Keep Not Settling

First published February 13, 2017

When you are single, everyone likes to give you advice.

I should change my hair, change my religion, change my career. I should pack up all my change and spend more time at the Laundromat. (That's my favorite). It's also an awful lot of rearranging.

And if it's not advice, it's 'I'm sorry' - as in 'I feel so sorry for you because you're still single'. And that raises a few questions. Do you think those words make me feel good? Do you think because something hasn't happened yet that it never will? At the end of my life, will I be more proud of my marital status, or that I ran the race well?

The God who created the universe laid down the blueprints of my life *before* the foundation of time. Pretty important stuff. And when it's over, the two of us will look back together at what I built, husband or no husband.

Will have I made the tough choices, trusting the architect knows best? Will I have shown others the love he has shown me? I won't be satisfied until he knows I can be counted on to help those around me see their worth through his eyes - because look at the value he's *already* placed on me.

Sometimes, the pity and advice are combined, as in 'It's okay to hope, but don't hope too much, ya know, just in case...'

Just a couple months ago, I was staring down three job offers in one week, and found myself walking away from a job I had been praying and hoping for - for years - because after I let God do what he does best, it was no longer good enough for me. I would have loved for the answer to come sooner, but when I look at where I am now, and I see all the details that were worked out before I arrived on the scene, I understand the reason for the wait.

And this was just a job. How much more carefully do you think he takes care of our hearts?

Here's the thing - that God, the one holding the blueprints, and the universe, and the foundation of time - you either believe he can do anything or you don't. When it comes to us and the love he has for us, there are no categories for our dreams as if we should expect some not to happen because they are too hard for him.

If he loves us enough to sacrifice his only son, then all bets are off. I would never pity someone who was loved that much.

By design, in life and in love, the grand scheme doesn't leave a lot of room for sorry.

P.S. You can keep the change.

 

Instead of Asking Why

First published June 27, 2017

We’ve all heard that you should never ask why. Never ask - why did this happen?

You probably wouldn’t like the answer and it’s not going to change the outcome anyway.

Lately, I’ve heard that instead of asking “why” we should ask “what next?” This allows us to focus our energies on doing something practical with whatever situation we feel we’ve been unfairly served, or at minimum, not focus so much on the hurt. But even “what next” has a way of keeping our eyes on a particular circumstance.

Just last week a friend shared something with me that goes beyond “why” and “what next” and has changed how I view certain seasons I simply can’t explain or understand my way out of.

She told me to try asking God – what does this mean for us? What does this mean for my relationship with you, God? And most importantly:

Who do you want to be for me right now?

Wow.

I recently experienced a difficult situation where even asking “what next” didn’t make sense. I walked into something convinced I would learn all the answers. Instead, I walked out with even more questions and a whole lot of hurt. There was no next. There is still no next. It simply … is.

I am next-less.

But I can ask God what and who he wants to be for me now. And the answer is so many things!

I’m guessing you’ve been through a rough time or two where there wasn’t a clear next in view.

The job you worked so hard for, and lost. The man who promised you forever, but whose definition of monogamous was one at a time. The reconciliation you hoped for that lead to further estrangement. The annual check-up that turned into a life-threatening diagnosis.

The fight you had that felt like it was having you.

In all these things, we can ask – God, what does this mean for us? Who do you want to be for me now?

Read what the bible tells us about God being our father, our healer, our provider, and comforter. And when it still hurts, it tells us he is our peace.

Maybe he’s taking you to a new place in how you relate to him or to others. Maybe he’s asking you to trust him in ways you haven’t before – to let him be someone you haven’t allowed him to be yet.

Don’t settle for asking why. Ask for more of him.

 

Where Hope is Found

First published June 13, 2016

The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands. - Acts 17:24

What started off like any other weekend two days ago has ended with death, division, and more questions than answers.

When a twenty-two year old singer is gunned down after her concert, we mourn a life cut short and what might have been. So much promise. A brilliant voice silenced. We don’t know the reason, but now her family knows a loss like no other.

When 50 people are gunned down and more than that injured in the name of terror, we feel violated and wonder what this world is coming to. We demand justice. Lines are drawn and political sides are taken.

When police arrest a man with guns and explosives on his way to a parade, preventing who knows what, we want to know when enough is enough.

And where is hope in all of this?

If our hope relies on a future we can’t see, we will be disappointed. If our hope is in the laws and our government, we may not like the outcome. If our hope is in the goodness of humanity, we will always be let down. If we base our hope on how things look in the world, our hearts will constantly be filled with fear and discouragement.

Our anchor needs something that will hold.

