I used to position myself at the end of the pew, just in case someone I’m not too comfortable with might come along and try to sit down.
It saved us both that awkward conversation where they ask if they can join me and I say “yes” with my mouth but “no” with my body language.
Read the rest here: Move Over, Make Room for the Broken
There are lots and lots of things in life where the distance between “good enough” and “perfect” really doesn’t matter.
I don’t aim for hospital corners while making my bed.
I cook without recipes-adding this or that until the taste suits me.
If I walk 8,567 steps or 10,291 steps I am not going to stress about it.
BUT-there is one thing I absolutely MUST get right.
My understanding of God-Who He is, Who Jesus is-matters for ever and ever.
I want to get it right.
I want to hear from the Holy Spirit and understand God’s Word. I need to figure out the basics even if I can’t fill in all the details because what I believe about Jesus Christ determines whether or not I will join my son in heaven.
I admit that I still struggle with reconciling God’s sovereignty and God’s goodness. I haven’t come up with an easy answer for why bad things happen in the world-often to people who don’t seem to “deserve” it.
But I am absolutely convinced that God is in control.
He is the Creator and Sustainer of this world. He rules and reigns from a place of power and glory and might. He did not make us and then leave us to our own devices. He is active, here and now.
I trust in God’s faithful, enduring love.
It certainly doesn’t always look like what I think love should look like. It includes allowing pain and heartache, dark nights and deep valleys.
Some He saves from the fire and others He gives over to tyrants.
But He also pursues me,
woos me,
strengthens me,
and sustains me.
He does not leave me to my own devices nor abandon me to my sin. He has provided a way where there was no way. His own Son’s blood is the Perfect and Enduring Sacrifice that gives me access to the Throne of Grace.
And I am convinced that the work He began in me-the work He began in Dominic-He is faithful to complete it.
I don’t get to see the finished product yet.
It’s frustrating, frightening and painful to wait for it to be revealed.
But I believe with my whole heart that it will be one day.
Reading through the Sermon on the Mount, it’s easy to feel defeated.
Jesus ripped off the Pharisees’ masks. He gave people a peek behind the curtain-unveiling the sin that hid beneath a facade of outward obedience and seeming righteousness.
Jesus also strips away any pretense that I can follow the “rules”.
Sure I may not murder anyone, but hate and malice-how am I supposed to get through this life without calling someone “fool”?
Line after line of impossible standards-righteousness that goes way beyond the Ten Commandments!
I am hopeless and helpless.
Jesus makes just that point-on my own, in my own strength, dependent on my own efforts, I’m lost.
That’s what makes the Gospel the Good News!
God in His mercy and grace has offered the only true hope–the righteousness of Christ, the Perfect Sacrifice and atonement for sin.
When I walk into church and pretend I “have it altogether”, when I refuse to display my brokenness and my need for forgiveness, I obscure the beauty, value and truth of the Gospel.
I raise a barrier between those who need rescue and the very means by which they may be saved.
We are all broken.
We are all lost.
Our only hope is Jesus.
May we be bold enough to be honest.
For most of us in America it seems that we rush from place to place, from event to event, from meal to meal, from crisis to crisis.
But when I read the Gospels I don’t feel a sense of rush at all.
Jesus expressed urgency when proclaiming that the kingdom of God was near, but He was never in a hurry.
Read the rest here: Choosing the Eternal Path
My children grew up surrounded by life and by death.
On our small farm they got to see puppies, kittens, goats, sheep and horses take their first breath. We watched turkeys and chickens hatch-struggling in that last great effort to throw off the shell.
And we also witnessed life’s end.
Every. time. it feels wrong. Every. time. it feels like defeat.
And it is–we were not made to die.
God didn’t create this world to be full of endings. He made it to be full of life and fellowship and love and for His glory.
But we live in a broken world.
When the first man and first woman looked away from their Loving Creator and embraced temptation, death came in through sin.
That longing we have, that sense that death is WRONG-that death is not the way things SHOULD be-that’s the spark of God’s Spirit speaking to us.
It’s the Father’s call to our hearts to turn to Him.
God the Father has made provision for eternal life with Him through Jesus the Son.
Yes, this world is full of death-it has touched my life in a very personal and awful way.
But my heart and God’s Word tells me that death is not what we are meant for-that there is MORE.
We who have known only futility, decay, homesickness, and exile, have found strong encouragement to hold fast to our hope because we are no longer helpless and alone. He’s already gone before us, trail blazing straight through exile and death into life as our Captain. Yes, I know this is true. I can hope even in the midst of doubt.
Through his death and resurrection, he has flung open the gate, torn the curtain that divided us from God’s presence, and done it all as the incarnate Son of Man. God has not forever abandoned his creation. Mankind is still his good work. In the body of Jesus, Man has gone into the presence of God, to his throne room, to the company of myriads of angels dressed for a party (see Hebrews 12:22). I’m in a form of exile now, but exile doesn’t mean abandonment. Jesus has made sure of that.
~Elyse Fitzpatrick, Home
As we move toward celebration of the birth of Christ, I pray we look also to His life, death and resurrection and the promise of hope He has placed in our hearts.
Our culture consumes death like candy bars-video games, violent television series and gory movies. Halloween is one of the biggest “holidays” celebrated in America.
We are desensitized to news stories of destruction and devastation because we’ve “seen” it all.
Yet we are a society that shuns mourning.
We can’t stand to hear the keening wail of mothers following the linen clad bodies of their fallen children.
We segregate funerals to special buildings that look like low-slung country clubs complete with ornate light fixtures, clean bathrooms and temperature controlled environments. In many places we no longer bury our dead next to a church where the living and the gone before mingle, waiting the glorious appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ.
