Trusting the One Who Does Right

Proverbs 19:11

“Good sense makes one slow to anger,

and it is his glory to overlook an offense.”

I’ve been thinking about how freeing it is to not have to be offended or outraged all the time about things that happen in life.  We live in a culture of the perpetually offended, don’t you think? Take a look at social media – or better yet, don’t if you would rather not swim in the stream of hasty words, what seems like almost purposeful misunderstanding, and hashtag activism – and you’ll see it played out in thread after thread. 

What got me thinking recently was when my son came home from school telling me about the nasty behavior of a parent who was picking up their student when my son was trying to get out of the student parking lot. The details do not matter here, but anyway, as my son described it, I felt my mom outrage building and fighting thoughts of shaming on Nextdoor social media, until I realized something. I wasn’t there. I did not see the bad behavior. I trust my son’s account of the details was accurate, but he could be mistaken. No matter, it isn’t my job to judge hearts. It’s not my job to be offended or outraged about bad – even sinful – behavior in the school parking lot. All of a sudden I realized, I don’t have to be angry about this.  God saw the whole thing. He knows every detail of it. He knows the state of the hearts involved. I can trust Him to be the just Judge who sees and knows it all.

This was just a minor little thing, but I did start thinking about how often when I feel that familiar sense of outrage or offense building in me, that it is often over something that I really have no business worrying about. Even when the offense is very real, I do not have to choose to hang on to it.  And, dear ones, being offended or outraged IS a choice. What did Jesus do? He suffered true injustice and what did He do? He did not revile in return when reviled and He continued entrusting Himself to the One who judges justly. (1 Peter 2:23). This is to be our mindset. I can, and MUST, trust God to do what is right. Always.  Even when it seems difficult and circumstances don’t look like I want them to. He knows better than I ever can what is best for me. This thing I’m facing is from Him, in His Providence, so I must trust that He knows best what He will use to conform me to the image of Christ. In the midst of even great difficulty, I must trust that His grace is sufficient. Always.

As I’ve been thinking about this, the idea that I don’t have to be offended or outraged by what other people do – or don’t do, for that matter -  I started thinking about it from another angle. If I’m to continue entrusting myself to the One who judges justly, continue trusting the Lord of Creation to do what is right, then that touches on all circumstances. I have NO right to be angry with God if there are things in my life I would rather are not there.  Life is hard. Difficulties abound. Things aren’t always fair, or what I would choose for myself or my loved ones, and some things are so hard we can find ourselves screaming at the darkness.   Sometimes we face things I really wish we wouldn’t have to. Sometimes we get hurt, or sick, or really truly difficult things come into our lives, or maybe we are treated unfairly or unjustly, Some days things just seem hard. Even then, what I must cling to is the conviction that God knows best what to bring into this life He has graciously given me. He knows best what will conform me to His image. If I complain, what I’m actually saying, whether I consciously think about it or not, is that I think I know better than God does what is best for all of us. That is not walking in faith. That is self-centered pride.

These have been hard things I’ve been learning and pondering, but I believe it is right. And ultimately, when I give over my ‘right’ to be offended, or hurt, or angry, pick the emotion that fits, it is, ultimately, extremely freeing to trust in Jesus, to believe that in God’s Providence this thing I’m facing is my portion, and to surrender to the conviction that to trust Him in all things is best. I'm not saying we sit back with a sense of fatalism and do nothing, nor am I saying that we passively ignore or excuse away sin, nor that we never remove ourselves from dangerous situations.  I'm saying that as we go about addressing the hard things in life, doing what comes next, doing what we are called to do in being light in the midst of a dark world, weeping or even grieving when it's right to do so when that is our portion, too, in all things, that we do it with the conviction that God knows best and will do what is right, that His grace is sufficient for us in those things that seem so hard to bear, that we do all that we do with His glory for our aim and ever in front of us. 

May I continue to learn something I have not mastered yet, but long to have more and more become the character of my heart, as we read in Philippians 4:5-6, to not be anxious about ANYTHING, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with THANKSGIVING to make my requests to God – and the peace of God which surpasses all understanding will guard my heart and mind in Christ Jesus. 

Honoring Our Father and Mother

This past weekend my brother and I and our families had the privilege of gathering together to celebrate my parents and their 50th wedding anniversary. What a blessing this was!  This past year has been full of some rather significant physical challenges, and I am incredibly thankful the Lord allowed us to have this weekend to honor our parents and celebrate together. It was wonderful to have all of us together, as we don’t get to do that very often with my family living so far away from everyone else. 

