Weeds and the Master Gardener

I'm a novice gardener – I really love digging in the dirt, sticking some seeds in the ground and then watching God do His thing to bring forth life. It's an amazing process to me how God can make so much come from such a tiny little seed. Now – I'm definitely an amateur gardener and really have no idea what I'm doing, but one thing I do know: weeds are bad! So every few days I find myself hunched over, pulling those wretched intruders up and away from my precious budding fruits and veggies.

As dirt piles up under my fingernails and my hand fork busily loosens up those stubborn weeds, I can't help but liken them to the sin in my life. Like weeds, sin incessantly threatens to take over my heart each and every day. Like weeds, sin can grow in all shapes and sizes, sometimes even mimicking something beautiful, but turning out to be toxic in the end. Like weeds, sin may start out as a small thing, not seeming to be much of a threat, but left untended, can develop into an ugly monstrosity that will wreak major havoc to the life around it.

If you know anything about weeds, you know you can't just mow over them (they'll come right back up with a vengeance) – you have to yank the suckers up by their nasty old roots. So like pulling weeds, I should ask God to help me daily attack sin at its root – even though it can be mighty frustrating and seem hopelessly futile at times, it is a part of life as long as I am planted on this earth.

As Rick Countryman says, “Like a garden that's unattended, sin will grow like weeds in your life. We don't have power over the weeds, over sin. But God does. Jesus, the Gospel, is the RoundUp for the sin in your life. It's the only thing that can deal with it.”

So, even though my natural self wants to bar the gate, I must be diligent to allow the Master Gardener into the garden of my life to do His digging and pruning, painful though it often is. The soil of circumstances in which His divine purposes have placed me are the perfect breeding ground for not only potential beauty to grow, but also for the latent sin that still lingers in my heart to be revealed.

Just as a garden cannot be untended and expected to not be overrun by weeds, there will always be work to do in the soil of my heart, till the day God calls me home. And on that great day, when my spirit is set free from this place, there will be no more weeds – no more sin to struggle against...there will only be pure beauty, thanks to all that Jesus has done! Until then, He promises to faithfully prune my heart, lovingly pulling away all that hinders my growth in Him. And even though I often struggle against His cultivation processes, I'm forever thankful that He will never give up on the garden of my life.

“He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit

he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful.” - John 15: 2

“...the Lord disciplines the one he loves,
and he chastens everyone he accepts as his son.”

- Hebrews 12: 6

In the Day of Trouble

We were about to board our plane to fly back home from my husband's incentive trip to Italy when a fellow traveler said to us, “hey, did you hear about the attack in Nice, France?” Only a couple hundred miles from where we were standing, families were reeling from the shock of losing their loved ones in yet another heinous act of terror. As I prayed for the suffering, my heart clenched with sorrow, anger, and fear, and I wanted more than ever to just get home and hold my four babies.

This world we live in seems more insecure and unstable than ever, and only getting worse. What are we to do but turn to the Lord for understanding? As we started our long flight home, God's Word yet again brought the clarity my heart craved as I read through Psalm 86.

“For you, O Lord, are good and forgiving, abounding in steadfast love to all who call upon you. Give ear, O Lord, to my prayer; listen to my plea for grace. In the day of my trouble, I call upon you, for you answer me.”

- Psalm 86: 5-7

Although we live in a fallen world, underneath the chaos and the threats are the steadfast arms of a sovereign, loving God – an unchangeable Savior who promises to abound in goodness, forgiveness, steadfast love, and grace to all who call upon Him.

So, when life comes at us hard, may we turn to Christ. When we cry out with David that “insolent men have risen up against me; a band of ruthless men seeks my life,” may our hearts quickly return to the truth that “you, O Lord, are a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness,” trusting in Him to “give your strength to your servant” (Ps. 86: 14-16).

Our hearts can rest in the amazing reality that ultimately, regardless of what happens in this breath of a life, our hope can never be taken from us because of the salvation Christ secured for us on the cross. God's love will always win, “for great is your steadfast love toward me; you have delivered my soul from the depths of Sheol” (Ps. 86: 13).

