Worth the risk?

There are days when you walk alongside your friend, who is facing deep pain and unspeakably hard things, and you feel this powerless sorrow. You hear stories of profound spiritual warfare, stories straight from a movie script, and you are afraid. And the stories begin to reverberate through your little world, bouncing around and picking up speed and force, and the texts fly and the conversations become these fearful wonderings. Now what?

And you gather together with other friends and you start to put words to your

fears.

How could God let this happen? Where is He?

If this is what happens to people who draw near to God, then why do it? Why draw closer to God if it’s only going to hurt more?

You feel the enemy leering, grinning in the background.

Yes. What if you go all in for God and He makes you suffer too? And what if I am more powerful than you ever dreamed?

My friend who is suffering deeply, my friend knows Jesus like no one else I know. And I know what she would tell me.

It’s all worth it when you know Him.

Yes, when you draw in, when you really truly begin to seek God, you find Him. He fills you and you start to change the world around you. You become this light. And you do have an enemy who wants that light out. He’ll do anything to stop you.

The question is a valid one. Why draw near if the cost is so great?

Maybe it’s easier to just follow God a little bit. Maybe you don’t quite want to give Him everything, because after all, He’s not quite safe. Not quite predictable. And at the end of it all, maybe He’s not quite as good and loving as He says.

And maybe you do feel safe. Maybe you don’t feel pain. But you don’t feel joy, either. Not really. Now the enemy has you right where he wants you.

You haven’t risked everything, so you don’t know what it’s like when Jesus takes it all and gives you Himself in return. You believe these lies that you are OK because the truth, it just isn’t quite safe.

Or maybe you do risk it all. Maybe He takes it all and turns it to ash, right there at your feet, all your dreams decimated.

If this is what it means to follow You, I’ll stick with my dreams, thanks.

But what are you missing if you stick with your dreams? What if that perfect thing you hold to is only a shadow of the gift He longs to give? What if pain is the doorway to knowing Him for real, the only way to make us let go of our hold on the shadowlands?

When you start to get in His word and really take Him at His word, when you become desperate enough, you give it all up.

And then you see Jesus.

The one who thirsts for a cup of water is given a waterfall. The one who longs for a candle is given the sun.

The risk is worth it.

The truth is worth it.

It’s possible that you may have to suffer more than you can imagine. But it’s possible that life could become deeper, richer, more meaningful than you ever knew it could. It’s possible you have no idea what True Love is until you see it in your deepest pain.

And just maybe you and your sisters huddle together around your Bibles whispering your broken prayers. And then those whispers become louder and louder, they become a weeping and a lamenting, a praising and a claiming of all the things you know.

You offer up your hearts and you take up these flaming swords and you start to strap on this armor. You begin to feel strong. You meet again and you become bold. You become warriors. Promises begin to fly like arrows.

Something happens when you are struck by truth. You are pierced. And in your wounds you find either healing or destruction.

I think of my friend shining brighter than ever before. I think of the prayers she has ignited, the hearts that have been gripped by her story. I think of all the crazy messy beauty of her life and how the God she loves is blazing out of all those cracks, flooding over the rim of her soul and spilling out to touch us all.  I think of my sister-warriors and the drawing together of our hearts and prayers. I think of victory, and I think of the depths of his love that is the truth He longs for us to know, and I see how we are coming to know it, bit by bit.

He is worth it.

One touch

Luke 8:43-48

 

She slips into the crowd with a desperate push. She shuts her mind to the thought of what might happen if she is found out. No one will notice she is here. No one ever notices.

Unclean.

This is her name now. Her life. Twelve years of the bleeding that won’t stop, twelve years of the hemorrhaging away of her self and everything she once knew. Now she is only this steady flow of suffering. This disease no one can heal has taken all she has. This thing she never sought, never asked for, has made her an outcast. Unclean means unseen. Unfit. Unlovely. Unwanted.

Even touching others will make them unclean too. When was the last time she felt a human touch? She grits her teeth and pushes on as the crowd presses in around her. They will never know. She gasps at the unfamiliar presence of so many people. She trembles as she stumbles forward. Just keep your eyes on him.

She’s heard the stories and seen the evidence of his power. He has touched the unclean, has gone in among them as if he were born to do so, wading right into the suffering and ignoring the shocked faces of the religious leaders. His touch heals.

But how can she stop him with so many people watching? To beg him to touch her? How could she ask such a thing? What will they say when they realize how close they have been to her, she who does not have the right to be there, who has made them all unclean by her presence? And how can her shame bear up under the gaze of such power?

She pushes closer, inching toward the man who holds her only hope. The people crush her in their jostling to see him. They shout his name, scream for his attention, elbowing her in her slow fear. She cannot see him now. She will never be heard.

Through the press she sees only the edge of his robe. She fears him, but she fears more the desperation of this life of shame.

Touch his robe. Only touch him and you will be healed. She believes. She reaches out through the throng, fingertips brushing the fringe of his robe, the barest whisper of connection.

