do not cling

Lately I have been aware of places in my soul in deep need of grace. I shared some of those places and thoughts with some friends the other night. One precious new friend beseeched me to be gentle and find grace for myself. She said she would pray for me to find that grace. 

It has not even been 24 hours since then and already Jesus is answering. 

This harshness arises from the inner Pharisee (or critic) who stands in judgment of me. Her god is perfection. And when I don’t measure up, she swiftly pounds the gavel. She has relied on performance and approval to get by and to survive. She is hungry for grace but doesn’t know it all that well. 

For some time, in fact for seven years, I have judged our time in Honduras as a failure. Failure is a harsh word. The posture of the critic is even harsher. My eyes are coming unveiled to see what a tragedy it is to view it that way. It arises from an arrogant idea that I know what is best and God does not. I have judged His plan, doubted His care for orphans, and floundered under comparison of our journey with others. 

In reality, I am clinging to an idea of how I wanted things to work. I wanted to stay with those children and see them through graduation from high school. I hoped to never inflict upon them pain and loss. I wanted to keep living the dream of caring for them and fulfilling our calling as I understood it.  

After Jesus had died and was buried, the disciples stood around in the garden for a while. Then they went home. All but Mary. She cried as she stood there, and then went over and peeked in the tomb. She found it empty. She thought she saw the gardener and through teary eyes begged him to tell her where they had put Jesus’ body. When Jesus said her name, “Mary!” her eyes opened and she saw Jesus standing before her. ALIVE! 

He said to her, “Do not cling to me. Go to the brothers and tell them I have ascended to the Father.”

In that moment she transformed from a clingy, fearful, grieving woman to the first apostle to carry the good news on this earth. She let go of the reality she had wanted. Jesus is back. He is alive. Things can go back to the way they were. She grabbed hold of the future as Jesus set forth. “Go!” 

My hands are open. My arms are wide for the Pharisee to come in and receive warmth and grace. My eyes are on the horizon to see the path open wide before me.

appointed

Appoint means to assign, to determine to decide on. Have you ever considered that the trials in your life were pre-determined by our God? 

I started this post several days ago. Since then several things have happened that made me approach this subject with trepidation. A friend was diagnosed with cancer. I had to tell a patient at the clinic she probably had cancer. A friend’s father died. After these things happened, I sat down to write and thought to myself: I don’t have a thing to say about this subject.

Given some time, I want to attempt to share about it. During a troubling time in my past, the notion that God had ordained the days was one thing that continued to bring me comfort. Yes, I believe our God orchestrates our days and sometimes directly leads us into pain, trials, hardship even heartbreak. 

Consider Jonah. The New American Standard Bible says that God appointed a whale. Then he appointed a plant, a worm and finally a wind. Only one of these things comforted Jonah. The plant gave him shade and comfort and he was happy about it. I suppose the whale saved his life, but spending three days in the belly of a whale probably was not on his life plan. Surely the worm and the wind taught him lessons. 

The knowledge that God appoints events, people, births and deaths, storms and shade gives me comfort. I can trust He is working for my good even when all around me life is crumbling. While we sit in ruins trusting God can seem impossible. We have to lean on people who have walked through darkness and come out on the other side with strength and hope. 

My experience with trusting God even in the appointed heartbreaks of life builds my trust. I can lend that faith to others in times of uncertainty and doubt. Thus I am comforted while see those around me suffering. God is at work. He is good. 

He appoints my days.

wait and hope

This morning, Monday, I got up and prepared for work. Scrubs on and ready to walk out the door, I received a text that my first patient had cancelled. Now I am waiting. Swim practice is cancelled for Joshua and Samuel. Our family has a tinge of cabin-fever. We have exhausted our inside activities. Boys are loud and boisterous. The picture above shows our favorite indoor activity. We are stuck inside. Again.

Wait is a four-letter word. Waiting more than any other activity shatters my illusion of control. Perhaps that is why fast-food, drive-throughs, mail-order and many other hyphenated nouns developed. We hate to wait. I hate to wait. We are parked in a holding pattern as Matt is considering a career change.

