Awake, soul

I stand on the trail under a sky so blue it could break my heart. It hovers above me with such profundity, the canvas of eternity. The mountains seem to hurl themselves deliberately into it, demanding attention: Look how beautiful I am! Below my ledge of earth the river laughs cold and clear, catching the weight of glory pressing down and throwing it back again, sparkling into the air. The earth shimmers this day. I can feel it worship.

I was not prepared for this. I pull out my heart-list of complaints, the shadow-burdens I have been collecting all week. I try to tell God my miseries, make Him understand the bitterness I feel. My words fall flat, pushed back into my soul like a song sung against the wind. Even my tears feel false and forced, an insult to the day.

I pray. Oh, to feel Your arms around me. To dance in Your presence. To know Your joy.

Do you really mean it? the river seems to say. The mountains grin at me. I am missing the joke.

I give up. At the coffee shop, I plug in my headphones, open my Bible.

The weight of all that worship out there presses down on me as the words pour into my ears:

Oh God, let Your fire fall down

Let it fall, let it fall

We welcome You with praise

We welcome You with praise

Almighty God of love

Be welcome in this place

Let every heart adore

Let every soul awake… (Chris Tomlin/Passion, Here With You, 2011)

And the earth cries out to me even as it cries up to Him, yearning upward toward the love that reaches down with the holy joy that says, Nothing else matters. Only this. This love, this moment when you stop and listen and let Me love you.

Let your heart adore.

Let your soul awake.

And God takes my bitter-list and gives me a new one:

Bless the Lord, O my soul; and all that is within me, bless His holy name! Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits:

Who forgives all your iniquities,

Who heals all your diseases,

Who redeems your life from destruction,

Who crowns you with lovingkindness and tender mercies,

Who satisfies your mouth with good things,

So that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s. (Ps. 103:1-5)

Forgiven, healed, redeemed, crowned, satisfied.

And oh, can’t you let go of yourself for once and fling yourself into this day of praise, forget yourself in the crushing wondrous holy joy of Him?

I smile. My heart does a little jig. I don’t understand why I suddenly feel so happy. So loved. But that’s the glory of this love that surpasses comprehension. Inexplicably, I know I am His.

More importantly, I know He Is. All of Him. All of it is true: all the power, all the promise, all the raging, pulsing, heart-shattering glorious love.

Bless the Lord, O my soul…

Resting in the darkness

The screaming lasts for hours sometimes. Standing in her crib, calling for mama, daddy, even brother, whoever might come and release her from the agony of bedtime. My comforting words, spoken over her in quiet whispers in the dark, do nothing to soothe her eighteen-month old anxiety.

Does she cry because she feels alone? Doesn’t she see the soft, restful place I have made for her is supposed to be a haven, not a cage?

Can’t she understand that I am doing what is best for her?

I want to tell her she will feel so much better if she just rests. I want her to understand that though she can’t see me, I am right there, bigger than the darkness. I can hear her. My love is always watching over her, and I would never, never let anything happen to her.

But in her childlike mind, she does not understand the darkness and the silence. It is not what she wants, and she throws herself against it. She does not understand that what I have in mind for her is even better than what she has in mind for herself.  

She must rest in the darkness in order to truly enter into the day.

She must let go of fear and anxiety and trust that I am there, that I have not forgotten her, that my love hovers over her, unseen in the darkness but as real as the blankets that warm her.

I sigh and muster all my patience and whisper it again, “Just rest. Just rest.” And isn’t this what my Father keeps whispering to me, the words in the darkness that I cry out against, the love that wants to soothe me to peace and trust?

“But I have stilled and quieted my soul; like a weaned child with its mother, like a weaned child is my soul within me.” Psalm 131:2

The action lies with me. To still and to quiet. I can choose this, because I know who is with me in the darkness.

The Truest Kind of Healing

I didn’t know the man, but I had heard that tone in his voice before. Joy. Awe. The previous week he had asked the elders of the church to anoint him and pray for him, and now he was almost dancing in his excitement to tell us how God had brought him relief from his disease.

His words pricked my heart. I had been prayed over once or twice before, and I knew many people who love me had prayed many times for healing from the arthritis that has twisted and swollen my body.

But I didn’t really believe it.

Honestly, I was resigned to my disease. I called it “mine,” made it a part of who I was, saying I knew God had a purpose for it in my life. And He did. God has used it in many ways already to teach me much about myself. My selfishness. My idols. And, most of all, my deep, deep fear.

Fear is the disease that keeps us from faith.

This disease was my thorn in the flesh, and I accepted it as such. People prayed with me and for me, but in my heart I expected nothing to change. This was what I deserved, after all. And I would do my best to bear the cross with integrity.

I didn’t go to the elders because why should I embarrass God like that? He and I both knew this disease was mine. Sure, He could heal me if He wanted to, but I didn’t really think He wanted to.

