Category: Life Insight

to obey is to believe

I felt like a cat chasing my own tail.

The rain pounded outside the cafe and the sky took flash photography of the earth below while the thunder rumbled the grey skies. There was a draft creeping in and swirling around our feet and we were talking about obedience.

The grit-your-teeth kind that you can only learn about from someone who is paralyzed. It’s true – you should try it. Read a paragraph or a book by Joni Eareckson Tada and then try to have the same grumbling attitude about obedience. Feels way different, way wrong.

So, we read about a middle-of-the-night fight where Tada woke up in a sweat battling familiar fears of anxiety and claustrophobia and panic. She could reach for pills or wake up her husband or just lay in agony. Or believe.

She spoke a simple verse she had hidden in her heart long ago, “whispering the Word of God into [her] anxious heart,”

Look on my affliction and deliver me,
for I do not forget your law. (Psalm 119:153, ESV)

And my friend and I sat there spinning in circles to chase the wonder. This quadriplegic woman submitted in obedience by claiming the promises of God. Her obedience was the physical act of believing God to be who He says He is in the midst of her middle-of-the-night fight. 

God gives grace to believe and it is only in believing that we can obey.

When we walk out the steps of right belief in God, our disastrous moments can be obedient moments of submission – our stranded in the middle of certain, paralyzing death stories can be memoirs of deliverance.

And in obeying (read also: in believing) God did look on her affliction and delivered her, right there in the midst of her paralyzed battle.

I’m not sure how many times I will have to learn before the wonder wears off, hopefully never. Our believing obedience brings about breathtaking reward. God has never broken a promise. As he commands our obedience to His Word, He promises to provide a way for the obedience. He promises to deliver us. He promises.

He promises.

The Lord of all creation is making you promises. And His promises always end in deliverance for His children. Always. But to enjoy the deliverance, we must believe.

The disciples had their own in-the-middle-of-the-night fright during a crazy storm that rocked their boat and their belief.

And when he got into the boat, his disciples followed him. And behold, there arose a great storm on the sea, so that the boat was being swamped by the waves; but he was asleep. And they went and woke him, saying, “Save us, Lord; we are perishing.” And he said to them, “Why are you afraid, O you of little faith?” Then he rose and rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was a great calm. And the men marveled, saying, “What sort of man is this, that even winds and sea obey him?” (Matthew 8:23-27, ESV)

Jesus calls attention to their fear and reveals their lack of faith – they needed to examine their belief about who Jesus was and what He was capable of accomplishing. If He really was God, then believing meant trusting and trusting meant calm in the middle of calamity. The lesson here is not that God will stop the wind and waves every time we feel like we’re going under. The lesson is that our belief and trust in the Lord will place one obedient foot in front of the other as the storm swells around us.

Because God is a promise keeper and He will deliver us.

The believing does not always feel like a lazy Sunday afternoon because sometimes it feels like a wrestling match. Sometimes it feels like your throat is closing in and no option looks good, especially when you are fighting for air. But in those times, God is the same.

He promises deliverance and our obedience is the walking out of our belief that He will come through.

Because He will come through. And do you see now why we chase our tails? I don’t know where the goodness starts and ends. There is delight in it all, even the wrestling. Because He will overcome and bless those suffering as they are shaped more into the image of His Son.

grace > believing > obedience > reward > believing > grace

We hold on tight to the Love He swore. And as we hold on, we obey.

My friend and I are reading through voices of the true woman movement: A Call to the Counter-Revolution and Joni Eareckson Tada wrote chapter 7, which is what inspired this post (and the beautiful storm all day long). But seriously, pick up anything from this woman and you will be inspired.

Posted on by Caroline 3

the answer is grace

It could all be over, it really could… this whole cosmos being held together thing doesn’t have to be a reality in this next moment.

Forget climate change, do you know that within atoms (the itty bitty stuff that makes up all “stuff”) are quarks that by definition are “believed” to be the basic building blocks of protons, neutrons, and hadrons? What I mean is, if we zoom in on the smallest physical reality and then slice it up, we are still mind boggled about how life is held together.

Unless we are believing Christ does the holding. Then those mind boggling beliefs about the basic building blocks of matter can make sense. And this is just exactly where I got stuck today in wonder. I don’t pretend to know anything about particles except what I’ve forgotten from high school Chemistry, but I do know that it’s wonderful. I know that the mysterious way things are held together is absolutely magical and inspiring.