As we began thinking about what to do for this milestone occasion about a year or so ago, my brother told me of the project he wanted to do as a gift for them. Several years ago, my dad was teaching an adult Sunday School class at their church and working through the book of John, and he began sending his notes to my brother and me to share. My brother thought it would be a great thing to compile all those notes into a book format, and he worked for the better part of the year getting that accomplished.  What he produced was beautiful. We also wanted something to honor my mom’s art work, and we had the idea of taking some of her paintings and making a printed book of them for her. I think they were pleased with our gifts, and I’m so very thankful we got to spend the time with them that we did this weekend, celebrating God’s kindness and grace through 50 years of marriage. 

My brother did me the kindness of asking me, as the oldest child, to write the forward for what became the three volume set of “Lessons on The Gospel According to John.” I thought I’d like to share what I wrote here on my blog, as it is a small token of gratitude for the legacy God has graciously given our family:

The righteous who walks in his integrity - 

blessed are his children after Him!

Proverbs 20:7 

When my brother, Tim, first suggested this project as we were discussing our parents’ upcoming 50th wedding anniversary and what we could do to honor them, it seemed like a great idea.  As I’ve thought about it, what could be more fitting a tribute to what has been a driving and most important theme throughout their marriage than to honor their love for learning and teaching God’s Word? Yes, this project is my dad’s notes from the many months (years!) he spent teaching through the book of John with his adult Sunday School class at Faith Presbyterian Church. We have these notes because of his love for my brother and me and his wanting to share the truths he was learning and teaching with us, but the legacy of my and my brother’s lives is to have grown up with TWO gifted Bible teachers for parents. 

When my parents were a young married couple, they moved to the Space Coast of Florida as my dad began working at the Kennedy Space Center (my husband likes to tell people that his father-in-law is a real rocket scientist). Not only did that begin my dad’s professional career, but they quickly found First Baptist Church of Merritt Island, FL, where a dynamic preacher by the name of Adrian Rogers taught the Bible every week in a way my parents had never heard before. They loved it. They began growing spiritually and learning to study God’s Word and understand it better, and eventually to teach it. I remember my mom teaching children’s Sunday School and VBS for many years, and some of my earliest memories of that church were going over to the old Job building where my dad taught a couples class, and if I close my eyes, I can still smell that building and see some of those faces that I haven’t seen in years. My mom’s love for GA’s led her to teach it for a while when I was at the age to be in her group, and summer GA camp gave me some of my very first tastes of what it means to study the Bible and have my own quiet time in the Word. Later my mom went on to teach a women’s class, and even when I would come home on college breaks, I preferred going to her class than back to the youth and college class. I still remember her taking one lesson to diagram the first sentence of the book of Hebrews - ever the English teacher, as well.

Growing up in our home, my brother and I knew how important the Bible was to my parents because they talked about what they were learning all the time. I used to like to say it was part of the warp and woof of our life. It’s not so much that we had tons of ‘formal’ Bible training times, but that as they learned and grew, they talked about it - either to each other and around us, or directly to us, but always we knew how precious the truths of God’s Word were to them. So much of what I know about the Bible was caught just by growing up in a home where these things were not just something we heard on Sunday then put up on a shelf until the next week, but they were life to my parents. And believe, me, children notice these things. For my mom and dad, the Christian faith is everything. They love Jesus and they love His word, and they talk about what matters. 

When my parents discovered the doctrines of grace as they studied the Bible and prepared to teach, it brought them, eventually, great peace. Though the journey eventually led them away from the church that had been home for so many years, God graciously brought them to a new home at Faith Presbyterian, where my brother and I have watched them bloom. As my mom said, finally the pieces fit and she had been given the key for which she had been looking. God is so kind to His people! 

How thankful I am to have that legacy. The older I get, the more people I meet, the more thankful I am that God placed me in a home where my parents were real. They are not perfect people, there are no perfect families, but they are real and they love the Lord and His Word, and He has granted them both the gift to teach it well, and they have loved my brother and me through all of our ups and downs, and I’m so grateful God gave us these parents and this family. How thankful I am to have heard the gospel early and young and to have the example of two people who weren’t merely nominally interested, but invested in His Word. It is an immense blessing to a child to grow up in a home where Jesus is Lord and her parents are seeking to honor Him, where the faith is a part of who we are, not just an add on or something we do on Sundays. To this day, when I have biblical questions, I know I can go to my mom and dad and they will either be able to answer them or know how to search it out. They have modeled this since we were children, and their counsel and advice was biblical and practical.  For this I am grateful.

With these volumes we get to share the notes my dad shared with my brother and me as he was teaching the rich book of John. John is the book we often counsel new believers to read first, as it is so rich and such a glorious portrait of the Deity and majesty of Christ. My dad was excited to share his notes with us since we were far away raising our own families and couldn’t sit in on his classes except for the rare times we got to visit, and now, my brother has labored in love to set them into a bound series of volumes that we can present as a gift to honor my parents as they celebrate 50 years of marriage. We also felt that a fitting tribute would be to print some of my mother’s paintings on the bindings of these volumes, and for that we chose three that seemed fitting for John, “The Word” with the Greek LOGOS, “The Last Trumpet,” and “Faith Station Church” from her series of church paintings. 

