Hm.
Children are magnificent when it comes to storytelling. Mysterious, but magnificent. Sometimes I wish I could unlearn whatever made me tell stories any other way. What are your thoughts on Asa and Toby in this little tale?
And do you think scared is really scared of the things you like?
We crowded the platform overlooking the stage – the three of us in a kind of huddle, swaying and bouncing with giggles.
We danced with our hands in the air, singing the words we knew and mumbling through the ones we didn’t. More than 17,000 people packed the arena and it felt like just the three of us – three blonde sisters savoring the moments and filling the air with laughter. I wasn’t concerned about impressions because I was singing with two beautiful girls who were lost in the music.
I didn’t used to be like this. Junior and high school were about keeping up appearances, no matter how many times I try to say they weren’t.Â
Do I look spiritual enough? Do I look too spiritual? Do I look smart enough? Do I seem too smart and not humble?  I did a lot of situational assessment to figure out how to make the best impressions. I know, definitely first world problems.
I thought on those things as I was standing there at the concert, not caring about anything that anyone was thinking. Maybe it was because those things – those silly cultural fears about what others think – seemed so petty when I thought about what my sisters thought of me. I wanted them to see that I was unshackled and unashamed.
Christ doesn’t set free halfway – when he freed me from my sin it was complete. That kind of power pulls people into statements like Paul’s in his letter to the Romans, “I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation for everyone who believes…” That’s not a statement that’s worried about impressions.
The law of the spirit of life has set me free from the law of sin and death. Free.
There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.
For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.
You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.
(Romans 8:1-11 ESV)
The Spirit of God dwells in me and the Spirit is life and the Spirit gives life – the kind of life that lives unshackled and unashamed. This is the impression I want to make.
—
Today is the first day of Lent, Ash Wednesday, and I want to live it unshackled and unashamed.
You may not be giving something up for 40 days, but if you are, let me encourage you: don’t put yourself under the law for 40 days as an act of penitence. If you are in Christ, the law of the Spirit of life has set you free from the law of sin and death. Don’t crawl back under the law so you are condemned again. Instead, live in the freedom His grace provides.
Even as you are giving things up, focus on Jesus as treasure and your small sacrifices will taste so much sweeter.
These 40 days are about choosing Christ instead. When we want chocolate or coffee or facebook or drive-thru or clothes or comfort, choose Christ instead. Sink your teeth into His truth and be filled to full with His grace. He satisfies (Psalm 63) like nothing else.
Here’s a devotional you might check out and some of my favorite songs for lent. These 40 days could be a time where you discover what it means to be unshackled and unashamed.
When did we let someone run away with this weighty word and drown it in hedonism?
When did we start using it to describe cupcakes and shallow conversations and crude innuendos?
It’s a bit of a fight today, so I’ve got delight on my brain… swimming around there and trying to evade my desperate fingers. I believe, I believe, I believe. Help my unbelief, Lord – that delight is impossible and evasive and illusive and less than rapturous.
I’m stealing it back and believing it means pleasure and enjoyment and rapture. My soul is waking up to pleasure and enjoyment and rapture in the moments where it feels illusive because I am believing delight is more than what we’ve made it.Â
Referencing 2 Corinthians 4:6 in “Future Grace,” John Piper says that, “saving faith in the promises of God must include spiritual delight in the God of the promises. … Delight in the glory of God is not the whole of what faith is. But I think that without it, faith is dead.” And later he explains,
“It is not merely the security of the promises that frees us from motives to sin; but also the sweetness of the beauty of God in the promises. It is the spiritual nature of the things promised. When we apprehend the spiritual beauty or sweetness of what is promised, and delight in it, not only are we freed from the insecurity of greed and fear that motivate so much sin, but we are also shaped in our values by what we cherish in the promise (see 1 John 3:3). If we cherish the beauty of Christ in the gospel, we will cherish behavior – even painful sacrificial behavior – that reflects that beauty.” (p. 203)
But, who is John Piper? Does Scripture really say we should be delighting in the spiritual beauty of what is promised and the One who promises?
Christians often (maybe too quickly) grasp promises and make them ‘givens’ – the kind of phrases you run to when you’re worried the IRS will knock on your door or when you’re afraid of getting fired. “But, God is good and He promises to be good to me!” we might say to ourselves.
