Category: Life Insight

cast your deadly “doing” down

Complete has a faster footspeed than my best race pace. I’ve chased it enough to know it’s always just beyond my reach. A quiet morning is sometimes the best backdrop to be still and let truth sink in. That’s where I am this morning – sitting while white hot Truth is sinking in deep.

And the word complete makes sense at this speed.

Some days, I chase wholeness with diet soda and frenzied activity. Other days I chase it curled up with books and blankets. All the chasing and the doing feels like the fastest way to accomplish completeness. It feels productive and shrewd and mature to be busy with all the right things.

But complete has a faster footspeed than my best race pace, and the only way I’ve ever caught up to feel the fullness of it is to just be still. This stanza from the hymn “It is Finished” by James Proctor captures the beauty of completeness in just the way this morning needs.

Cast your deadly “doing” down—
Down at Jesus’ feet;
Stand in Him, in Him alone,
Gloriously complete.

Yes, often my “doing” is deadly and must be cast at Jesus’ feet. It’s strange how tightly I can hold something that kills me – how firmly I can grip something that eats away completeness from the inside. How foolish I am to cling to the very thing that prevents wholeness (in an effort to make myself whole). It sounds dreadful.

I praise God for Truth in the stillness on Wednesday mornings, when the birds and the neighbors and the buzz of traffic accompany my reverie. I praise God for inviting me to cast my deadly “doing” down at His feet (time and time again). I praise God for His sufficiency that makes me whole. I praise God for the work of Christ, where I am complete.

There is nothing I can do that will get me closer to what’s been done.

I am complete – gloriously complete and that is sealed by the finished work of Christ on the cross. No amount of doing or chasing or wishing or wasting can come close to accomplishing what Christ did. So, the best thing to do in the stillness of a Wednesday morning is praise. I will praise today with my feet planted firmly in Him alone.

Posted on by Caroline 3

the long walk

Someone asked me if I missed Honduras the other day… and I still struggle to know how to respond. This life is a strange thing, isn’t it? Time passes and phases fly faster than your ability to enjoy rightly while you are inside of them, and before you know it you are talking about 10-year-old memories.

It’s so strange to talk about things as though they have happened in a chronological sense. It is for me, anyway. Because Honduras, college, Austin, Ames, Des Moines – these phases are happening to me and in me all at once, presently. There are moments when I crave people and cities like homesickness, but there are other moments when I feel like I’m walking inside those memories again – close enough to touch.

I don’t miss Honduras like nostalgia. I miss it more like… like wishing it was one my errands today. I wish I could hear the crackle of the loudspeaker announcing early morning produce for sale out of the back of a truck. I wish I could meet up for coffee with students this afternoon. I wish I could worship in the courtyard tonight with the most beautiful ragamuffin group I’ve ever met. But I don’t wish it more than I wish to be in the present moment.

It’s been a long walk of three years, my coming back Stateside, but chronology does nothing to help in understanding the journey. I’ve always thought it was so funny to want to be anywhere different than where you are. I get it, a certain amount of discontent stirs up healthy ambition and productivity, but too much discontentedness makes every moment almost unbearable.

Do I miss Honduras? I suppose the best answer I can give is this: I love right now. I love the way the Lord writes a story and the way He opens our eyes to see bits of the masterpiece. I love His sovereignty. I love that I can believe in His moment-by-moment provision. I love that He surprises us with gifts of grace that we would never imagine.

I love thinking about His delight as He watches us delight in good gifts.

I love right now.

I can not believe the blessings that burst the moments of right now. And even when belief is impossible, God overcomes to grant me belief so that He is glorified as a promise keeper.

In this moment and the next, God is accomplishing a work of grace that confounds the wise. And if His grace confounds the wise, I am definitely bound to a constant and glorious state of blessed confusion.

let LOVE fly like cRaZy
Posted on by Caroline 1

to change a life at its root

I spend a good amount of time considering the power and possibility of change. I suppose I’m in that kind of business – the kind where success depends on people changing from bad to better.

