I Will...

I will cry out to you.

Not as one with no hope.
Not as one in a panic.
Not as one at the end of their rope.
Not as one in free fall.

I will call out to you.

As one who chooses to believe.
As one who desires to be a part of something bigger.
As one who understands that humility is the foundation of reverence.
As one who quietly waits, choosing to listen, choosing to stay open.

I will listen for You.

Knowing that Your plan is infinitely bigger then just my existence.
Knowing that Your eternity includes infinitely more then just my reality.
Knowing You see the beginning from the end all at once.
Knowing I only see what’s behind me and where my foot now lays.

I will wait for You.

Hard Hearted Mercy - Part 2

Jesus replied, "Moses permitted divorce only as a concession to your hard hearts, but it was not what God had originally intended.

After letting this idea roll around in my soul for a while:

There is the real possibility that my heart can become so hard toward God that He has to step back from his original intention, acknowledge the hardness of my heart, and lay out my life’s path to accommodate my heart’s refusal to submit to Him. (see post “Hard Hearted Mercy”)

I’m overwhelmed by God’s mercy. God knows well my heart’s hard spots, and yet makes His love available to me unconditionally. I’m well loved, hard spots and all. What grace, to love me so. What mercy. His desire to be connected catalyzes His choice to make connection possible no matter what path I choose to take.

It’s like coming to the realization that everything your heart has every cried out for was always yours, you just didn’t see it. I tend to see the negative side of things. We’re so sin twisted that God has to make concessions for our hard hearts. I’m grateful for the reminder that God’s concession is a personal experience in mercy. His concession is His deep heart’s cry to be connected to us. Mercy always leaves an open door. Grace invites us to come. Love gives us the strength to walk through it. Connection and intimacy wait on the other side of the door. He chose to make it possible. I choose to walk through.

Hard Hearted Mercy

Jesus replied, "Moses permitted divorce only as a concession to your hard hearts, but it was not what God had originally intended.

Think about it, my heart can get so twisted and messed up that God’s original intention gets lost to the point where He chooses to make concessions for my hard heart. That blows my mind. There is the real possibility that my heart can become so hard toward God that He has to step back from his original intention, acknowledge the hardness of my heart, and lay out my life’s path to accommodate my heart’s refusal to submit to Him.

My first response is to ask, “Where are the hard, dead spots in my heart?” What do you intend for me that my heart, in sin, is so twisted up, that You have said, “Okay, here’s what we are going to change so you don’t totally and utterly destroy yourselves?”

For someone who’s pursuing after Jesus, seeking to live a life that is right, the idea that there may be something in my heart that is so entrenched, so hard, that Abba has to make allowances for it so I don’t utterly destroy myself is sobering to say the least. May the one who knows the beginning from the end continue to refine us until we become spotless and pure.

Does God guide me or ride me?

The Lord says, “I will guide you along the best pathway for your life. I will advise you and watch over you.
Do not be like a senseless horse or mule that needs a bit and bridle to keep it under control.” Psalm 32:8,9

People often say, “God has to hit me in the head with a 2x4 to get my attention.” I can relate to that. I wonder sometimes if pain is the only thing that gets my attention. When my relationship with God is in 2x4 mode, David’s words cause me to pause. Do not be like a senseless horse or mules that needs a bit and bridle to keep it under control. I’m not sure if they used 2x4’s in David’s time, but I like to think he’s speaking to the notion that God has to do something drastic to direct us or get our attention.

Given David’s words, my picture of a 2x4 has changed to a bit and bridle. So I ask the question, does God have to saddle me up and yank my reins to direct me to the best pathway for my life? Am I that senseless that unless He yanks my reins I’ll wander off into the field of non-usefulness or wander into traffic and get run over by an oncoming bus of disobedience? If a bit and bridle is the reality of my relationship with God, what does that say about me? What does that say about God?