Though it is true that God is good, Piper helps us understand how delighting in His promises is different than assuming the benefit of His promises. Our delighting in His promises is freedom – moment by moment – from believing the lies that threaten to entangle us in this world. This delighting in the promises is never an end, but a great catalyst as we delight in the beauty of the One who promises.
I’m testing the depths today, but I have not yet found the floor. For every desperate moment I reach deeper, and there I find a delight that frees me from worry and fear. It’s not just my job that needs this deep well of delight – it’s my thoughts, my free time, my Tuesday nights, my phone calls, my lunch hours, my relationships, my family – it’s everything that needs redeemed.
If Christ is my greatest treasure, then everything (ev-er-y-thing) else is a secondary variable. No matter how convinced I am that my day could be ruined with one email, phone call, encounter, fight, bill – there is one most important trump card called Christ. If I dive in to delight in His promises, reveling in the security and weight of them, I will stay swimming in the delight of God’s beauty, that He would promise anything at all.
Are you overwhelmed yet?
You make known to me the path of life;
in your presence there is fullness of joy;
at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.
(Psalm 16:11 ESV)Delight yourself in the Lord,
and he will give you the desires of your heart.
(Psalm 37:4 ESV)Rejoice in the Lord always,
and again I say rejoice!
(Philippians 4:4)
Also, see this helpful devotional that sparked my thoughts from David Matthis over at Desiring God, “He Wants You Happy.”
…and your biggest fears seem lightyears away, no they won’t find you here.
This saturday feels like a sigh I’m not afraid to sink into.
There’s a lot of rushing that happens Monday-Friday, even if we don’t admit to being in the race. At about 6 o’clock Friday night after my last appointment, I started sinking – the good kind of sinking.
I have this crazy determination that there won’t be moments or days or phases of my life that I have to hold my breath to get through. You know the kind – where you play, “Just get through it” over and over in your mind. Maybe you fix your eyes on the end of the tunnel and haul out in a full-on sprint?
Do you know the moments and days and phases I’m talking about?
Well, I never want to hold my breath because I believe there is grace enough to breathe in every moment. There is grace enough to take deep breaths and conquer fear and worry and pain even while I’m stuck inside all of it.
That said, 6 o’clock yesterday was like the perfect breeze. It was extra grace – more space to smile and laugh and stretch my hands out to feel the motion. And the nightmares and monsters of the weekday grind fade for a little bit while the weekend happens.
There is a special kind of grace that allows for us to rest.
This is the grace of my saturday sigh and I’m not one bit afraid to sink into it – that place where those weekday things seem lightyears away.
Today was sick with disappointment and human failure – sick with sadness.
But, today was heavy with grace.Â
I was stepping in it and leaning on it and drinking it in from one moment to the next, believing there was always enough for the more that I needed.
I just kept getting lost in it – God’s all-sufficient, works-empowering grace – and then I got caught up. It was just me in my car, no kiddos in the backseat this time.
Just me, with room to stretch and sing.
And then there was kind of a tingle that rushed out from my chest and made music all over my civic. I got silly in that city starlight tonight, singing words like proclamations from my soul.
It was like my soul snuggled close to the person I could have been – the person God saved me from being and then burst out and screamed, “I am redeemed!”
All the ugly that threatens to keep a soul downcast, mired in the sin of this world, is not far from where my feet would tread – save for the grace of God. Not one client I have is more hopeless than I was when Christ found me. Not one. And I am redeemed!
The realization was electric. I sang and sang and reached out my hands in praise. This God of all creation redeemed me from the deepest and darkest pit where so many make their home. This same God is able to reach every single, sloppy soul in the wreckage of their sin.
This grace, unspeakable grace, God has made abundant so that I am equipped to do every good work (2 Corinthians 9:8) and He receives the glory.
So, I’ll get silly in starlight and sing.
I’ll sing and let the praise rise up from the darkness and into the night.
let LOVE fly like cRaZy
Remember yesterday? When I was holding on to hope?
It was like someone tried to pop my balloon after that post went live. It was just a 20 minute thought in the middle of yesterday’s traipsing… but hours later I wondered if my cases had read it and wanted to prove me wrong.
