Tag: Christianity

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

this ain’t no kind of religion

If it was, I’d be doomed.

If this life is about religion, I’d be zonked, smothered, shriveled, beat up, dried out, and downcast. If yesterday was about measuring up and looking good and doing right, I failed.

I thought a run would cure my sour rhythm, but right before I left I opted for the rollerblades. I wanted to feel the wind faster in my face, I guess. Halfway around Gray’s Lake, after picking up speed on the perfect slope, a very large and very deep pool of water stretched over the path. I made a last minute decision to go off-roading on the grass, which ended as quickly as it started – with me on my back.

I jumped up and blade ran (sideways with arms pumping) across the rest of the grass until the path was clear. I’m not really sure why I did this because blade running is not a thing. No one runs on rollerblades in the grass.

But when I picked up speed again on the other side of that pool of water, I thought about a conversation I had with a colleague recently. She said, “Yeah, I just get sick of some Christians in my life saying they want to do more Christian stuff. I’m like, ‘Why don’t you just stop talking about it and live it?’ I mean, I’m not much into religion, but I do it 40 hours a week. It’s my job.”

This colleague is my favorite, but I couldn’t make any sense of her statements. I think she was saying that she does what Christians talk about every work week – it’s her day job. Apparently, there are “Christians” in her life who have less humanitarian jobs and they feel guilty about their efforts to better humanity. She’s not a fan of religion, but she does it pretty well anyway.

In any case, I was thinking about this conversation when I was rollerblading (faster now to escape the humiliation of my fall) when night was settling on the city.

And I knew that every doomed day would stay doomed if it was about religion. Even if we all worked in the social services field all day, every day… even if we helped a thousand zillion people because of our efforts… even then we would be doomed if it was about religion.

THIS IS LOVE.

Christ breaks through every day that we fail to “do religion” perfectly (and that’s every day). He sets us free from human measurements and standards. He invites us to dance unashamed because our freedom was purchased by His love.

In every way we fall short, His grace extends far enough.

Can you feel it? It’s like rain, this love. It falls on the mighty and the weak, the smart and the simple, the famous and the obscure. His love falls on those who wrestle in doubt, cower in fear, and push back in anger. It’s like a downpour, this love.

His love accepts our incomplete efforts because the only measurement is Christ. He accomplished everything so I could accomplish anything at all.

Thursday is a good day to get soaked.

Posted on by Caroline 2

remembering the rhythm of Truth

I’m giving myself 15 minutes to write before I run this rhythm out. I somehow got in a sour mood today, is all. One of the little ones must have sensed it because my last appointment said, “Would you maybe wanna rap?” Apparently, she associates my rapping with my good moods… and I wasn’t in one.

We’re learning a new song in my car these days. It goes like this:

My God is so great,
so strong and so mighty
there’s nothing my God cannot do!

The mountains are His,
the valleys are His,
the skies are His handiwork too!

Naturally, it’s the song on repeat with the little ones and it’s all acapella. We mostly sing/shout it and today I was sing/shouting through the motions because I felt sour. When my last appointment asked me, “Would you maybe wanna rap?” I kind of snapped out of my stupor (for a minute at least) because the song needed a rap bridge and she knew it.

I realized anxiety had crawled inside and knotted all my muscles, so I was singing with furrowed brows. That’s no way to sing and she must have noticed. I can’t tell you which detail it was that really got under my skin, but I can tell you the bunch of them together was too much. I packed in too many visits and emails and reports and there weren’t enough minutes.

Have you ever felt like you ran through a day with shoes a couple sizes too big? Well, today was like a size 10 and I wear a size 6 (and I’m pretty clumsy wearing a 6). I looked like a clown and it all ended with my furrowed brow and this slump of a sour mood.

As fast-paced as I profess to be, I need a good bit of slow moving so my heart can catch up with my head (or the other way around, I’m not sure). I need to make my heart beat to the rhythm of Truth so my actions dance to the same beat. And this rhythm is never four sizes too big – it’s never out of reach or out of sight. The rhythm of Truth is as simple as two verses in a children’s song.

“My God is in heaven, He does whatever pleases Him.”
(Psalm 115:3)
“For every beast of the forest is mine, the cattle on a thousand hills.”
(Psalm 50:10)
“Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. But even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not, therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows. So everyone who acknowledges me before men, I also will acknowledge before my Father who is in heaven,”
Matthew 10:29-32

I gotta go shake off this sour rhythm and remember what Truth feels like – pray I find it on the running path.

Posted on by Caroline 5

God said so (and I trust Him)

This morning was just a morning.