Mom and Dad, from both Tim and me, thank you for loving us and always being ‘on our side,’ and for modeling faithfulness in marriage, and most importantly, thank you for pointing us to Jesus. That is the greatest gift any parent can give their children, and you have done it well, continuing on to your grandchildren, who share in this wonderful legacy.

Happy Anniversary, Mom and Dad, with much love. Thank You, Lord Jesus, for the blessing of a Christian home. I am more grateful than I can ever adequately express. 

Treasuring God's Word

Psalm 119:11

"I have stored up your word in my heart,

that I might not sin against you."

Psalm 119:24

"Your testimonies are my delight; 

they are my counselors."

Psalm 119:54

"Your statutes have been my songs in the house of my sojourning."

Psalm 119:105

"Your word is a lamp to my feet

and a light to my path."

Psalm 119:144

"Your testimonies are righteous forever;

give me understanding that I may live."

Every time I think I'm going to get back to more regular blogging, I seem to let life get in the way. I am in a different season of life than I was when I started this blog almost 11 years ago. And that is ok.  Once I discovered Facebook, I tended to drift over there more and more, finding it more 'social' to a point since the people I interact with there are people I actually know, and somehow in the midst of that, and in the midst of several moves and my children getting older and myself getting older, blogging here has fizzled. I didn't intend that, but here we are.

Anyway, something I'm noticing recently is that I spend too much time scrolling through Facebook and I haven't always been as careful about sharing there as I'd like to be. Between the tremendous time waster I've allowed it to become and the fact that my Facebook feed is often filled with questionable theology and frustrating things to read, I've decided it's time for me to turn it off more often and check it less. I've also found myself in rather a bittersweet time of life as my oldest child is just about to graduate from high school, and in spite of all the wonderful things that come along with that, I am also finding that sometimes at odd moments I'm brought to tears and I struggle to fight for joy in the midst of it all, knowing that God is good and so very kind to His people and that He loves my son oh so very much more than I ever could. I know that every mother probably knows this odd tug at her heart that I am suffering, when her children begin to spread their wings - between the joy of watching them succeed and the memory of all the joys along the way (and sorrows and struggles, too - all the things that have gone into making him who he is today) as you sort through the pictures and memories of the boy he was and the man he is becoming, the tears will fall, but they are good tears, and I think even they are tears stored up in the Lord's bottle. (Psalm 56:8 "You have kept count of my tossings; put my tears in your bottle. Are they not in your book?) Oh, how the Lord knows of my 'tossings' as I've cried out in the night when sleep is fleeting at times.

While thinking all that, I realized I need the discipline of actively putting off time-wasting thoughts and putting on more fruitful thinking. I've noticed that as I've grown more comfortable with my smartphone, I've grown much less able to concentrate on reading or anything else for longer periods of time without 'needing' to check that stupid phone. This is not good. I want to retrain my brain to think more deeply than a Facebook meme and longer than the next 'hit' of scrolling through what people are saying - quite often nothing all that important, it turns out.

I was remembering fondly the time I spent a few years ago memorizing the book of Philippians. At the time I was following a blog that encouraged its community of readers to Partner to Remember and we spent four months together memorizing Philippians. That was such a neat thing. I had never before tried to memorize a long Bible passage like that, and the tips and techniques I learned made it a very enjoyable and challenging experience. While I was working actively to memorize that book, I was constantly going over and over the verses, thinking scripture all the time, and praying scripture, and it was just a sweet thing to be filling my heart and mind with God's Word, and it was also a time of discipline to commit to the long haul and train myself to spend hours and hours memorizing, as I woke up, as I sat, as I walked along the way, and I want that again. It was amazing how often the very verses I was learning would come to mind as counsel and comfort and wisdom in prayer.

So, here's what I've decided to do. I just spent about a week memorizing Psalm 1, and now I'm ready to start working on Colossians, and I thought it might be helpful to type out my plan and share it and encourage anyone who may still be around reading this limping-along little blog to join me.

