A little kingdom of one

God. 

It's all the prayer I can manage. This morning my heart is clogged with resentment and weariness and fear. I’m reliving painful moments and even inventing new ones just to prolong the resentment. And I finding that I want to be frustrated and angry, not just with the present situation, but with all my circumstances.

I’m fuming.

And then I read the devotional where the guy says he was irritated with his wife because she got in the way of his getting what he wanted. [1]

No fair, God. I was enjoying my pity party.

But you’re right. I want things. I want a lot of things, and to me they seem like good things. Even necessary things. And when people or circumstances get in the way of getting those things, I get grumpy.

Really, really grumpy.

Tripp writes about David, the author of Psalm 51. Some things had gotten in his way, too. So he just removed them.

Trouble is, removing the people and circumstances wasn’t the problem—it actually created much bigger problems, problems that were soon going to heave his world apart.

The problem was David’s heart.

The problem was David wanted things. Things that were all about him.

And David, realizing his problem—or rather, having his problem pointed out to him (isn't that just how it is with us?)--was quick to run back to God. Quick to confess that his heart had gone amuck.

“Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love; according to your great compassion blot out my transgressions” (v. 1).

His confession (you should really spend some time studying it; it's remarkable) isn’t the groveling of a slave before its master, pitiful words meant to ward off wrath. It’s the homecoming of a prodigal. The turning back of a son to his Father.

David humbles himself before the Father he trusts. He remembers God’s “unfailing love” and “great compassion.” This is the God he loves. The God he has spent hours and days with. The God who has rescued him over and over, who pulled him from the mire, who raised him up and made him king. He has sat at the feet of this God. He knows this God.

He trusts this God.

David turns from his own ways because he knows that God’s ways are better.

“True confession always results in living for something bigger” (Tripp).

The question hangs there, looking at me.

Do I trust that His ways are bigger?

Do I believe God’s love is unfailing? That His mercy is better than my agenda? That He will take care 

of me better than I take care of myself?

Well, that would require knowing God. Actually being with God. A lot.

“And so David, once obsessed with the temporary and impure pleasures of his claustrophobic little kingdom of one, now becomes excited with and engaged in the transcendent purposes of God’s big-sky kingdom” (Tripp).

Little kingdom of one.

OK, God. Really, I get it.

I say that I want to go deeper, know You more, and yet my hands keep clutching the familiar. Maybe those things I want and think I need are exactly the things keeping me from knowing You.

In worshipping his kingdom of one, David feared losing God himself.

“Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me” (vv. 11-12).

Do I fear losing God more than I fear losing my desires?

Grant me a willing spirit. To sustain me when my desires rear up like dragons and tell me to turn away. Make me willing to sacrifice my broken spirit, my contrite heart (v. 17).

Then I will teach transgressors Your ways (v. 13). Then my lips will open to speak Your praise (v. 15). Then You will delight (v. 19).

When it’s not all about me.

When I can look through the frustration and see You.

And I see that I do not know how to do this, not at all, and I go back to David’s plea.

“Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me” (v. 10).

You create. You renew. I only come and sit at Your feet.

Unclutch these hands. Help me raise these palms to You. If I cannot release this little kingdom, take it away, again and again, until I finally have You forever.

---

[1] Tripp, Paul David. Whiter Than Snow: Meditations on Sin and Mercy. Crossway, 2008. 

Saying yes

Dear Ben,

Today marks 13 years of saying yes.

That day in August we worshipped together, sang our hearts full with all of our friends and family. Do you remember? We knelt at the communion cup and tasted His sacrifice, marked our marriage by remembering. And you gripped my hands and promised me forever. 

Choose was the word we used that day. “I choose you.” We vowed to keep choosing.

It was easy to choose then, and it seemed like it would be easy forever. We felt that no one else had ever been this in love.

I remember in those early years wondering how love could get any better. I relished the newness, not wanting anything to come into our sacred place. I held tight to what we had, unwilling to change.

But things did change, as they always do, our lives carried forward on this unstoppable current, and our new love was bumped and battered and bruised and almost—almost—broken.

But you kept saying yes.

You chose.

And now I look at what time is making of our love, this once-fragile thing that is being shaped and polished and toughened. And I laugh at the girl who thought new love was the best love. This love—this choosing that has been tested by suffering and change and grief—this love is shaping me, too. Polishing. Toughening. And it is shot through with laughter and memories and hopes and joy, such joy.

