires and I may never be the kind of success that makes sense. It’s the rumbling in my belly that I’m not sure where I’m going, even though I’m moving in a very specific direction. It’s big questions about significance and little questions about insecurities. It’s the reason I spent hours agonizing over my packing list before visiting Patrick in NYC. It’s sometimes the conversation when I stand on a scale and the voice in my head that lectures me on finances.

My bat-crazy-mad-fear is a real thing and I’m sure it’ll get packed in my bags when I move to the party in Brooklyn. I won’t pretend that I can master it or banish it from my days. That just sets me up for unnecessary, epic battles in the future. Bat-crazy-mad-fear is a thing that will keep showing up in my life, but I’m learning.

I’m learning that the fight is not so much about coming out swinging – not so much about the grip I’ve got on the sword. Instead of trying to strategize fear out of my life with the knowledge I have of the Word, I am learning to just love the Word more.

That’s it.

Just love the Word more.

“Fear not, for I am with you. . . . I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand” (Isaiah 41:10).

When I read this, I don’t want to fight fear. I just love that God promises to strengthen, help, and uphold me with His righteous hand. He’ll do the fighting, I’ll do the believing. Because fear is coming to the party in Brooklyn and I need to believe God’s presence is always going to be a bigger deal.

Perfect love (not perfect people) will cast out fear.

So, I will stand in my imperfection and I will admit that fear is always lurking somewhere. I will get honest and broken about the bad-crazy-mad-fear that threatens my hope and then I’ll surrender to the love that can cast it out. Oh, and then I’ll pray that God will help my unbelief when I start thinking my sword-wielding is more important than the sword.

Posted on by Caroline 5

what keeps my bones revived

I’m not sure if Smalltown Poets were ever cool when I was growing up, but their CD got major airplay in my little room with slanted ceilings. I’m sure they inspired some of the sappy journal writing I did or at least accompanied it. One of their songs came to mind recently when I was taking communion, the chorus of “Trust” reads,

Take this bread,
Drink this cup,
Know this price has pardoned you
From all that’s hardened you,
But it’s going to take some trust

When the bread passed by me in the pew, I pulled off a good-sized chunk (thanks to Kevin DeYoung, whose message on sanctification and communion inspired me to peel off enough bread to “feel the weight of it”) and stared at it in my hand. Jesus instructed us to take the bread and drink the cup, for as often as we take the bread and drink the cup we proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes (see 1 Corinthians 11:26). So, I weighed the good-sized chunk in my hand while I considered what it proclaimed. This price has pardoned me from all that’s hardened me.

Oh, boy. That was the price my hardening required – a pardon that looked like a broken body and spilled blood?

Yes. That is just exactly the kind of price. Even the good-sized chunk of bread couldn’t help me imagine the weight of my dead bones before Christ revived me. But feeling the weight of the bread during communion is something different than guilt and nothing like condemnation. The weight of my good-sized chunk of communion bread felt like freedom. 

But the challenge with communion, for me, is not believing that Jesus’ death and resurrection happened or that it is the event that brought life to my dead bones. I am redeemed and a child of the King, of that I am sure.

The challenge with communion is believing that Jesus’ death and resurrection is currently keeping my bones revived.

When a slave is granted freedom, we do not say that freedom existed for the one moment when his chains fell. Freedom is also every moment after the shackles break; salvation is happening in our lives as believers as much as it happened when we first believed. 

What Jesus accomplished on the cross was not millions of salvation moments, but rather millions of salvation stories.

Yes, Smalltown Poets, this is “going to take some trust.” We are freed to obey, freed to believe, and freed to trust that this Savior who secured my freedom is faithful to keep securing my freedom.

This is what I proclaim in the bread and the cup: trust that God pardoned me and He is keeping me pardoned.

That means I am freed from greed and fear and worry. I am freed from anxiety and pain and jealousy. I am freed from pride and guilt and shame. I am freed from sin and death and given a way out from temptation. I am freed and Christ is keeping me freed.

This is starting to sound like a broken record. I’m not sure that’s so bad.

let LOVE fly like cRaZy
Posted on by Caroline 1

O the deep, deep love

The words and bars and notes and very standard rhythm all drifted bigger into the center until the hymn swam in front of me last Sunday.