The rest of the day followed in the same suit – the sunrise and the meetings and the reports and the visits were nothing magical. There were no moments where I caught a glimpse of the glorious inside the mundane of this Monday.

And I hated myself a little bit for it, because I know the glory is there. I hated that something in me didn’t melt when the little boy’s lips formed around the new word “moon” as he pointed to the sky. I want to see the glory always and I mostly write about when I do – the sunsets that raise my religious affections and the child’s laugh that unleashes my own spirit of freedom.

But some days just feel like days – sometimes running paths and book chapters and dishes are just running paths and book chapters and dishes. And there is no epiphany to write about on facebook or capture on instagram.

Some days are just days.

And this is the day when what I know becomes very important. Absent affections, when days are just days and work is just work and the people on the running path are just people, what I know to be true is very important. This is what I know:

You are faithful, never-changing,
age to age, You remain the same
Your steadfast love endures forever

So, I close my eyelids and stare at that strange nothingness. I know the beauty and glory of creation is lit up on the other side of my sight, but not because it feels like more than just a day.

I know it is beautiful because it is beautiful. God said so and I trust Him.
Posted on by Caroline 2

a willing heart, still incomplete

I want a lot of things. No surprise there, I suppose. The intensity might change and the objects of my wanting, but there’s no question: I want things.

And sometimes I get what I want. I will myself to do what needs doing in order to grasp what was once outside my reach. Like the limes I picked up today on the way home from church – I wanted fresh limeade, so I willed myself to drive out of the way to stop at the grocery store. In awhile, after I type out this bit of inspiration, I will sip the limeade that was only a thought a couple hours ago.

But steadfastness does not work that way.

This morning, as we were singing one of my favorite hymns, I stayed on these lines when everyone else sang the next stanza,

Gracious God, my heart renew
Make my spirit right and true
Thy salvation’s joy impart
Steadfast make my willing heart
Steadfast make my willing heart

Apart from God, my willing heart is incomplete – left wanting a faithfulness that is beyond my reach. Often (ahem, daily) my willingness wearies and wavers and no matter how sincere my resolve, I fail and fall. I will never be faithful on my own. No matter how much I want to be faithful, it will always be just outside my reach.

No matter how sincere, willingness does not a steadfast heart make.

There must be something outside of my will and outside of my sincerity that makes me steadfast, because my attempts at faithfulness will always fail.

What grace that God takes our willingness and adds His faithfulness to make us steadfast! Though we fall and fail, our steadfastness depends on His faithfulness and in this He never wavers or wearies.

We come willing and God makes us steadfast.

The exchange makes no sense because it is no exchange at all. We come with only a faltering “want” for faithfulness, but in Christ God adds His faithfulness and our hearts can be made steadfast.

Miraculous.

Posted on by Caroline 0

home chased and caught me

Home is not where I get chased to or chased from because home is chasing me. I know because it chased me across these five calendar days, begging for me to abide.

It had a little bit to do with the anxiety of job applications and a little bit to do with odd working hours and a little bit to do with prioritizing phone conversations. But, I can tell you it had everything to do with my heart being homesick.

I met a friend for a near-sunrise breakfast this week and I asked about the past weekend with her parents. She had one of those contented smiles on her face – the ones we wear when words won’t suffice – and she said, “Good. It was just so good.” And I knew just what she meant.

Home is that feeling you get when you are abiding under someone else’s roof.

But my parents’ home was not chasing me this week (although it is a wonderful place to abide – a place I don’t have to check the mail or arrange a social calendar or clear the dust mites from the corners of the closets). And to be honest, the “home feeling” has a time limit when it’s confined to a location.

I’ve called a lot of places home. After 6 months in Des Moines, “home” definitely describes my little street and the corner meat store and the running path to Gray’s Lake. I don’t have a hard time settling into new homes or missing them dearly when I uproot and transplant, but none of them were chasing me this week either. Because there is a limit to our earthly contentedness, an impenetrable obstacle to our earthly abiding even in the most home-ly of places.

This week the home that chased me was the one from John 15 and Psalm 23:6 and Exodus 36:4. It caught up with me mid-morning when I realized the ache in my gut wasn’t heartburn or indigestion or hormones. My heart missed home.

When the rain started to fall in the park, it struck me all of a sudden that my sloppy schedule and mishandled time management had cost me precious time with my Savior. I was doing things, some good and some just things, and somehow my silly feet had wandered from my true home.

I skipped my morning devotions.
I prayed mostly in transit.