First, I bought a notebook like this. It doesn't have to be anything fancy or expensive, just a cheap little spiral notebook small enough to carry around with you:

Then I copied Psalm 1 into it like this:

I wrote the date I started at the top, and the date I finished that page at the bottom. The method I use for memorizing longer passages is I start with the first verse and read it 10 times, making a mark to the left to keep count. Then I say it over and over until I can say it without mistake before moving to the next verse. Once I have the next verse where I can say it, I put them together until I can say them with no mistakes before moving to the next verse, and so on. When I was memorizing Philippians, I would take a week to work on one page. Once I'd been through the initial process of learning it as I spelled out here, I'd spend the week reviewing that page by saying it over and over anytime I thought of it - while cooking, cleaning, taking a shower, driving - pretty much whenever my brain was idling, I'd spend some of that time reviewing that week's passage. As the weeks went on, I would keep saying the previous weeks while adding the new weeks, so I never let the earlier weeks slip away. By the end I was able to quote the whole book of Philippians. Sadly, I cannot still quote the whole book of Philippians, but it is still very precious to me, and it is one of my long-term goals to review and remember.

Anyway, now that I've worked out Psalm 1, I'm ready to start Colossians. 

Memorizing longer passages is such a great way to get into God's Word and ponder and think through it deeply. I would caution, however, not to take it on merely as a project or a thing to pat yourself on the back for doing or to merely fill your head with knowledge. This isn't a legalistic, check-the-box, do-this-and-you'll-be-some-kind-of-super-saint sort of exercise. It is simply one way to hide God's Word in your heart, to spend time praying as you think about what you're studying for many weeks and to ask God to help you to love Jesus more and apply His word as you spend much time learning it. All with the goal to love Jesus more and to bring Him glory as you take in His word and let it inform your thinking and how you talk with other people, and to lead you to love following Him and obeying that word more fully.

Anyone want to join me in memorizing Colossians? :-)

And When You Walk By the Way

Ephesians 6:4

“Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.”

Deuteronomy 6:5-7

“You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.”

Obviously, reading in context, the command in Deuteronomy 6 was specifically given to Israel. That is clear. But in light of the New Testament, it is also clearly a principle to be followed by all of God’s people, including those of us on this side of the Cross in the New Covenant today - to train up our children in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. As Christian parents, we have a high calling, obligation, and privilege to teach the faith to our children. We must instruct them about who God is, and tell them of His Holy Law, and tell them that they have broken that Law and are sinners, as are we all, and tell them over and over and over about the great Good News that God sent His Son to redeem a people to Himself, that for those who repent and trust in Jesus, there is salvation, and in Jesus alone there is salvation. As parents, we are to make sure that our children know God’s Word and know that Jesus is precious, and that He alone can save and that He is mighty to save and that in Him there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, who understand that they deserve God’s wrath, but who repent and place their trust in Jesus who is the great Passover Lamb who takes away the sin of the world. And we are to teach our children what it is to live in that Light.

What has me thinking today, as it has often, is the part of the verse that says, ‘and when you walk by the way.’ As important as times of formal teaching are, and they are vitally important, because it is by hearing the word that faith comes. How are they to know if we do not tell them? But as important as formal teaching time is, I think equally important for our children is that they see us believing and living and talking about the faith day in and day out as we walk along the way of life. They need to know that this faith we teach them matters. And it matters deeply and profoundly in how we think and live and move and act. Our children learn by watching us every bit as much as they learn by hearing us. When we sin, and we will sin, do our children hear us confess and repent of sin? Do they hear us preaching the gospel to ourselves and to them as we go about living life? If someone were to ask our children what matters most to their mom or dad, would ‘Jesus’ be the answer? Do they see that in our daily lives? I’m not saying this as a guilt thing, heaping up laws to follow. I’m looking deeper. Does the gospel so matter to me that it is the warp and woof of my life, that other things, while important and a part of life, just aren’t as important in comparison? Do I talk about Jesus? Do I love Him so much that obeying Him is what I want to do out of gratitude, not legalism? Is the fruit of my lips gospel talk, not just on Sunday, not just during conscious Bible-teaching times, but as the overflow of life?

I had a glimpse of grace the other day. I brought home the music for Sunday so I could pull out the keyboard and try to plunk out the alto part in an attempt to be ready for Sunday morning. One of the songs I was working on was “There is a Fountain,” one of my very favorite hymns. As I was plodding through the alto line, my 12-year-old son, my middle child, looked up and said something along the lines of, “I really like that one. It’s one of my favorites.” I smiled, and immediately remembered why that song might be special for him, whether he knows it or not.

I was taken right back to the days of new motherhood, hours and hours and hours of rocking a crying, sleepless baby, desperate for sleep myself, crying out to God for the grace and patience to get through the sleepless nights with a baby who just did not want to sleep, and the song that I sang, through tears sometimes, but over and over and over, because sometimes it was just the only song that would come to my sleep-deprived mind, was “There is a Fountain.” I sang that thing to our oldest, our middle, and finally our youngest, wearing out the rocking chair, turning sleep deprivation and sometimes despair to praise and worship in the quiet of the nightlit nursery room to the strains of that cherished hymn, which often was the only prayer I knew to whisper when a colicky baby needed comfort. 

