Immovable as Mount Zion

Most days, there isn’t much else I can hold to besides the trustworthiness of God. He is what remains solid when everything else cracks, or even dissolves in my grasp. I read in my devotional this morning that the ones who trust in the Lord “are like Mount Zion. It cannot be shaken; it remains forever. The mountains surround Jerusalem and the Lord surrounds his people, both now and forever.” (Psalm 125:1-2) The writer, Nancy Guthrie, reflecting on these verses, pointed out that those who trust in the Lord and Mount Zion share the same likelihood of collapse. Read: impossible.

How can this be? There’s a whole lot of crumbling going on wherever I look, so much that could and does go wrong for so many that I love, and for billions more I’ve never met. That’s because in the act of choosing to trust the Lord, I am actually trusting him who was shaken in my place. And, as Guthrie so stunningly observes, he is the one who experienced the removal of the Father’s surrounding presence so that I might be surrounded “both now and forever.” This reassurance I had heard before, but it’s the kind of old news that is still new—entirely fresh every day. Today, I drank it in like I had gone days without water.

I cannot presume to know the whys and the whens of all that we carry and all we will meet. But I can scan my life for the outlines of his kindness to me, and soon my eyes are drawn in to see the dimension and the color and the absolute wealth of it. There are smiles for today and laughs for tomorrow.

Jess Ray has a song called “Days to Come” that expresses what so many of us long for, based on that line in Proverbs 31 that says that the woman of noble character “can laugh at the time to come.” (v. 25) “It must be tiring/ Bracing yourself for everything/ Oh won’t you come and laugh with me,/ Laugh at the days to come?/ What if I told you that you’re standing/ On a rock when it’s raining/ You have a friend in the fire/ And a vision in the valley/ …I know that you hate to be surprised/ I can’t tell you that you won’t be caught off guard/ But I promise that you’ll never be alone/ And the end will always be good.”

How many of us feel weight and worry when we look ahead? This woman in Proverbs is so secure, she has the lightness of heart to be able to laugh. We are this secure, too. We have this friend, this promise, this absolute certainty—that whatever surprises may come, God is with us, and he is unsurprised. And the end of the story will be nothing but good.

I need this, because the days often leave me clinging. My parenting life is hard and I usually am feeling like I’m messing it all up, or completely alone in my family’s unique struggles, or just battling fears of what is to come for my children. But the Lord is the stability of my times, and also the times of my children. (Isaiah 33:6) I am not the stability, as much as I like to think of myself that way. It is a mercy to be brought to that place of feeling my sharp need, because that is where I get to receive the abundant supply of the Lord, who sees and knows our needs through and through.

And he surely does know. He knows what I need before I ask him. He knows the most earnest desires of my heart. He knows what my children need and why they do what they do. And as far deep as he knows, so deep does he love. There is not a corner that escapes him, not a turn that catches him off-guard. So there is no place in my life that his steadfast love does not fill. The knowing and the loving are always there together, always more wonderful than I thought.

This is how we can rise in the morning with joy, how we can roll away those warm blankets and move our muscles toward the others we are called to live with and love today. The Lord is the ground beneath our feet that will never give way. His mercy holds up under whatever weight the day brings, even if we end up pounding upon it in questions and tears. His goodness is not so unreliable as to give way under our pain and our deepest anguish of the soul. It meets us there, it cradles us there. It pierces the dark and sings over us when we can’t bear to open our eyes or sing a note of praise. The goodness and the grace under all of this is Christ, and he was swallowed up so that I’d be forever secure, sure-footed on level ground. He rose again so that I’d never see evil take the victory. I am just as immovable as his eternal dwelling place, the place where he dwells with us, Mt. Zion which he loves. (Psalm 78:68)

Your Name is Faithful

Ever since I began following the Lord, I have been drawn to the vivid imagery in the words of Israel’s prophets of old. I am fascinated by the ways in which God spoke through them to call his people to repent and remember their Redeemer. My pastor growing up always preached in a cyclical manner, reviewing the previous week’s message for the first half of the sermon, and then building on it for the second half. Often, he frequented the passages about Israel’s chronic spiritual adultery, so they were often before my eyes and upon my mind. Add to that some of the Christian music I listened to at the time, and I thought it was quite edgy and very spiritual of me to think of myself as a “whore” that had been rescued and wed to Christ. 

All of Scripture is profitable, and all of it tells of Christ. The prophets were the mouthpieces of the Lord, so what they spoke to wandering Israel was needed and true. We surely do need all of Scripture, but we also need to make sure we are reading each part of it with the rest of it. So what do we do with those hard-hitting, sometimes shocking passages portraying the sins of God’s people in the Old Testament?