And then this man stood up in church and his words pierced. And the message that morning was about how we are chosen, set apart, called out for a special purpose. When we give ourselves up to God, we give up our rights. We become gloriously His.

And God spoke to my heart. What right do you have to not obey Me? Why do you trust man and not God?

The truth pressed into me. I I did not ask because I did not want to be disappointed. I did not want to give God the chance to fail me. So rather than give God a chance, I turned to doctors and medicine and the cures of man.

Trembling, weeping, I walked to the front where a group of elders and deacons stood waiting.  I want to be faithful. To give God this disease once and for all. He can heal me or not, but I want it to be His, not mine, to use as He will.

His, not mine.

They prayed, and a wondrous thought came over me in a rush. He CAN heal me. And for once, I knew it as a certain truth.

“God has a word for you. ‘Do not fear. Trust in Him and do not be afraid.’”

Like the arthritis that had twisted my body, fear had twisted my soul.

It remains to be seen whether my body is completely healed of arthritis, though I do feel better than I have in a long time. Maybe this is because of the real healing that is taking place.

My real sickness is the fear that keeps me from faith. Maybe God will heal me physically in order to prove His point, that He is faithful. And maybe if the physical healing does not come, He purposes to use the pain to accomplish a deeper healing, one that truly frees. If He heals me physically, will I be more awed than if He heals me from the scars of my fear?

I only know that when I obeyed, released my disease and with it my fear, God plunged me into His love. I do not have to be resigned to what I deserve. When I accept grace, I receive healing beyond what I ever imagined. I never knew before that receiving that unfathomable love would require a step of obedience.

The healing I really need is to experience His love for me. And I cannot receive love with clenched hands.

This morning it washed over me anew. Wondrous grace. Unsearchable love. Does He really love me enough to heal me, to just take the pain away, just like that?

My feet don’t hurt. My fingers on the keyboard are light. And in my heart a peace is blossoming, unfolding to the brightness of His love.

How to have a happy New Year

“I think I’m going to be happier this year.”

The conversation stopped and everyone looked at my friend. “Their jaws dropped,” she said of her husband’s family. Since “no one keeps their New Year’s resolutions anyway,” they had decided to make New Year predictions instead. Discussing politics, the economy, and the general state of the world, their forecast so far had not been bright.

“Then I said I thought I was going to be happier. They didn’t know what to say after that.”

How to be happy in a world choked with worry, fear, hatred, confusion, loss, selfishness, pain? How to decide ahead of time that this year will bring joy?

“I’m going to be thankful.”

There it is again, that word. Thankfulness seems too simple to be so powerful. Then again, there is a great difference between saying words of thanks and possessing a thankful heart.

A thankful heart, I am learning, does not have room for fear and worry. A thankful heart receives what is given without asking for more. Rather than wondering what tomorrow will bring, it is filled with wonder for today.

The more I thank Him for the wonders in my life each day, the more I find myself trusting Him. “His mercies are new every morning.” I find (wondrously) that I believe that. When the chaos of the day begins to settle and I finally stop and still, I am amazed to feel the warm comfort of peace within. I give thanks. The peace takes hold, spreads, smoothing out the wrinkles of stress and worry.

This is why my friend can predict a year of happiness. A thankful heart puts God in the spotlight, and God does not fail. Thanking Him for this moment, this present joy, this current place of provision, takes away the stranglehold of tomorrow’s uncertainty. And moment by moment, that faithfulness sustains me. Giving thanks roots me to now, to the God who holds me in His hand this moment. As I see that moment after moment He is still there, I learn to trust.

“So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness” (Col. 1:6-7).

A Year Worth Living

I know that I have life

only insofar as I have love.

I have no love

except it come from Thee.

Help me, please, to carry

This candle against the wind.

--Wendell Berry

No life without love. This is a good place to begin the year. After all, I didn’t begin the year with a clean house or a grand adventure or a neatly typed out list of resolutions. I didn’t begin as I should have, with Christ at the center. With one whole day of 2012 behind me, I have already marred the year with selfishness, sinful thoughts, and thoughtless words. So much for a clean slate.

There is much to anticipate in this new year, and if I am not careful, much to fear. Much at which to fail. I would be lying to say I do not have resolutions, even if I have not called them such. But what are any of these things without love? So easy to treasure tasks above people.

I want to live this year. And there is no life without love. I want each moment to be love-drenched, each task to be thoughtful and purposeful, and never more important than those for whom I do them.

No love except it come from Thee. That each moment be rooted in Him so the love will flow down.

Love never fails. If I fail at everything else, if all my plans and projects come to nothing, but I spend the year soaking up His love, filling each moment and word and work with the love that brings life, then this will be a year worth living.

Help me to carry this candle against the wind.