It’s not in anything this world can offer, but in Christ who offered himself in exchange for the world. He holds our lives in his hands – where our names are permanently etched in his scars. He knows the beginning from the end and comforts us when we’re brokenhearted. He never promised us life without pain or unanswered questions, but he did promise to walk with us in the midst of them, and be the one thing that remains unchanged. The one constant in the trials.

He also promised a day when all would be made right again, and everything would come to order. An end to the chaos. Until that day, we need to stay close to Christ who is constant. We need to pray for those who don’t know his security.

And we need to always remember where our hope is found.

Christina Grimmie singing "In Christ Alone".

My Cup Runneth Over

First published June 1, 2016

I’ve been hearing it a lot lately. People who are blessed and the reasons why.

They got the promotion, so they’re blessed. They closed on the house, so they’re blessed. They met the man of their dreams, so now they’re beyond blessed.

Recently a friend told me his life had turned out exactly as he imagined it would. He had everything he ever wanted. He was so blessed.

How then should we feel if our lives haven’t turned out exactly as we imagined? What should our heart response be when we don’t seem to be beyond blessed or even a little blessed?

A blessing is defined as a special favor, mercy, or benefit. The word blessed is described as consecrated, sacred, holy, and sanctified, worthy of adoration, reverence, or worship.

While it’s true that we always have something to be grateful for, I think blessing came to us long before we got everything we never knew we always wanted.

Being blessed is never tied to something or someone we’re hoping for. I think we need to stop waiting for answered prayers and start seeing ourselves as already blessed. Because we are.

I recently spent some time in the book of Romans. Five days to be exact. It’s only 10 paragraphs long, but I found myself pausing many times along the way when I realized where my blessings have been all along and why it’s ok when things on the surface of my life don’t appear blessed.

When I Don’t Fit In

It’s hard to feel blessed when you’re different. My work looks different. My family looks different. My life looks very different. Different isn’t a bad thing, but it’s very easy to be overlooked and excluded when what you bring to the table is worlds away from what others think it should be. Romans talks about the Holy Spirit bringing us our adoption and testifying that we are God’s children. This makes us co-heirs with Christ. We’re not just accepted and ushered in the back door. We’re given a seat at the head table. We are deeply valued by the One who created the universe. It's not about what I bring to the table. I am loved by the person who built the table!

When I Don’t Know What to Say

Sometimes I don’t have the words. When I’m talking to God, I want him to take me seriously. I want him to know I mean business and that I won’t go down without a fight. But sometimes, I have no fight left. When I don’t know what to say, even to God, I feel like a failure. And that doesn’t make me feel blessed. Romans tells us that when we don’t even have words to say, the Holy Spirit intercedes for us with wordless groans. I have someone approaching God on my behalf for everything I need. And he doesn’t even need words.

When I Don’t Know How it Will Work Out

The last few years have been confusing to say the least. I don’t have a clear sense of what I’m doing or where I’m headed – in so many areas of my life. When I can’t see the path in front of me and there is no real sense of order in my life, I don’t feel blessed, I feel like a mess. Romans talks about God working all things together for the good of those who love him. But there’s more. (I love when there’s more). It’s also those who have been called according to his purpose. Those he foreknew, he also predestined. This means we have all been called for a reason. There are no accidents with God. To have the foreknowledge to predestine someone for a purpose takes a lot of care. This was well thought out. Which means you were well thought out.

When I Don’t Feel Loved

Having someone to go through life with is one of life’s greatest joys. But when you travel on this journey alone, it can leave you feeling unwanted and unloved. Life without love doesn’t feel very blessed. Like any great love story, Romans ends with a love that conquers all. It reminds us that when God was considering the cost of making us his, he didn’t even think to spare his own son. Nothing and no one was too high a price. Christ Jesus died for us, but more than that (I love when there’s more), was raised to life. He did more than pay our ransom. He went a step further and came back to be with us so we wouldn’t be alone. So we wouldn’t just have a story about something nice someone we’ve never met did once to save us. We would have him.

Who can separate us from a love like that? We’ve been adopted and included. We have someone to speak on our behalf when we don’t know what to say. We were well thought out and predestined for a purpose. Most of all we are loved. Beyond a shadow of a doubt or the seal on a grave. We are loved not by someone who fought an army, but by someone who defeated death itself. After all of this, is there anything that can stop him from fitting all the jagged-edged pieces of my life together? Am I not already blessed?

Nothing in my life so far has turned out like I thought it would. Not. One. Thing. But I carry with me always the ultimate blessing.

My cup runneth over.

Some Thoughts on San Bernardino

First published December 4, 2015

In the wake of the deadliest mass shooting since Sandy Hook three years ago, the publishers of NY Daily News made their frustration with praying lawmakers who fail to enact stricter gun controls very clear with a headline that reads, "God Isn't Fixing This".