Sin really is deadlier than we can describe and more hideous than we can imagine. So when a person (or a nation) is embracing what will destroy them, what grieves the heart of God, what mangles the image of God, then the ugly truth needs to be clearly revealed. Catholic author Flannery O’Connor made this a point in her works, using the theme of the “grotesque” in order to startle her readers into seeing truth: “…you have to make your vision apparent by shock—to the hard of hearing you shout, and for the almost-blind you draw large and startling figures.” (from Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose)

Old Testament Israel, in her frequent departures from God, would have certainly been in this category of “hard of hearing” and “almost-blind.” The prophets pleaded for God’s people to awake and come back, often using surprising and gruesome images. For us today, these passages are likewise useful. If we have become indifferent to sin, or prone to covering our ears when we are confronted with it, passages like these are a sobering wake-up call. They remind us of sin’s deadly cost, and of our helplessness to rescue ourselves from it.

Ezekiel 16 weaves a story of the Lord redeeming Israel from her birth, describing her as an unwanted baby tossed away and left in her blood to die. What could be a more helpless, heartbreaking picture than that? And then the Lord says, “I passed by and saw you… and I said to you as you lay in your blood, ‘Live!’” (v. 6) He goes on to describe his nurturing care and protection over her as she grew, his covenant with her, and then her appalling evil in despising the Lord by prostituting herself to many other lovers. There is great benefit to the act of remembering what we once were, of never moving past the wonders that God has done for us. This is why I love these passages. The mercy of the Lord upon me, his movement toward me, his power to save me to the uttermost—none of it would be so sweet if I never acknowledged the bitterness and the blood in which I lay before he came.

As redeemed children filled with the Holy Spirit, we are (more than ever) aware of the ways in which we still fail the Lord, so grieved by the way our heart inclines back to Egypt (the idols we used to serve.) We feel the heat of wanting to do what is right but evil lying close at hand. (Romans 7) All of this is part of the Christian life, of the pilgrim path spanning from earth to heaven. We might think it is a very godly thing to identify ourselves as “great sinner,” “spiritually adulterous,” “unclean” or our righteousness as “filthy rags.” (Isaiah 64:6) We may still see ourselves as the one lying in her blood.

But are we? Just because that is the picture of what we were outside of Christ does not mean that is the reality of us now. The Lord did see us in our blood, but he spoke to us “Live!” He put his breath into our dry bones and covered us in flesh. (Ezekiel 37) Nothing can undo the word of the Lord once spoken. He has full command of life and death and has given life unto us. Why should we continue to wrap ourselves in the names of death? Why should we parade our badges of sin as if we need to outdo one another in proclaiming how rotten we are? We are “all children of light and children of the day. We do not belong to the night or the darkness.” (1 Thessalonians 5:5) So let us put away the names we wore in those places.

The Lord is not a stranger to how hard our struggle is before glory. The sin that remains is real and it is serious. But it has also been fully dealt with, even as we continue to deal with it in the power of the Holy Spirit. We are clean and being cleansed. We are declared saints and also becoming saints. This is our main identity now, and it will be our identity forever. It is far more true of us that we are saints than that we are sinners. As Melissa Kruger so helpfully delineates in the book Identity Theft, we aresaints who still struggle with sin. We are not sinners who are struggling to become saints. (I recommend reading her entire chapter in that book, it is a breath of sweet relief.)

And because Christ has taken upon himself our spiritual adultery and given us his record of full fidelity, we can face the sin that remains in full confidence of our forgiveness and belonging. We can look square at our faithlessness of today, carry it into the light and call it what it is. Then we bring it to the Lord, who sees our godly grief and is familiar with our every weakness. We can weep over what remains and boldly take hold of full pardon, full joy, and full peace. It is ours, and he is glad to give it.

God looks at all those who hide in his Son and all he sees are his faithful children. In him, your name is Faithful. The faithfulness of Christ is enough for you, do you believe it?

sixty

So that we might know,
so that we might throw all of our confidence upon the mighty God –
She rose and told us the ancient words,
the praiseworthy acts of Yahweh.
The wonderful workings of him who loved us
were not hidden from our sight,
but the air we breathed and the stability of our home.

I have grown and birthed another generation
and in every step of my following behind her,
I bless the Lord for my mother –
for her quiet, glad sacrifice
of praise to our seeing Redeemer.
The Faithful God
considers her faithful.

Her clothes were mercy —
the gentleness of Christ made her kind,
and forgiveness was ever ready.
Home with her was shelter,
Christ’s word and wisdom
teaching us the shape of the thankful heart.

Her instruction spoke life and stirred courage –
her hand was never heavy,
her burden was light.
In her way of asking forgiveness first,
her most quick attention to our needs,
her tireless care over crumb and coverlet,
sore and sadness,
I saw the likeness of the tending, sparing Father
we sang the hymns about.

