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.

Shhh....

Be still and know that I am God...

I must be still not only because You come in whispers, as for Elijah, but because You have something to say and will be heard, no matter what.

Be still and know that I am God. I will be exalted among nations. I will be exalted in the earth.--Psalm 46:10

I must keep still until the racket of ME dies down enough for me to remember Your thundering majesty. I have to interrupt my consuming self-possession so that You may be exalted. And You will be. You do not need my permission, but You do want my attention. You, who are my constant companion in all times and places.

When I am still, inside and out, You surround and consume me. It is then I see You more clearly, then I face my sins, then I find forgiveness. It is only then I know the quiet of peace, hope, and confidence in the middle of the only place they can exist, Your exultation.

Heaven on Earth--the Freedom to Confess

It's not hard to understand why someone who doesn't know God would be reluctant to confess fault. Someone who has no God, but has to admit their own imperfection, is not only wrong, but alone. It's a prison of sorts, propping up a sagging structure on no foundation, no way out, no way to repair what we know is in truth is broken. For someone who has no God, living with irredeemable wrong must bring dark echoes of fear.

Faith and the freedom to confess go hand in hand because for the faithful, confession brings no fear. If I bear fault, but have no God, I am wrong and alone. If I confess to God, however, I know immediate communion with Him. I have sinned, but He is always near to pick me up. I may fall to my knees, but rise by His side, and confession is the only gate that opens into this sweet field of grace.

In fact, taken to its logical result, resistance to confess sin constitutes a lack of faith. Reluctance to admit wrong demonstrates failure to understand the very nature of God. He is holy and I must remember it. Stubborn, intentional, ignorance of God's majesty circumvents knowledge of a love most obviously demonstrated in forgiveness. If I know who God is, I know who I am, and will immediately confess my sin. When I know who I am, I know who God is and will immediately worship Him. The concepts cannot be separated.

God does not deny or ignore my sin, nor can I. He faces it--calls it exactly what it is, and what I am in consequence of it. God tells me that I am wretched, not because He made me that way, but because I have turned my back on the very glory He put in me. But, even as God tells me the hard truth, and as I utter my acknowledgement of that truth in repentance, He extends His hand. As I struggle toward Him, He keeps picking me up. If I refuse to admit who He is, however, I struggle alone.

Repentance brings me directly into God's throneroom, at His feet, in His presence. If I stand on my own strength, unwilling to admit fault, I stand alone and know the fear of it.

If we confess our sins, God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. I we claim we have not sinned, we make Him out to be a liar and His word has no place in our lives.--1John 1:8-9

Until your old age, I am unchanged, and until your hoary years I will carry you; I made you and I will bear you, I carry you and I will rescue you. To whom can you liken Me, or consider equal, or compare Me that we should seem alike?--Isaiah 46:4-5

Means, Motive, and Opportunity

They crawl up on me sometimes. The basic, vital truths about God that exist all the time, all around, just sneak up behind me, then all in a moment, jump up and say 'Look, here I am!' These truths, the ones God saves for special gifts, these I treasure in my heart, like Mary. I put them in a special place, take them out in private moments, turn them over in my hands and say, 'Oh, yes, you still are beautiful.' And so today.

Not by might or by power but by my Spirit, says the Lord--Zechariah 4:6

Short and sweet. And so simple. When I see God, I see power. I look into a thunderstorm or an avalanche and see Him. I hear birdsong and a baby crying and see Him. I feel a bird's shy feathers or the sweet pressure of a kiss and see Him. He is wind. He is flame. But He tells me that, no, He is not to be found in only those ways. He wants me to recognize all of Him.

God differentiates Himself. He is three and one, but Jesus does not know everything He will do. He is three and one, but He both keeps and reveals secrets. By faith, I connect to His power (see yesterday's blog), and through that power, I usually think I understand Father and Son, but He shows me more. He shows me His Spirit.

I see power, but God says no, you see Spirit. His power is Spirit. His strength is Spirit. Spirit moves mountains. Spirit cracks thunderbolts. Spirit breathes out wind. Spirit raised Jesus from the dead.

Spirit provided the motive power that made the world from the Father's creative idea. Spirit embodies motion and work. So, the Father, Son and Spirit exist as concept, flesh, and work, all holy, all finding expression through me, their mirror image.

When something is conceived, it is through the Father. When something is done, it is through the Spirit, using the hand of the Son. This is why Jesus never knew the day or the hour. Knowing comes from the Father. doing from the Spirit, and means from the Son. Perfect. But I already knew that.