At church we are going through a series on wisdom. Yesterday we listened to Psalm 119 being read aloud by 22 different recorded voices for each of the stanzas. When Bill Wellons first mentioned his plan to have this psalm (the longest chapter in the Bible) read aloud and that it would take 15 minutes, I admit to wiggling in my chair and planning a bathroom break. But once the voices started reading, I felt riveted to my chair. They began in the soft speak of children and ended with the wisdom of older voices. I had to resist the distraction of figuring out whose voice it was on the audible. In the end, I am reminded of the water of God’s word slaking the thirst of those panting for Him.

"Wait" is used 6 times in Psalm 119. One phrase captured my curiosity: Though I have become like a wineskin in the smoke, I do not forget Your statutes (verse 83). What? 

With just  a little googling, I came to understand that phrase better. A wineskin was the skin of an animal, maybe the actual stomach, used to store wine. Gross, right? But they didn’t have the glass or Tupperware we have today and the skins worked dandily. 

If a skin was left in smoke too long, it became covered in soot, dried and shriveled. It lost its elasticity. The tents they lived in and cooked in often were filled up with smoke. To a Hebrew this made instant sense. 

David, the alleged author of this Psalm, is describing the struggle with waiting on God. The verb “to wait” is the same as “to hope” in Hebrew and in other languages like Spanish. This psalm uses both to wait and to hope in English. But in Hebrew it is the same word. Hope and wait are used almost interchangeably.

Waiting makes me feel useless, dried up, shriveled. I lose my flexability the longer I wait. Yeah. Kind of like a wineskin in smoke. 

Today I realize that waiting is more terrifying than anything. I am more afraid of waiting than I am of preparing to live in a third world country or of actually living in a third world country. I had a mission. I had instructions. I was buoyed by the illusion of feeling important. 

In waiting, I come face to face with my creaturehood. And in waiting, I am forced to decide my source of hope. 

hold fast

In the glorious 80s, I had an XXL white t-shirt with the words “CHOOSE LIFE” in bold pink covering the entire front. This phrase impacted me then as a wee Christian and now in my forties, it comes home to roost. 

Moses uttered these words to the Israelites in Moab at the end of 40 years of wandering in the wilderness as they are poised on the threshold of the Promised Land. It is called the Deuteronomic covenant or so Google tells me. And so for thousands of years, these words have been a sign post even to valley girls in the 1980s.

The passage says, “This day I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now CHOOSE LIFE so that you and your children may live, and that you may love the Lord your God, listen to His Voice and hold fast to Him.” Deuteronomy 30:19-20

I wonder how many times a day God sets before me life and death, blessings and curses. I cannot think of anything I want more than to love Him and listen to His Voice and to hold fast to Him. I want to live. I want my children to live. 

The word for hold fast is one Hebrew word - qbd or dabaq. It means to cleave. It’s the “cleave” of the old leave and cleave verse in Genesis 2:24. “Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife; and they shall be one flesh.” It means to cling to, stick to, stick with , follow closely, catch, keep close to, join to. 

The joining up in this case refers to the way our body parts are joined. It’s not just two things stuck together like I had thought. It is more like the way my arm is joined to my shoulder. 

Today I needed to be reminded to cling, to cleave, to hold on.

Hold. Fast. To Him. 

interrupt me

Lately I have been struck by the way God enters our world and interrupts life.

Going about our daily tasks especially when routines are not in play like summertime, it's easy to forget God orchestrates our steps.

Some areas of my life are perplexing. I examine them and think this is not the way I thought things would turn out. I'm learning to let go of what I had planned even sometimes what I had hoped in order to grasp what God wants.

So much is packed into those words. Easy to write, hard to live.

The truth is that I am promised nothing on this earth save this moment and God's availability to me in it. And that is everything that I need. My flesh pulls me different directions and says I "need" this or that. But all I really need is God's Spirit in the here and now.

A million times a day I look anxiously about to either the past or future. When I do that, I lose my peace. My access to that peace is in this moment and I trust that He is enough.

Today, like almost every day, as soon as Sam woke up, he joined me on the patio. He asked me, "Do I have swim practice today? Do I have tutoring? Do we have church?" I picked up my phone and showed him the iCal. Two very important words were at the bottom of the screen. "NO EVENTS."

We both took a deep breath and laughed. How will we see God in a day like today? Chip Dodd says that mystery is walking in faith that God is big enough to be in control, and that God doesn't require our help to get the job done.

I can't wait to find out how mystery and "no events" play out in today.