This is the question that wedged in my throat as I wondered about things I don’t fully understand: Why? Why is Christ holding it together?

Jared C. Wilson quotes Lesslie Newbigin in Gospel Deeps when he talks about cosmic redemption,

But God in his patient and long-suffering love sustains the created world, and the world of human culture, in order that there may still be time and space for repentance and for the coming into being of the new creation within the womb of the old.

John Piper says that missions exist because worship doesn’t. Wow. God is literally holding all things together (every little quark of existence) in Christ so that there might be time for repentance.

If we are going to wonder like children, we might as well ask “Why?” like children, too. Why does God sustain the created world with such patience while creation actively aches to be restored? Why does God allow evil to continue and wars to erupt and people to die and diseases to destroy and nations to rage?

Why doesn’t Christ lift His finger or turn His head from “holding all things together” for one second so the cosmos collapse on themselves and He can rebuild from the ashes?

Only, only in the marvelous grace of God are we allowed to see a glorious because in the midst of this mystery.

Christ continues to hold all things together because God started writing this redemption narrative before a word was spoken into the formless void. He had already written the names of His children in the book of life before the foundations of the world (Ephesians 1:4, 1 Peter 1:20, Revelations 13:8), knowing they would have a desperate need for a Savior and providing just such a Savior.

Christ continues to hold all things together because God is sovereignly working out His will to gather His children from the ends of the earth to enter into eternity with Him (Mark 13:27). He will not stop until the gathering is complete because He is a promise keeper.

Christ continues to hold all things together because God is making His name known to His creation, even those who shake their fists at His goodness. Our need for a Savior points to God’s gracious giving of a Savior (Psalm 66:2, Psalm 79:9, Romans 2).

And within every reason we can imagine there are a million other reasons Christ is holding things together and each one of them is a gift of grace.

Why is Christ holding this crazy cosmos together?

All I can come up with is grace. We are held together by the grace of God, allowed to question by the grace of God, able to be restless by the grace of God, and longing for home by the grace of God.

let LOVE fly like cRaZy

These reflections come as I read through Gospel Deeps by Jared C. Wilson. I definitely encourage you to pick up a copy and read it for yourself. It’s one to read through slowly and process with other people (or on a blog!). Here are some other posts on my reflections on the book: Lord, I need You, my heart will never not be His, living risen on a Monday, further up and further in you go, and our way into redemption.

Posted on by Caroline 0

what you believe changes everything

Just this today, friends.

Our work is to believe and to keep believing. Garrels says,

“What you believe changes everything.”

This work of hanging on to the promises of future grace, of believing God for all that is promised in Christ, this transforms a life and shapes the way you see and mourn for tragedy.

Posted on by Caroline 0

our way into redemption

Oh give thanks to the Lord, for he is good,
for his steadfast love endures forever!
Let the redeemed of the Lord say so,
whom he has redeemed from trouble
and gathered in from the lands,
from the east and from the west,
from the north and from the south. (Psalm 107:1-3, ESV)

We are good at announcing victories. We have awards ceremonies and podiums and medals and elaborate speeches. We are good at announcing victories, but how do we announce our redemption? How do we talk about our soul’s resurrection?

Because I believe this is indeed the greatest cause for celebration. Redemption is the best reason to throw a festival or plan a party.

Let the redeemed of the Lord say so!

Let us commemorate our being found when we were lost, our being victorious when we were defeated, our being alive when we were dead! But our joyful, victorious entry into redemption is not carried by our proud steps of accomplishment but on the weary, beaten back of a perfect Savior. We are carried, limp and lifeless, by Christ to victory and we finish with the greatest reward.

Jared C. Wilson writes, “We disobeyed our way into fallenness, but we cannot obey our way into redemption.” (Gospel Deeps, p. 161)

He is our way into redemption. He is our victory and our celebration is in His name and for His fame. He is our way into redemption and He is the only way to announce victory in this life.