I wonder at the way she rested,
in the character and promises of God—
of seeing his goodness as rich
because she was always tasting it.
Her arms were a wide welcome
to the living, bright word of God.
Still she lingers over crinkled page,
glad to hold again
the ancient lines that will never stop giving her life,
never stop being her daily bread.

Her eyelids were often closed in prayer —
I don’t want to forget the honor it was
to listen to her pour out petitions
when it was time to pray aloud,
all heads bowed in preparation for the Sabbath
in the Saturday night living room.
And each morning as we began the day
Coram Deo—often the same, good requests
of our same, good King
were lifted up from humble lips.

She’d be in the middle of what must have been the hardest, scariest days,
(I was too young to really know it.)
But I do know she’d stop her day
when Elisabeth or Joni came on the radio
for their daily segments, and she turned her ear
to their familiar voices, women who had already lived through the worst
and found the comfort of God.
It was like they were reaching behind them, taking her hand,
and helping her find her bearings
when the ground was quaking.

The courage that was Christ in her
taught us to trust that he was good,
whatever came. He was the Lord and we were dearly loved,
even unto death.

The faithfulness of God is what still keeps her,
and will surely complete his work through to the end.
Her entire self—soul, spirit, body—
safe and spotless and ready
for the rest of her life, and eternity after that.
It is the same God, the same faithfulness
that will do the same in me and my own,
and I praise him that she is a
full-flowing vessel of his grace
poured out upon her family,
spilling over upon my head.

You Thought I Was Just Like You

I flipped through the pages of my journaling Bible this morning, turning to the Psalm of the day. According to my Bible reading plan, I was scheduled to read Psalm 50. As I settled in and began to read, right away I could see that it was a serious and majestic description of God and his righteous judgment. When I got to the words of God to the wicked in verses 16-21, I began to feel shivers: “‘What right do you have to recite my statutes and to take my covenant on your lips? You hate instruction and fling my words behind you. When you see a thief, you make friends with him, and you associate with adulterers. You unleash your mouth for evil and harness your tongue for deceit. You sit, maligning your brother, slandering your mother’s son. You have done these things, and I kept silent; you thought I was just like you. But I will rebuke you and lay out the case before you.’” (CSB)

Reading this stirred up grief in me. I have watched the devastation that results when the instructions of the Lord are flung behind shoulders—in my own heart, home, family, church, and beyond. And sadly, when we fling away his words, we often are still using the words of God upon our lips in order to affirm our own rejection of his other instructions. And then the right words of God in the Psalm continue on to say, “you thought I was just like you.”  This is where I stopped and saw that this is the awful way all of us bend. To excuse and explain our behavior with Christian-sounding words and prepared verses, all the while pressing God into our own image, trying to fit him into our own plans rather than bowing low and allowing him to ever widen our view of him—to let him wonderfully change us. And I would like to present the simple idea that this is why we need the entire Scriptures, the entire church, and the entire fullness of the Holy Spirit.

It may sound overly simple, but that is because it’s utterly foundational. And without a firm foundation, we will not endure when the day of evil comes.

We Need the Bible – All of It

It can be so easy to skip hard passages or skim over those long Old Testament books that are full of lists, genealogies, or rules. But for others, it can be just as easy to rigidly tie themselves to things like Bible-in-a-year plans or time-blocked devotions as a good work, something we can point to and pat ourselves on the back about because we actually do read our whole Bibles. (We must be such good Christians!)

But it is so much broader and deeper than that. And yes, if you haven’t guessed, I would fall under that second category. I love checklists and following instructions, and it feels good to accomplish reading the entire Bible every year and keep myself on track. But the actual thing that sustains us is the Word of God, never our own accomplishments or obedience. We need to get the pure words of Scripture deep into our bones and allow it to transform us. So whether we read multiple chapters a day, a few verses in our spare moments, or listen to passages being read aloud on an app in the car, it is worth it. There is deep nourishment to be found wherever the streams of Scripture are flowing. If it lies forgotten or neglected for a time, all we have to do is go right back to it and drink deep again.

The Bible is where God has come down low in grace and spoken to us. He has breathed it out for us, sufficient and complete. (2 Timothy 3:16-17) It is possible to read your entire Bible a hundred times and never truly love the God revealed there. But if even the smallest desire is there—to know God a little bit better, to find out what he is like, to wrestle with your deepest questions and doubts—then open the pages of Scripture. You’ll soon find that God tells us there to keep his words close, (Psalm 119) to eat them as bread, (Jeremiah 15:16, Matthew 4:4) to depend upon them for our very lives (Deuteronomy 32:47). Part of his good instructions are to know and love his good instructions. There is certainly a good reason for this. Jesus himself perfectly loved and relied upon the Scriptures to sustain him during his earthly life and ministry. He is our main example, he is our wisdom from God. We may be weak, but he is able and gentle to help us.