But we’re all in stages of bad to better and change is really something everyone is obsessed with – more like this, less like that, etc. And then we funnel our obsession into determination and make every effort to move forward on that sliding scale towards better.

Change, the positive kind that moves us towards something better, is a slippery and untamable little animal.  Keller writes in Jesus is King, “…no one has ever been deeply changed by an act of the will. The only thing that can reforge and change a life at its root is love.”

I’ve spent many frustrated seasons rustling up impressive acts of will in an effort to change (the “many frustrated seasons” should help you know how those turned out). I come from a long line of go-getters, on both sides. I’m not sure if you can grow up on the farm and not be a go-getter, actually. Many times it was a literal ‘pulling up by the bootstraps’ that had to happen to keep our little farm afloat.

In any case, I know what determination looks like and it is a great credit to my parents and family that my understanding hasn’t produced any entitlement. We worked hard, gave generously, and loved fiercely. Oh, we didn’t do it perfectly, but I saw it all happen with a healthy dose of will power. My family’s is a survival story of sorts and outsiders looking in might say we wouldn’t have made it (changed for the better) without an impressive act of the will.

But none of that resolve changed our lives at the root.

The root of a life runs deeper than health and finances and farm accidents. And the root is the only depth that has the power to change the whole tree. Keller writes that in Mark 8:34-9:1 Jesus pointed to the cross (to love) as the only thing that can change a life at its root.

Christ lost himself in every ultimate sense so that we could be found.

Any positive movement on the continuum of change depends entirely on a work that has already been accomplished. I am not working to be approved, but an approved workman who is unashamed (2 Timothy 2:15) to exercise the freedom to live redeemed. The change already took place at the cross and is still taking place through the Spirit in my life. This is sanctification – that we are called holy and set apart because of Christ and that we are becoming holy and set apart because of the Spirit’s faithful work inside us.

All my acts of will are helpless to change my life at its root. Only love can do that.

Keller writes, “Once you see the Son of God loving you like that, once you are moved by that viscerally and existentially, you begin to get a strength, an assurance, a sense of your own value and distinctiveness that is not based on what you’re doing or whether somebody loves you, whether you’ve lost weight or how much money you’ve got. You’re free – the old approach to identity is gone.”

You’re free. Live free today.

let LOVE fly like cRaZy
Posted on by Caroline 3

the good kind of dizzy – reflections on Pentecost

I knew the pews would creak to announce our tardiness into the sanctuary, but no one seemed to mind. The rows were old like the building, but not unfamiliar. Worshippers sat spaced out, in clusters and alone, and they all seemed to be taking a collective sabbath sigh as the liturgy began.

And we spoke together, slowly.

I sank into the collective sabbath sigh and let the quiet rest my soul. The pace inside the church did not match the streets outside; it savored the words and the melodies and the notes of praise coming from the ensemble in the corner. And somewhere in the standing and sitting and reading and singing and praying, the pastor preached on Pentecost in the present tense – the now of God’s Holy Spirit provision that we wouldn’t be orphans.

I mangled my notes with doodles and arrows and bold letters. The beauty of Jesus promising that even better things would be achieved in this provision than He achieved while on earth is astounding.

 But now I am going to him who sent me, and none of you asks me, ‘Where are you going?’ But because I have said these things to you,sorrow has filled your heart. Nevertheless, I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you. John 16:5-7

sermon notes

Though the air was quiet and my soul full of Sabbath rest, my mind rushed to gather insight from the Word. Bread for the soul is the best way to understand the way the Word nourishes our spiritual bones. And it is this hunger that spun my mind’s wheels on that creaky pew.

The Spirit lives (in the present tense) and gives (in the present tense) peace and fights (in the present tense) for my sanctification.