Wilson includes this list in his book Gospel Deeps and I think it pulls us into powerful proclamation as the redeemed children and inspires victorious living in the promises of our Redeemer. Wilson writes on page 160, “He has hemmed us in; he has us covered:

Christ is in us. (John 14:20; 17:23; Rom. 8:10-11; 2 Cor. 13:5; Col. 1:27)

Christ is over us. (Rom. 9:5; 1 Cor. 11:3; Col. 1:18; 3:1; Heb. 3:6)

Christ is through us. (Rom. 15:18; 2 Cor. 2:14; 5:20)

Christ is with us. (Matt. 18:20; 28:20; Eph. 2:5-6; 2 Tim. 4:17)

Christ is under us. (Luke 6:47-48; 20:17; Acts 4:11; 1 Cor. 3:11)

Christ is around us (that is to say, we are in and through him). (John 14:6; 1 Cor. 8:6; 2 Cor. 3:4, 14; 5:17; Gal. 3:27; Heb. 7:25)

We are good at announcing our victories, but this victory in Christ is like no other. We announce His victory in our redemption and we announce His sovereignty in our resurrected lives. I can imagine no greater speech than a life that speaks to this work.

let LOVE fly like cRaZy

These reflections come as I read through Gospel Deeps by Jared C. Wilson. I definitely encourage you to pick up a copy and read it for yourself. It’s one to read through slowly and process with other people (or on a blog!). Here are some other posts on my reflections on the book: Lord, I need You, my heart will never not be His, living risen on a Monday, further up and further in you go.

Posted on by Caroline 1

when we pray, “Lord, I need You.”

A while back, I was reading this article at Desiring God, “No Longer an Orphan (but tempted to live like it” by Christine Hoover, which led me to order Rose Marie Miller’s book Nothing is impossible with God and write this post, “erase the ways of our orphanhood” about our freedom in discovering what it means to be called a child of God.

If I haven’t lost you to the above links (I kind of wish I have, btw), then sit with me a minute as I reflect on what’s squeezing my heart today: the gospel of adoption. Jared Wilson writes in Gospel Deeps,

“Only in the complex depths of the triune godhead are wrath-owed enemies also love-won children.”

My pen painted marks all over this sentence on page 152, but it got real messy on the next page and I decided the next person to read this book might have a hard time being objective. I’m not sure how I can explain my thoughts without giving you a full paragraph, so here it is,

“God turns rebels into family. He does this in deep love before time began (Eph. 1:5), through meticulous sovereignty throughout the old covenant (Rom. 9:4), by abundant grace in the new covenant offering of Christ (Gal. 4:4-5), and with affectionate power in the Spirit’s ongoing mission (Gal. 4:6). He is still on the surface of the deep, calling out order from the formless void of our hearts. And in this wonder is another incomprehensible wonder, namely that the Spirit’s conversion of us godward is characterized as both adoption and rebirth.” (Jared Wilson, Gospel Deeps, p. 153)

Take a moment.

Maybe print off this paragraph so you can mark it up, too. Look up Ephesians and Romans and Galatians to test the assertions and hold on only to what is good (1 Thes. 5:21). What I am holding onto after reflecting is what is holding on to me: adoption papers.

I read it this morning and I can not shake it. I am adopted – a full-blown child with a new last name, an eternal inheritance, and a forever family – and I was at war with my Father when He signed the papers. He wanted me when I wanted nothing to do with him. While I was still a sinner (Romans 5:8), Christ chose me, loved me, and gave Himself up for me. I appreciate that Wilson uses the words “meticulous sovereignty” because I think it helps us picture just how intimately involved God is with the affairs of His people.

I often explain away my haphazard housekeeping by saying I am a “creative” person. For some reason “creative” people are off the hook when it comes to keeping things orderly. People will just say, “Oh, she’s artsy… you know, abstract” and that’s supposed to mean you shouldn’t expect that girl to have her life together. Maybe this makes God’s meticulous sovereignty even MORE amazing – creativity came from Him, but He is concerned with the littlest details of existence. From the broad strokes of orange-pink-purple sky to the number of raindrops in a storm, He is authoring all the beauty and also meticulously involved in orchestrating every atomic detail.

His powerful sovereignty runs like a thread throughout the old testament, reveals God’s love in Christ’s sacrifice, and weaves through the present to declare God’s glory. At the end of the paragraph I copied above, Wilson says that our conversion is characterized by both adoption and rebirth.