One thing that we can easily forget as we read the books in the Bible, spread across multiple ages, genres, and voices, is the fact that the Bible is indeed telling one whole story. Every part of it serves a purpose in directing us to Jesus Christ himself and his work of redeeming all things. No part of the Bible is useless or void of significance, even for us today—even the oldest and most difficult parts to read. There is always more to behold, always more of Christ to discover in every page. 

And, amazingly, the Bible is written in such a clear way that we are able to interpret it with the help of the rest of the Bible. Many of our Bibles are equipped with cross-references that can greatly enrich personal reading, and illuminate those passages that can be hard to understand.

Additionally, we need the insights of others who are also spending their days close to Scripture. We of course need to be regularly hearing the Word of God preached by able ministers. But I’m also talking about the work of Bible reading and study being done within a community. All of us have blind spots and false assumptions that can be stubborn to uproot. But with a teachable spirit, we ought to gather together and study with other Christians who are each on a different part of their journey of knowing God as revealed in the Bible. We need conversations about what we are reading. We need the freshness of each other’s interpretations and questions to help us continually unfog our eyes and see the truth more clearly. Which leads me to my second point.

We Need the Church – All of It

There is not a member of the church of Christ that is not needed. All of us have been given multicolored gifts and varied amounts of faith. The body does not flourish when any member of it is sitting on their gifts, not offering them in love to the rest of the body. That’s why we grieve when a member abuses their gifts or position and our fellowship is broken. We mourn when we realize another member is burning out because others have not helped to shoulder the weight or honored her for her years of quiet, generous serving. We limp when we do not have the honest, transparent relationships that we all need, or the strong protection and gentle shepherding that God requires of the leaders and teachers of his beloved children. 

In the women’s Bible study I attend, we have been discussing 1 John, particularly what it looks like to walk in the light. John’s clear longing for his readers to be in fellowship with one another and to abide in Christ instructed me on how we should be longing for others to join  the fellowship that we share with the triune God. We cannot walk in the light very well if we feel alone and cannot see our brothers walking in the light beside us. (1 John 1:7) How it helps us on our own way when we get to see the members of the church confessing their sin, living transparently, holding fast to the Word and keeping her doctrine pure, and walking in obedience to the Lord whatever the cost. We help one another on the way that Christ took – the way that we follow. (1 John 2:6) Our Christian life and growth in grace needs a community of grace in order to flourish. 

Let’s aim to make one another’s joy complete, as the apostle John also urged upon his readers, and as Christ himself taught. Let us be a joy to teach, a joy to shepherd (Hebrews 13:17), a joy to learn from, a joy to serve. Let it be us who answer midnight calls with joy, who run toward the hurting for the joy of easing burdens, who labor in prayer with great joy. Let us remind one another of who we are and to whom we belong, lest we forget and think that God is just like us. 

We Need the Holy Spirit—and We Have All of Him

My pastor reminded his listeners in the sermon on Sunday night that we are running headlong toward death, if not for the illuminating, lifegiving Holy Spirit. He was finishing up his sermon series through the book of Acts, and Paul’s description at the end of people without the Spirit is quite vivid. Quoting Isaiah, he writes, “You will always be listening, but never understanding; and you will always be looking, but never perceiving. For the hearts of these people have grown callous, their ears are hard of hearing, and they have shut their eyes.” (Acts 28:26-27, CSB)

It is true life to have the Spirit’s eternal presence upon and within us, as our helper forever. Any one who has Christ has him in fullness through his own sent Spirit. We have all of him, all of the time. Even if we don’t feel it, or we forget he’s there, or our “faith burns low, [and our] hope burns low” as an old hymn says. The Spirit shows us Christ, gives him to us, lifts our lagging belief, and stirs those low fires to a bigger flame.

We keep on needing the Holy Spirit’s transforming work as we continue on our soul’s best work—learning Christ. The deeper we go, the better we see the God who is not like us, but also the beauty of his Son who came to dwell with us. He did not leave us so far away, he came near, he did become like us in a way we did not expect, made atonement for us on the cross, and will continue shaping us into his own likeness, through the Holy Spirit. We, who have tried to break God down to look like us, have now been given this mercy. 

Let us gladly take hold of the whole Scriptures, the whole Church, and the whole Christ, for our whole life depends upon it. 

My Redeemer Feeds Me

In my younger years, the Old Testament book of Ruth was an easy go-to for my devotions. It’s short, it’s about women, it’s interesting, that’s what I’ll read next in my Bible. Today, I read it again.

My personal Bible study in more recent years has followed the structure of “Read the Bible in a Year” plans. So I usually only read the book of Ruth when I get to it in the reading plan, but it’s still such a sweet and mysterious place to land.