As you face whatever lies before you today, call out to the Lord to help you trust in His future grace and steadfast love toward you through Christ. Make it your top priority to seek to know Him better – to not be blinded or paralyzed by the distractions around us – but to call upon Him all day, trusting that He will answer your pleas for help. And as your heart rests in that place of peaceful security, you can be free to share His steadfast love and grace with everyone He places in your path.

Blessed in the Midst of the Storm

“But blessed is the one who trusts in the LORD,
whose confidence is in him.”
- Jeremiah 17:7

In reading the story of Jesus walking on water in Matthew 14, I think, “why would Jesus send His disciples out onto that lake when He KNEW a storm was coming??” As a fallible human parent, I would instinctively never send my beloved children outside into a storm. But the Lord Jesus, in His sovereign wisdom, chose to do just that when He “made the disciples get into the boat and go before him” (Matt. 14: 22). God's ways are not our ways and His thoughts are not our thoughts (Is. 55:8). Jesus chose to use the waves to teach the disciples a critical lesson:

a truly blessed life is not one that is free from storms,

but one that is peacefully anchored in Christ even in the midst of upheaval.

It's relatively easy as believers to profess unshakeable devotion to Christ when it's smooth sailing, but when He allows - even commands - us to pass through a storm, do we keep our eyes focused on Him, or do we allow our hearts to fail in fear of the waves crashing around us?

To live a blessed life, we must daily anchor ourselves in the hope of Christ – His constant presence and unfailing promises. If, in our pride, we cling to the strength of ourselves or others, we walk out from under the blessing of God (Jer.17:5). When the eyes of our hearts shift focus from Christ, the surrounding waves of life's trials will always loom large, and the result is inevitably disastrous.

Like Peter, our feet will fail, melting into the abyss.

We were not designed to walk alone on the waves of life – the only way through is to recognize our weakness and humbly depend on the Lord for our every move, trusting that He will faithfully carry us.

Are there any areas in your life where you are not wholeheartedly trusting God to provide and guide? Where are you depending on your own feeble strength? As Peter did, call out to Jesus to save you, and in His unfailing compassion He will sweetly reach out His hand and pull you up to safely rest in His arms. You can have His blessed peace, even in the midst of the storm.

Our Unbreakable Lifeline [A Prayer]

“We who have run for our very lives to God have every reason to grab the promised hope with both hands and never let go. It’s an unbreakable spiritual lifeline, reaching past all appearances right to the very presence of God where Jesus, running on ahead of us, has taken up his permanent post as high priest for us, in the order of Melchizedek.”

- Heb. 6: 18-19 (MSG)

How I praise You, Jesus, that You are my great High Priest, forever interceding to the Father on my behalf - that because of Your perfect sacrifice on the cross, a helpless sinner such as me can miraculously be seen as acceptable in God's sight.

This is the hope to which my life should be anchored: that as long as I walk this earth, Christ is with me at every moment; and when, in His perfect timing He calls me home, He is ready to welcome me into His presence for all eternity. If I cling to this truth daily, even in the midst of the unavoidable difficulties of life, how free from fear and its companion, despair, I will be!

On the flip-side, if I am lured by my sin nature, the world and the Enemy into believing that my hope really lies in anything other than Christ (e.g. financial security, health, a godly husband/kids, acceptance, pleasure, escapism...) then I will always walk in fear – because none of these false gods are unshakeable; they can all crumble like dust. Fear cannot coexist with the hope that overflows from Christ's perfect love (1 Jn. 4:18). When I fear, it's because I'm believing the lie that God is still angry at me, which directly denies the promised hope of Christ's forever saving work on the cross.

Forgive me, Lord – I know that at the root of all my struggles with insecurity, anger, selfishness, gluttony and worry is fear! Fear that You are not enough for me to anchor my every moment onto, but that I must manage my lifelines to all my other false gods, which is exhausting and will lead nowhere but to despair.

