Uphill Both Ways

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This week, I was thinking about what it was like to walk to school in the wintertime--wind cutting sharp edges into my cheeks, fingers and toes numb, layers of jackets and snow pants humid from effort, the scratchy red scarf across my mouth--I walked. Not ten miles uphill both ways, but a mile and a half. Every day. Rain, snow, or shine. We had no school bus. Mom didn't drive.

And it occurred to me that I will never be able to explain to my children or grandchildren what that felt like. Never. No words could describe it. Only the experience would explain, and then I would no longer need an explanation. They will never know this. They get in the car not with gratitude, but with entitlement.

They don't mean to--they just never knew anything else. They don't understand. Privilege has hardened their hearts.

Then [Jesus] climbed into the boat with them and the wind died down. They were completely amazed, for they had not understood about the loaves; their hearts were hardened.--Mark 6: 51-52

The apostles knew the same hardening. They watched Jesus day after day, miracle by miracle. Amazing events became their daily bread. And their hearts were hardened by them. They took them for granted. Right after He'd multiplied the loaves and fishes, fed more than 5000 people from nearly nothing, they went fishing and encountered not only a storm strong enough to threaten their safety, but see Jesus walking across the water toward them in the midst of it and they are terrified--they don't know who He is.

The miracle on the hillside did not translate for them into a miracle on water. Jesus relieving a relatively minor problem, giving a bunch of people lunch, did not teach them that He could rescue them from a major one. Why? Because their hearts were hardened. 

He could not explain His power. He had to show them.
So He brought the storm.
He used it to show them: This is what it feels like to be terrified. And this is what I can do for you when terror comes.

We are the same. God's faithfulness in hardship cannot be explained. It has to be experienced.
I will never leave you, God tells us. I will never forsake you.
But privilege has hardened our hearts. It doesn't sink in until after the storm has calmed and Jesus is standing in the boat saying, "See--I told you." Then we know.

It helps to have heard the promise--it helps us to recognize the rescue when it comes, but the promise alone will not convince us. We have been hardened by God's lifelong faithfulness and mercy. We expect it. Only when He seems to have failed do we understand the extent of His rescue.
Then we hear His gentle voice, "Remember this feeling. Believe me."

Don't Try to Pray

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Prayer.
Do you have trouble with it?
Don't. It's simple.
Groan. 
That's right. Groan.

The Spirit helps us in our weakness, for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings that cannot be uttered.--Romans 8:26

If we are to pray, we have to want God.
This is not a casual relationship. It's like the desire we have when we first fall in love, when we think we will die every instant, like what we feel will not fit inside our skin.

Reading a book about it won't work.
Have you ever read a book about how to fall in love? And why not?
Because it's not necessary. Love lands on us like a ton of bricks.
No book can explain it.
No lesson can teach it.
It's the same with prayer. We pray because we can't help it, because we can't face a life without God, because He matters more than what we are doing, who we are seeing, and whatever else we are thinking.
That is prayer--the groanings and glories of love.

If you can't pray, don't ask someone to teach you.
Go and find your God.
He will draw you in so close that you won't be able to help it.

Is Anybody Home?

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The Tent of Meeting.
That's where You met Moses, Lord.
Before the tabernacle.
Before the temple.
Moses put up a tent and whoever wanted to talk to You went there.
Now Moses used to take a tent and pitch it outside the camp some distance away, calling it the Tent of Meeting. Anyone inquiring of the Lord would go to the tent of meeting outside the camp.--Exodus33:7

Moses used to carry this tent around with him. It didn't stay in one place. The tent went with him wherever he went.
I'm thinking, Lord, that if Moses could do this, why can't I?
And, if I can, what does it look like?
Where do I meet you? Where do you come to me?

Can it be in the red glow of a summer sunset?
Can it be in my baby's smile?
Can it be in the smell of fresh bread?
Or a candle's glow? Or the morning sun through stained glass? Or that small circle of bread held above a cup of wine as Your body and blood?
You are there, in all these and more, if I have the wit to see you.