And now, mid-week, I’m remembering the blurry words all over again. I read this devotional from John Piper, “When Will I Be Satisfied?” because it was one of many emails waiting when I got back from vacation. I finally got around to it today and I think it goes deeper into the question I posed Monday night about bliss. It’s all tangled together, actually – the joy and the work and the sweat and the bliss. Vacations give time and space for these kinds of questions, I guess.

Piper reflects on John 17:26, “I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.” in these powerful statements:

If God’s pleasure in the Son becomes our pleasure, then the object of our pleasure, Jesus, will be inexhaustible in personal worth. He will never become boring or disappointing or frustrating. No greater treasure can be conceived than the Son of God.

Did you follow that? If God’s pleasure (Jesus) becomes our pleasure, then our pleasure can NEVER BE EXHAUSTED.

Joy doesn’t end (vacation or otherwise) because Jesus doesn’t end. Isn’t that magnificent? You will never want more joy than is available, because the pleasure you find in Jesus is inexhaustible.

The joy is INSIDE Jesus and He is INSIDE us.

This is the greater depth I needed to plumb! When I came up and got un-swallowed from vacation bliss, I was revived to work with redeemed blood coursing through my veins. But that didn’t necessarily solve the joy question. Was my bliss sequestered in vacation – is it only there that joy can live?

Praise God the answer is “No!” He is not only my redemption, but my joy. The kind of joy that makes me dance on the beach and makes me dance in my car and makes me dance with my co-workers and makes me dance with the children on my caseload. THIS is the joy of salvation that David wanted to be restored to him – the joy that makes us dance through the work and sweat and troublesome weekdays.

The love of Christ is that deep.

O the deep, deep love of Jesus, vast, unmeasured, boundless, free!
Rolling as a mighty ocean in its fullness over me!
Underneath me, all around me, is the current of Thy love
Leading onward, leading homeward to Thy glorious rest above!

O the deep, deep love of Jesus, spread His praise from shore to shore!
How He loveth, ever loveth, changeth never, nevermore!
How He watches o’er His loved ones, died to call them all His own;
How for them He intercedeth, watcheth o’er them from the throne!

O the deep, deep love of Jesus, love of every love the best!
’Tis an ocean full of blessing, ’tis a haven giving rest!
O the deep, deep love of Jesus, ’tis a heaven of heavens to me;
And it lifts me up to glory, for it lifts me up to Thee!

Posted on by Caroline 6

when you need a real rescue

Platitudes wouldn’t be enough.

I knew the conversation was S.O.S. caliber before it started, judging by the CAPS in the text message.

“AH! I’m just so frustrated, but it’ll be okay,” she said, when I got her on the line.

She was giving me the litany of reasons the day had unraveled and all of them were legitimate. This friend of mine is not one to over-dramatize anything, so when she says she is, “frustrated” and that “this is so hard” out loud… it’s getting desperate.

She knows.

She knows God is good and that’s why she followed her frustration so quickly with, “… but it’ll be okay.” She knows God’s character of faithfulness and that He is trustworthy. She believes it, too. But…

Sometimes we need to speak the depth of our drowning so we know to cry out for a real rescue.

We need to open our eyes underwater and see how desperate the situation in order to delight rightly in our rescue from those depths. It’s not enough to say “it’ll be okay,” even if we know it will.

Because that flippant faith doesn’t give God enough glory. He is God when we are desperate – not because our trials are little things, but because they are big. He knows all the thousands things that went wrong in our day and how desperate they have made us. He doesn’t want us to brush them aside with a simple, “… but it’ll be okay.”

Minimizing problems with platitudes does not glorify God’s magnificence.

Being honest about the depth of our drowning means being honest that we need a real rescue. A real rescue – not the kind that gives you a quote or a margarita at the end of a long day. Those will never pull you up from desperate depths.

Nope, an S.O.S. like I got last night is an opportunity for us to believe God to be faithful to reach as far down as our day has gone. And she did. She spoke out her need and called out for real rescue. She stepped into the kind of belief that makes God seem the glorious Rescuer He is. He will rescue, when we believe Him for it. 

My friend remembered Wesley Hill’s words recently in a lecture at Bethlehem Baptist, “Ignoring is not the path to redeeming.”

When we have sin and struggle and stress and sadness, our redemption will always come by way of an honest assessment that we are drowning and in need of a real rescue.
Posted on by Caroline 1

fighting fear with freedom when seeking pleasure

You only live once.

Better hurry, then. Better take all the pleasure in with big gulps and big gasps until you’re stuffed with it because soon you might be dead. Better see everything and do everything and say everything and be everything because there will be a moment when it is all over. Life, I mean.