Maybe I’m just plain lazy, or perhaps paralyzed by the fear of getting it wrong. So by sloth or by immobility, God has to rein me in the right direction. Sometimes my petrifaction is so severe that God must dismount and drag me by the reins. This vivid image, God dragging my petrified life to a place that I really do desire to go, motivates me to seek a relationship with God that is not based on the bit and bridle. So I’m pursuing a relationship where communication and respect are the expected norm and the rein to keep me from running off a cliff is the exception and not the rule.

The danger of the bit and bridle relationship is that God becomes the rider and we are the ridden. This type of relationship leads us to view God only as a rider and consists of waiting for God to give us the spurs or yank the reins. I have come to believe that God does not enjoy this type of relationship. The bit and bridle view of relationship leads one to believe that God enjoys being the rider, He is pleased to yank us around by the reins. Let’s go back to the 2x4. Do we think that God enjoys whacking us up side the head to get our attention? If we see God as a stern task master, the cruel rider, we just might think He enjoys whacking us up side the head to get our attention.

Let’s go back to being lazy. We don’t have to think if we’re being like a “senseless horse or mule”. It requires very little mental effort on our part. Very little emotional investment. Very little searching to find out what comes between God and our ability to be in intimate relationship with Him. When the Lord says, “I will guide you along the best pathway for your life. I will advise you and watch over you.” This requires mental, emotional, spiritual and physical energy from us. It’s hard work.

My challenge is to keep on it. It IS hard work, this business of being in relationship with our creator. When we ditch the bit and bridle it doesn’t take to long to realize that it’s a serious life commitment to be in relationship with God. The challenge is to keep on it. Keep seeking. Keep asking. Keep knocking. When it gets too hard, when God doesn’t make sense, when His voice isn’t readily heard, it can be appealing to fall back to the ole bit and bridle, to wait for the 2x4 upside the head. The choice is then mine. Senseless mule or faithful friend?

Life Orbits This Scar.

Life orbits this scar; self inflicted, etched by my own hand, the consequence of my choice.

This monument of torn flesh, revealed when the dust settles and completed after all is said and done, the tangible reminder that I’m not who I want to be.

I can remedy this scar as well as I can recover a lost moment or turn a gray hair dark again.

Living with this frantic desire to hide it and this overwhelming need to reveal it, it fights for possession of my heart, assails my spirit, binds my soul in chains.

This scar. My Scar. A defining mark. The lasting reminder.

He placed His scarred hand over this scar, my scar, this monument to who I have become.

His scar swathes my own.

Life orbits his scar, this chosen exchange, etched by my own hand, the consequences of my choice.

This monument to his torn flesh, revealed the third day, after the dust settled, completed by the words “it is finished”, the tangible reminder that because He is, I am.

His scar is redemption, making all things new.

Living with a quite desire for deeper intimacy and an overwhelming need to share this love, my heart is free, my spirit at peace, my soul, unbound.

This scar. His scar. The defining mark. An everlasting reminder.

Can You Reach Me Even Now?

Abba, can You hear me? Can You reach me even now?

I’m crushed by the wait.

I’m poured out, spent, emptied.

Nothing left to offer. No music in my head. No visual in my mind.
Nothing left to produce the aroma of service or sacrifice.

Just my will, sin twisted, continually seeking its own.
Just my wounds, never sated, a constant demand for comfort,
or satisfaction, or justice, or peace, or love.

Always present, always lurking, always leering
whether I’m spent, or walking in confidence, sin is present.
Will sin be spent? Does lust run out?
Does temptation come to the end of itself?
Does the enemy have access to a limitless supply,
never wearying the art of accusation?
Never reaching the end of his foul resources?

“That’s it, I can’t go on.” Will that ever come out of his mouth?

All of these questions find their rest in Jesus.

Can You hear me? Can You reach me even now?

Spiritually Bi-polar?

It is a question of faith in God - the rarest thing; we have faith only in our feelings. I do not believe God unless He will give me something in my hand whereby I may know I have it, then I say - "Now I believe." – Oswald Chambers.

