It is a brave soul that uncovers raw pain
to search for meaning in existence,
that wearies and wars the shallows
to dig the depths of sorrow’s persistence
Don’t stop too soon.
It is a brave soul that sheds skins
and peels off veneers to find what truth is,
that pulls hard against peril when
layers reveal atrocities and ugly ruins
Don’t stop too soon.
It is a brave soul that opens eyes
against the blinding light of the sun,
that burns its heat and with fierce
impression reminds from where it comes
Don’t stop too soon.
It is a braver soul who believes
that Christ paid the ultimate cost,
tortured Himself so the tortured soul
would no longer be living lost
Don’t stop being brave too soon,
and whatever your bravery may find,
know that Christ Himself is brave for you
and His victory is thine.
This is day 4 of my “every day in may” creative challenge – to write something (poem, story, note, thought) as a special blessing for someone. I won’t share each day, but I wanted to share this poem from day 3.
There are several people in my life going through difficult times right now, so I’ve been thinking about bravery. If we are brave enough to be exposed and vulnerable (great thoughts from recent TED talk on this), then we will most definitely step into a mess of pain. But if our bravery ends there, we will miss out. We must be brave enough to see the deepest and most vulnerable hurt to experience the deepest and most satisfying 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.
The Sabbath shines the beautiful light of the cross to illuminate what is best and cast a shadow on all other things. That’s what my Sabbath is doing, anyway.
My soul is shifting into a more right position as I stop and listen and breathe: kingdom first, all things next.
My life has too many lists. Lists on papers, lists in books, lists of books, lists on receipts, lists for groceries, lists for tasks, lists of bills, lists on bills, lists for the future, lists of people. Maybe it’s not too many. Maybe all the lists are okay.
But, this morning as I was thinking about seeking the kingdom, a peace seemed to settle all the many numbered things I keep adding in bullet points to my life.
But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. (Matthew 6:33, ESV)
My lists of all things too often come first. My plans and schedules and scribbled to-dos too often crowd out the first thing. That’s when I find myself living in the shadows instead of enjoying the sun.
We are invited to seek the kingdom of God and his righteousness first and then promised that the lists of all things will get rightly sorted.
The cross perfectly illuminates our freedom and perfectly beckons us to joy.
His kingdom is the best thing to seek, the most rewarding and the most exciting. Today, the Sabbath is reminding me to rightly order what I seek.
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.
Normally, we speak about battling in combative terms.
I guess that makes sense. But sometimes I wonder if we forget why we are engaged in battle. Why do we wield the sword of the Spirit? Is it to conquer enemies, to show mastery, to be victorious, to make a name for ourselves, or to be king of the mountain?
Why do we put on the armor of God and train ourselves for the trenches? Why? Is the main objective in doing battle with the evil forces of the world to do battle with the evil forces of the world?
The glory of the Gospel story is not that we do battle for battle’s sake.
We do battle because God has asked us to dance.
Yes, God is asking us to step out with him on the cosmic dance floor where Satan is crushed underneath His feet. After describing the eternal dance of the Trinity, Tim Keller closes out chapter one of Jesus the King,
“[Christ] has gone before you into the heart of a very real battle, to draw you into the ultimate reality of the dance. What he has enjoyed from all eternity, he has come to offer to you. And sometimes when you’re in the deepest part of the battle, when you’re tempted and hurt and weak, you’ll hear in the depths of your being the same words Jesus heard: ‘This is my beloved child-you are my beloved child, whom I love; with you I’m well pleased.'”
If our excitement in training and armor wearing and sword wielding is about the battle, then we must ask the Lord to examine our hearts. Because the daily battling is not eternal. The temptations are not eternal. The struggle is not eternal.
The dance of our God is eternal – it existed before Adam’s lungs held air – and this perfect dance is what we are invited to, what we are rescued into, and what we are made for.
Now, let’s do Tuesday battle for dancing feet.
let LOVE fly like cRaZy
I highly recommend picking up a copy of Jesus the King (previously published as King’s Cross) by Tim Keller. It is a great book to go through with new believers or old believers who want to dive into the Gospel of Mark with new believing eyes.
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 becauseGod 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.
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 Deepsand 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.
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.”
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.
I didn’t get to go to a Good Friday service last night.
I worked until 8:30 pm and then chased the last rays of Spring sunshine back to my neighborhood. I had my belly full of joy, satisfied with the abundance of His grace that carried me from Monday to Friday dusk.
The death didn’t set in until this morning and now I cannot dry my eyes. Jesus died. He was torn apart to satisfy God’s wrath and to secure my place of forever joy with Him. Jesus died and the next day He was still dead.
I don’t understand it.
John Piper tweeted this morning: “Still sovereign while dead. ‘Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.’ (John 2:19)” What does that mean – that He was sovereign even while He was dead? How could my Savior die?
I don’t pretend to understand it – the mystery of it all – but I do understand this: my belly fills with joy because I am redeemed. I am set free by the grace of God as He looks on the perfect sacrifice of His Son that satisfies His wrath.
I am set free because my Savior was torn apart and humiliated in death to pay the price of my ugly heart. Today, I’ll let the tears roll because my belly full of joy came at great cost.
My complete and abundant joy was secured when God’s complete and perfect wrath was satisfied in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.
I don’t understand this Holy Saturday, but I do understand this: the dead weight of Friday looks to Sunday for relief in the resurrection.
Torn apart you paid my price,
The wrath of God was satisfied
I traded sin, you gave me life
My hope is found on Jesus Christ
“The happy ending of the Resurrection is so enormous that it swallows up even the sorrow of the Cross.” – Tim Keller
MUSINGS IN THE MIDST 