What Scars Have to Say

Photo: godrunning.com

Scars.
I still have them. 
Painful reminders of my hurts. Throbbing echoes of hurts I caused.
And they don't go away.
Ever.

Heal me, I plead.
And God hears.
The bleeding stops, the wound closes--
But the scar remains.
Evidence of the hurt. Proof of the guilt.
Why doesn't it all go away?
I ask God: Why doesn't healing come with forgetting?

And God says: This is who you are.
Every hit you've taken, every blow you've given. They are part of you now.
Remember, He says. Remember your nature. Remember your origin:
From the sole of your foot to the top of your head there is no soundness--only wounds and welts and open sores.--Isaiah 1:6
My scars. Who I am. What I have done. What has been done to me.

Nobody gets to leave them behind his side of heaven. Nobody.
Even Christ wore His scars.
He stood in that room with His best friends, bright in His resurrected body. Alive again. Clean, victorious, and healed.
But those hands. That side.
Put your finger here. See my hands.--John 20:27
Still there. All the places of His own mortal wounding. Not smoothed over, not vanished beyond memory. Not comfortable.
But visible, both to Him and anyone who looked close enough.
His wounds, like ours, remained with Him.
Not for re-opening, but as witness. 

Christ's wounds bore witness to His perfection, His godhead.
My wounds bear witness to Christ in me.
My scars still stand ready to accuse, but they can also proclaim victory. 
Look at me, they say.
I have healed. I stand. I live.
I have known pain. I have inflicted it. See this ugliness? This is what it looks like.
Don't look away. You have them, too.

But this is the difference.
Because of Christ, I will not die from them. 

Got Hunger?

Photo: www.thecambodiaherald.com

How many times have we heard it?
"I'm starving. When do we eat?"
More than we can count.
And we've said it ourselves, plenty of times.
"I'm hungry."
Like it's something bad.

Actually, God likes hunger, and wants us hungry.
He does.

But I don't. I prefer satisfaction. I like the easy, comfy feeling of being full.
But, there's a problem with that.
When I'm not hungry, I'm not looking for anything other than what I've already got.
I'm complacent.

Hunger, on the other hand, is uncomfortable.
It makes me feel weak and incomplete.
And I don't like that.

In God's book, however, weakness and discomfort can be good things because they mean we know we need Him.
When I am full, I need nothing and no one.
Hunger, however, is a tool, a gift our bodies bring so that, rather than satisfying ourselves, we can find our satisfaction in God.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness for they will be filled--Matthew 5:6

Next time you have a meal, push away from the table before you're full.
See what it feels like to remain constantly unsatisfied.
See how long it takes before you look around for more.
And then...look to God.
Stay hungry, my friend.

Credit: besttextposts.tumblr.com

But Did He WANT To?

Credit: themasterstable.wordpress.com

Jesus saved us.
It's true, and most of us already know that.
But He was not just God--He was man, too, and I don't know about you, but I don't always want to do what I'm supposed to do.
It occurs to me today that maybe He didn't either.

I will not reject anyone who comes to me because I came down from heaven not to do my own will, but the will of the one who sent me and this is the will of the one who sent me--that I should not lose anything of what he gave me, but that I should raise it in the last day.--John 6:37-38

Is it possible that Jesus, as  man, was not always crazy about saving us?
That He did not always want to have mercy on the impenitent, on the ungrateful, on the clueless?
That unwillingness was one of the temptations to which He was subjected when He took on flesh?

Was Jesus sometimes tempted to let us have exactly what we deserve rather than to do as He was commanded? Did He sometimes have to grit His teeth to heal another ungrateful petitioner? To preach to yet another unhearing crowd?
And if He did, is it any wonder that I often feel the same?

I do not always want to love, want to forgive, want to extend my hand in kind patience. Today, I find solace in the possibility that Jesus, human like me, might sometimes have felt the same way. Jesus may have saved us, not because He always wanted to, but simply because His Father commanded Him to.

There is glory in this obedience, I think--to do what we do not want to do, what may not even make sense, simply because our Father in heaven has commanded it.
And, in the process, know that even Jesus did the same.

Don't Try to Pray

photo: jameskimlcop.blogspot.com

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.

Believing It Will Rain

photo: wairimuouma.wordpress.com

Noah. Almost everybody knows his story.
God told him to build a boat and, in it, put all the animals two by two because He planned to flood the earth. And Noah did.
It wasn't an easy job, though. The boat had to be one and a half football fields long. It took Noah 100 years to finish the job. His neighbors made fun of him, of course, but he remained faithful to the task.
I always thought Noah was an example of perseverance, but I was wrong.
Noah is an example of faith.