Today, I’m remembering what it means to have my feet planted in future grace. It means God has freed me from anxiety, authored my peace, and anchored me in hope. In faith, I believe this today – that the Son of God will rise with healing in His wings. And I believe my day can look different because of my belief.
The Lord is good and gracious to those who fear Him.
I will bless the LORD at all times;
his praise shall continually be in my mouth.
My soul makes its boast in the LORD;
let the humble hear and be glad.Oh, magnify the LORD with me,
and let us exalt his name together!
I sought the LORD, and he answered me
and delivered me from all my fears.Those who look to him are radiant,
and their faces shall never be ashamed.
This poor man cried, and the LORD heard him
and saved him out of all his troubles.The angel of the LORD encamps
around those who fear him, and delivers them.
Oh, taste and see that the LORD is good!
Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him!Oh, fear the LORD, you his saints,
for those who fear him have no lack!
The young lions suffer want and hunger;
but those who seek the LORD lack no good thing.Come, O children, listen to me;
I will teach you the fear of the LORD.
What man is there who desires life
and loves many days, that he may see good?Keep your tongue from evil
and your lips from speaking deceit.
Turn away from evil and do good;
seek peace and pursue it.The eyes of the LORD are toward the righteous
and his ears toward their cry.
The face of the LORD is against those who do evil,
to cut off the memory of them from the earth.When the righteous cry for help, the LORD hears
and delivers them out of all their troubles.
The LORD is near to the brokenhearted
and saves the crushed in spirit.Many are the afflictions of the righteous,
but the LORD delivers him out of them all.
He keeps all his bones;
not one of them is broken.Affliction will slay the wicked,
and those who hate the righteous will be condemned.
The LORD redeems the life of his servants;
none of those who take refuge in him will be condemned.
(Psalm 34 ESV)
I get it.
I was sheltered, blah blah blah. I haven’t ever spiraled into worldly darkness at the mercy of a bottle nor have I ever hung out with people who have.
Maybe that’s what keeps a steady hope hanging out under my eyelids. Maybe that’s why I’m pushing against the callouses people wear around like fashion in this line of work.
“Go to rehab? She’s not going to rehab – 100 bucks says she used this morning and she’ll use tonight.”
“He used once? No, he’s an addict. Addicts don’t just use once.”
“They’ve been clean for 10 years, they said? Still addicts.”
The conversations are circular because I want so desperately to believe that people can change, that they can tell the truth, that they can love their kids more than they love their addictions. But people in this line of work have watched people never change, never tell the truth, and always choose their addictions over their children.
So, experience says I’m foolish and green and too wide-eyed.
I get that.
And I don’t want to be foolish about my hope. But, there is one thing I wish was more culturally acceptable to introduce into conversations about addicts.
“…but, she’s an addict.”
“But, have you met my Jesus?”
And so I pray. I pray that things work out differently – for softened hearts and humble spirits. I pray for the addicts who are helpless against their vices. And in them I see me. I see the human condition. I see that we need Jesus. And so I pray.
Piper suggested (well, he said “perhaps”) the whole Old Testament could be summed up in this tiny verse.
“Trust in the Lord, and do good.” Psalm 37:3
Does that cause you to pause at all? a little? Well, it does me. The whole Old Testament in seven words. Hm. Trust in the Lord is one of those “givens” I might breeze by in my morning reading because my heart is used to the way it sounds. Of course, trust in the Lord. Lean not on my own understanding. Yes, yes. Trust in the Lord and in His mighty power.
Have you ever done that when you are reading a book that has texts of Scripture in it? They appear as large chunks indented on either side to make them stand out and draw your attention. Sometimes (embarrassed admission), I breeze past what feels like “givens” so I can get to the point. It’s like my mind is saying, “Caroline, of course you agree with that part – it’s Scripture. Just move on so you can find the conclusion.”
Well, this morning I lingered on Psalm 37:3 because I didn’t want to breeze past its truth. If I believe the Word is powerful and sharper than any two edged sword – that it never returns void and holds the secrets to abundant life – than nothing should ever be breezed by (no matter how many times I’ve read it).
“Trust in the Lord, and do good.” Psalm 37:3
Piper follows his assertion by saying, “…let the great works of past grace sustain your faith in future grace so that you always trust God rather than the offers of help and guidance that come from other gods or other counselors. The root issue behind the disobedience of Israel was lack of faith in future grace.”