This time, I am drawn like a magnet to Naomi. I’m usually paying more attention to Ruth, but this time she almost fades in the background as I look more closely at Naomi. Her return to Bethlehem feels heavy with grief. Her husband and her two sons had died in the godless land of Moab, where they had fled during Israel’s famine. Israel’s women welcome her back and I sense her misery pressing down on her shoulders, as she takes bitterness as her identity. She even changes her name, telling the women not to call her Naomi anymore, but to call her Mara. Naomi means “pleasant and gentle,” while Mara means “bitter.” She said to them, “The Almighty has made me very bitter… I went away full, but the Lord has brought me back empty.” (Ruth 1:20) She sounds so resolute. This is who I am now. My life is bitter. This is what God has done to me.

As I’m writing this, my husband recently lost his job. This has been quite a discouraging, hard part of our ten years of married life together. Job after job has disappointed or let us down, unexpectedly been taken away, or left us scratching our heads over what in the world to do next. I do feel that temptation pulling on me to label myself a poor, forgotten woman like Naomi did—God keeps allowing this to happen, so he must never want us to have the stability we desire. This can’t be the real truth, can it? Maybe I’ll change my name, too. Maybe I’ll just tell the well-wishers and encouragers that their words are no use and that this is what our life is supposed to be.

I certainly think it’s good to bring my questions and frantic worry to the Lord. We aren’t told what Naomi’s relationship with the Lord looked like, I don’t know the extent of her honesty with God. But I do know that he was working, even through her great loss, to keep his promises to his people and to eventually bring Jesus into the world. I can’t see behind the veil yet, I don’t know why we keep being set back in this way. But I do know that God is not surprised. I do know that God is near and that he is not ashamed of us. He knows all of the reasons, all of the injustices, all of our needs, and all of our fears. He isn’t letting us slip through his fingers. I believe he’s actually cradling us closer, eager to keep revealing himself to us in this and every loss.

I’m reading a book called From the Corner of the Oval by Beck Dorey-Stein, a woman who worked as President Obama’s stenographer during his second term in office. As she weaves the surprising tale of how she ended up in her job, she references this quote by Steve Jobs: “You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them going backwards.” Isn’t this a relief to realize? I know that I spend so much energy planning out what-ifs, and worrying that dots won’t meet when I can’t see how. But the good and wise God who loves me is also a master artist. He isn’t slipping up with his pen as he fills out the details of my beautiful life. He isn’t shrugging his shoulders over how we’ll eat next month. He already knows, and he is gathering in each one of the wild and straying story lines to make one whole masterpiece. I just know it’s going to take my breath away.

As you know if you’ve read the book of Ruth, Naomi would not be bitter and empty for long. The seeing and saving God would preserve her family in ways she would never have been able to design for herself. Right when she was in this place of pointing her blaming finger at the Lord for her loss and need, he was already working to fill her house with food, her family with redemption, and her lap with grandchildren. Even more grandly and mysteriously, God was going to bring the actual Savior of the world from her very line, hundreds of years later. Perhaps it is the same women she gloomily addressed upon her return that come again at the end of the book to bless the Lord in celebration of what he did (and would do) for her. This reads like a bookend of hope after everything had seemed so hopeless.

Today we drove over to our church to do the weekly cleaning, but the Amish roofers had the entrance blocked, so we circled around and decided to stop at the park instead. My son struggles with changing plans, so he was resistant at first, but as soon as we arrived, he was at peace. His sister was happy on the slides while he wanted to play in the creek. His free and imaginary play taught me something. There was not a wrinkle of worry on his face, not a sliver of doubt that he would continue to be safe and fed and clothed. The robins circling around, the several butterflies in their lithe dance, the sun-dappled buttercups, each one does not even know about worry. Each one looks to their seeing and feeding Maker to sustain and keep them. The trickling, soothing sounds of the stream were calling me out of my hunched-over, phone-busy posture and I blessedly remembered that I’m not holding all things together. I am free to rest. Beauty calls and my heart desperately needs to notice it. And it is possible to have peace. It is possible to sleep. It is possible to enjoy today, while also praying, seeking, asking, and being honest about my fear and pain.

All of that was a gift, a sweet place of togetherness in the finally-warm spring air.  I could breathe for a bit, thank God, and enjoy what he has freely given. I don’t have to remain slumped-over, despairing, re-naming myself and my family with bitterness. My face can look ahead, lightward, trusting that the Lord will bring us into a broad place, because he delights in us. (2 Samuel 22:20) I can dance as burden-free as my son in the stream.

If I stop for even a minute and think about what the Lord has already brought us through, I can only put my hand over my mouth in awe. (Job 40:4) And that is just over the things that I am aware of and remember. His redeeming touch reaches to the hidden depths of our hearts. He brought a poor, widowed woman back to her home country right when she thought her life was at an end and her family tree withered beyond hope. Not her husband’s lack of trust in the Lord, not her own bitterness, not her poverty and loss—none of it could undo the plan and promises of God. We cannot stop the work of God, who is in the business of resurrection. It is his delight to bless his people, to bring life out of death, to bring plenty out of poverty.

