Forget the Pool

Thinking today about the lame man sitting beside the pool at Bethesda, waiting 38 years to be healed.  Jesus, knowing everything about him, asks the man,
Do you want to be healed?--John 5:6

Obviously, waiting at the pool was not getting the job done.
Jesus wanted the man to reconsider his position.
Jesus did not just want to heal him.  He wanted to show him something wonderful.
He not only wanted the man to walk, He wanted him to see.

When Jesus told the man to pick up his mat and walk, restoring his mobility was not the point.
Jesus did not want to give him only legs that worked.
He wanted the man not to walk, but by walking to see real power.

The man had waited vainly for so long because he looked for the wrong thing in the wrong place.  He looked to get well, not to find God.

Where do I look? 
Do I look for relief?  Do I look for a spot of water to bring it?  Do I look to someplace else on the planet or to something of flesh and blood?  Do I think these can enact rescue, provide comfort?

Or do I look always into the eyes of my Savior?  Do I see His extended hand, offering more than the world, more than legs that work, more, more, more?

Forget the pool.  I want the power.

Seeing Red

I can't get her out of my mind.
I keep thinking about that tender woman in the crowds by the lake at Galilee, bleeding out, slow drop by slow drop.
Weak, pale, outcast.  She crawled through the crowd, propelled by a faith born of desperation.  Desperation.  But it was enough.  She reached out.

Then, unbidden, with the touch of grace and power that He wrapped around Him like a sweet cloak, Jesus stopped her bleeding.
Facing His own passion, His own blood sacrifice, He spared hers.

Daughter, your faith has healed you.  Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.--Mark 5:34

That's the way it works.  Freedom is purchased by the blood of one for the benefit of another.  So it did that day, and so it does for us. Just as for all the blood shed for freedom through long ages of men, as it flowed from one, it stopped for another. 
The woman did contribute something, however.
She contributed faith.

Today, we remember that much blood has flowed for freedom and still does, but as it does, it causes us to yearn for a day when, like for this woman, another exchange for freedom awaits. The Lord of the universe promises an end to the bleeding.  Rather than life's blood, we long to offer faith alone and be freed from suffering.

His blood flowed once for all, but our blood continues to stain the world.
Someday, we will know freedom from that, too.

Pushed into Shape

Life applies constant pressure, but I have a bad habit of ignoring it.
It pushes and I push back.
It takes my head in both hands and turns me in one direction and I look longingly to another.

And all the while, I do not see that the hands that redirect are God's.

I went down to the potter's house and I saw him working at the wheel, but the pot he was shaping from the clay was marred in his hands, so the potter formed it into another pot, shaping it as seemed best to him.--Jeremiah 18:3-4

God gave me the right to go my own way, but He did not consent to make me comfortable there.  He promises to correct, to amend, to shape me relentlessly.


He, and only He, knows my intended shape, and this is it:
I am supposed to look like Him. 
 
He builds and rebuilds, always to the same model: His own.  He knows I mess myself up and constantly applies the pressure necessary to re-form me.

My God, my Creator, wants me to recover my original design.
Everything that He brings me in the course of living is designed to achieve this.
As long as I wake up every day, I am not finished.
My most important job is not to preach, or teach, or witness, or work.
It is worship Him and thus, to return fully to Him.  Period.

I work not to get a job done, but because God works.
I sacrifice not to achieve an end, but because God sacrificed.
I love not to further a relationship, but because God is love.

Like clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in my hand...--Jeremiah 18:6
For every living soul belongs to me...--Ezekiel 18:1

Every time I yield to Your touch, I come closer to Your side, O Lord.  The pot you are making bears the marks of Your hands, but when you release it, looks like You.

Already Begun, Part 5

The faith we embraced first buoyed us up (Part 1), then tore us down (Part 2) and (Part 3) , then, ragged and bleeding, brought us to the feet of Christ, the place He always intended us to come (Part 4).  Grace has seen us through.  All we need now is a good nap while we wait for heaven.

Wrong. God has more in store. 

Arise, shine, for your light has come.
and the glory of the Lord has dawned upon you.
For behold, darkness covers the land,
deep gloom enshrouds the people,
but over you the Lord will rise,
and His glory will appear on you.--Isaiah 60:1-2


God disciplines, but He then restores.

God will restore what he has taken a hundredfold.  He did it for Abraham.  He did it for Moses.  He did it for Job.  He did it for Joseph.  He can do it for us.

And with restoration, the cycle completes. 