So it’s no surprise to me that my boy, now 12, no longer a baby, would look up and recognize and love that song. It’s been a part of the warp and woof of his life as long as he can remember. And I am so thankful to God for the grace that allowed my mind to turn to Jesus in the midst of those oh-so-short-in-hindsight sleepless nights. That is a gift that He supplied to turn my heart to Him. And I also pray that as these children are older now, that I would be faithful in teaching them the gospel, both formally and informally as we walk along the way. May they know that Jesus is precious and that I believe what I’m teaching them with all that I am, these are not just words to me, they are life. When I fail, and I do fail, I do sin so often, please, Lord guard their hearts and their minds and help them to see that Your Word is true, and that You will never fail, and help them to learn the power of the gospel to forgive our sin. Help them to know that we are accepted in Christ, not on the basis of anything we could ever do, but solely for the sake of Christ, on the basis of what He has done on the Cross and the Resurrection. Jesus is the Light of the world. He is the Lamb that takes away the sin of the world. By His blood, we lose our guilty stains and rejoice to have our sins washed away. He is Lord. He is worthy. Please, Lord, let me live a life and use the words that tell that to not only my children, but please let the overflow of Your grace tune my heart to sing Your praise and to tell others about You, about their need for the Savior. Help me to share it first to my children, yes, but outside the walls of our home as well. Loose my tongue, and let us be gospel people who are quick to share it.

I think this is a small part of the ‘as you walk along the way’ that we live. Turning our eyes to Jesus, and sharing Him with the people in our lives, making the music of our home be the gospel, most of all. 

There is a Fountain

There is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Emmanuel’s veins; 

And sinners plunged beneath that flood lose all their guilty stains.

Lose all their guilty stains, lose all their guilty stains;

And sinners plunged beneath that flood lose all their guilty stains.

The dying thief rejoiced to see that fountain in his day;

And there have I, though vile as he, washed all my sins away.

Washed all my sins away, washed all my sins away;

And there have I, though vile as he, washed all my sins away.

Dear dying Lamb, Thy precious blood shall never lose its power

Till all the ransomed church of God be saved, to sin no more

Be saved, to sin no more, be saved, to sin no more.

Till all the ransomed church of God be saved, to sin no more.

E’er since, by faith, I saw the stream Thy flowing wounds supply,

Redeeming love has been my theme, and shall be till I die.

And shall be till I die, and shall be till I die;

Redeeming love has been my theme, and shall be till I die.

Then in a nobler, sweeter song, I’ll sing Thy power to save,

When this poor lisping, stammering tongue lies silent in the grave.

Lies silent in the grave, lies silent in the grave;

When this poor lisping, stammering tongue lies silent in the grave.

Where Assurance Rests

I ran across this post today, and I think it’s very good. It’s a review of a book that is very popular among evangelicals, at least, judging by its ubiquitous presence in various manifestations throughout the Lifeway catalogue that regularly shows up in my mailbox(book, study Bible?????, and children’s version, to name a few) and by how many people mention it and quote from it often on Facebook. I found this review of the book very good, and I recommend it if you’re one of those people who has friends raving about the book Jesus Calling. I have not read it, and do not intend to.

However, what I want to discuss here isn’t the book Michael Horton is reviewing but the fact that several of the concerns he raises meshed exactly with something I’ve been thinking a lot about recently, and that is that the concerns he raises aren’t exclusive to that particular book, but with MUCH of the teaching, writing, preaching, talking, singing and culture of the evangelical movement. In fact, the reason that book with those particular concerns is SO popular is a symptom of something disturbing, and that is that we in the evangelical movement for a large part are not teaching the gospel well and exclusively. I think we are losing, or in many cases have already lost our way. We say in our doctrinal statements and mission statements and the like that we believe the gospel, but what practically comes out in our teaching is that we don’t really trust it. Not really, because we end up teaching a kind of ‘trust Jesus and try harder’ sort of thing that ends up being works moralism not grace, though I don’t think we intend it. I’ll see if I can explain what I mean.

First, I highlight some excellent, excellent points from Michael Horton’s blog post that I referenced and linked to above: 

"Yet I kept asking, “What purposes”? “Who is Jesus and why should I fix my eyes on him?” In short, the gospel is taken for granted. When exhortations to trust are separated from a clear proclamation of who Christ is, what he has done, and why he is therefore trustworthy, trust simply becomes a work—something that I need to gin up within myself." 

And this: 

"Compared with the Psalms, for example, Jesus Calling is remarkably shallow. I do not say that with a snarky tone, but with all seriousness. The Psalms first place before us the mighty acts of God and then call us to respond in confession, trust, and thankfulness. But in Jesus Calling I’m repeatedly exhorted to look to Christ, rest in Christ, trust in Christ, to be thankful and long for a deeper sense of his presence, with little that might provoke any of this. Which means that I’m directed not actually to Christ but to my own inner struggle to be more trustful, restful, and thankful."