So even if our bank account is never full enough, my soul is exceedingly wealthy. Even if we never arrive at a satisfying, lasting job that provides well for us, we are not forgotten. He sees our every desire and our every decision to trust him, and he will not forget it. He remembers our frame, and even if our faith shakes in these places of need, he will not grow exasperated. This God is the same God that saw and fed Naomi. And so he sees and feeds me today and all of my tomorrows—open-handed and kind, keeping and redeeming.

Kept by Abler Hands

My eyes met my husband’s across the living room, wide and a little crazed. We didn’t know if we should laugh or cry at the amount of sheer chaos in the room. These moments keep happening, typically during the hours between dinner and bedtime, when our children go wild and we start dream a little bit of when they are older and less rambunctious. Maybe we even wish it out loud with a groan of frustration.

We know this. The little years are such a whirlwind of energy, of wiping down messes and hunting for lost toys, untangling sibling arguments, reading extra bedtime stories, and trying to keep up with everyone’s frequent needs. We feel this. These days of parenting can be so long and tumultuous, confusing and overwhelming. But mercifully, we also are given this. Warm spots of rest and light within these challenging days—the sweet minutes where we remember to look them in their bright, watching eyes and clutch our chests over how darling they are. And hopefully, we hum our gratitude from thankful hearts, “I can’t remember what it felt like before I became a parent, nor do I want to. Thank you, kind God. Help me to parent them as you parent me. Keep me present, keep them safe.”

As hard as these days run, with the children almost running faster than the passing time, they are still this precious parcel that I keep padded and close to my heart. I delight in their personalities and personhoods, I am honored to raise and serve them beside my husband. Yet I am finding that as long as I have children who still depend on me for every daily thing, who still live under my roof and rules, I am often clinging to the illusion that I am the one keeping them safe and that their future, their leaving me, is lightyears away still.

The truth is, when my mind does tiptoe to the edge of their adolesence and adulthood beyond, I do worry. A few beginning fears tumble quickly into lists of what-ifs. I am afraid that the sins they have seen in their mommy and daddy will shout louder to them than the redemption gospel we spoke, and they’ll have bitter hearts. I worry that their constant interruptions during worship mean that they are not keeping anything in their hearts and they will eventually despise God’s Word. I worry about the influences they will fall under, the friends they will make, the siren songs of the world, and the moments when they will have broken hearts and I won’t be able to scoop them up and hug them tight. I worry for their health and safety. I wonder if they’ll look back on their childhood with fond, laughter-filled nostalgia, or with sad, mourning silence. Will they break generational curses? Will they be wise? Will they love the church of Christ? So much is wrong with the world and with our hearts—will they make their way safely through?

When I lean my thoughts this way, I start to act like I am the one who is their real shelter and comfort, instead of God. In reality, I am only the who represents him, the one who points the way to him. I am pushing aside the truth of who God is and what he has done. I have leaned away from him, I have forgotten. I need to turn around and look back at how far he has kept them. And will he stop now? Of course, their lives are young yet—but if I look closer, I can see the manifold wisdom of God in kaleidoscope colors, even in their few lived years. There is absolutely no reason to shrink back from gazing at the future when the truth remains that the God who spoke them into being, who knit them together in my womb, is the same God who loves them, who is able to save and keep and redeem. He loves my children more than I do. He knows every single word of their story, and calls it good. I am powerless to redeem and save. Bless the Lord.

Even more, I need to look back at the whole story of God’s people. Always, God has been good and has done what is good. His angels warned Lot of the coming fire, coming to consume the enemies of God, and saw him hesitate. His lingering would have been his death, had not the angels taken him and his family by their very hands. (Genesis 19:15-16) Lot had grown enchanted by safety and sin, and could not pull himself away from what had dazzled his eyes and rooted in his heart. God is the God who saves and he will do whatever it takes to rescue his people. And how many times have I seen it with my own eyes? When one of us has been at the end of ourselves, tired of being sin-sick, but unable to escape its hold— only to find the surprise of God being most near, breaking us out of imprisoning cycles, and turning the light of his freeing countenance upon us?  The hymn refrain rises from my heart and all of God’s thankful church: “He is able, he is able. He is willing, doubt no more.”

Even if my worst fears for my children come to pass, that does not change the fact that they can never leave the able and willing hands of God. Scottish Reformer John Welwood wrote these wise words in a letter in 1675: “It is better that [the God of all grace] should hold our treasure than we ourselves…. we think that what’s in our hand is surer, and will be more easily be effective, than what is in Christ’s hand!” While he speaks of grace itself being the treasure that Christ holds, it also makes me praise Him for all else that he holds for me, including the gracious gift of my children. No hands but his will do.