Could the root issue of my disobedience look like similar faithlessness? The Israelites had many proofs of God’s faithfulness and salvation, but they chose unbelief. They chose not to trust the Lord’s word would be true for the future as it had been in the past. They chose instead to take their chances with a future of their own contriving.
The “do good” piece is not just tacked on for good measure. As much as the trusting is an act of belief in what God can and will do, “doing good” physically walks out this belief in the offices and street corners and dining room tables of life.
It was like a wave washed up and stole the sand away – as if I stood looking down at my sand covered ankles wondering what was underneath and then a wave broke into the frame and stole the sand away.
The wooden pews in the downtown church on the corner were cramped with every version of hipster and we sang shoulder to shoulder:
In Christ alone my hope is found
He is my light, my strength, my song
This Cornerstone, this solid ground
Firm through the fiercest drought and storm
And the wave washed up and stole the sand away. What an amen I heard my heart say in those moments! What a beautiful discovery to listen as the Lord tells me once again about the firm ground on which I stand. It was like a deep breath that turned up the corners of my mouth and filled my ribs with certainty.
God was singing His sovereignty over me, reminding me of His grace. God was breaking into my small viewing frame to wash away the sand covering the very firm foundation.
And I am not afraid.
I am standing on a firm foundation and God is washing away the shifting sand at my feet.
We are the loved ones, friends of God indeed.
…
may the days stay sweet, may your steady heart beat
be the good in me, the good in me
I’m looking at my week today. I’m just sitting here on this side of Monday thinking – what stories will unfold before next Monday comes? How will I step into the miracles of grace God has authored this week? What will those joyful moments look like and when will I do battle in the moments of temptation? What treasures are waiting to be discovered in the most unlikely of places?
I’m still on this side of Monday, just barely, and I’m ushering it in with Sandra McCracken’s song, “Dynamite” because I guess I want to think on the weight of another regular week. Yes, life goes on – an unsteady rhythm in an unsteady and shifting world that somehow feels routine. Another 9 am start to another five day week that’s about to happen… and these lines are breaking in to shake me free of going through the Monday motions.
You may not be in a place to imagine anything this morning, and if that’s the case you might want to come back and read this later because McCracken paints a picture you are meant to see in your mind’s eye.
“The heart takes what it wants, like dynamite.”
Dynamite is not a gentle thing – not a pleasant or friendly thing. It is unforgiving and indiscriminate in its destruction. And this is the image McCracken uses to talk about the heart: dynamite. That’s ugly.
I don’t like to think about my heart like destruction – the kind that thunders and smokes and overwhelms. I don’t like to think about a lot of ugly things. On this side of Monday, I am thinking about how desire is lit like dynamite.
“Those who have ears, as the smoke it clears, will see things as they are
To bend the will, you first must change the heart.”
But I’m also thinking about the moments before destruction is guaranteed – those moments when the will can still be bent by a change of heart.
Where are those moments in my today?
When will my heart race to take what it wants this week?
Oh, I know there will be many times. My heart is fickle and fragile and forgetting. I want things I’ll never admit to wanting and this week will not be any different than last week.
But, maybe if I know my desire like dynamite, I will listen for a different sound.
“Will we choose the noise of our desire or the hope that makes no sound?”
Maybe, I will choose to say “Yes!” to all the promises God has given me in Christ – all the ways He has provided the power to bend the will of my flesh by the change of my heart. Destruction is not unavoidable. The noise of desire is not so deafening that the silent sound of hope cannot penetrate it. A hope that does not disappoint (Romans 5) is as brilliant and as sure as this morning’s sun.
In 2 Corinthians 1:20 we read, “All the promises of God find their ‘Yes!’ in Christ.”
The God of creation sees our desire like dynamite and yet still offers a hearty and infallible YES in the person of Christ, who secures every promise God has ever given. Within this profound security, we can say “Yes!” to those promises – to the hope that makes no sound.
We can walk out this week in a way that doesn’t leave destruction in our wake.
I am reading through Future Grace by John Piper and this particular post is inspired by his words in Chapter 7 as well as Sandra McCracken’s song.Â
MUSINGS IN THE MIDST 