This. This is what is squeezing my heart today. God declares that we are His by what I imagine would be some divine paperwork and a holy signature dipped in Christ’s blood, but then He makes us His children as He sanctifies us every day. He is not an absent father, because even adoptive fathers can be absent. Instead, God declares us (His enemies) beloved children and then commits to making us more beautiful – to look more like the image of His perfect Son (Romans 8:29).

I see so many children in my work and they do not hide their fears. When parents have to leave (it doesn’t matter what the legal papers say), fear swims out of their eyes and clings in their hands. They get desperate and throw tantrums and ask impossible questions.

Today, I have been thinking about God declaring me His child and making me His child. My status is sealed in the work of Christ on my behalf, but my Father reminds me daily of His love efforts. He is relentless as He reminds me of His faithfulness that drives out fear. He is meticulous. And I need Him.

I need my Father to do more than sign papers that say I have access to forever with Him. I need Him to walk with me. I need Him to hold me up. I need Him to be strong for me. I need Him to be courage for me. I need Him to be hope for me. I need Him to be compassion for me. I need Him to be understanding for me. I need Him to teach me, correct me, rebuke me, love me, humble me, and chase me.

I need all these things in Him because I am empty otherwise. My need is not self-centered (though I suppose it can get twisted), but instead a declaration of my emptiness alone. The depth of my need would make me fearful if I didn’t know that his Fatherhood is more than abundant. His on-going, faithful adoption is a signature He writes on my heart every moment of today. The grace He has given will supply all my needs according to His riches in glory, so that His name would be praised and His perfect Fatherhood would be blessed!

The beautiful thing about singing, “Lord, I need You” is in knowing His response. When we say, “Lord, I need You,” God responds with, “I know. I am faithful to give Myself.” We can safely cry out our need for refuge while knowing we are safe inside the very refuge we seek.

I think my belly just smiled (is that where our souls are, in our bellies?) because I’m chasing this around in circles.

As we are praying our need of God, we believe His faithfulness in being what we need.

The horrors of 3801 Lancaster (the place where Kermit Gosnell (see The Atlantic article) destroyed the lives of so many women and babies), lead us to pray, “Lord, we need You.” And I think He is saying, “I know. I am faithful to give Myself.”

Posted on by Caroline 2

when pounds of paperwork are proven wrong

Every once in a while, a day like today flies in the face of the cynic.
It blows up all the pounds of paperwork proving it’s not possible.

This day is a gift and it’s not even noon.

It’s called reunification, which is a lot of syllables packed into one word that means the court says it’s okay for a family to be together again. And that’s what happened at court.

I cried a little bit and tried to shield my eyes from all the legal people who claim detached objectivity. I try to claim it sometimes too, but I have a heart that likes to trot out on my sleeve on a regular basis (I am aware I may not be in the right profession). So, I cried a little bit when I saw parents reaching for tissues and looking at me with red-rimmed eyes.

I know it’s not the end. All my co-workers and any veterans of the public welfare system will tell you: it’s not over. And I get that. I know the road is long and the battle is intense, but today I got to say the word reunification and the six syllables will be on my tongue until 8:30 pm tonight when I finally drag myself home.

Now, to pray this reunified family into reconciled reunification with a forever family. That happy day would stretch for eternity!

Today, I know that every good gift comes down from the Father of Lights and this good gift called reunification was authored by His sovereign hand. These tearful moments were in the mind of God before the world began. He is in this, even this and always this. There is not a moment that surprises Him, not one good or evil thing that prompts a plan B.

This good thing today is one of many millions of merciful good gifts that God will pour out. 

Oh, this day can’t even contain them! We might feel ten raindrops in a downpour, but imagine the amount raindrops! Imagine that each raindrop is planned and counted, just like the hairs on our heads. Our Father knows all and showers down every good gift!

You are good. You are good, O Lord. You are good and Your love endures forever.
Posted on by Caroline 2

fighting where victory reigns

Sometimes that loneliness hits when I’m most thankful, most content, and most home. It’s a sneaky kind of sadness and not altogether bad. I don’t always know the trigger, but today I think I know where it came from.

There are a million battlefields in each day – a million no man’s lands and a million mercenaries with artillery and schemes and marching armies. The day is busted out with the millions of battlefields where fear and anger and unforgiveness and guilt do battle.

There is fighting in the waking up and fighting in the working day and fighting in the mind and fighting in the hands. It is not as trite as, “love is a battlefield,” but it is as simple.