I cannot see what the Lord sees, I cannot know what he knows, I cannot do what he does. I cannot see how the stories of my children end and I cannot know how they will get there, I cannot rescue them from sin and death. But every day, God does all of that. He is in the impossible business of bringing life out of death. He himself even knows death, having laid himself down on the bloody cross, binding himself to us in all of our humanity, sin, fear, grief, and pain – so that he could be a Savior who knows and feels with us. He brought us with him when he rose again, and he will raise us up forever when he comes back to share his glory with us, in that finally united cosmos where death will no more leave its shadow.

May our faithful, keeping God keep my children, and may I trust him more to do it.
Now, and unto life everlasting.

Look Up Now: Standing Under the Benediction of God

One of my favorite parts of the Sunday morning worship service comes at the very end. Our church calls it the Benediction, or the giving of the blessing. The pastor raises his hands and pronounces a truth out of Scripture upon the people of God, who then receive it with upraised faces.

This is something I did not grow up experiencing. The churches I attended as a child did offer a benediction, but it was often uttered in a prayerful manner, no hands raised. So I prayed along, head bowed and eyes closed, taking the closing Scripture into my heart as our last offering of worship to the Lord together on a Sunday morning.

This method of blessing is of course beneficial, as the Word of God works powerfully as it goes out, and will never return empty-handed. But I have come to discover a more sweet, communal, and heartening experience in the pronouncement of blessing with the pastor every time instructing us to “look up and receive God’s benediction.”

When he speaks these words, I eagerly lift my chin, and if I need to, crane my neck so that I can see the preacher’s hands lifted high. As he speaks the familiar blessing, I picture “the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit” literally descending from his hands upon my head as he speaks. (2 Corinthians 13:13) I remember that he is speaking God’s very words to me, and that as surely as the man in front of me is present, so is God making these promises directly to me, as I receive them in faith.

This is also a part of worship where I try to excite my wiggly children about what is happening. I’ll whisper to them, “Look up, guys! Let’s receive the benediction!” and I’ll pick them up so they can witness the sight. Sure, maybe it seems a little bit strange to them still, but I pray that their curiosity will be stirred into turning the eyes of their hearts to the Lord, too. Even while they are young. 

Preachers use any number of Scripture passages or biblical statements as they bless their congregations. Another pastor at our church likes to use the priestly blessing of Aaron from Numbers 6:24-27: “May the Lord bless you and protect you; may the Lord make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you; may the Lord look with favor on you and give you peace.”

I love what Bible teacher Nancy Guthrie wrote about this passage in her devotional book The One Year Praying Through the Bible for Your Kids. She noted that the blessing of the Lord, spoken by the priest, is not a request but rather an announcement. The pastors who now use this (or other) blessings from the old pages of the Bible are not merely asking God to do these things and hoping that the words will come to pass. They are speaking them as already true, already done. They are telling the hearers what they already possess, even as they hear it.

What an exciting thing to be a part of. It can be so easy to tune out by the end of a long church service. For those of us with little ones, our section of seats can look quite a sight with coloring pages and quiet activities strewn about, and it can be so tempting to begin stuffing all of our belongings back into bags, and plan out what we will do once the service is completed. But what if our attentive hope lingered on with the same anticipation we had as we entered the sanctuary earlier that morning? The hope of what God will do in and through our church and every part of the service?

In the final blessing, we get to see the heart of God toward us. In the blessing from Numbers, particularly, we see his face. And it is shining upon us, it is gladly giving us more grace and peace. God is not scowling at his children, he is not miserly with his gifts for us. He is as well-pleased with us as he is with his beloved Son, because we are united to him. Rather than viewing ourselves as the primary movers in this closing moment, we see that this is God’s movement toward his people. This is a moment that we witness our unchanging God. He is exactly the same as he was the last time we stood here, and he will be the same when we gather again.

We get to raise our sad, distracted, weary faces to him and bask in the sunbeams of his favor and the warmth of his protection. Even if we are bringing faith so small, it’s smoldering. Even if we bring hearts so broken by the pain we carry, or heavy-laden with grief over our repeated sins. We can stand confident and boldly in front of the face of God, because Jesus has “done all of our work for us.” (Isaiah 26:12)

And when we come buoyant with gladness, having a sweet season of light and ease, this is such a kind reminder that all the good in us and around us is because of Christ. He became cursed so that we could be forever under benediction. The Father turned his face away from him as he paid for our sins upon the cross, so that we could enjoy the warm welcome of the Father’s face shining upon us.