And we are learning that it is never easy. We have failed one another again and again, and the world has failed us, and the things we thought our life would stand for are so much harder to take hold of than we ever thought.

But our choosing started with worship, with remembering and thanksgiving.

And that is what will keep us strong.

Worship.

Remembering.

Thanksgiving.

And that cup we held together 13 years ago, may it overflow into our choosing. May the melding of our lives be the gospel. May the Love that holds us together flood into our lives and remind us that all is glorious grace.

And joy is a choice too, and we will keep choosing joy.

I will keep saying yes.

All my love,

Julie

A perfect love

“You don’t have to be afraid,” I smooth back hair and hold my four year-old daughter close, trying to smooth back frustration at once again having this conversation.

“But what if a fire comes while I am sleeping?” 

This is the routine, the endless series of what-ifs that keep her locked in fear. Fear of fires in the night, fear of thunder, fear of strange insects, fear of being left alone.

I try all the arguments I can think of to calm her. I appeal to logic. I give her facts. Nothing works.

“Don’t you know you can trust me to take care of you?” She shakes her head. I give up and simply hold her until she is asleep.

On vacation at Disney World, we go to a spectacular light show. A voice over the loudspeaker tells us how Mickey Mouse will overcome his nightmare and conquer evil with good. Mikayla hears only the one word, “nightmare.” Burying her head in her daddy’s chest, she refuses to watch. She misses the princesses, the gorgeous dancing fountains of light, the flowers and fairies. We describe the wonders and urge her to look. Eyes squeezed shut, she misses the beauty for fear of the darkness.

How do I help her? What do I say? The truth is, I can’t protect her from every danger, as much as I want to.

And do I really wonder where my daughter’s fear comes from? Must I really ask why she dwells on the anxieties, why the things that might happen rob her joy of the things that are?

I have my own fears in plenty that keep me from rest.

We fear the things we cannot control. We worry about the what-ifs because we don’t have a plan, a way to keep out the pain and danger and loss.

I search for Scripture to pray, a verse to claim for my daughter’s tormented heart.

“There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment. But he who fears has not been made perfect in love” (1 Jn. 4:18).

There is no fear in love. When we know we are loved, we trust. The more perfectly we are loved, the more fully we trust.

Human love fails. My love for my daughter, strong as it is, cannot always protect her. A few minutes before the light show at Disney World, as we rushed through the crowds to find our seats, I lost her. I turned to help my other daughter, and when I looked again, Mikayla was gone. Those five minutes of searching and screaming her name felt like eternity. And after we found her, though we held her close the rest of the night, she lived in fear.

But there is a perfect love. A love that does not fail. Ever.

And perfect love casts out fear.

David, hotly pursued by his enemies, prayed, “When I am afraid, I will trust in you.” But in the very next verse he remembers the strength of His God and adjusts his prayer, “In God I trust and am not afraid. What can mere mortals do to me?” (Psalm 56:3-4)

The more we know God’s love, the less we fear.

A perfect love takes every pain and works it for good (Rom. 8:28). A perfect love makes beauty from ashes and joy from tears (Is. 61:3). A perfect love turns suffering into purest gold (1 Pet. 1:7).

When I choose fear, I tell God His love is not enough.

I tell Him that I do not trust He can take me through what looks impossible to me.

But I don’t have to be able to see the way through the darkness of uncertainty. I only have to trust that He can.

“He who fears has not been made perfect in love.”

When I understand that He can, He wants to, and He will, I begin to know His love.

There is only one way to be made perfect. There is only one path through fear. And those who know His perfect love, they are able to love more perfectly. 

“For whatever is born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith” (1 Jn. 5:4-5).

Home

Home

Welcome, winged one

into the place prepared for you

the home built by the upward

yearning of your heart.

Come and find your rest.

Walk the halls hallowed

by your humility

sit in these rooms made

spacious by your love

see the windows lit by the laughter

of your living.

This is home.

And now your eyes are glory filled

and now your lips sing

the praises you always knew

but couldn’t find words for

and now you touch the sacred

sandal of the One

who laughs for your homecoming.

Well done.

Our hearts echo

heaven’s cry.

And now this mansion

will fill with the joy

of you

and all eternity will know

that spark in your eyes

that brilliant laugh

that selfless way you have

of always giving,

open arms wide.