Sometimes I feel like I have developed a bi-polar relationship with Jesus. From what I’ve read about bi-polar, uncontrollable swings of emotion are one of its key indicators. The difficulty in diagnosing bi-polar is determining when normal mood changes cross the line to abnormal. Lately my faith walk has me wondering how close I am to that line. I’ve started to suspect I’m spiritually bi-polar.

Those who follow after Jesus usually desire to live a life defined by faith. The growth of our faith reveals the depth of our relationship with Jesus. For the past two years, Jesus has called me into a deeper walk of faith. Specifically, He has asked me to trust Him for provision. I’ve learned that there are different levels of trust. Up until this point, I was trusting Jesus to provide for me and my family’s needs. I know that He’s in control and I trust that He’ll not only provide for me, but He’ll teach me my role in the whole process. But following after Jesus into this new way of living is testing my idea of how God provides.

I’m talking about my life’s rhythm. The need for provision is always there; it is never fully satisfied. I’m not sure it’s even partially satisfied. It’s more like it’s staved off for the day or shoved into the next week. I wonder why it is that we look to be fully sated. Every month there are bills to pay. Every day there is dinner to make. There is always a demand for resources, always. It never goes away. So I’ve come to learn that there is a rhythm to our provision that we come to trust. A rhythm of life that when it repeats itself with enough consistency we begin to trust the rhythm; we find peace in the consistent repetition of the pattern.

Until Jesus called me into this deeper faith walk, my provision rhythm was a three month pattern. I had learned to trust this pattern and trusted that Jesus would provide as the next three months were “taken care of”. Sure there were times when we wondered if we would be able to make it through that three month cycle. Surprises came up. Finances were strained. And God always seemed to meet our needs and I have lived in that life rhythm for most of my adult life.

The life I’ve been called to lead now is like living on a spiritual roller coaster. I’ve spent the past two years trying to figure out the rhythm. I listen for it, look for it, and ask for it, but so far it’s been very elusive. It certainly isn’t the three month rhythm I had grown to depend on. It’s day to day. Week to week at the most. But the same bills need to be paid. Dinner still needs to be made. The demand for resources is just as strong as it always has been. It’s in this current rhythm of life that I feel bi-polar. The cycle starts with the need. I trust God to provide for this need, I live as though He will meet it, being careful to ask what a need is and what a want is. Then comes the waiting. Waiting tests my faith. God knows the need. He understands my willingness to do whatever is necessary to be part of meeting the need. He totally knows the bill’s due date. I understand waiting builds my faith and I attempt to rest in the belief that God will meet my need, and as time ticks away the fight to rest becomes harder and harder until the night before the bill needs to be paid and I’m fighting the 11th hour panic. Actually if I’m honest, I start fighting panic around the 9th hour, so when God chooses to meet our need in the 11th hour, there is a rush of relief. The peace, panic, relief rhythm is very taxing, and since it seems to be the rhythm for the past two years, I’m finding that the relief at the end of the cycle is slowly turning to anger.

Here is where I feel like a spiritual bi-polar. I start a month in faith and peace and end it in anger at the One who provided the month before. I can’t seem to control my emotions in this. My desire is to remain peaceful through the ride, trusting that the One who promised my provision will provide, but I quickly come to the end of my faith and the resulting emotional swings are wearing me out. It’s sobering to face your lack of faith on a monthly basis. Each time I slam into the end of my faith I realize with more clarity that I really don’t trust God; I trust His provision for me. Oswald Chambers says it so well. “We have faith only in our feelings. I do not believe God unless He will give me something in my hand whereby I may know I have it, then I say - "Now I believe."” Over and over again I’ve been brought to the point where unless it’s in my hand and I know I have it, I wonder if God is going to meet my needs. I struggle thinking that my sin is keeping God from providing, or I’m not hearing from God correctly, or I’m missing something that keeps God from providing for me. I fight the enemy’s suggestions that God doesn’t care, or isn’t capable of meeting my needs. The uncomfortable reality is that God doesn’t meet my needs as I expect and I get mad.