Oh Lord, give me the grace to live a life fully secured to the unbreakable hope of Christ alone, that He will provide for my every need, and that because of Your great love for me, I need never fear. Even though I fail daily, You are faithful to relentlessly pursue me with Your grace and mercy, as You have always done. My hope is secure in You!

The Purpose of Waiting

Are you in a season of waiting?

It seems to me that, on some level, most of us are always in a season of waiting. Sometimes the seasons are short, sometimes they are long. Sometimes they are exuberant periods of waiting expectantly for impending joy on the horizon. Sometimes they are difficult seasons where we feel hopeless and surrounded by utter darkness. Sometimes they are somewhere in between those two.

But whatever our seasons look like, they are always hard.

I'm learning that God has designed these seasons of waiting on Him to serve a profound purpose in our lives...if we will let them.

The easy thing to do is to rage and fight against them. By nature, we don't like pain. On top of that, we are an instant gratification generation - we want what we want, and we want it NOW. But in God's Kingdom, rarely does He allow us those moments of instantaneous satisfaction - and with good reason.

God knows that things obtained too easily will ultimately teach us nothing of our desperate need for Him. When He allows us to walk through the trial of waiting on Him, He promises that it will ultimately produce His good work in our lives. I love Eugene Peterson's paraphrase of James 1:2-4, when God's Word encourages us to,

^"Consider it a sheer gift, friends, when tests and challenges come at you from all sides. You know that under pressure, your faith-life is forced into the open and shows its true colors. So don't try to get out of anything prematurely. Let it do its work so you become mature and well-developed, not deficient in any way."

Have you had this experience? Have you ever emerged from a dark season of waiting on the Lord to work in your life, and find yourself able to look back on it with "pure joy" in your heart because He loved you enough to let you go through the trial, knowing that if He had spared you from it, you would not have grown in your faith? I can look back on my life and, by His grace, do just that. There have been several seasons of "trials of many kinds," some darker than others. But they all forced me to my knees in a way that, sad to say, my easier times never could.

If you are in the midst of a season of trial and waiting on the Lord, I want to encourage you to hang in there! Or in a more Biblical term, keep persevering!! Your Creator has not forgotten you. In fact, you are in a prime position to receive such blessing from God that otherwise you might not. As James continues in 1:12,

"Blessed is the one who perseveres under trial because, having stood the test, that person will receive the crown of life that the Lord has promised to those who love him."

God is at work in the midst of our testing and trials and waiting. As Charles Stanley so wisely explains, "The dark moments of our life will last only so long as is necessary for God to accomplish His purpose in us." And we know that one of His top priorities is that we put more of our faith in His Son, allowing Him to mold us into His likeness. This higher goal will trump our desire to be freed from our trial every time. And if we are seeking His Kingdom and will for our lives, inevitably the Lord will change our hearts to desire this as well, even more than an answer to what we are seeking.

One final lesson God is teaching me is that when I sincerely ask for His will to be done in my life, I must wholeheartedly believe that it is and that it will be! Again, James says in 1: 5-6,

"If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you. ⁶ But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind."

Countless times in the Gospel we read stories of folks who are praised - not necessarily because of their spotless reputations or impeccable behavior - but because of their complete belief and trust in Christ's power over their lives. The Lord is reminding me that I need to turn from my doubting that He is actively at work to bring about His will in my life and instead cling to my faith in His goodness, knowing that,

"...without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him."

- Hebrews 11:6

His ultimate reward is not the stuff of life - but more of Him. That is all we truly need. May He continue to use your season of waiting to bless you with just that. 

Chunks of Chocolate and Glops of Gravy

Heading out of town for a much-needed date night, hubby asks me to pop in some good music.

"I know - our wedding CD," he grins, referring to the compilation of our favorite songs that we handed out as thank-yous to folks who came to our Mexico destination wedding.