By faith, Noah, being warned by God concerning events as yet unseen, took heed and constructed an ark for the saving of his household; by this he condemned the world and became an heir of the righteousness which comes by faith.--Hebrews 11:7

Remember, faith is believing in what we have never seen. So what was Noah's leap of faith?
He had never seen rain.
In his experience, water had never fallen from the sky.
Now, that gives the whole boat building thing a new twist. How could he explain to anyone--his wife, his kids, everyone he knew--what he was doing? There was no way. It would make more practical sense for me to build a rocket ship in my backyard. At least I'd be able to point to the sky and the stars and say, "See? I'm going there!"  Not Noah.

So that begs the question, if Noah is an example of faith, what is my ark? Where is my promise of rain?
That is easier.
A God I can't see. A heaven I can't touch. An inner knowledge I can't explain.
My ark. My rain. My faith.

Why Do They Get all the Good Miracles?

Photo: latimesblogs.latimes.com

A pastor in Libya is rescued from a firing squad.
A child in Zambia is healed overnight from tuberculosis.
Christ appears to a man in an Egyptian jail who comes to believe.
BUT
Here, my sweet, believing friend dies from cancer.
Here, my father dies before acknowledging the truth of the gospel.

WHY?
Why do they get the miracles and we don't?

Hm... maybe because we don't need them in the same way.

After all, God gave us, here in the U.S., different stuff.
We have relative safety.
We have abundant wealth.
We have good health care.

The people in Libya and Zambia and Egypt don't. They have active war, and famine, and poverty, and rampant disease. I don't know why, but it's true.
So when they look for God, where do they find Him? In the places they need Him most.
And He shows up there.

And how about us? Where do we need God most?
It's not in the same places.
My friend who died got excellent medical care because God made that possible. And she didn't die in a fly-blown grass hut, alone and in excruciating pain. She died in a nursing home surrounded by caring nurses and loving family.
My father did not grow up in a Muslim nation that executed Christians, but in a place where the truth of Christ poured out all around him from nearly every member of his family, and by which he was consequently well-loved his whole adult life.
My friend and my father did not need the same kind of miracles.
And they didn't get them.

So where do our miracles come? 
Where do we most need God to intervene?

Consider the lilies, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. Do not seek what you are to eat and what you are to drink, or be of anxious mind. For all the nations of the world seek these things; and your Father knows that you need them. Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom.--Luke 12: 27, 29, 32

God gives us what we do not already have because there we will be most likely to see Him and His kingdom.
Only when we come to the end of our own resources will God make a miracle.
He has already given us gifts and expects us to use them.

Looking for a miracle?
Look to that place where gifts end, where strength fails.
Look to that place where only hope remains.
There is the stage set for a miracle.

Put the Book Down, Will You?

Photo: www.goodfidelity.com

So--we're watching "The Mummy", you know, the first one. The movie's about 2/3 over--Evie is defending herself against the just-revived, dessicated Anck-Su-Namun, Rick O'Connell is whacking away at dusty but determined Egyptian priests, and then there's Jonathan. Oh yes, Evie's aimless brother. He's on the periphery of the action with the all-important Book of the Dead, the book that holds the key to destroying the scary and dangerous Imotep. And Jonathan is, well, irritating.

There he is, book in hand, essentially out of danger, and his only job is to READ SOMETHING. I mean, how hard can it be? And he's COMPLAINING about it. And while he's doing it, and slowly, mind you, Rick and Evie are subduing real bad guys--dismembering them and scattering them to the winds. And what are they doing at the same time? HELPING JONATHAN.

That's right. Here they are, swords flying, giving the guy who risks nothing hints and help, all while keeping flesh-hungry mummies at bay. And while they do it, they are patient, articulate, and brave. Duh. What's wrong with this picture?

Well, nothing as it turns out. This, ladies and gents, is the way of our world. We are Jonathan. Yes, we are. I mean, really....when was the last time you ever had to really defend anything or anyone? When have you been in any real danger?

In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood.--Hebrews 12:4

No we haven't. And we're still complaining.
It's too hard, Lord.
Why me, Lord?
Give me, Lord!
Help....Help....Help....

And there's our God, sword in hand, defending us, or hands stretched out on the cross, dying for us.
We ought to have only one thing on our lips.
Humble thanksgiving.
Really.

We don't necessarily have to put down our own work, but maybe we ought to recognize what's really going on outside our little world, don't you think?