I need to find my Tent of Meeting, the place where You show yourself.
And then I can say, like Moses did:
Now show me Your Glory!--Exodus 33:18

Waiting for Rescue

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This is you and me.
A princess safe in her castle, waiting for rescue.
We believe God will save us. But what kind of God do we wait for?

God drowns men.
He sends plagues.
He strikes men dead.
He opens the earth and burns them alive.
He exterminates whole families.
And all of these He does to Israel, who is His chosen,  just like us.

Does that make sense?
The Israelites thought so. This is what they said about their God:
The God of old is a refuge, a support in the arms of the Everlasting. Israel abides securely.--Deuteronomy 33:27-28

A refuge? Really? He sounds dangerously judgemental, rashly cruel. How does that work?
It works because He is God.
Don't expect to understand Him. By definition we can't, or He wouldn't be God.
Don't bother to second guess Him. He knows what we don't.
He only wants one thing from us:
This is the work of God: that you believe in Him whom He has sent.--John 6:28-29

Believe in the face of the unbelievable.
Believe when He makes me wait.
Believe that the God who struck down Saul is the same God who raised Lazarus.
No contradiction. No empty mercy. No megalomaniac cruelty.
He will not always do what we expect.
And because He does not, He remains God.

Deciding to Let Go

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The time has come. You have to decide whether or not you are EVER going to let go.
You have held onto them all of your life.
Mother. Father.
Husband. Wife.
Son. Daughter.
Best friend.
You have loved them and they have tried to love you back as well as they can.
But they are not enough.
There is a longing in your heart that even the ones you love best can't fill.
Are you going to continue to ask them to try?
Or are you going to give up, finally and forever and just.... let... go?

John did:
He must increase...I must decrease.--John 3:30
Peter did:
We have left everything to follow you! --Matthew 19:27
And there is no other way for us, either.

That doesn't mean we get a divorce or that we abandon our families for a cloister, but it does mean that we completely shift our priorities.
We do have to absolutely know once and for all that God comes first.
In every circumstance, every frame of mind, every plan, every dream.
He becomes our primary motivation for everything. All the people we held, and continue to hold, most dear must take a back seat to His supremacy.
We have to tear them away from the first place they have held in our heart for so long and yield that place to God, to whom it has always belonged.

And then what?
Peter wanted to know, too:
What will there  be for us?--Matthew 19:27

And God had an answer for him, and has the same answer for us.
We will not have less, but more.
I tell you the truth, Jesus said to them, no one who has left home or wife or brothers or sisters or parents or children for the sake of the kingdom of God will fail to receive many times as much in this age and in the age to come, eternal life.--Luke 19:29-30

The only way to find this out, though, is to do it.

Denying the Storm

Guaranteed--
At some point, the pleasant circumstances of my life will fall into ruin--illness, poverty, separation from loved ones, famine, fire, storms of all kinds.

And when the ruin does come, there's only one thing to do.
Cleave to God.
Not as a rescuer from trouble, but as a strong rock above it.
Nothing else will save me. 
I may feel like I must be pulled to pieces, but I can remain intact, if not untouched, as I cling to Him.

This is how God saves:
As I cling to God, I become part of Him.
No misfortune has enough destructive power to overcome God, not when He resolves to protect what He deems needs protecting.

Troubles tear at the fabric of our lives.
They rip and snarl and destroy, but they can only touch what I expose to them.
A storm may rage and beat, but in God I am safe.
I am God's and He is mine.
The storm cannot touch where I do not allow it sway.
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?  Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?--Romans 8:35

The Reluctant Unknown

Jesus lived 90% of His life in complete obscurity. 
The Bible says almost nothing about Him until He began His ministry at 30, and He died at 33.
How could the Son of God, the coming Savior, go unnoticed for so long?