"Ah, yes," I agree, taking a deep breath and resting my weary head back as the entrancing Spanish guitar nearly lulls me to sleep.

I'm quickly snapped back from my mini-nap when hubby says, "It's so funny, cause when I think to the outset of our marriage and how I imagined life would be, I gotta say it's so different now than what I dreamed it would be."

"Eh?" I'm thinking. "What's he getting at here?"

"You mean..." I probe.

"I mean, in my mind back then, I envisioned one continual backyard cookout with the kids and all our friends, just relaxing and enjoying uninterrupted quality time with our perfect little dream-family. No one stressing out over where the kids are, if someone is about to eat dirt or fall in a pool. I had no idea how much more...work it was going to be!" he says.

"Hmmmph..." I scowl.

"But honestly, it's so much...better than I ever imagined. So much richer and deeper," he finishes.

"Well, thank you!" I think.

We go on to laugh about how it's a good thing most folks are so clueless as to how hard marriage and kids are before they take the plunge, otherwise our species might die out! But of course, the beauty is that even if it's possibly the most difficult thing we'll ever do, it is by far one of the most rewarding and fulfilling. And for me, the most educating. I have learned more about myself and God in the past 4 1/2 years than I did in the 29 years prior. That's some crazy God-math.

Arriving at our highly anticipated dinner destination - a romantic restaurant with a highly-touted chef - we giddily pore over the menu, finally settling on an appetizer of bacon-wrapped stuffed jalapenos, followed by a wedge salad and veal Marsala for our entree. It'd been a long time since we'd had such a fancy culinary experience and, being the foodies that we are, each minute waiting for what we knew would be an explosion of tastiness seemed to drag by.

Finally, the beautifully presented cream-cheese stuffed, bacony-delicious jalapenos arrive.

"Mmmmm," hubby grins as he serves me one. I close my eyes and gingerly take a bite, awaiting the taste explosion aforementioned. Instead, what I get is a tiny taste burst, quickly followed by a whole lot of...pain.

"They're a little hot," I grimace, sweat beading up on my nose. Hubby's eyes soon begin to water as he spasmodically nods his chewing head in agreement. We muscle through the appetizer disappointment, still clinging to high hopes for the salad and entree. But alas, our hopes are dashed as the salad proves watery and semi-tasteless and the entree, although it is not bad, is something akin to what we could've cooked on our own.

"Should we split a dessert?" Hubby, ever the optimist, suggests. Since I am a recovering sweet-aholic and have not had dessert in what seemed an eternity, I concur, "love to!"

We speedily agree on the German Chocolate pie (because, if you're gonna go for dessert, why mess around with anything that's not chocolate!?).

Now this...THIS is what redeems our dining experience. It takes us easily half an hour to finish this one tiny sliver of pie, as we slowly savor each delectable bite, locking eyes and nodding our heads, our only utterance being "mmmmm...."

When it's finally all gone (sniff), we walk out of our beautiful restaurant into the starry night, satisfied.

That's life, isn't it? We have it in our heads that each course of the experience is going to be (or at least should be) a mind-blowing explosion of sweetness. Instead we find our plates full of meltdowns, demands, short attention spans, ungratefulness, and sleep-deprivation, followed by a nice helping of dirty laundry, traffic and the never-ending sinkful of dishes.

If we're not careful, that's all we'll see everyday.

If we're not careful, we'll walk away from each day having missed the sweet moments. Because they are there. We just have to have our eyes open, looking for them.

If we're not careful to keep our eyes searching for the sacred moments, we will, by default, miss them. They can be sneaky little chunks of chocolatey sweetness, hiding under piles of distractions and our self-imposed "to do" lists. But they are there, even in the midst of our most severe pain.

When we finally make the decision to force our gaze away from the pains of life,
the failures of our flesh,
the "what ifs" that paralyze us with fear and keep us from ever taking a risky leap of faith forward,
the false comforters with which we desperately try to numb ourselves...

and our weary eyes come to rest on the beautiful presence of Christ, who is just waiting for us to "take heart" in Him and find true peace because He has overcome the world (John 16:33)...

then we will finally have life to the full!

