Tag: Christianity

when faith sees

He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was as good as dead (since he was about a hundred years old), or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah’s womb. No unbelief made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised. (Romans 4:19–21)

What does it look like to be convinced that God is able to do what He promises? And what does it look like when what is promised is impossible?

What if someone told you that one day you would be the President or that you would be the Queen? And what if it wasn’t just an offhand comment, but a promise. It would be an impossible promise (maybe not for you, in which case I’m very honored that you are reading my blog).

Abraham was promised something impossible, but He was convinced in God’s faithfulness to keep His promises. There were a lot of details that didn’t make sense – a lot of good practical reasons to doubt the Word of the Lord – but Abraham persevered in faith. God’s grace allowed Abraham to believe and grow stronger in His belief that God would keep His promise.

This active believing was counted to Abraham as righteousness. God wrote out the storyline (Abraham would be the father of nations) and then by His grace Abraham lived out the impossible story by His belief that it was true.

Abraham had no idea of knowing what the promises would look like, but he knew what God’s faithfulness looked like – steadfast, sure, steady, true.

Sometimes, we are consumed with figuring out what the promises will look like when they are fulfilled. How will God show Himself faithful in finding me a job? How will God’s promise be fulfilled in my friendships? How can God be faithful to overcome the evil in the world and dispel the lies? How do I believe what He promises about eternity?

What will His fulfilled promises look like in my life – in those impossible things?

God’s faithfulness to keep every promise He has ever made gives us a clear picture of the Promise Keeper. Sometimes we are not meant to see what those impossible promises look like, but we are always meant to see who holds the promises secure.

Our faith sees this Promise Keeper and actively believes in His faithfulness. 

Abraham could never have imagined what God was promising – what it would look like. He never would have expected that Christ would come as a result of God’s promise and die to demonstrate His faithfulness and mercy. In Christ, God made a way for us and proved His ultimate promise keeping in the most impossible situation: satisfying the debt we owed and securing our place with Him for eternity.

Our faith sees this Promise Keeper and actively believes He will continue keeping promises, even if we have no idea what the promises will look like when they are kept.
Posted on by Caroline 0

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

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

conductor and composer

The birds are singing again this morning. I’m not sure where they hid when weary winter came for a surprising May visit. I saw many of them fluttering about in confusion, but this morning they are singing again.

And I know who is sustaining them.

I know the One who is holding things together so the birds can sing their song to heaven for a morning audience. I know Him.

The birds are singing and how can I not sing with them? I get overwhelmed at the song creation sings because I know there is always a place for me in the choir. As God does whatever He pleases (Psalm 115:3), He is pleased to hold things together (Colossians 1:17) and invite us into His joy.

The birds do not sing to say thank you as God holds them together and writes the music for their song. They do not sing to exchange beauty for beauty.

The birds sing because God gave them a song.

Who has given a gift to God that he might be repaid? For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. (Romans 11:35–36)

The birds sing because God receives glory when creation steps into His joy and He wrote the music for just such a celebration. He is the conductor as much as He is the composer of creation’s song and there is a part for me to sing today.

May God be praised as I sing the song hidden in my heart in praise of His glorious grace!

Posted on by Caroline 0

satisfied

Can winter really steal some of Spring’s joy?

Sometimes we have to claim Spring (for our souls) by squaring our shoulders and telling winter’s chill that a seed planted grows and blooms. We say it not to make it so, but to believe it true.

Have you ever done that?

Have you ever said something you believe is true, desperately hoping that what you believe is, indeed, true?

Like, maybe, “Lord, you are enough.” And as you are saying the words you are believing them… but you are also throwing all your hope at the Lord to make good on His promise to be enough.

In the face of an unlikely winter day in the middle of Spring, sometimes we just have to say, “I am satisfied in You” over and over again until our belief becomes our delight.

Posted on by Caroline 2

I sing because

Today, I will rest on His goodness – in my doubting and in my fears.

And inside my resting I will sing freedom and joy into the blowing, Friday sunshine. I will sing to remember His constant friendship, His faithful refuge, and His future grace. 

I will wake up my affections at morning and noonday and evening to throw my heart’s melodies at the skies because this is what my heart is most at home to do.

let LOVE fly like cRaZy

 

Posted on by Caroline 0

believing the stories I tell

I had just barely finished a dramatic retelling of David and Goliath when one of the littles in my backseat said, “Is that story about Jesus? We wanted to hear a story about Jesus!”

I looked back in my rearview mirror and saw two pair of eyes waiting expectantly (the third pair was fast asleep) – they had asked me for the story I promised a week before and I told it with as many gestures as my driving could allow.

I breathed one of those desperate, silent, wordless prayers and said, “Yes, yes it is. Because every story in the Bible is about Jesus. This story about David and Goliath really happened and it reminds us that no matter how big the trouble or the evil, God is more powerful.”

I think I intended to say more, to give more context or connect more dots, but then one of the littles said something like this, “Because Jesus is powerful and powerful means that then He was died but then He was more strong and was alive and all the peoples that wanted him to be dead seen that He was more strong because He was powerful. And He was alive after the evil.”

I think if I hadn’t been on a schedule, I might have pulled over. I might have looked in that little one’s eyes and said, “Yes, sweet girl. That is what powerful is.” And as I said it I marveled at how much she had remembered from the previous week’s story about Jesus.

I fumbled around to explain that because God is so powerful and because He cares for us so much, we can be sure of our safety and hope in Him. We can be brave and courageous because in the end there is no evil that will overcome Him.

We pulled into the driveway and they ran past the baby ducks and into the house.

Then I turned my key to leave and not a single light showed on my dashboard, not a single sound of turning over from my engine.

“Hm.” I thought of three problem solving possibilities. They all included prayer. And I thought of David and Goliath and my insistence that we can be safe and secure in God. I took several breaths and turned the key several more times with the same result. I know that God doesn’t always keep us safe by the ways we would choose. And I was actually very prepared for Him to work out this scenario in a way that would push me out of comfort.

But, I kept praying (nothing really intelligible, just one of those rumbling soul pleas that you trust God understands). And before I gave up completely, I tried to turn the key one last time… and then I backed out of that little driveway and drove straight to AutoZone where they told me my battery and alternator checked out fine.

Spring is stretching to shed the winter and God is reminding me that He is faithful. He is trustworthy. He is kind and generous. My God will supply all my needs, according to His riches in glory – which are endless.

He will provide with an endless bounty as I believe Him to be my Provider.
Posted on by Caroline 2