I think I know why:
He made Himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.--Philippians 2:7
He did exactly the opposite of what we normally do. He knew what He had to do, melted into His appointed place, and did it. Without fanfare. Content to go without credit.
When He turned water into wine at Cana, He didn't want any notice:
Dear woman, why do you involve me? My time has not yet come.--John 2:4
When He healed the leper, He told him:
Don't tell anyone but go, show yourself to the priest...Luke 5:14
When He was tempted, He did it alone.
When He suffered at Gethsamane, He did it alone.

Jesus did not need an audience.
Why do I?

I want to matter. I want notice, credit for what I do. I want to be recognized, known.
I am vain.
I count the hits on my blog. I wait with anticipation for comments.
"Oh, they like me..." I think.
Significance. The unquenchable thirst.

Like drunkenness and gluttony, vanity drugs me into overindulgence, and I disappear beneath its insistent desire:
All man's efforts are for his mouth, yet his appetite is never satisfied.--Ecclesiastes 6:7

There is only one solution. I must remember who I am. God does.
...He know how we are formed. He remembers that we are dust.--Psalm 103:14

Dust. I am dust before God. He made me and any vanity I have before Him makes me ridiculous.
I must expect no notice, crave no attention.
Instead, I must bathe in the attention of God alone, trust Him for all satisfaction, thank Him for every comfort, and honor Him for His glory.
And, as a result, I will probably be alone a lot, too.

Pay Attention!

Did you ever hold  wild bird in your hand?
So light, so small, so fleeting...bound to fly away at the slightest flinch.
Its quick, small weight is a rare gift and too soon gone.
I have to pay attention every minute lest it vanishes.

That bird is like God, whose nearness is also a fragile thing.

God--fierce, constant, powerful God--always hovers close by.  He occupies the very air. His love, ethereal and palpable, bears rare,  precious weight.

But it can fly away in an instant of inattention.
Although God, for His part, always loves, always protects, my own wavering drives Him off, just out of reach.

That is why I nurture my closeness to God like a sweet rare bird in the palm of my hand, knowing that, though He never changes, when I succumb to random motion, He will flutter off to a nearby branch and wait there until I am still again.

Though the mountains be shaken and the hills be removed, yet my unfailing love for you will not be shaken nor my covenant of peace be removed,--Isaiah 54:10

Going Home

Life gets tough sometimes and, when it does, I just want to go home.  Home.
But at this stage of life, where is home?
Not where I grew up, certainly.  Too much water under the bridge for that.
Not even where I currently park my hat--this place is complicated, expects too much.

I want to go where I am protected, where I am safe, where I am not in charge.
And I only know of one place.

The Lord is my Rock, my fortress and deliverer.  My God is my rock in whom I take refuge...He is my stronghold, my refuge and my Savior--from violent men You save me.--2 Samuel 22:2-3

Funny thing about my home, though.
I have to go there.
The refuge does not come to me where I am.
If I want its safety and protection, I have to surround myself with its parapets and gates, with its unyielding stone and battlements.  They will not form themselves around me.

God's strength is only available to someone willing to uproot from her normal dwelling place and travel what sometimes seems like a very long way.
And the trip is sometimes hard.
But protection and safety wait at the end.
Where all things turn out right.  Where someone bigger than me is in charge.
Home.

Breaking the Lease

I woke up today tired of the weight of this world, tired of unrelenting regret born on old sins, the same ones I slog through time after time.

And I prayed for relief:
"Father, please show me some good today.  Please show me that this sadness will not last forever.  Is there some way to know now that I can some day leave this heartache behind?"

And He said to me:
He waits for His enemies to be made His footstool.--Hebrews 10:13
Wait. Even God has to wait.  Even God looks forward to a time when He will ruthlessly remake all things, when all weights will be cast aside.