Until that point, as C.S. Lewis so masterfully paints us,

"We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased." (The Weight of Glory)

I am convinced that God gives us the sweet moments to point us to Himself - so that we can find true fulfillment in an intimate relationship with Him and fathomless strength for the inevitable struggles that life brings. We were meant to worship the Creator, not the creation, after all (Romans 1:25), to let the good things in life point us to the Good Gift Giver. The sweet gifts are not designed to hold our hearts forever. They fall woefully short for the task. They will always melt into a gloppy mess, leaving us hungry again.

When we finally learn that His love will always be enough, we will stop searching for more and more fleeting sweet moments - because although they are nice when they come, they can never (and were never intended to) fulfill us. In fact, if all we ever had was sweetness, our "taste buds" would eventually grow dull and we would lose our ability to truly enjoy the blessings.

With the knowledge that true fulfillment, real purpose and meaning in life come only from a vibrant relationship with my Creator, I am freed up to simply enjoy exactly where God has me for this season. All of life is sprinkled with holy moments and sweet, sacred glimpses of the eternal. Nothing in my life is meaningless, and I can stop looking for "something else out there" to provide me with a sense of significance - because I am significant in Christ! The rest is just gravy.

Or chocolate, whichever you prefer.

Can't Get No Satisfaction?

By and large, most of us are so saturated with abundance in this country - particularly in the suburbs - that our perception of what are our real needs versus what are only our wants has become horribly skewed. From birth we're told by countless sources that if you want something, you deserve to have it. Self-denial is almost shunned. We are all about gaining and consuming as much as we possibly can, and we've been falsely led to believe that if we can just have/ingest/partake in _______, then we'll be happy.

Here's the problem with that line of thinking: we are all little Mick Jaggers deep down.

When it comes to trying to shove one more shiny trinket into our pockets just so we will hopefully feel complete, inevitably we find that we just can't get no satisfaction. These trinkets can manifest themselves as any number of material things (clothes, cars, houses, boats, home decor, the latest electronic gadget - the list is endless), or perhaps even as grand life "experiences" (pleasure from food/alcohol, traveling, hobbies, parties, accomplishment), and even the collection of people (social status, friends, spouse, children, boyfriend/girlfriend). Most of these things are not bad in and of themselves and can have a healthy place in our lives. But if you're like me, you've found yourself time and time again baffled by the fact that you're putting your daily hope in one or more of these faltering, dissatisfying trinkets of life.

Until we allow the Holy Spirit to wake and shake us up, we are blind to our predicament. Left to itself, this blindness leads to a sort of spiritual lulling to sleep - we become complacent and bland, lacking in any real passion for life because what we're counting on to provide that passion falls disappointingly short every time. We may look around and think we're doing good, smug in our estimation that we've made it pretty far in life. We think we have all we want and don't really need anything, even God Himself.

In Revelation 3:17-20, Christ speaks to this predicament:

¹⁷ You say, ‘I am rich. I have everything I want. I don’t need a thing!’ And you don’t realize that you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked. ¹⁸ So I advise you to buy gold from me—gold that has been purified by fire.
Then you will be rich.

Also buy white garments from me so you will not be shamed by your nakedness,

and ointment for your eyes so you will be able to see.

¹⁹ I correct and discipline everyone I love. So be diligent and
turn from your indifference.
²⁰ “Look! I stand at the door and knock. If you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in, and we will share a meal together as friends.

Wretched? Miserable? Poor? Blind? Naked? That's not what most of us see when we look at the average middle class American flying down the interstate in their trinket of choice. But, as we know, God looks at the inside of a person, not the outside (see 1 Samuel 16:7).