The first and last instruction Christ gave to Peter was, "Follow Me."  He says the same to us.

"Take heart," God says, "I have overcome the world."  It is time for us to learn that, as we follow Him, we will overcome the world in His Name.  And we have to do it the same way He did, by walking in obedience into the place of terror and, through grace alone, walking out again, hand in hand with His Father.

We cannot access glory from ease, but whatever challenge God deems appropriate, He brings to refine the gold He deposited in us way back at the beginning, when we first put on our faith.  Now, after all the repenting and testing, He tells us to arise and shine.

Our story does not end until He accomplishes His resurrection in us.

Sweet Christ, let whatever glow emanates from our poor souls originate not from gold as I know it,  but as You do, from the radiance of Your glory.

Shadows of Regret

It is both a wonderful and terrible thing to grow old. With years comes experience, and a calm familiarity with the wild twists life tries to throw. I can look at illness or misfortune or financial change with a straight face because, after long acquaintance, I recognize them. "Oh, yes, it's only you..I've seen you before."

But the accumulation of years holds also the terror of regret. Here, I have lingered incapacitated, useless. Old sins and errors have left sad wakes of damage and hurt that no action on my part can change. They lurk and mock. They niggle away at hope. Unlike private sin, these sins have altered not only my life, but the lives of the people I love--my husband, my children, my sweet grandchildren. Every time I look at them, they stand in the relentless shadow of my regret. "You struggle today because of what I did...and I can't undo it."

But You, my God, my Savior, have something to say about this, too.

Cast all your cares on Him, because He cares for you.--1Peter 5:7

This is the realm of the impossible, where I fail and You shine. I have already crucified my life to You, but I have wrongly retained responsibility for the lives of those I love. These are the groans for which there are no words, the utterings that You, Holy Spirit, whisper directly into the Father's ear. I have to give myself to You as You gave Yourself to me, and cast my cares on You for the rest, for all the rest.

My sin helped to shipwreck my family, but just as my life was not beyond Your reach, neither is theirs. You will not punish them for my sin. You can call them, just as You called me. I cannot do any of this, but You can. My reliance on You in this is my next leap of faith, and the faith I need to do this must come from You.

I can do nothing to change the past. I can rely on you to change their futures, however. My regrets have been gods to which I have knelt too long. They have brought neither power nor joy. I have hoarded them. Now, I lay them at your feet and, with them, pray for your will to be done in us all.

Do I Look Fat in this Dress? Or...The Garments of Praise, Part 2

Yesterday, when I was writing about spiritual dressing, about how dust and sackcloth sometimes cover our spirit, and about how God holds out garments of regeneration and redemption, always our size, and perfectly beautiful, I realized that there may be more practical application for these ideas. After all, I really do stand in my closet every morning scratching my head, wondering what to put on. Something prompts me to decide what to buy and what to wear and I really do spend a lot of time and brain power on something apparently inconsequential. But is it?

I know this: I take pleasure in the heft of my wedding dress' luxurious satin; I delight in the slick, wet feel of silk; I enjoy fur's heavy promise of warmth. Through contact with them, I know fine fabric from poor. And I know that some days, I can put on liquid linen or watery silk, feeling them move on me as I turn, and thank God with a clear heart. Some days, I can't. Some days, I pass the rich colors and tactile pleasure by, pulling down old jeans or yesterday's tee shirt. Some days, I can't bear the beauty.

God gave me this body on purpose, and sin necessitates that I cover it. My body, however, houses my spirit and when I clothe the one, I am also covering the other. I am forced to see and feel outside what I know inside.

Sin is not only dust and sackcloth--it is regret and sorrow. Righteousness is not only a rich robe--it is renewal and forgiveness and rebirth. Any dress I wear in sin will make me look drab. When any color seems to bring out a sparkle in my eyes, that sparkle comes from within. My clothes do no make me; they reflect me. No fine clothes can make a dirty man clean and, if I am honest, I will not even try to put them on in that condition. No matter how beautifully I try to cover shame, its horror will show, but neither will God's glory in me be diminished by any humble covering.

Clothes look and feel awkward not as much because they don't match each other, but because they don't match who I am relative to God. Bright colors go with boldness, light with soft clarity and purity, dark with heaviness. Modest clothes show confidence, revealing clothes show insecurity. Shapelessness projects fear or doubt, a good fit ease. In the end, it is God's revelation in my heart and soul that decide my wardrobe, not so much what hangs in my closet.

He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor and the day of vengeance of our God--to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair.--Isaiah 61:1-3