All this so we can ignore the lesson of Solomon.
“It is better to go to a house of mourning than to go to a house of feasting, since that is the end of all mankind, and the living should take it to heart.”
Ecclesiastes 7:2 HCSB
I was only three but I remember my great-grandaddy laid out in the living room.
My parents didn’t hide me away in some corner and allow me to grow up pretending death didn’t exist. They didn’t shield me from visiting my ailing relatives or from standing by the gravesides of my ancestors.
I brought my children to funerals from an early age.
There’s no use pretending that people’s bodies don’t die. Sooner or later it catches up to you.
But while our bodies don’t last forever, our spirits do. We are eternal beings, you and me.
It’s not a question of IF we will live forever, but WHERE.
And that was Solomon’s point: decide while you still can who and what has your heart.
Because that choice determines where you spend eternity.
There is only one way to the Father’s House-through Jesus.
In the long run the answer to all those who object to the doctrine of hell, is itself a question: What are you asking God to do? To wipe out their past sins and, at all costs, to give them a fresh start, smoothing every difficulty and offering every miraculous help? But He has done so, on Calvary. To forgive them? They will not be forgiven. To leave them alone? Alas, I am afraid that is what He does.
C.S. Lewis in The Problem of Pain
Do you know Jesus?
He KNOWS you. He LOVES you. And He died for YOU.
He rose to conquer death for you.
He has made a Way where there was no way.
No one gets out of here alive…choose this day whom you will serve.
It makes an eternal difference.
If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved. As Scripture says, “Anyone who believes in him will never be put to shame.” For there is no difference between Jew and Gentile—the same Lord is Lord of alland richly blesses all who call on him, for, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”
Romans 10:9-13 NIV
I used to position myself at the end of the pew, just in case someone I’m not too comfortable with might come along and try to sit down.
It saved us both that awkward conversation where they ask if they can join me and I say “yes” with my mouth but “no” with my body language.
Frankly, I was at church to be lifted up so I could face the coming week with power and strength. I didn’t want to be dragged down by their reality of brokenness and sometimes bitter tears.
I don’t do that anymore.
I realize that most of what made me uncomfortable was other people’s pain.
Now I’m the one who’s broken. I’m the one who can’t get through “Amazing Grace” without blubbering.
And I’m the one that others hope won’t ask to join THEM.
But here’s the deal: God loves the broken. Christ came for the broken. It’s the broken and breathless who long for the Spirit to blow life across their wounded hearts.
It’s the hopeless and fearful that run faster to the safety of their Shepherd.
It’s the worried and weary who are thankful for a Burden-bearer.
When I refuse to move over and make room for the broken, I’m barring the way for the very ones who most desperately need the blessing. When I want my worship experience to exclude those who haven’t the strength to bring their own hearts before the throne of grace, I’m being selfish.
And that is sin.
Jesus went out of His way to heal the hurting,
to bless the broken and
to speak strength to the weary.
So now I sit in the middle of the pew and leave room for whoever God brings my way.
I want to be an open door, not a gatekeeper.
“Come to me, all of you who are weary and over-burdened, and I will give you rest! Put on my yoke and learn from me. For I am gentle and humble in heart and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” ~Jesus
(Matthew 11:28-30 PHILLIPS)
When I had a child, suddenly I cared about everything. When I lost a child, suddenly I cared about nothing.
~ a bereaved mother
When I read this comment, I thought about it for a moment to see if it was true for me.
And I realized that, yes, it WAS true at the very beginning.
Mind-numbing pain and soul-crushing agony pressed down so heavily that I couldn’t care about anything other than reminding myself to
In.
Out.
Repeat.
A bit over twenty-eight months have passed and my body, mind and spirit are stronger.
The pain is still great, but I am better able to bear it now.
My heart is bigger because I suffer and it is softer toward those who also suffer.
Trials make great room for consolation. There is nothing that makes man have a big heart like a great trial. I have found that those people who have no sympathy for their fellows, who never weep for the sorrows of others very seldom have any of their own. Great hearts could be made only by great troubles.
Charles Spurgeon
Now I care much more deeply about a few, select “things”.
The ones I can take with me into eternity:
People
And love
And grace
Forever in heaven with Jesus.
Good is something you do, not something you talk about.
Some medals are pinned to your soul, not to your jacket.
Gino Bartali
Set aside the tweets and the memes
Set aside the scores and the football predictions
Set aside the latest greatest whatever.
Move it off the table of your heart
And create space for the truly important:
The drowning people fleeing war torn countries where children are starving or being buried alive in bombed out rubble;
The families displaced-many forever-from homes that were nowhere near a flood plain and who never imagined they would watch a lifetime of memories float downstream;
The frightened ones trafficked for men’s pleasure-praying that someone, anyone, notices and steps in to save them;
The lonely teen unsure of where to turn until his thoughts become so unendurable that only one way out seems reasonable;
The old man or old woman, forgotten and alone, breathing stale air in a home that isn’t home-no one speaking his name, her name-as if they had already passed from this life to the next.
You think it doesn’t matter much.
You think someone else will take care of it
Until it’s you–
Waiting for light in the darkness
Looking for hope to hold onto
Begging for help as you’re drowning in despair.
As it is, you boast in your proud intentions. All such boasting is evil. Therefore whoever knows the right thing to do, yet fails to do it, is guilty of sin.
James 4:17 The Berean Study Bible
Last week was hard. Partly due to missing Dominic and partly due to things that had no direct link to him, but were made harder because of grief.
I try to do two things when that happens: I withdraw as much as possible to create space for rest and renewal and I remind my heart of the truth:
thelifeididntchoose 