And do you also notice that Christ ends this chapter in Revelation not with a blast of righteous wrath, rejecting and shunning those who have fallen into this trap of self-seeking? No, he gently reaches out to us feeble little things (he knows we are only dust, Psalm 103:14) and pleads with us to turn from our indifference toward him. He desires that we find true riches, and that we be restored to him as friends - and from what I can tell, he even wants to cook us dinner (imagine how seriously tasty THAT will be)!

I want to daily be reminded of what brings true, lasting riches: putting my hope in Christ. I'll be honest, as a broken and weak human, it is not an easy task - especially when we are surrounded by such American excess at every turn. That is why I do my best to daily counteract the toll this flood of abundance takes on my soul by spending time with my Father in his Word, asking him to make my mind like his. Just this morning he reminded me of one of my favorite Proverbs (30:8-9):

...give me neither poverty nor riches!
Give me just enough to satisfy my needs.
⁹ For if I grow rich, I may deny you and say, “Who is the Lord?”
And if I am too poor, I may steal and thus insult God’s holy name.

For a season of my life, I knew all too well what it meant to struggle with financial hardship, just praying you have enough money in the bank till the next paycheck comes in. But even in that dark place, God always provided for my needs (Psalm 37:25). I pray I'm never led to walk down that rough path again, but even if I am, I am confident that the Lord provides for his children.

And even more than a prayer against poverty, I know that what I really should continually pray against is the temptation to allow the lure of abundance to cause me to deny my desperate need for God. Only in him alone can we ever really acquire the true joy, passion, security, and peace for which we are all designed to hunger.

Christ alone satisfies.

(somebody should really tell Mick.)

Stay Calm and Don't Move (lessons learned from bees, babies and David)

I am not a fan of flying, stinging insects. Bees, wasps, hornets, yellow jackets (just writing their names gives me chills). I am very much in dislike of them. I'll just go ahead and say I loathe them, and truly it's no stretch to admit that I'm even a bit on the phobic side about them.

Of course, naturally, this means that they have a great affection for me - so much so that I cannot even count the amount of times they have so lovingly sunk their little stingers deep into my flesh (in the most random of places, might I add: back of the neck, foot, thumb, eyelid), even leaving a scar on my shin from one darling bee who crawled up my acid-washed overalls on my bus ride home from school in the 4th grade (guess my "tight roll" just wasn't tight enough).

Since these critters have so clearly declared me as Archnemesis #1, it stands to reason that I find it mighty hard to just "stay calm and don't move," as so many brave souls encourage me to do whenever one of them buzzes near. I really do try. But as soon as my tortured radar picks up that flying stinger, I lose all sense of reason and instantaneously transform into a panicking, screaming, running, flailing spaz. How other people just, "stay calm and don't move," is beyond my comprehension.

Sad thing is, I've found that this instinctive tendency to freak out doesn't just limit itself to my response to flying insects of the stinging variety. I've battled with keeping my perspective on "living in the moment" for most of my life, but never so much since becoming a parent.

I remember lying in my hospital bed after giving birth for the first time, just waiting to feel that overwhelming sense of instant love that everyone said I would for this precious little thing who would soon call me Mom. But as I stared at his tiny, swaddled, sleeping body, it was fear and anxiety that won the battle for my emotional state. In those first few moments, I was flat-out overcome with the mammoth task that now lay before me: I was co-responsible for helping this little baby develop into a decent human being. How in the WORLD does someone as messed up as me even begin to tackle that job? It was all too much to fathom. I felt like someone had dropped a bomb onto my already wiped-out body, and all I wanted to do was sink into that bed and pull the covers over my head.

Thankfully, just as He has done countless times before, God spoke to my panicking heart in that moment and gently reminded me that all I really had to do at that point (and at least for those first few weeks) was just to make sure my baby was: 1) fed and, 2) clean. That, for the time being, would be enough. I could do that! And as his little body grew and he became more complex, God would show me with each stage of growth how to take care of his needs, baby step by baby step. My spirit instantly began to brighten, and I was able to release my grip on a load that was never mine to fully bear and return it to the only One whose strength is limitless. 