I laughed and moped and chatted and filled all the space of the day. And then, I shook away the nudge to be still. I drank more coffee and went on longer rollerblading runs. I scribbled notes and made lists. I pushed down the prick of conviction and today it pushed back.

When I read this devotion today from Solid Joys, I remembered why it is good to be at home with the Lord, abiding in His presence. I remembered why my Savior’s shelter is the best place to abide. Because home is not where you run to when your vagabond shoes have holes and home is not where you run from in a dry season of discontent. 

Home is the forever love of the Father, who pursues us so our souls can best abide.

His is the home that never changes, never wearies, never rusts, and never tires. His is the home my heart gets sick for and the shelter that best covers my soul. His is the space where I want to abide.

Home chased me this week and caught me today. And as I abide out this Friday, His kindness is leading me to repentance.

Posted on by Caroline 2

when fear meets perfect love

It finds us at corporate desks and backyard barbecues, at county jails and beaches at sunset. It paralyzes us with doubt and bursts with frenetic energy. It is irrational and rational, trivial and monumental, tangible and unseen.

Fear is crazy persistent.

Fear is on my brain today for a lot of reasons, but something else is casting it out – something that curls the corners of my mouth when they should be stuck in an anxious frown. The Lord has made an eternally significant introduction that breaks all the ways fear might bind me. Because perfect love casts out all fear (1 John 4:18) and I know perfect love through Christ, my fear is cast out from me like the sun casts out the dark in the morning.

Fear of rejection? Cast out.

Fear of failure? Cast out.

Fear of the future? Cast out.

Fear of death? Cast out.

Fear of loss? Cast out.

Fear of sadness? Cast out.

Fear of darkness? Cast out.

Fear of deadlines? Cast out.

Fear of missed opportunities? Cast out.

After all this casting out, what does the light of Perfect Love leave us with? Freedom. When fear is cast out by perfect love, freedom is what remains. And we can not “get better” at being free. Christ accomplished our freedom and cast out all fear when He secured our sanctification.

What does it look like to work out of freedom? To have relationships out of freedom? To start a family out of freedom? To meet your neighbors, serve your brothers, and bless your enemies out of freedom?

What does it look like to live out of freedom instead of fear? Well, you won’t hold your breath for the response, for one thing. Your acts of kindness and grace and toil in the workplace or in the living room do not depend on being accepted, affirmed, or approved.

When you live out of a place of freedom, you are accepted, affirmed, and approved already in Christ.

And our freedom is not temperamental or conditional – we need not be wary that our performance might effect our access to freedom. When Christ spoke the words, “It is finished,” He secured our freedom – forever. We know this is true because He has never made a promise He hasn’t kept.

This is a song I think a freed person might sing. Maybe you’ll sing along today. Is Christ your best thought, highest affection, and greatest inheritance? I pray I can sing these things in freedom with an honest heart!

Posted on by Caroline 2

round me rings the music

I remember trying to conquer this hymn for a piano recital. I didn’t love it because my left hand always got stuck and the chords seemed to stutter. It has been several years since that recital in middle school and this morning was begging for this song to be sung.

The robin mothering babies in her nest and the sun dancing across the dining room – both declare their Maker’s praise. My Father owns all the birds in every nest and every streaming ray of light in every morning window. This is my Father’s world.

All of earth and heaven are His, wrought by His hand and held together by His word. He did not fashion a dull and dreary creation in shades of gray, but instead a vibrant and lively masterpiece with layers of sound and color that make His glory known.

This is my Father’s world. I know Him and He knows me – what a glorious thought!

This is my Father’s world, and to my listening ears 
All nature sings, and round me rings the music of the spheres. 
This is my Father’s world: I rest me in the thought 
Of rocks and trees, of skies and seas; 
His hand the wonders wrought. 

This is my Father’s world, the birds their carols raise, 
The morning light, the lily white, declare their Maker’s praise. 
This is my Father’s world: He shines in all that’s fair; 
In the rustling grass I hear Him pass; 
He speaks to me everywhere. 

This is my Father’s world. O let me ne’er forget 
That though the wrong seems oft so strong, God is the ruler yet. 
This is my Father’s world, why should my heart be sad? 
The lord is King—let the heavens ring. God reigns—let the earth be glad. 

This is my Father’s world. I walk a desert lone. 
In a bush ablaze to my wondering gaze God makes His glory known. 
This is my Father’s world, a wanderer I may roam 
Whate’er my lot, it matters not, 
My heart is still at home. 

This is my Father’s world: the battle is not done: 
Jesus who died shall be satisfied, 
And earth and Heav’n be one.

Posted on by Caroline 0