And, Oh, when the time comes, what a transformation He has in store!
The seventh angel sounded his trumpet and loud voices in heaven said, "The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of the Lord and of His Christ and He will reign forever and forever."--Revelation 11:15
The righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father.--Matthew 13:43

This world is not yet entirely God's kingdom.  It still bears the marks and influence of its most recent landlord, the devil, but not forever.  God will remake it--all of it.

I cannot know real relief until that day.  Until then, I will live with this surrounding pain, the effect of sin, my own and others'.  This morning, all I looked for was a little relief, a little rescue.  And what did my God show me?  An inheritance, a righteous kingdom, a holy priesthood, a shining sun in a perfect home where thrones ring 'round Him, my Father, and His Christ.

We dealt with you the way a father deals with his own children--encouraging, comforting, and urging you to live lives worthy of God who calls you into His kingdom and glory.--1Thessalonians 2:12
Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.--Matthew 6:10

Amen.

The Dichotomy of the Holy Place: Terror and Rest

Five or six years ago, a local summer camp erected a replica of the tabernacle, the wood and animal skin structure that the Israelites carried around during their forty-year wanderings, erecting and dismantling it at each stopping place. In it, Moses' people sacrificed and worshiped. It served as the center of their communal lives, and God visited them there.

Our local tabernacle replica started out as an attraction, I think. School and tour groups came to it, touching the bells on the priests' robes, handling the instruments of sacrifice, tasting shewbread. The structure stood in a open field away from the camp's main cabins and kitchen and meeting rooms, past a small woods and a stream filled with watercress, into a sun-filled clearing that may once have been a farmer's field. It rose against the distant hills as improbably as one of Frank Lloyd Wright's angular homes against fragrant forests and waterfalls. But after all the school groups got back on their bus, the tabernacle had a hush about it.

Its door faced east, and the sun rose beyond it, drawing all the courtyard structures into morning shadow. Entering in expectant silence, I lingered over the altars and basins, remembering that these places washed with blood most of the time. The hangings of the courtyard closed in. Within their high walls, hills and forest disappeared. The Holy Place, silent and covered with rich brocades and hairy pelts, stood at the far end. Like Moby Dick to Ahab, it beckoned.

Its draped door was heavy and moved aside reluctantly. Inside, the lampstand flickered in deep gloom. Incense burned lazily. Loaves waited for a priest or a hungry David that never came. At its far end hung another curtain. I knew what waited beyond: the Holy of Holies, the Arc, and the place where God met men.

I knew that the Israelites feared this inner chamber. They tied a rope around the priest's ankle when he entered in case God struck him dead when he approached. Even in this make-believe place, I sensed that fear. The Holy of Holies had no light and, although the sun had risen high in the outside sky, no ray of light, no breeze penetrated its thick coverings. No light, no sound, no motion. Like a sensory deprivation chamber, this inner sanctum allowed for only once presence: God's. The cherubim topping the arc bowed to one another in expectation, their wings almost touching in homage to the God who did not come that day. I found that I was relieved. The place itself brought pause enough.

The Israelites' God was awesome and terrible. Their tabernacle, awash with blood outside and with terror inside, drove this home. But God wants me to know him this way:

He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of His wings.--Psalm 91:1
How priceless is your unfailing love! Both high and low among men find refuge in the shadow of Your wings.--Psalm 36:7

God wants to shelter me under the same wings beneath which the Israelites so feared Him. He wants me to approach. He wants to protect me, not slay me, in His tabernacle. He wants to be my refuge. What changed? Why the shift from trepidation and suspicion to reassurance?

Moses' Jews could not approach God, but I can. In fact, He has invited me by name. Their sacrifices did not provide entry. Jesus' sacrifice, however, did. Today, I enter the tabernacle behind Jesus and because He has full access, so do I. God called me, God chose me, God drew me to this, and once there, offers the only true rest known to any man.

One thing I ask of the Lord, this is what I seek, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to seek Him in His temple. For in the day of trouble, He will keep me safe in His dwelling. He will hide me in the shelter of His tabernacle and set me high on a rock.--Psalm 27:4-5