And my heart aches.

My heart aches for the victims, and the confusion and fear they must have felt. My heart aches for their loved ones, some of whom waited hours while bus after bus dropped survivors off at a gym, only to finally be told there were no more buses coming.

My heart aches for the authorities who bore the burden of sitting those loved ones down, one by one, to break the heart-breaking news.

Believe it or not, my heart also aches for Syed Farook and Tashfeen Malik because I wish they knew the God I know, who doesn’t fix things because He makes all things new.

And I wish with all my heart they understood the power behind the love He had for them, even at their weakest. I wish they comprehended the magnitude of His grace for them, even at their darkest. I wish they experienced the transformation that occurs with one touch of that love.

This issue is so much bigger than guns, or terrorists, or ISIS. It’s bigger than the law of the land that seeks to put a stamp on it, shut the office lights off and go home. This is about a hurting world and the human heart.

When this country was new, our Founding Fathers seemed to be on to something the world has long since dismissed. It’s the idea that a submission to God equals a protection by God and a favor from God. That’s why they made us one nation under God.

They saw God’s principles as vital not just to the order of their daily lives, but to the order of a nation. Thomas Jefferson’s letter to a group of concerned Baptists that mentions a wall of separation between church and state referred only to protecting the church from government control.

In fact when a group petitioned Congress to separate Christian principles from government in 1853, the response was that “…any attempt to war against Christianity would have been strangled in its cradle”, because, they said, “In this age, there is no substitute for Christianity.”

But in 1992, those handful of words referencing church and state had been pulled from Jefferson’s letter and used so frequently in court cases since the 1940s that the Supreme Court stated the unthinkable, “At the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life.”

I wonder how Syed’s existence would have been defined if he had let God do the defining.

There is a popular portrait that depicts Jesus knocking on a closed door. The door is meant to represent the human heart. If you look closely, something is missing. There is no handle on the outside of the door.

There is no way in unless it is opened from the inside. Maybe that's because Jesus never went where he wasn't invited. Ever the gentleman, he has to be asked. He will not go where he is not wanted.

And sadly, the world doesn't want him. Because the world doesn’t know him.

I agree some action must be taken on the part of mankind. We were never called to sit idly by and watch any form of injustice flourish. Maybe in the case of the San Bernardino shootings, stricter gun controls would have prevented this.

But then what?

You're still left with a man and woman who just didn’t see things like other people do. What if they used a bomb instead because a law prevented them from obtaining guns?

A Huffington Post article reported that the couple had more than 1,600 bullets on them when they were killed. Waiting at home were 12 pipe bombs, tools to make more explosives, and more than 3,000 rounds of ammunition.

Someone who knew Syed said, "This was a person who was successful, who had a good job, a good income, a wife and a family. What was he missing in his life?" Was it more money, a better job, more friends, or simply to just be heard and accepted?

The answer is none of it.

No matter how hard you try, nothing can fill a hole that is created to be filled by something else.

When a potter fashions a bowl, shaping it and molding it and causing it to have form, does the bowl then fill itself? No. That bowl remains empty until the potter fills it.

The God who formed Syed and Tashfeen, with such an incredible purpose in mind, is the only one who could have fulfilled them.

The law may seek to reign in behavior. It may even succeed. But it doesn't change the heart.

There are deeper rooted issues at hand that no law can change. I'm not saying that we shouldn't enact laws that will protect us. I'm simply saying until we get past the behavior to the heart underneath it, we will continue to see this violence.

Whatever the cause, God does have an answer. It's not in the rules we follow, songs we sing, chants we hum, or peace we manifest inside ourselves. It’s not in the life we think we design, the job we think we’ve earned, or the money we think secures.

The answer is simply found in Him.

It’s found in meeting a loving, merciful Father who has never not existed and is bound by nothing.

It’s found in trusting the God who keeps the earth from crashing into the sun, and still hears every prayer you pray.

It’s found in a relationship with the God who bled on a cross to save you, wrestled with hell to win you, defeated the grave to redeem you, and still catches every tear you cry in a bottle.

Nothing is too big for Him to overcome.

Nothing is too small for Him to notice.

Every piece of your heart, however broken, is held by hands that were strong enough to tear death to shreds and safe enough to steady the raging seas.

God doesn’t fix things. He replaces the broken with something brand new. This isn't a gun issue. It's not a Muslim or terrorist issue. It's not a Republican or Democrat issue. It's not an ‘us’ or ‘them’ issue. It’s not a law issue. Since time began, this has been a heart issue.

And only God can make hearts new.


John 3:16-19

2 Corinthians 5:17

Psalm 97:1-6

Psalm 139