Confessions of a broken heart

I have been hiding. 

Maybe you have noticed. (Probably not.) But in case you did notice, I ran away. 

From words, from the world, from myself. Honestly, so much grief has piled up inside of me that I'm afraid to let it out. I have tried to say so many other things, but none of it is genuine. The only thing real right now is my sadness. I don't like it, but there it is. 

There is too much sorrow. The lament grows inside of me and I find myself afraid to speak aloud all that I feel. I am afraid of the force of my questions and often my doubt. I’m afraid of the grief that threatens to turn to unbelief. I am afraid of myself, and so I squelch myself, push me down, keep me away. I have become good at hiding.

The problem is that now I feel wholly unalive. And like the prophet, the words I deny are like fire in my bones. I must speak, even if it is only to question and to wonder.

I have been crying for Him to come and not seeing his coming. I have been frustrated and confused. I have been ashamed at my doubts, but doubting nonetheless.

But I have also been reading through the Bible. He has told me story after story of Those Who Stayed.

There is the story of the man who hated himself and hid from the world and thought he was no good for much of anything, but he stepped back into the sights of his enemy and helped to set a nation free.  

There are those three teenagers who lived daily with those who despised them and accused them and insisted they were NOT ENOUGH, but they would not bow to the god of success and instead walked right into the fire.

There is the girl who tucked her fears behind her beauty and tried to ride out the thing that was happening to her. She was good at hiding. But she became the one who stepped right up and looked death in the face and instead overcame it, for her whole people.

There is the leader who encouraged his people, day after day, to keep building the wall, even when the enemies daily assaulted and frustrated the work. He never backed down.

And best of all, there is the boy who never wavered, the boy with a sling who saw not a giant but a fool scoffing at the One Thing he knew to be true. He stepped up and conquered, and he kept stepping up for the rest of his life.

They all could have run. Could have remained silent and hidden and alone. But they heard a Voice, and they knew a Name, and they experienced a Love that changed them. And I’m sure they doubted. I’m sure they struggled with unbelief. I’m sure they sometimes despaired and often felt very alone.

But hope that is seen is not hope. There is a promise worth believing in. And when His words come to us, we had better not keep them in or they will devour us. When we act in spite of fear, in spite of sorrow, in spite of doubt, then we get to see Him come. And he will come.

I write this mostly to myself but maybe to you, too. I write this because I must. Because there was a Man who came and stepped right into the enemy’s sights and lived a whole life under his hatred. And the lies piled up all around Him and the darkness pressed in, and He stayed. He let them kill Him. He knew what hope is. He knew the One who spoke His name in the darkness.

And the truth set Him free.

The truth will always set us free.

“When they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly” (I Peter 2:23).

“To this you were called.” (1 Peter 2:21).

I’m starting to see that as long as I hide in silence, I cannot really know Him. I cannot go where He is if I do not put my hand in His. And He goes to broken things. He goes where the hurt is. He wants my lament. He can use it, if I will let Him. And in that space where my cry rises up, His love will press down.

So I will lament, but I will also praise. I will sorrow, but I will hope. I will grieve, but I will choose to believe. Because there is a cloud of witnesses who have believed before me. Because I have known His Love and heard His Voice. I will stay because the world needs me to. 

Don't run away. Run to Him. Ask Him to show you that you are beloved. Stand in the fire and believe in the power of His truth to free you from all the liars. Even yourself. 

Stop starving

"Your words were found, and I ate them, 

and Your words became to me a joy
and the delight of my heart,
for I am called by Your name,
O Lord, God of hosts."
Jeremiah 15:16

I wonder how it was meant to be, before we fell for the words of a lie and the thing You made was broken. I wonder what it was like, the words leaping from Your lips into the void, one by one, each sound birthing a miracle?

When your God is a God whose every word breathes life, you'd think we would learn to listen. 

You'd think we would do anything for those words, sacrifice anything, go anywhere, do whatever it takes to gorge ourselves on the life-giving love of a good and gracious and powerful Creator. 

Oh, what we were meant to be. 

What we would be if we ate Your words like we were starving, clung to the sound of Your voice like it was the only thing we need. If we believed that every single word is what we are made for.

We have fled into silence, and instead of returning we starve ourselves with noise. 

Our hearts are ringing from the clamor of the lie: You are not enough.  

Your words are the lifeline You give us to draw us through the void. We think that You are absent, that You hide, but You are always here if we stop to listen. And when we listen, You call us by name, which is Your name, for we are Yours. 

Your word is who You are. It is joy, it is delight, and it is enough. It makes me enough for this place. It gives shape to suffering. It satisfies. 

It is the only thing that satisfies. 

Teach us to listen. To still. To breathe in Your breath as if our lives depend on it, for they do. 

Psalm 63

O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you;my soul thirsts for you;my flesh faints for you,as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.

So I have looked upon you in the sanctuary,beholding your power and glory.

Because your steadfast love is better than life,my lips will praise you.

So I will bless you as long as I live;in your name I will lift up my hands.

My soul will be satisfied as with fat and rich food,and my mouth will praise you with joyful lips,when I remember you upon my bed,and meditate on you in the watches of the night;for you have been my help,and in the shadow of your wings I will sing for joy.

My soul clings to you;your right hand upholds me.

But those who seek to destroy my lifeshall go down into the depths of the earth;
they shall be given over to the power of the sword;they shall be a portion for jackals.

But the king shall rejoice in God;
all who swear by him shall exult,
for the mouths of liars will be stopped.

To Peter: A Letter

I see you. Standing in the darkness of your betrayal. Weeping at what you have done. You did what you vowed never to do. Never did you think you were capable of this. You have failed. You are at the utter end.

You have denied the One Thing that drove you, the thing you said you would give your life for. Turns out your life is more precious to you than you thought. More precious than that One Thing. So precious that you would turn away from what you love most.

Look up. Look at me. I see you. I know you. Remember? I knew you would be sifted and exposed. I prayed that your faith would not fail.

But your faith was in yourself. And this faith must always fail in the end. The faith I have prayed for is the faith that rises from this brokenness.

You have served Me so fervently, so passionately. And each day you have become more satisfied with yourself. Zealot. Servant. Disciple. You truly think you have given all.

But who did you do it for? And why?

Now that you have betrayed everything you thought you were, do you see? Do you understand that it was all for you all along? 

Look at Me. You have denied Me. Rejected Me. And now you think that all is lost. But your life is now beginning, beloved. I am looking at you. And this way that I go? It is for you. I came for you. I have something for you that is far better than anything you could do for yourself. And now you can see it.

Walk in the bitterness of your shame. Step into the fear. Follow your failure straight to the cross and watch my blood flow down.

For you.

This is where faith begins, beloved. When you weep the bitter tears of death, the death that I died. For you. When you run to the tomb and find it empty, when you finger the burial cloth that could not hold back my love. When you touch my hands and my feet, when you see the love that is more than enough for your shame. When you remember how you stretched out your hand and I pulled you from the waves, how I calmed the storm, fed the hungry, made the blind see, raised the dead. They are all you, beloved. I came for you.

 This is the faith that will not fail. The faith that knows your desperate need of me. 

You could not be transformed without first being broken. But now, beloved, now you will really know Me and not just your idea of Me. And now I will strengthen you, and you will strengthen your brothers and sisters.

Don’t you know that when you reject Me, I always turn toward you? Do you not see that I am looking at you, and My look is all love?

Look at Me, and know My love, and know that you can never lose it. All is grace.