I think this is a problem with MUCH of the teaching and books and preaching and ‘Bible studies’ and thinking in evangelicalism today. We focus too much on OUR purpose and finding 'something more' and finding the BIG thing we're supposedly to be about and what WE are FEELING and struggling with internally and focus MUCH too little on Jesus: who He is, what He has done in saving us, and how to rest our hope in HIM and in HIS finished work on our behalf, and instead of always spinning and spinning searching for 'something more' we would do much better to seek to know His revealed word, study and meditate upon and learn and pray for wisdom to understand and obey what He teaches us as we spend time in the Bible that He has given us and listen to preaching that faithfully teaches the BIBLE - and to do that we need to hear the scripture taught and explained, not ideas or the latest church growth strategy or pep talk, but the WORD. THAT is how we know Him. 

We say Jesus is beautiful and we say that we want to know Him more and that we want to be Christ followers and we sing songs that endlessly repeat how we love Him and He loves us, but they are shallow, emotion ginner-uppers that don’t really talk much about WHY we love Him and WHAT He has done to show His love to us and WHO He is that makes Him so worthy of our love and worship and following, and it leaves us trying so hard to gin up that emotion for Him with nothing solid to point us there.

Here’s something I’ve come to realize over the past few months or so, and that is that we too often take passages that are all about grace and preach law from them instead. I have spent my life listening to pep rally sermons that focus on favorite Bible verses taken out of context to spur us on to really, really, really live for Jesus, especially during my stint as a teenager growing up in youth ministry, exhorting me to not waste my life, dream BIG dreams for God, find my PURPOSE for being ON THIS PLANET, finding the way to CHANGE THE WORLD, find the BIG thing I’m to do for God, live better, do better, serve Him harder, seek Him more deeply, seek for more-more-more of Him, love Him better, get it from my head to my heart. But we weren't really told how to do that, exactly. We weren't explicitly taught to hear Him in His word alone. I spent a large part of my older teen years and young adult years as went to Bible studies and retreats and conferences that fed the discontent BEGGING God to show me the BIG thing I was supposed to be doing that surely I was missing it! PLEASE, God, I don’t want to waste my life, PLEASE don’t let me miss the big, kingdom thing I’m supposed to be doing, and PLEASE, why do I feel this way? What am I missing? How many times have I prayed and asked Jesus into my heart, so worried that maybe I didn’t REALLY mean it the last time but I SO want to MEAN it this time. I went to concerts and got all pumped and I went to retreats and camps and revival meetings and nailed papers with my sins to a cross or sent those sin-filled papers through a shredder and promised that THIS time I’d really be on fire, THIS time I really was surrendering all, surely THIS time I REALLY meant it, crying real, genuine, heartfelt tears every time! And when Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday.....came and I went back to the boring ol’ humdrum of life and, well, the passion of the mountain top fizzled to the daily drag of everyday life and I once again began wondering, did I REALLY mean it? Was I REALLY saved? I remember sitting in a women’s retreat Bible study meeting BEGGING God to show me what I was missing. I was a young wife and mom, but surely that’s not all I was supposed to be doing, was it? Was I impacting anyone for the kingdom just being a wife and mom, was I missing the BIG thing, maybe I’d already missed it, maybe it was too late? I went to so many church leaders over the years and begged them to help me know why I was feeling this way, why I felt so defeated all the time, and I don’t think I ever got the clear, explicit gospel answer I desperately needed.

Friends, that is EXHAUSTING. And it is NOT the gospel. Finding your purpose for BEING ON THIS PLANET (can you tell I’m getting weary of hearing that phrase?), begging and pleading with God to show me the BIG thing I’m supposed to do with my life, trust Jesus, yes, but also try harder, do better.....is NOT the gospel. 

The good news of the gospel is that I am a wretch. I CAN’T do it. That is the point. Nothing in my hands I bring, simply to His cross I cling. Jesus paid it ALL. ALL to Him I owe. These are NOT just words to songs (and more’s the pity we don’t sing such gospel rich songs as often anymore. Ahem.) My life is hid in Christ. Because He fulfilled the law and suffered the wrath I deserve for my sin on the cross and rose again, I am free from the curse of the law. As His forgiven, blood-bought child, He very well may place a burden to do some ‘big’ thing on my heart, He may call me to go somewhere far from home and share the gospel there.....or He may call me to be a wife and mom here, faithfully serving Him day in and day out, being a faithful church member, community member, sharing the faith, teaching children’s Sunday school, teaching my children day in and day out as we arise, as we sit and as we walk along the way. And that is NOT a small thing.  Somewhere along the way we have lost the idea of vocation - that everything we do is to be done as unto the Lord. It’s not that some things are BIG things but others are boring and not what we should aspire to. 

