Thursday Thoughts: The Reality of the Gospel for Everyday Life

I am a pleaser. Sometimes this is a good thing (such as the fact that I work hard and diligently as a result) and sometimes it is a bad thing (because I too easily find my moods and worth in how others value what I do and not in its natural value or what I might assign to it). If I don't feel a project will please, I often don't even start it.

When I feel as if I'm failing, I tend to shy away from the foot of the Cross to which I so readily cling. I try to hide my failure, even from the God who so clearly has seen it all and loves me regardless.

But there is compassion for the taking at Jesus' feet! I love Bethany Dillon's song, "Be Near Me":

All I have ever wanted -
and what men have given their lives for -
is a God who understands my weaknesses, a God that I can love.

I cannot believe You are angry or unjust -
You've done nothing but have compassion on us.
So be near when I've given up. Be near me.

Compassion is what stirs me from my hiding. It is the very heart of God in so many ways! Compassion gives life, and takes us from our hiding in the darkness and brings us into the glorious light of life in the Son of God! It lifts our eyes from our failure and brings an understanding of Christ's heart near to us.

Knowing myself and knowing the incredible depths of folly to which I succumb so readily, it is awe-inspiring and humbling to serve a God who understands my weaknesses and failures without my having to bring them out of the dark cubby where I like to hide them.

He is not angry or unjust. Perhaps one of the greatest misconceptions about Christianity is that God exists as a large Judge in the sky, waiting to rain judgement and dole out apt punishment - but I am so grateful that is not an accurate picture of the God I fail and fall before daily!

It is true that He will act as Righteous Judge - He is holy, righteous in all His ways, and any violation of His character by us deserves eternal punishment. We have to start with God. When we start with ourselves, we always will fail in answering the important questions about life here on this round, rotating rock flying in space.

But He is compassionate! Jesus was not a mistake and is not just a man that people follow and cling to blindly. In His knowledge, God set Jesus as the Lamb Slain on the Altar of God before our world was ever born. Just as a parent anticipates the birth of a child, so God looked forward to our arrival. But He knew our sin against His holy nature could too easily separate us from Him as our Father.

So He sent Jesus, fully man in His limitations and fully God in His glory. And He was sent, from the first, to die for us.

Before we were born, God took those steps to prepare for our arrival and to ensure that we would not be wrested from His grasp by others who would claim us as their own.

Before I was born! I need the reality of this in my heart every day or I try to hide behind all that is already exposed and dealt with in the economy of mercy.

Burdens & Chaos

If you have been keeping up with our renovation blog (http://mercuryreno.blogspot.com), you will know that our lives have been slightly chaotic for a long time. As the school year comes to end, we find ourselves in an accumulated pile of burdens and chaos that seems to have snowballed over the last few months.

Perhaps the biggest thing is simply that this spring was not anything like Chris or I ever thought it would be. I planned to work toward finishing my thesis. Chris planned to take a long-term sub position and continue to hope for a full time job next year.

We had no intentions of buying/renovating a house.

We had no thoughts of Chris hurting himself in the midst of that process.

We had no concept of what it would look like to have Chris try to work both his own job and the long-term sub job while recovering (twice) from knee things (the initial injury and then surgery eight weeks later).

We had no idea that it would be so hard for me to finish a semester where I haven't made any progress on my thesis whatsoever, can barely keep up with the one seminar I'm taking and the one lab section I'm responsible for.

And yet, as much as I tend toward disappointment and frustration in all of our stalled and delayed and unfulfilled plans for the last few months, I find that I am still attempting to carry this burden all by myself. Didn't Jesus say:

Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. But even the hairs on your head are all numbered. Fear not, therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows. [[Matthew 10:29-31]]

I fail to see worth in myself unless I am fulfilling my self-ordained plans. It is simple to feel the failure when I have not really accomplished what I set out to do with the last few months. It has been a struggle even to see small projects (like the blanket below) get finished when their original purpose is no longer existent or has no use at the current time.

I've struggled with idols in my heart and misconceptions about God and who He is and how He views me like I have never before in the twelve years I've walked with Christ. There have been so many times where I have looked at my life these past few months and wondered if there was any blessing in it.

Don't get me wrong - I know that there is blessing in it and blessing written all over every inch, even if I still don't see all of it. But there are things that I have held so tightly to that they have accumulated upon my back and weighed me down. My relationship with God has been strained as I have struggled to understand what "blessing" and "common grace" and "love" all mean.

And yet, there is one thing that is always the last thing to come to mind - when I need it most of all:

Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. [[Matthew 11:28-30]]

 I need rest for my soul. Pray that I find it in the only place it can be found.

How He loves us...

Life since November has been a whirlwind of emotions and personal detours that has left me in a state of spiritual disarray. For a while, I found myself at the foot of the cross daily, glorying in the simple fact that my Father loved me.

Not only does He love me, but He loved me enough to send His most valued thing - His Son - to die on my behalf. That is no ordinary love.

“How He Loves” has become one of my favorite songs, and as I prayed tonight, struggling to grasp hold of some flotation device as I sank into my own misery, the words flowed into my mind and their meaning fought to take root in my heart.

He is jealous for me /

I am finding more and more that I have mistaken common grace for the immense and incredible love of the Father. It is certain that He bestows gifts of grace to all mankind - men and women see with eyes, eat tasty foods, experience success, and hold newborns regardless of faith in God. Christopher was quick to remind me the other night that God grants common grace to reveal aspects of Himself to the world and to draw men unto Him.