When Jesus left, we were not abandoned. In fact, the Holy Spirit expanded the reach of Jesus beyond a locality and beyond the limit of a lifetime. The Holy Spirit ensured my rescue from abandonment and God’s faithfulness to His promise to sanctify the chosen.

He is daily, joyfully, continuously, and graciously rescuing me from orphanhood. His promise-keeping secures my place in His family, forever.

I don’t mean to say there is a danger He would not, but the beauty of being awed by His doing so re-positions my worship. Hm. I can’t quite tame the wild realizations of my heart or find words to make sense of my joy. The moment I think I’ve grasped an intelligible way of relating these discoveries, I’ve lost it. But I know it was something wonderful because the surge in my soul was electric.

I am rescued from orphanhood and my rescue is present tense as much as it is past. At the end of the sermon while I was caught in my doodles, the pastor said something and I can’t tell you what it was. But while he said it I wrote this down,

“Our good works are the evidence of God’s promise-keeping.”

God sent the Spirit to be active in the present tense to reach beyond the locality and lifespan of Jesus and reach people like me. God is daily keeping His promise to be faithful, to provide, to delight, to redeem, to rescue, and to reveal His glory.

This powerfully translates into our completing the good works that were planned for us to do (Ephesians 2). When we are effective for the kingdom, it is not because we were faithful to answer the call or maintain the resolve or finish the race.

We are effective because He is faithful to keep His promises.

We are being made holy because He is faithful. We are humbled because He is faithful. We are successful because He is faithful. We mourn with the grieving because He is faithful. We live in community because He is faithful. We serve our neighbors because He is faithful. We love the downtrodden because He is faithful. We release the captive because He is faithful.

His promise-keeping enables us to do good works and those good works return glory to the One whose faithfulness empowered them.

Oh, what a mess. I’ve made no sense and much sense and many circles. Sometimes the circles spin my heart with delight and I give in. I don’t mind if delighting in the Lord makes me dizzy.

I got the good kind of dizzy on Sunday, spinning around in circles to understand the mysterious faithfulness of our gracious God.

let LOVE fly like cRaZy
Posted on by Caroline 0

the glory of radiance – hidden and revealed

“It has seemed to me sometimes as though the Lord breathes on this poor gray ember of Creation and it turns to radiance – for a moment or a year or the span of a life. And then it sinks back into itself again, and to look at it no one would know it had anything to do with fire, or light.” from Gilead by Marilynne Robinson, p. 280

It is raining today, so describing Creation as a poor gray ember seems fitting. The rain brings the clouds into the streets and muddles the footsteps of the city. Robinson’s character John Ames preached the words above in a Pentecost sermon and remembers them in a letter to his son. He follows the quote by reflecting on his words,

“But the Lord is more constant and far more extravagant than it seems to imply. Wherever you turn your eyes the world can shine like transfiguration. You don’t have to bring a thing to it except a little willingness to see.”

In the middle of spitting and dreary rain it is hard to be hopeful. It is hard to see beyond the poor gray ember or believe it is capable of burning something bright. The way we slide into the gray and adjust to the dullness makes hope a very courageous endeavor. To believe God waits to blow radiance from gray embers is a crazy notion, a grace given to courageous eyes.

We do not believe hope into being true, but instead believe our eyes into seeing that hope is truth.

As Ames reflected on his pentecost words, he qualified his statement by saying God has given us grace to see the radiance that always shines. There is beauty in the mystery of glory hidden and beauty in the mystery of glory revealed. And the radiance always looks like the glory of God.

There is a radiance that always shines and God gives grace for us to open our eyes.
Posted on by Caroline 2

the thread that runs through the day

I have become somewhat obsessed with -ing. As in, the verb form used as a present participle, as a gerund, and sometimes as an independent noun or adjective.

I am definitely ill-qualified to have such an obsession because (I’m embarrassed to say) I’ve forgotten most of the English grammar rules I learned in 9th grade. But, the reason I keep lingering on -ing is not to hash out the intricacies of English grammar.

I’m interested in what it means to actively, continually, desperately believe.