Since that first moment of realizing the awesome weight of parenthood, I have inevitably found myself trying to take back that load of "figuring it all out" in other facets of life. When I take my eyes off Christ, I cannot help but begin to fret over the little stingers of life just waiting to pierce my heart. And as I allow my feeble brain to spend too much time on one area of concern for the future, I only find myself deeper and deeper in a state of confusion and worry. Invariably, worry only begets more worry, so I'll naturally start to tack on a whole list of more "what ifs" to my original concern. Even my prayers start to become self-absorbed times of worrying to God, instead of resting in His presence and seeking His will for my life.

So, what's a worrier to do?

David had the answer, when he wrote in Psalm 131:

¹ Lord, my heart is not proud;
      my eyes are not haughty.
   I don’t concern myself with matters too great
      or too awesome for me to grasp.
 ² Instead, I have calmed and quieted myself,
      like a weaned child who no longer cries for its mother’s milk.
      Yes, like a weaned child is my soul within me.

 ³ O Israel, put your hope in the Lord—
      now and always.

Whether we realize it or not, when we worry ourselves over "matters too great or too awesome for me to grasp" (which is most of life), we are really being prideful, putting our hope in our own abilities to plan and scheme and create safety nets. We find ourselves looking under every rock and around every corner, trying desperately to anticipate what might be coming down the pipe next.

Instead, God wants us to just stay calm and not move, "like a weaned child who no longer cries for its mother's milk." We are to become like trusting little children, who rest quietly in our Daddy's lap, knowing that He will provide for all our needs in His perfect timing.

As Beth Moore says, as children of God, nothing in our lives is left to chance. Nothing happens by accident. God is able to take all areas of our lives, even the most painful parts, and work everything out for our good and His glory.

In the end, it really is all good. Who knew!?

And I am beginning to more deeply understand the meaning of and value God places on having a childlike faith. Children wake up each day clueless of the agenda, and yet they have a natural, peaceful trust that their parents will take care of them, regardless of what the day brings. When we seek to walk as they do, we are freed up from the pride and panic that can beat us down - and we can instead simply rest happily in our Daddy's arms, for our hope is in Him alone.

Father, forgive me that I am not more often like a weaned child in your arms, but instead I cry out to you for answers, for clarity, for more light - when what I desperately need more than these things is simple trust that You will show me exactly what I need to know, when I need to know it, 

each baby step of the way.

 

Hope when we feel abandoned, ashamed and afraid (that pretty much covers all of us at some point)

      Isaiah 54: 1 - 8

Although I am no theologian (as aforementioned!) - just a girl who desperately wants to love and know God better - it seems to me that one of the beautiful things about God's Word is that it can be understood in a broad, time-and-place, historical sense and at the same time be taken in a completely personal sense - just as God Himself is both infinite Creator and also intimate Father. So it stands to reason that his Word can have implications for the far-off future but also for your present moment here and now on this crazy side of eternity. To me, Isaiah 54 is particularly one of those chapters in God's Word that can be understood from both perspectives.

It begins:

¹ “Sing, barren woman,
you who never bore a child;
burst into song, shout for joy,
you who were never in labor;
because more are the children of the desolate woman
than of her who has a husband,”
says the LORD.

The first time I ever read this promise, I smirked in disbelief because I felt very much like a barren woman, and my life was in a seemingly terribly desolate place. I had never birthed a child and honestly, I didn't even dare hope I ever would. Shamefully, I thought it to be beyond God's mercy in my life.

But oh...was I wrong! I love it when I'm wrong - at least on this point! Little did I know that in just a few years after I first read these verses I would have not one, not two, but THREE little miracles of my own. Talk about God's ability to turn the course of our lives on a dime. I've been up to my eyeballs in diapers for the past few years living this one out! Here's a little bit of proof:

Big Guy (3), Sweet Pie (2), and Birdy Baby (6 mo.)