I've Got the Power!

 



I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which He has called you, the riches of His glorious inheritance in the saints and His incomparable great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of His mighty strength, which He exerted in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly realms.--Ephesians 1:18-20

If I interpret this correctly, Faith = Power.

Faith, which is a gift from God, provides a gateway through which He downloads the very same power He employed to raise Christ from the dead. This, indeed, is the 'incomparably great' power to which this verse refers.

The Greek word for "heart" here is "kardios," and means inward illumination or visceral understanding: a knowledge, then, that comes through faith.

Faith brings understanding, not intellectual acknowledgement, but something deeper.
This is why God wants me to have faith. He does not look for some kind of rock star adoration. He does not want me to throw my intelligence to the curb. He does not want a mimicking automaton. Instead, He knows that faith connects me to Him in a way nothing else can. Faith plugs me into His power and through that connection, brings the glory and joy He always intended for me and still wants for me.

Faith, my friend, brings power. The same power He used to raise Jesus Christ also raises me.

The 40th Power

For thirty-nine chapters, the book of Isaiah cries out blistering warnings: cities and civilizations will fall. Jerusalem, Egypt, Moab, Babylon will be defeated. The Nile will dry up. The land will be desolate. God will enact judgement on the idolatrous.

Isaiah sings a sad litany of sin, details the error of those who said they loved God. It builds a tower made of example after example of wrongdoing and then topples it with one wide swipe. God's people bury themselves in the rubble, a pile that dwarfs 9/11 in that it is anchored by sin and condemned by eternal judgement.

Then, I turn the page.

Comfort my people, say your God. Speak consolingly of Jerusalem and proclaim to her that her period of exile has been completed, that her iniquity has been forgiven...A voice calls out in the wilderness--clear the way of God; make a straight path in the desert, a road for our God.--Isaiah 40:1-3

Blossoms rise in the field, voices open in song, and God carries his people on eagles' wings. Suddenly, hope and strength grow where only dust and ashes lay. But they do not come on the strength of men. They come only with the power of God.

Ascend upon a high mountain, O herald of Zion; raise your voice with strength! Raise it, fear not; say to the cities of Judah, "Behold your God!"--Isaiah 40:9

Men, then, remain weak and corrupt. If they finally triumph, it is because God carries them in His mighty arms. If they rise from ashes, He clears their eyes. Beginning with Chapter 40, Isaiah draws a stunning picture of the heights to which God can raise men who look to Him. He shows us our future. He shows us our Savior.

Exponents in math show growth densely multiplied and mathematicians call them powers for a reason. Each successive power builds on its predecessors, zeros upon zeros, until they soar in imagination. Isaiah's prophecy builds in much the same way, and by Chapter 40, he has taken us nearly to heaven. From then on, we see visions and dreams and images of God's beautiful powers that inspire and bring hope to anyone sad and torn. Isaiah, through intense contrast, sings of God's glory in a way that multiplies grace and soothes our spirit.

Waiting for Freedom

I've heard stories about soldiers who missed news that their war had ended. Either they hid in some remote location for months or years, still nurturing terror for their own particular conflict, or they lived under the torment of captors who never told them they'd already lost. Either way, these poor souls had already been liberated, but didn't know it.

I am reminded that, if I believe in God, if I acknowledge that an entity exists who created me and our entire astounding, complex, beautiful world, then I open the door to a complete other existence. If God exists, so does eternity, so does evil, and so do other forces we call names like angels, demons, spirits, forces, powers, dominions, heavenly realms. I can't touch them or will to experience them in any way, but because God exists, they are there, all around, all the time.

Men like me were made to have dominion over the earth, but we share that dominion with all these other forces and beings, and with God having power over all. Our world approximates a battlefield, squirming with wounded, some of whom who don't even know they are hurt, some who can't or won't see the struggle going on around them.

I am often like the soldier who had no idea his own war had already ended. The enemy is here, as are my comrades, but I can't see them. How can I possibly know what is happening? I am detached, deliberately kept out of the supernatural loop, yet engaged. I know opposition and attack. I recognize rescue, but don't see what's going on at the command post.

I live in the limbo where the battle continues even though the war has already been won. God did this on the cross, declared victory, and sealed my fate. My place awaits. Until then, I have to keep my gun loaded and ready at my side.

And, having disarmed the powers and authorities, He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.--Colossions 2:15
And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with Him in the heavenly realms.--Ephesians 2:6