The best way a word can communicate such hopeful hanging-on is, I think, those three little letters on the end.

Believing is the thread that runs through my day when I’m in the middle of desperation or in the middle of delight. Every step is belief that God will be a promise keeper for the next.

What do you call the thread of belief that runs through the day?

Believing.

I am just drenched in delight over the active, on-going, continual process of believing. God is able to supply everything I need to believe in every moment – no matter what the moment holds. Often from one moment to the next our belief is tested in different ways, stretched in different directions, and pushed past its breaking point. But, nevertheless, in EVERY moment God is promise keeper, filling our souls with belief enough to withstand the moments.

And not just belief enough to get through the moments, but belief enough to ENJOY Him in every moment.

I just can’t get over it. If you’re wondering where I’m at this weekend, you’ll find me believing from one moment to the next.

God is faithful to supply all our needs according to His riches in glory. He is faithful to keep His promises to us and our lives explode with joy as a result.

let LOVE fly like cRaZy
Posted on by Caroline 0

like diamonds

We were sitting on the patio in half-shade/half-sun on a lazy Sunday afternoon, sipping strong french roast coffee, nibbling at coconut cake, and talking about diamonds. We got to diamonds after several rabbit trails, but mostly because we were trying to understand vulnerability.

This TED talk by Brené Brown explores her years of research on the subject and her conclusions that vulnerability is one of the most feared but most important aspects of human relationship, and specifically human thriving. The very thing that has the power to destroy someone (through shame, fear, struggle for worthiness) also has the power to birth joy, creativity, belonging, and love, so the research says.

Brown’s research actually ended up planting her in a therapist’s chair as she tried to piece through her findings. I can’t say that I’m surprised – about the research or about her breakdown (as she describes it), but I’ve been thinking about it for the past month or so.

And while I sat with Alejandra on that patio under the Minnesota Sunday sunshine, I wondered if the value of vulnerability is not the main question (I’ll defer to Brown’s extensive 10 years of research for that). I wondered, instead, if the more important question is the best place from which to be vulnerable. Of course, an analogy slowly formed as we sat (she is so patient to listen to my ramblings) about diamonds.

In relationships, if we brave vulnerability at all, we will usually attach an expectation onto the offering. In other words, we will share something (like the fear of being lonely, for example) with an often unspoken expectation that the other person not only keep the information safe, but also that s/he will know better how to care for us when we are lonely.

It’s as if we’ve all got panes of glass in our closets and when we get close enough to someone, we give them a pane of glass. We present a beautiful, transparent, perfectly cut pane of glass with shaky hands and with eyes that say, “Handle with care” because (of course) glass is breakable. We are nervous as we share things about our childhood, our nightmares, our dreams for the future, our weight, our most embarrassing moment, and our fears. We are nervous because glass is breakable and we are giving our breakable parts to someone else.

We expect that person to store the beautiful, transparent, perfectly cut pane of glass in the safest place and also to treat us differently, now that s/he can see through that window to our souls. We want them to make comments about our beauty, reassure us about the future, and know when a song triggers a painful childhood memory.

What happens when that trusted person forgets to handle the shared glass with care?

It breaks.

It breaks into a tiny million little pieces and a little piece of us breaks too. S/he didn’t call to say sorry on the date when your mom died, s/he fell asleep when you were sharing about a bad dream, s/he made fun of your hair/weight/style, s/he told friends your most embarrassing moment.

Glass broken. Unrepairable. Shattered.

But what if it wasn’t glass we were sharing, with the expectation that the receiver keep it safe? What if we were sharing diamonds instead?

What if we find our worth completely in someone who is only capable of being faithful, trustworthy, true, compassionate, and merciful?

I’ve been crucified with Christ, therefore I no longer live but Jesus Christ now lives in me (Galatians 2:20). If God approves of Christ, He approves of us because Christ lives in us. We know that we are new creations (2 Corinthians 5:17) who are approved by God and not ashamed (2 Timothy 2:15).