For every person in the history of Christianity whose name we have heard, there are thousands more who we have never heard of, but who were faithful servants of the Lord Jesus Christ. Our passion ought to be to serve our Savior whole-heartedly and with abandon, not to be spinning and spinning and begging and pleading for our BIG thing. Our purpose is to know God, to glorify Him and enjoy Him forever. Spend time in His word, pray, learn to obey Him in the small, everyday things, and when and if He leads you to so-called bigger things, obey Him there, too, but don't discount the joy and importance of living for Him and serving Him in the 'mundane' things and don't miss out on the everyday graces and progress in the faith He is working in you because you're so concerned you're missing the big thing. Learn to find your satisfaction not in how passionate you ‘feel’ about Him, but in HIM. 

My assurance does not rest in how sincere I think I was or wasn’t at each of those pep rally type events. My assurance does not rest in how sincere I think I was when I prayed ‘the prayer’ for the umpteenth time, or whether I prayed it just right. My assurance rests in what Jesus did on the cross. I cannot stress how important it has been for me to finally get to this understanding in the midst of the do more, do more, try harder, try harder, dream bigger, love more preaching I have heard my whole life. 

I spent the first 4 months of 2011 memorizing the book of Philippians. And I have spent February of this year reviewing it, meaning, I have spent countless hours meditating on Philippians. I love chapter 3:7-12, “But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith - that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own.” Did you catch that the righteousness is not my own, but that which comes through faith in Christ, and that we do what we do, obey Him, seek Him, seek to live for Him because He has MADE US HIS OWN. The things that Paul lost and left behind and counted as rubbish, were the do more, try harder, be better of legalistic Phariseeism, as he spells it out in the beginning of chapter 3. We do not have to do, do, do, strive, strive, strive, for more, more, more to gain acceptance with God. If we are in Christ, we ARE accepted in the beloved. We ARE His. We ARE counted righteous in Christ. To finally understand the significance of this is to finally, finally, stop wondering if I really, really meant it or if I really, really repented or wondering if I’ll waste my life while I plead to find the BIG thing and to rest in the fact that Jesus did it ALL. I am accepted and beloved and positionally righteous in God’s sight because Jesus took the wrath I deserve on the cross. I am free from striving to nail it down AGAIN. And I am free to obey Him and serve Him with abandon from a heart overflowing with gratitude that is founded on WHO He is and WHAT He has done. Knowing who He is and what He has done, I WANT to live for Him. I don’t want to waste the life He has placed me in and I want to live faithfully day in and day out, and when I stumble and confess it, He is faithful and just to forgive me and cleanse me from all unrighteousness.

And one more thing, I have learned in my years of walking with Jesus that change might happen all at once in a life, but more often, it is a gradual growing in grace as you submit yourself to God’s word. When you look back over the course of your life, you begin to realize that you are not the same person you were five years ago, ten years ago, and that the Holy Spirit has been shaping you to be more like Christ as your desires change to be more like His and as you learn to love His word more, love others more, and share your faith as an outpouring of a life devoted to Christ. 

Jesus IS beautiful and worthy of praise, and worthy of being served wholeheartedly and given our very best. Let’s do a better job of lifting HIM up and telling WHY we should love Him and worry less about OUR purpose and OUR dreams and visions and wants and desires and seek to see HIM glorified. 

Two books I highly recommend that have helped me to process through these things recently:

The Explicit Gospel by Matt Chandler

Stop Asking Jesus Into Your Heart: How to Know for Sure You Are Saved by J. D. Greear

Refuge

Isaiah 26:3-4

“3 You keep him in perfect peace 

whose mind is stayed on you,

because he trusts in you.

4 Trust in the Lord forever,

for the Lord God is an everlasting rock.”

I was listening to a song the other day that talked about how God is our refuge in times of fear and trouble and I realized that it has very personal meaning to me. I began thinking specifically about certain times of trouble and how God has been my refuge in them, but then I began looking back over the course of my life, and I realized how much deeper the concept of refuge actually is. It is not just in times of fear and trial that I need His refuge, it is always. 

I don't attempt to claim a 'favorite verse' per se, because I think sometimes we can tend to pull out favorite or well-known verses and mangle them out of context, but I do try to marinate my thinking in the whole counsel of His word rather than grabbing a few favorite verses and repeating them like a kind of mantra. However, there are still passages I find myself returning to often at different stages of life, and those verses from Isaiah that I quoted at the beginning of this post are true, and I find myself pondering them often. But something you have to keep in mind is that these verses are not a blanket promise that the one who keeps his or her mind on God and trusts Him will never face trials or that nothing ‘bad’ will ever happen.  Another passage I find myself returning to ponder often is Philippians 4:6-7, “6 do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. 7 And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”  There is hope in His peace. And when I say ‘peace,’ I mean so much more than simply ‘calm in the storm.’ I can testify to that peace and its depth. He has given me a story of His faithfulness and grace to tell for His glory, and I’m grateful. 