If I can wade through the hedonism of this cultural phenomenon (YOLO), what really remains is fear. That simple monster scares us into believing this is all there is – that “wasting this life” means missing out on late nights and roller coasters and fishing trips. Fear is that big, ugly giant in our closets and under our beds who reminds us we are mortal and convinces us pleasure is mortal, too. Fear.

It looks like freedom, to hurry and hustle and chase pleasures. But even the best of pleasures, the seemingly good and unselfish ones (like conversations with your son or marrying your best friend or traveling to every wonder of the world) are never meant to be sought in fear. We were never meant to chase pleasures as the unknown date of our mortality inches closer – to think we would lie more pleasantly in our graves knowing that we enjoyed bar scenes on all seven continents.

We were not made to seek pleasure out of fear. We were made to seek pleasure out of freedom.

Pleasure is not bad. If that were so, God would never be pleased. But He is pleased. He delights daily in His creation and He has made us in His image to delight and enjoy pleasures as well. Every day, more pleasures.

Isn’t that splendid? We are made with pleasure-seeking in our veins! But God does not seek pleasure out of fear. He does not hurry and hustle to store up treasures… it sounds silly to even suggest it. Our God is in the heavens, He does whatever He pleases (Psalm 115:3). He is not constrained by a timeline – by a mortal death that inches closer every time the sun rises in the east.

When we are united with Christ, mortal life is no longer the timeline for our pleasures. We need not fear the minutes that have already passed this morning and how we haven’t seized the YOLO anthem in every breath.

The Christian’s pleasure-seeking is rooted in the security of eternity.

When we are secure about eternity, seeking pleasure looks different. It looks like joining in God’s pleasure, pursuing holiness, and enjoying every good thing without fear. Instead of chasing and grasping and gulping in pleasures, we join God as He delights in the beauty of creation.

As we delight in the Lord (Psalm 37:4), we are conformed to be pleased by what pleases Him. My pastor used to say that God changes our “wanter” – our desire is no longer to chase fulfillment and worth in pleasure, but to seek fulfillment and worth in God. Our delight is in the law of the Lord (Psalm 1) and on this law we meditate day and night. The source of our delight is an otherworldly and eternal spring, welling up to give profound pleasure.

In Christ we live twice, and one of those times is forever. It takes the pressure off pleasure-seeking in this life because we have the assurance of eternity (and pleasures forevermore).

And this is freedom.

 

Posted on by Caroline 5

there is a record repeating

There is a record repeating inside your head.

I don’t know what your record sounds like, but I can tell you mine. While baking and biking and bantering with my dear friend this weekend, I leaned in to hear all the layers of God’s grace. While running and laughing and backyard bonfiring, I tried to feel the beat of His provision for my soul.

Some things are too precious to pare down into typed phrases… the music rightly refuses to be smashed into lyrical lines. But as much as beauty transcends structure, it also acquiesces in a way that allows us to see and hear the glory.

Ok, enough of the abstract.

Today the words of Psalm 18:30-31 gave lyric to the melody I’ve been hearing for the past week. Deep inside the anxious moments full of questions – those moments that threaten to steal beauty’s song (When will I move to NYC? Will I have a job? Am I stupid for relocating across the country? Is God’s grace deep enough to reach me when I’m stupid? Money – do I have to make it?), God is there. Deep inside the moments where I don’t know how to rightly enjoy all the gifts – when I am drowning in blessings and beauty and grace – God is there. As sure as Mt. Everest is rooted in the ground of China and Nepal, God is steady and faithful and sure. Always.

Steady, faithful, sure.
Steady, faithful, sure.

This God—his way is perfect;
the word of the Lord proves true;
he is a shield for all those who take refuge in him.

For who is God, but the Lord?
And who is a rock, except our God?—

There is no debate, no blessing, no disaster, no gift, no doubt or heartache that can alter His character. Who is like God? No one. Absolutely no one can say what God can say and be truthful.

This record repeating in my heart found words today in these verses. I have been singing them all day long, trusting and hoping and believing that the word of the Lord proves true.

And as I trust his way is perfect, his word is true, his shield is refuge – as I believe these things deep inside the tangled mess of beauty/grace/anxious/doubting moments – I claim His victory over death and His provision of life.

He is steady. He is faithful. He is sure.

What a beautiful record repeating in my soul. Now, that my heart would align with the song!

Posted on by Caroline 1