This knowledge (I’ve only scratched the surface) fundamentally changes how we approach vulnerability. I am no longer offering something in relationships that can be broken because my worth and safety and joy and fulfillment is sealed in the crucifixion of Christ. I am sharing diamonds – the rock that never loses its worth, the rock that can’t be broken, the rock that sparkles from every angle.

Can diamonds be thrown in the mud or the ocean or the desert? Yep, they sure can. Diamonds can be buried in the deepest cave, but they still wouldn’t lose their worth. We worry about being vulnerable when we presume our fears and shame define us. It’s a scary thing to let someone in to see “who you really are” if the things you hide define you.

But, God made a way – a new definition – so we could be defined by His Son. Our worth and purpose and freedom are beautifully bound up in the miraculous work of the cross. There is no chance that our fears and shame and failure and struggle could makes less that miraculous work.

Our vulnerabilities are diamonds kept safe by the Creator of the Universe – whether we share it with kings or with paupers, tax collectors or pharisees, lovers or friends, enemies or allies. We are made in the image of God and transformed into the likeness of His Son with ever increasing glory (2 Corinthians 3:18).

This is how Paul describes his confidence in being a minister of the new covenant (an extremely vulnerable and visible position),

Such is the confidence that we have through Christ toward God. Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God, who has made us sufficient to be ministers of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit. For the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life. (2 Corinthians 3:4-6 ESV)

The Spirit gives life. The letter (the law) kills – even the laws we create for ourselves and the expectations we place on others to handle us with care. The law of the Spirit of life sets us free from the law of sin and death (Romans 8), so that we need only to place our expectation of being held up on the One who can hold us up.

Christ is sufficient to keep safe every vulnerability so that when we choose to share those deep things we are not afraid they can break us.

Posted on by Caroline 6

joy blooms

My grandma is incredible at noticing the little things about flowers. She has a beautiful garden in her backyard, but she often brings in the blooms to set on the counter. She watches and often narrates the process as the bud breaks out into full splendor. I love hearing her talk about her blooming flowers, because that’s what flowers were made to do: bloom.

There are drought years and there are flood years and there are late years and early years, but the fact remains: flowers are made to bloom.

I think we are made for joy.

It may not manifest at all times in the very same ways, but God has designed us to enjoy Him. We are growing and budding and reaching for the sun as His grace builds the bloom, but it’s always in there – even in droughts and floods and in years where seeds are planted late.

We are made for joy and I’m not sure when we feel it more, when we are desperate in drought times or when we are displaying the glory of a full bloom. But it doesn’t really matter when we feel it, it matters that we are made for it – made for enjoying God.

The weight of this enjoyment is like gravity – pulling us ground-ward as we walk out life on earth, but lifting our eyes upward as we marvel at the power of such force.

Joy is in full bloom and I am made to display the splendor.

This is that post where I ask you to excuse me for being absent – where I tell you I have been living life away from my keyboard and I’m not sorry. Well, maybe I’m a little bit sorry because “living life” means I have a very long list of inspiration that needs to find its way on here soon.

What have you been up to, meanwhile?

Posted on by Caroline 0

before all that: exploring a life of desperate dependence

Before the breakdown and before the last straw that falls on the camel’s back.

Before all that.

What if we got desperate and dependent before anxiety wrapped its cold, stubborn fingers around our hearts?

I’ve learned dependence before, many times. While boarding with  a leaky car in Austin and while bumming on a co-worker’s couch I learned some important things about dependence. But we have a tendency to label lessons like mile markers – things we’ve passed along the way. Once we’ve learned a lesson, we move on with a forward gaze, assuming the lesson is added to our lives like a scout badge on a vest.

Well, maybe it’s just me that does that – but I’m only cheating myself out of joy if I live treating lessons like mile markers or scout badges.