She stops. She falls to the ground. Power courses through her like living light. She feels the healing. Is this what it is to be whole? She weeps with the wonder.

Suddenly she is aware of the stillness, the thick silence. The crowd has stopped. A space has opened around him. They stare at Jesus as his question rings through the air again.

“Who touched me?”

She glances up. He asks the question, but his gaze is fixed on her.

She cannot hide now, but this newness within her gives her courage. Trembling, she kneels at his feet. He stands there, waiting.

“I just want to be clean,” she whispers.

“Daughter.” The word is so tender that she looks up. He is smiling. His eyes are filled with tears.

He takes her hands. The first touch she has felt in all these long years. He gently pulls her to her feet. His gaze, his touch, they fill her with such love and wonder that she forgets everything. This is the healing. Standing here in this moment, looking into that face and knowing she is loved completely.

“Go in peace,” he says, pressing her hands. “Your faith has made you well.”

The moment is broken by urgent voices demanding his attention, and the crowd moves on, some barely pausing to look at her curiously, most hurrying along to see the next big miracle. But his look stays with her, his touch still tingles on her skin.

She didn’t know she needed his love until he gave it to her.

And soon this one whose flow of blood has stopped will hear of his own blood flowing down unstopping, drop by drop, heart breaking for his daughter, heart

stopping for love of her. And he will be unclean. Unseen in cold stone.

But there is One who sees. And his love is a power that raises even the dead. And then she will be truly healed.

You are well. Clean. Whole. Loved.

And one day she will kneel once more at his feet that are scarred with his love, and she will not even dare to touch his robe. But he will touch her again. And this touch will sear her very soul, marking her for all eternity.

“Daughter. Your faith has made you well.”

What to do when all your pigs die. Part II

Mark 5:1-20

You have to wonder about a city that has a man possessed by thousands of demons. You have to wonder about a people who would send away the Man that others were flocking to see. It must have been a place full of darkness. A people full of fear.

What is the story of this man who Jesus healed? How did he come to be in such a desperate situation? Did anyone in that place still know him as the man he had once been? Did anyone still love him?

For so long he had lived without love. He had lived with the dead, waiting for death himself. When he looked into the face of Jesus, he saw love that set him free. He saw the joy it brought Jesus to do this. He saw peace, power, compassion.

He saw hope.

Surely anyone who came from such darkness and who then looked into that face and saw the truth of Jesus, surely he would never want to leave him.

But behind that man stood a host of people just like him. They may not have been demon-possessed, but they came from the same world, the same influences.

They had also seen the man in his raving. They themselves had bound him with chains and watched him break those chains in madness. They had seen his demons. They knew who he was.

They knew his secrets. His shame. His nakedness.

Who wouldn’t want to get as far away from that as possible?

And while the healed man was looking at Jesus, they were looking at a heap of dead pigs.

Though they may have stood in judgment, they were imprisoned in the same darkness. They needed the light; they just didn’t know it.

But Jesus knew it, and he sailed right into their lives and upended everything with a single word. He wasn’t about to let them go now. They were too afraid to listen to Jesus, but maybe they would listen to one of their own.

“Let me come with you,” the man begged.

Jesus shook his head, smiling gently, and pointed at the people watching from a safe distance away. They need me. And you can show them.”

He must have looked a little desperate at that point. Me? Stay in this place? Among these demons? With the people who hated and feared me?

“Tell them what I have done for you. Show them the way.”

Sometimes following Jesus means going back home. It means watching everyone else sail away and standing there alone, wondering what comes next. Then you follow that well-known path back among the people who gawk at you in suspicion. You go back into the place of your death and you open your heart to those who have seen your deepest shame.

Jesus knew that man had everything he needed. He had been through death and found life.

And it seems the man knew it too, because he obeyed. He went back and told everyone what had happened. He told them of his shame and of his healing. And the people marveled. They wondered about this man Jesus. And just maybe, as the man lived among his own and they saw the change was real, just maybe they began to seek this Jesus too.

What to do when all your pigs die. Part I

Falling: Advent Day 19

Magi

Matthew 2

I am a king-maker. A wisdom-wielder. A keeper of dark mystery. 

For hundreds of years we have shaped the world. One might even say we have controlled it. Men seek us out. They rely on our wisdom for guidance, as they have for generations. I understand ambition. I know well the pull for prominence, the quest for power. I have seen kingdoms rise and fall. I have watched men ruin each other and all they live for. I have myself lusted, devoured, plundered, and destroyed.

And then came the star. This thing so bright, so unmistakably new, dominating the night sky. We knew. Here is a great power. Something to change the world. 

Some of us searched the old, dark ways. But some of us readied for the pilgrimage we did not realize we had been waiting for. For there are promises we have clutched close in secret, remembering a people who offered a better way. 

Prophecies of a king. 