Today, I think that loneliness comes as I fight to believe the millions of battlefields in my life are fought on holy ground – ground claimed already by the victor.

I’ve run the scenario in my mind so many times it feels more like a memory and less like a very fearful picture of what I know would happen if I was ever a soldier. I imagine myself in all the military gear, jumping out of one of those boats on Saving Private Ryan, and running up the shore. I imagine carrying a heavy gun and worrying it would actually fire. I imagine forcing my desperate feet past the waves and onto the beach. Then, every time, as soon as I step on sand I pretend to be shot and start praying for a medic.

Even thinking about the scenario makes me both fearful and ashamed. I would never make a good soldier. But, there is something gloriously beautiful and different about the millions of spiritual battlefields in my days.

Victory on the spiritual battlefield does not depend on my strength or my bravery or my skills or my confidence or my foot speed on the sand.

I used to read 2 Peter 1 and say to myself, “See, we can live right. I can do it because God has given me all I need to do it.” And I suppose it is not an about face, but more of a tilting of the head as I reconsider how God’s promises are framed here. Tilt your head with me.

His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire. (1 Peter 1:3-4)

His divine power, His knowledge, and His precious and very great promises. It is His battle and therefore His victory before I even step out of that boat. Only because His power is so great can we ever say, “For this reason…”

For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. (1 Peter 1:5-8)

I used to read this letter and believe it was a recipe for “not falling” because my Christian walk was a lot about “not falling.” And, maybe it is. That’s why I say it is more with a different tilt of my head that I read it this morning because I want God’s divine power and precious promises to be in full view. I am walking out these supplements to my faith as I am carried by the knowledge of His glory and excellence. God has promised to sustain and fill and empower my soul into this delicious recipe of things and it is with eyes fixed on Him, believing His promises that produces fruit.

I am marching into millions of battlefields that have already been claimed by the victor. My footsteps are sure and confident not because of my skills but because I believe the One who already sounded the trumpets in victory celebration.

For whoever lacks these qualities is so nearsighted that he is blind, having forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins. Therefore, brothers, be all the more diligent to confirm your calling and election, for if you practice these qualities you will never fall. For in this way there will be richly provided for you an entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.    (2 Peter 1:9-11 ESV)

When I forget I am cleansed from former sins – that God’s promises mean the grave and death and Satan’s schemes no longer have a hold – I get nervous about the enemy and about my abilities. And I worry a medic will not find my cowardly, crouching frame in the sand.

Today, I think that the lonely feeling and the sneaky sadness are reminding me how desperately I don’t want to forget the promises of my Savior. Moment by moment He holds out victory for the battles. He upholds me and with power stirs up His fruit-producing recipe in my life.

It is in believing He is already victorious that battles are rightly fought. We are fighting where victories already reign.

Posted on by Caroline 1

hidden in this

There is glory, hidden in this. There is.

I’m really stuck on it, but I won’t apologize for being redundant.

Christ died. He was buried and it was over. They had crucified the God-man and the sky went black with remorse. The worst and unthinkable sin had been committed and the consequences stretched out to touch the cosmos. Christ died.

“Do you believe that God is sovereign?”

My mentor spoke these words while I awkwardly asked for some solid answers with tears streaming down my cheeks. She’s not much of a cry-er, so she apologized for not being more sensitive but she did not apologize for her advice.

“Caroline, if you believe God is sovereign then His plan will not fail. Do you believe God is sovereign – that He is in control of everything and even this?”

I sniffled out a “Yes,” and felt a little better. That was almost 5 years ago.

Now, my “yes” has less sniffles attached (most times), but it is the truth I cling to when the glory seems buried.

The truth of God’s sovereignty is the dawn when glory feels hopelessly hidden six feet under.

It seems to me that after Jesus’ death, more than any other time in the history or future of the world, the glory of Christ appeared hidden.

He was dead, gone, crucified, humiliated, en-tombed, embarrassed, done.

But there was glory hidden inside the worst and most heinous sinful crime. There was a resurrection and redemption. There was victory over sin and death. There was invitation to new life. There was reconciliation.

And all these things were planned in the mind of a loving and gracious Father before the beginning of time so that His children could come near and step into the light of His glory.