But He is jealous for me. That is no ordinary love. The love of the Father is a love that protects, never fades, and that fights for me when the covenant that I cannot keep on my own is threatened. My Savior will fight for my heart when other things threaten to take it from Him.

And, perhaps if I am fully honest with myself, He has had good reason to fight for my heart recently. There are too many distractions, no matter how hard I try to ward them off - only one taking root in my heart is too many.

Loves like a hurricane //
I am a tree / Bending beneath the weight of His wind and mercy //

‘Hurricane’ is an appropriate word. Life seems to be throwing all sorts of things at us from every angle and we can’t seem to make our way to the eye, where peace reigns in the middle of the storm. And we are certainly bending beneath every bit of its weight.

And, yet, I can almost see the love of God in each wind, if I let myself. God’s love abounds in Christopher’s skiing mishap, as He continues to show Himself faithful with the slow restoration of movement to Christopher’s foot and the fact that it could have been much, much worse. God’s love resides in our housing situation, waiting to close on a house that seemed impossible from the beginning and has been one victorious and humbling hurdle after the next. God’s love is evident in the girls’ retreat last weekend and the prayers that were answered for unity and love among them. God’s love brings mercy in the form of my little brother - who was fully available and gave up a few of his days to come help me get home things straightened out on a short deadline. God’s love is with others, as His protection and desire for His glory to be made great are revealed in circumstances beyond anyone’s control.

And God’s love is perfect, seeking to refine me to make me more like His Son.

When all of a sudden, I am unaware / Of these afflictions eclipsed by Glory /

Oh, how I wish I could understand what He is doing! I am so vastly unaware of the workings behind the scenes, of how these afflictions are to be eclipsed by glory because of the victory of the cross!

And I realize just how beautiful You are
and how great Your affections are for me //

It is too easy to look at the presence of common grace and pitch a fit over not being granted one or two pieces of it. Why do I care so much when I have something so much greater - when the God of the Universe loves me with no ordinary love?

I so desperately need to understand, but not what I think I must - I do not need to understand which pieces of common grace God has for my life, but the very important truth that He loves us. How He loves us so.

[["How He Loves," lyrics by John Mark McMillan]]

Peace, Peace

Can I just say how much I appreciate Sara Groves and her ability to continually put forth album after album of music that is so incredibly good for my soul? This year, after having "It's True" on my everyday playlist for more than a year, Christopher and I went ahead and purchased the rest of her Christmas Album, "O Holy Night." All through December, I listened over and over to amazing words of songs that have been around for years - and felt as though I heard them for the first time, as Groves shaped the music around them in a different way.

One of my favorites is a song called "Peace, Peace", which includes a line from "O Little Town of Bethlehem" - "All your hopes and fears are met in Him tonight." What a beautiful line! And one that I have listened to countless times without actually understanding the profound nature of those words!

Peace, peace - it's hard to find;
Trouble comes like a wrecking ball to your peace of mind,

and all that worry you can't leave behind -
All your hopes and fears are met in Him tonight.

I usually love Christmas (and wrapping presents, which I could gush about for a while), but there was something so incredible about this Christmas. Early on, I began praying that my heart would be softened - that I would experience anew the incredible joy of our Savior's advent.

The end of the fall was particularly rough for me in places, but so sweet in others. In the wake of my grandmother's death, I finally found a perspective of what it means to hold to Christ all of our days - to walk with Him, to trust Him until the very end.

And I think that's when it hit me that God loves me. It's not this thing where He kind of tolerates me and decided that, since He was already saving a few others, I was available to throw into the bunch. Had that been the case, there would have been no need for things to have happened as they did.

To think that, not only did God humble Himself in becoming a baby boy in all of our human limitations, but He did so with the intent of taking on our filth so that we could be with Him each day of our lives on this earth - as well as the next day after we leave it.

I think I cried every day of the first two weeks of my winter break. Sometimes tears of sadness when I was overwhelmed by the still-new grief of my parents over their mothers' deaths, but mostly tears of gratitude and joy - something I haven't experienced in so much time I'm ashamed to admit to my lack of feeling.

God was faithful in answering my prayers that my heart be tender and softened for the season - all of my hopes and fears were met in Him.

Peace, peace - it's hard to find;
Doubt comes like a tiny voice that's so unkind,
and all your fears they conspire to unwind you.
All your hopes and fears are met in Him.

And, yet, it is difficult to return home. My hopes and fears here seem so very different than what they were when we were with our parents or at Faithwalkers and surrounded by our church family. I'm struggling to breathe the free air that I so easily experienced elsewhere. In my battle with apathy, I feel the ever-consuming urge to control what I doubt God can do. I've become laden with anxiety, my sleep has become erratic at best, and yet, still - All of my hopes and fears are met in Him tonight.

How splendid that my doubts and apathy have no effect on the goodness and glory of God - that even when I fail, He is still meeting all of my hopes and fears! My God is still in control over this mess that I continually make for myself. My God still rules the very air I breathe.

With that knowledge alone, I ought to (and can) have peace.

Peace, peace.

[[lyrics from "Peace, Peace" by Sara Groves, Ben Gowell and Aaron Fabbrini]]