However the blessing of the Lord is spoken in your church worship service, let it be a time to take great courage and comfort, a time for you to nudge your little ones and hold your husband’s hand, a time to stand shoulder to shoulder with the family of God, eyes on the same horizon, ready and waiting to receive and believe God’s blessing for you. He is forever pleased to give it.

let me see

“Rabbi, let me see.”
The confidence of Bartimaeus
makes me wonder
how many times he had
rehearsed the promises of God
to David
to send a better king to rule
with righteousness
without end.

How many Psalms
did he cradle in his heart,
lulling himself to sleep with the
goodness of YHWH,
who “opens the eyes of the blind”
and “lifts up those who are bowed down.”

Did he wring his daily hope
from the prophecies of Isaiah,
telling of a coming day when
“out of their gloom and darkness
the eyes of the blind shall see”?

Did he know Jesus was in his Jericho town,
was he waiting for someone to nudge him
and help him catch his attention before he left?
Because the minute he heard his name
he cried out to David’s Son and David’s Lord
for mercy.

He was making a scene,
the many tried to silence him,
but his cry only grew louder.
And surely, he was heard
by the Son, who stopped and
called him near.

“The Lord wants to see you!
Strengthen your heart and your legs
and go to him!”
And the man with clouded eyes
jumped up with his crystal clear,
seeing faith–
left his robe puddled on the ground
as he hurried near and
heard Jesus asking him
“What do you want me to do for you?”

“Oh, good Teacher of teachers,
give sight to my eyes.”
And he did it:
in a sudden change
that flooded him with light,
as Jesus saw his faith
and blessed him to walk on,
seeing and believing.

What joy is ready for any other
film-covered,
confused, and
crying ones
who long to see
everything the right way, too.
The same king stops
for you,
as you ask him to wipe
your blurred and blind eyes
with his redeeming,
remaking hands.

Nancy Guthrie’s book Praying Through the Bible for Your Kids provides an excellent devotional on Mark 10:46-52 and inspired the thoughts I expanded on in this poem.

years and minutes

January nods off,
and so far I’m keeping resolutions,
but a lot can happen in a year.
So I come to this keyboard
to preach to myself
to aim my hopes higher
than a fit body
and better art
and successful parenting
and a car.

Go on and work hard,
work out, work creatively,
and learn good rest.
Put down your phone
and don’t savor a grumble
for even a minute.
Goals are good,
keep moving their way–
but do it to enjoy and give grace,
not earn it,
because it’s already plenty yours.

Don’t bury yourself
in the weeds of what-ifs
and the dread of looming
deadlines and hard things.
None of it, even if it’s the worst,
can jostle the
capable, holding hands of God’s love.

He dwells beyond all years
and stays close beside us
in our minutes.
Look for him,
find him and bless him,
our goal who outshines
and unites
and completes
all the others.

on them has light shone

How many times will I cry away my makeup this week?
It’s a calculated risk each morning —
whether or not I should even bother with mascara today.
But this time I did
because we were planning to drop off the kids at church
and use our Panera gift card
to fill our worried stomachs tonight.
But we did have a fight, and the tears did burst
in a fury and exhaustion.
Our main income was taken away, just like that,
and we’re feeling just about everything
there is to feel at the moment.
The next steps look blurry,
and I know worry is not the key to clarity
or open doors.
The church has been beside,
shouldering, bearing with, hands open for us,
releasing significant weight from us —
but still I ask — how,
in all the world — will this turn out?
It feels like we can’t catch a break,
when will we get to feel steady?
Even a few days later, on his birthday,
we fell prey to scammers
and slumped over as courage slipped a little further away.

Come, justice, come our way.

And keep us from leaning on comforts
that are pretend gods
that cannot help.
Things are falling over, and we
keep grabbing the things
that splinter off
and wound us as we topple.
I read that image in Ezekiel (paraphrased)
and I brightened those lines
in shaky highlighter.
Come, one true God, reorder us.

The mercy of the Christmas respite,
the abundant Carolinian sunshine
through the tall windows
at my sister’s new house,
was a rest that felt like Rivendell —
renewal and redemption
after hard Christmases past
and in the midst of hard days now.
We all needed this so much
that we trembled at every whisper of a shadow
that might keep us apart,
heads darting over shoulders
at every threat during the weeks before.
We bowed low to our lavish, gathering God
and sang the carols louder
than we ever have.
It was a gift flooding through
with comfort and joy,
to know the coming near of God,
as surely as we had been brought near to one another,
at last. The wait had felt so long.
Justice and truth did come, and will come yet.

It’s hard to step back into things
after the glow of Christmas.
We are all texting more and missing harder
and holding bliss and sorrow at once
together in our complex human hearts, as we always will
until the staying-together days come for good.

—–
From Luke 1:
⁵³ he has filled the hungry with good things,
    and the rich he has sent away empty.
⁵⁴ He has helped his servant Israel,
    in remembrance of his mercy.