There was a glorious dawn hidden on the other side of the dark sky while the Savior’s body was still limp. There was glory.

Do you believe that God is sovereign – that He truly does work everything out for the good of those who love God and are called according to His purpose (Romans 8:28)? Do you believe that there is glory hidden inside the death of God?

Let the redeemed say, “Yes!” and “Amen!”

Today, what part of your world do you doubt God’s sovereignty reaches – finances, relationships, future, career, children, politics or your health insurance?

Do you believe God is sovereign – in control of everything and even this? Because God has hidden glory in your “even this” and it would delight Him greatly if you believed Him.

Posted on by Caroline 1

my heart will never not be His

There is not a depth that can reach the deeps of the excellencies of Christ.

Not a friendship or a family or a lover or an ocean avenue view; not a single created thing can plumb the depths of His glory or compare to the riches of His grace.

There have been times when I’ve wondered if I lack a very womanly and essential thing. I’ve wondered why I am not more emotional or more dramatic or more anticipatory about love in this life. I have wondered and worried why I am not wooed by the chick flick storyline, waiting for my world to shift when a dapper young man spills his drink on me downtown. I have wondered why I am not a hopeless romantic.

I have, up to this point, credited the amazing men in my life as largely responsible for my (mostly) reasonable approach to relationships. They still get kudos, but I realized recently why there is a steadiness in my step that is anchored as deep as the unplumbable depths: Christ.

I’m not trying to explain the pinterest-popular slogan, “a woman should get lost in Christ so a man has to seek Christ to find her” or some other version of the same idea. What I mean is… I am just content to be lost.

I do not need to be found by anyone else because the depths of Christ’s love are too deep! They go on and on and on forever. I am not singing with Beyoncé, “all you women, who independent throw your hands up at me,” so hear me out before you point and question my biblical view of complementarianism.

I am questioning the encouragement we give women to get lost in Christ as a means to an earthly end in a man. I was running around Gray’s Lake recently, considering my contentedness and questioning my relationship readiness when I realized,

“my heart will never not be His”

I remember my dad gave me a locket when I was thirteen. We were in San Diego on the “girl trip” that my sister and I took individually with him to mark our “coming of age.” It is as embarrassing as it sounds (well, more embarrassing was the camping trip I blushed my way through with my mom to listen to all of Dr. Dobson’s tape series on sexuality). The “Dad and me” version in San Diego was embarrassing (isn’t everything at 13?), but it was so very special. It was rare to have occasion to fly anywhere, but his being on the board of directors on the little rural electric cooperative made it possible for my sister and me to accompany him to (what we thought was) paradise.

He had left the details of our coming of age to the “tapes” (as us kids now call them), and instead over a nice dinner one night gave me a heart shaped locket. I don’t remember the exact speech, but I’m sure he labored over every letter. What I remember is something like this,

“Caroline, your mother and I love you very much. But God loves you more. This locket is a symbol to show that He will keep your heart safe until He sees fit to share it with someone else.”

I’m embarrassed to say gold was not my color as a junior high girl. The locket sat in a little chintzy heart shaped porcelain container on my shelf for years. But, that night when my dad shared his and God’s love for me, I started to understand what it meant to have a heart that is guarded and protected. I had trusted Jesus as my Savior at a young age and junior high was the first refining fire I blazed through, so knowing my heart was held in the hands of my Maker could not have been better news.

Though I can’t say high school and college were without drama, I rarely shouted girl power anthems with windows down and fists pumping the air. I think deep down I knew and believed that God had my heart and that was the safest place for it to be. I was secure, protected, loved, and cherished – even if those weren’t the words I would use to express it.

Now, running along Gray’s Lake in the too-bitter chill of Spring, I have peace that my heart will never not be His. Even when I do get married, my love for Christ and Christ’s love for me is the only and best anchor for my soul.

Marriage is one of the most beautiful pictures of God’s love, but it will always only be that: a picture. God’s love is the only thing that can reach the unplumbable depths and secure my spirit with an anchor that won’t disappoint.

My heart will never not be His and I trust Him to share or not share it.

These reflections come as I read through Gospel Deeps by Jared C. Wilson and as I consider unmarried life at 28 years old. Read this related post: seeking the greatest Treasure.

 

Posted on by Caroline 8

just as He said

“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.
Posted on by Caroline 2