I also believe these verses speak to the spiritual children of the Church at large. Christ's coming ushered in the beginning of a "full house," calling to him believers from all over the world, so much so that God says to:

² “Enlarge the place of your tent,
stretch your tent curtains wide,
do not hold back;
lengthen your cords,
strengthen your stakes.
³ For you will spread out to the right and to the left;
your descendants will dispossess nations
and settle in their desolate cities.

When we are faithful to God's call to shepherd the children he has placed in our paths, whether they are our own flesh and blood or our spiritual children, I believe he in turn will be faithful to our efforts. He certainly was to the apostles of the early church as they sought to raise spiritual children.

God continues on with a command and another promise:

⁴ “Do not be afraid; you will not be put to shame.
Do not fear disgrace; you will not be humiliated.
You will forget the shame of your youth
and remember no more the reproach of your widowhood.

Anybody else out there like the sound of that? Would anybody else like to just carve out chunks of their past and toss them far out into the ocean, never again having to worry that they might wash back ashore in a wave of shame?

There have been countless times when all I have wanted to do is to forget the shame of my youth and the reproach of the failure of others in my life. Here God promises that I will! And, true to that promise, I am so grateful to say that I have. So much of the darkness of my past has been burned up and purified by the light of the Life that is within me. Not that I am "blocking it out" or just telling myself to forget the past, but the memory of my dark times no longer lurks in the shadows of my mind, threatening to overwhelm me. I have been healed from their power over my mind. Yes, Satan does his best, and sometimes succeeds, to pry from memory something that I would rather not recall - but it does not penetrate my heart and mind the way it used to.

The power of my past is broken because Christ has borne my sins on the cross, scorning their shame for me (Hebrews 12: 2). I do not have to suffer the shame of my sins anymore because Jesus did it for me! And ultimately any remnant of painful memories have been taken captive by Christ's redeeming work on the cross to simply serve as beautiful reminders of God's profound grace in my life.

He truly has the power to work all things for the good of those who love him (Romans 8:28). In fact, he specializes in it.

These next few verses just floor me:

⁵ For your Maker is your husband—
the LORD Almighty is his name—
the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer;
he is called the God of all the earth.
⁶ The LORD will call you back
as if you were a wife deserted and distressed in spirit—
a wife who married young,
only to be rejected,” says your God. 

Even when we are rejected or treated as "less than" by those who have vowed to love us, we can cling to this amazing truth - that ultimately, the LORD Almighty is our true husband (or, for you guys, the true Lover of your soul)!

People will, by nature, fail us. Nobody, sad to say, is fully trustworthy, save the One who made us. And amazingly that One wants us! Pitiful, crazy, mixed up, inconsistent, unfaithful, selfish, sorry me. And you (yes, you).


We find true wisdom when we put our hope in the eternal One alone, not another fallen, fallible, finite creature.

Christ alone is the Holy One.

Christ alone is our Redeemer.

And when we turn to and trust him,

⁶ The LORD will call you back
as if you were a wife deserted and distressed in spirit—
a wife who married young,
only to be rejected,” says your God.
⁷ “For a brief moment I abandoned you,
but with deep compassion I will bring you back.
⁸ In a surge of anger
I hid my face from you for a moment,
but with everlasting kindness
I will have compassion on you,”
says the LORD your Redeemer.

Have you known a time when you felt forsaken and abandoned by God? If we are honest, most of us answer in the affirmative.

But even if we have felt that way - be it when we have allowed sin to separate us from his nearness, or when the pain of just living on this broken earth caused his presence to feel a million miles away - the Lord will never leave us nor forsake us (Deuteronomy 31:6).

Those feelings of being forsaken, in the grand scheme of things, are temporary. But what is eternal, what is everlasting is his kindness and compassion on us.

Feelings flee and change, but our God cannot. His mercy and love for his servants will go on into eternity. May we not only seek to experience it now in our everyday lives, but also look forward to the hope of dwelling in the presence of our God of unending kindness in the (not-so-distant) eternal future - our heritage as his servants both now and in that great Day to come.