This star is what drove me across long deserts and days in search of the source of such a light. Night after night the light of that star burned into me, driving me on. For too long the things I hold inside me have darkened my heart, sickened my very soul. I feel myself rotting away, crumbling to dust inside my trophy walls, my gilded life. 

I am not sure what I expected, but it wasn't this.

I didn't look for peace in a peasant's hut. I wasn't seeking strength in the composure of a quiet girl. I did not expect to find such joy in a powerless place, such glory in this stillness.

But I know a King when I see one. 

And I know holiness when I step into the presence of something that sears the soul, that instantly exposes me for the fraud I know I am. And though I tower over this Child, I find myself collapsing before Him, face to the earth. 

Ashamed. Elated. Afraid. Hopeful. Undone.

How do you describe this feeling of being scooped out, scoured clean by love? How explain the emptiness filled by light, like a dark sky lit by a star you could never imagine? Like a longing burning its way through every thread and thought and breath until you feel you might die of it? Like a death and a rebirth all at once? 

How do you offer this King the gift you are now ashamed of? How do you get up off that patch of dirt where you belong and go back to the shadowlands? How do you tell this craving, thirsting, grasping people that they have it all wrong, that there is this holy hollowing, that the way lies not in rising but in falling? 

I do not know, but the falling is where it begins. The falling before Him and the giving way, again and again, to this surrendering. 

No answers: Advent Day 8

There are days when you feel you are just mouthing the words to something you don't really understand anymore. There are days when the sun of your hopes sinks behind the mountain of hurt looming large, and you walk in the shadows. There are days when the rounds of laundry and dishes and paperwork swallow up the laughter, when you look around at the word-wounded, the lonely, the poor, the dying, the rejected, the left behind, and you have nothing more to say. 

For all the big plans, for all the good intentions, for all you know you are supposed to say and do, sometimes Christmas is just about surviving. Sometimes the fear behind all that pain just swallows up the joy. 

And then it is easy to just go shopping. To bury all that sorrow under a mound of presents. To feed it lots of chocolate and sugar. To play bright music and cover the world with color and sparkle. To pretend you are a child again, innocent, happy; to fulfill every desire for every thing you ever wanted. 

Except that one thing. That aching thing that just won't go away. 

For that, you have to wait. 

You have to keep giving the sacrifice, day after day. You have to keep mouthing the words. You have to stand still under a night sky as vast and heavy as all your disappointment, and you have to look up.

And then God comes when you least expect it. Maybe you hear angel voices or see a star you never saw before. And you can choose to listen and believe and follow. You can take those incredulous, halting steps to a stable where a baby sleeps. And is this really the way God meets us? In the muck? In a nowhere place with a bunch of nobodies? As a helpless nobody himself?

But then you touch him. You feel the tiny weight of him in your arms and you think, This is God. And you sit aghast in the knowledge that the God who formed universes wanted to come this way, to fit in the crook of your elbow just so, and to be held. 

There is a longing in a God who comes like that. A yearning. And there are no easy answers. But there is a God who put on skin, who pushed his way small and bloody into our world, who grew up poor and walked dusty roads and slept in strange places. A God who touched our sores, who put his arms around our little ones, who struggled with his family, who made both friends and enemies.

There is a God who lived a whole life here and conquered it. All for love of us. He defeated death, but first he lived a life. Our life.

There are no easy answers, but he doesn't ask us to have answers. He asks us to follow the light, step into the stable, and hold him near. He asks us to sit still with him and let him be with us. 

He longs for us, yearns for us. If we wait for him, he will come.

A new name: Advent Days 4 & 5

Elizabeth

"Blessed is she who has believed that the Lord would fulfill his promises to her!" (Luke 1:45)

Barren.

That name had been hers for so long that she didn't know how to let go of it, how to not be that woman, empty, dried-up, hollowed-out with sorrow. 

She knew God could still use her, a barren woman. She served him in all the ways she could, doing things for other women that they often couldn't do for themselves. Because they had children. Because God had visited them and not her. Blessed them and not her. 

But he had blessed her. Her life was rich, even without children. She had even found a measure of peace in her old age.  She believed in her God, believed he would someday show her why. 

Still, her childlessness was like a robe she wore. An identity. Elizabeth, the barren woman. It was who she was. The emptiness was an ache in her, a sorrow that was now simply a part of things. 

But now. Now Zachariah looked at her every day with mute wonder. Now they couldn't stop smiling. Now she felt her womb swelling with life, and she realized that all along she had been waiting--holding her breath--for this. 

When Mary came and the baby within her leaped for joy, all those empty places in her flooded with light. God. In this woman, in this very room, overshadowing them with holy fear. 

These two mothers--one of a herald, one of a king--huddled in that holy place and watched the coming of God. In the waiting a love swelled and grew, a light that would fill the barren land and the empty, dried-up hearts of a people hollowed-out with sorrow.

And of course the name of her son would be John. His message--that God remembers, God rescues, God redeems his lost children--would begin with his name, spoken as a promise fulfilled. A name on the lips of a people who needed to know.

God is gracious.