Those of you who’ve been reading my blog for a while or know me in real life know that I’m married to Drew and we have three children, two boys ages 13 and 11, and a little girl age 6. What you may not know about us is that we also have 4 children we did not get to meet this side of heaven because of miscarriages. I try not to bring that up too often because that is not something I want to unduly burden others with and, though it is a big part of my husband’s and my life, we don’t need to make it the defining thing about us or dwell in depths of emotion over it more than we should.

 I say that, though, to say that as I listened to that song I mentioned, the first thing I thought about was how true it is that God was my refuge during those difficult times when I lost 4 babies. I thought about how I’ve been allowed to learn from James 1:2-3 “2 Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, 3 for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness,” that there is joy in having persevered because I know that the faith to persevere was a gift from Jesus because I know how wretched my heart would be on its own, that only He could grant me the faith to persevere and demonstrate that that faith is real. 

I thought about the second miscarriage, when I had already been working before it happened to memorize Psalm 34, and how during some of the most difficult moments I literally cried out Psalm 34:1, “I will bless the Lord at all times; his praise shall continually be in my mouth,” through wracking sobs and breaking heart, and once again experienced that peace that passes all understanding as He continued to grant the faith to persevere and trust Him, though I didn’t understand the whys. 

And I remembered the third one, when we found out just days after learning I was expecting that Drew had been tasked to go to Iraq for the Army for six months. How I feared the timing of his departure, knowing my history and that we weren’t guaranteed we’d never face another miscarriage. I remembered how I learned in that time that though I feared, Jesus was with me, even when what I had feared did, indeed, happen and I lost that baby just days after Drew left for Iraq. Yet God surrounded us with a church family who prayed for us and helped me with childcare while I went for test after test after test which yielded no answers. 

And the fourth, when I learned, yet again, that I could sing, I could praise, even when my heart was sad, and I could say, “The Lord gave and the Lord took away, blessed be the name of the Lord.” Before that last pregnancy, I had the opportunity to co-lead a little women’s Bible study through the book of Hebrews. In Hebrews we learn about our great High Priest, Jesus, and that He is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them (Hebrews 7:25), and if He knows the days of my life before ever there was one of them (Psalm 139), then surely He was interceding for me, His child, on that day too.  And I remember that in all things, the good and the bad, the things I've listed here and so many others I could list besides, God is good, all the time, and He has always, always, always been so kind to grant me the faith to persevere and to trust Him, that faith that comes from God alone through faith in Christ Jesus alone.

As I was flooded with these memories of God’s faithfulness and what He has taught me through these things, I was struck by the realization that not only do I need the kind of peace He has abundantly showered upon me during trials, but I need, so much more than that, the peace He has given me with Himself in the forgiveness of sin. The reason I press on to make this my own is because Christ Jesus has made me His own (Phil 3:12). Because here is where I am brought to my knees in wonder, when I look back over my life and ponder the grace that allowed Him to save me and to make me His own, to be amazed at the fact that He would look with favor upon me, wretched sinner that I am, and have mercy and grace to save me to be His own, reconciled to Him in faith.

See, as a five-year-old, God allowed me to express a childlike faith and profess faith in Jesus. I do not know how much I could have possibly understood at that age. As I’ve grown in faith, I realize I couldn’t have understood much. But God, who is rich in mercy, took that childlike faith He granted and grew it until I did understand about repentance and was able to place my full trust in Him in a mature faith. I look back at the girl I was in high school and college, who had such an immature faith and such a huge pride that if you’d asked me if I were a good person, I would have proudly said, “Yes,” knowing that any good was only there because of what Jesus had done for me, but not having much understanding, even then, of just how wretched my sin really was. But now I see it, my wretched, sinful self, and I know that God, in His mercy, grew me in faith to recognize and repent and trust that what Jesus did on the cross really was for me. He took my sin and took the wrath I deserved and has counted me righteous. He took that childlike faith of the five-year-old and held me, guarded my heart and mind, and kept me from straying in spite of my immaturity, and will continue to hold me to the end. 

And, my friends, now I plead with you to consider Jesus. Examine your heart. Have you repented and placed your trust in Jesus alone? That is the peace that passes all understanding which guards our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. That is why we can count it all joy when we encounter various trials, because He is. He is glorious, He is merciful, He is loving. And He, in mercy, reached down and saved this sinner so that in trial and in sunshine I can sing His praise. Halleluljah! What a Savior!