Oh, how I love my patient and faithful Savior! He is reminding me that “casting all your cares on the Lord because He cares for you” is not merely for the SOS moments. Maybe let me rephrase: our lives are a string of SOS moments.

This is what I am learning and living.

We are made to be desperate, but not the kind of desperate that builds up to a breaking point and then explodes out of control. Not that kind of desperate.

We are made to depend desperately on the One who will trade our need for His provision.

That is His good design. Our dependence is deeper than bread and water, but our needs are all in the same well that His grace is sufficient to fill. That is His good design – desperate dependence, all the time.

We cast our cares on Him because He cares for us – because He has been faithful and promises to be faithful in the future. Our God has never broken a promise, not ever. My desperate dependence is evidence that I believe Him to be just that.

So, when a string of days fills with SOS moments, there is not less joy available. It is not a lesson of dependence that marks another mile walked on the faith road. Desperate dependence is the road we walk, the path we tread as we daily rejoice in His provision for us. He provides all that we need, according to His riches in glory (Philippians 4:19) – and there is no bank with better credit. Our provision comes from the source of all things.

The deep well of His sufficient grace offers peace (Philippians 4:6) when we cast our cares (1 Peter 5:7), believing that God is the strength for our hearts and portion forever (Psalm 73:26).

Before the breakdown and before the last straw (but of course, in those times too), we are invited to desperately depend on the One who can sufficiently provide for our needs and overwhelm our lives with joy.

I could tell you about the past two days – about the car trouble and the appointments and the millions of ways that God gave me good gifts. I could tell you about the near disasters (averted, I know, by the grace of God) and the very friendly repair shop on SE 14th Street. I could tell you about the songs I sang in my car with littles in the backseat and the way they explained the songs to their parent. I could tell you about sitting around a coffee table in community and laughter.

I could tell you just a few of the millions of ways God is providing in the desperately dependent state, but then it might seem like this is something I “learned” in the past two days.

And I didn’t learn it, in the past tense way.

This desperate dependence is meant to be a lifestyle that flows like the lifeblood in my veins, keeping me existing here on earth. So, I’m exploring a life of desperate dependence, walking that road with eternity hidden in my heart.

Posted on by Caroline 3

raced the river

Last night, I raced the river (chasing the current like I thought I could catch up) with a silly smile across my face. The trees had shaken off the snow from the mysterious Spring storm and I shared the path with bikers, runners, dogs, and the most adorable lady with a walker. I threw my smile at all of them, giggling at the children who roamed unaware of the etiquette I assume is standard on any city path (don’t walk directly towards someone running in your direction).

I raced the river and caught several times on the breeze what C.S. Lewis would describe as “joy.” It was an excitement that fluttered with a “heaven-like longing” that cannot be fully satisfied on earth, but even the presence of the longing overflowed in delight.

Dr. Jerry Root explains one of the central themes in Lewis’s writing, heavily influenced from his own experiences with Joy. He spoke reverently in “Surprised by Joy,” his autobiography, about the brief passing moments where he experienced an unexplainable bliss and then was left to figure out how to experience it again.

Well, anyway… as I raced the river last night I knew I wouldn’t catch it. I knew I could not really take in the beauty of the cool early evening in the way I wanted to, the way the evening wanted me to. I think that was part of the blissful moment – knowing there was too much beauty to take in, even if I drank in every scene as I ran on the path.

So, my joy bubbled out because it couldn’t be contained. The river, the overcast sky, the families, the bikers, the little old lady with her walker, and the children wandering out into the middle of the action – all these very simple and mundane threads in the fabric of a Sunday night, but every bit a reason to smile.

Sunday evenings are great medicine for Monday mornings, yes? The scenes are different, but there is joy hidden in this day – the sunshine, the birds, and that crazy owl that is trying to tell me a story. I’m on my way to a staff meeting, but I’ll first be dropping off these little love bundles for “every day in May” creative challenge.

blessings, stamped and ready for sending
blessings, stamped and ready for sending

 

Posted on by Caroline 2