jesus – Page 67 – thelifeididntchoose

The Power of Lament to Make Room for Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving was always my favorite holiday.

I loved everything about it: the color scheme, the food (I love, love, love to cook-it was never a burden), family and friends gathered around the table, and the wonderful slowness of the day as it lingered into nightfall.

It was more flexible than Christmas for including all sorts of folks who otherwise didn’t have someplace to go. Living near colleges meant that we welcomed students from around the world-we might have two or three dozen laughing faces milling about.

It was wonderful.

And I loved going around the circle, tummies bursting, to share what people were thankful for and why.

When Dominic left us everything changed.

Oh, I was (and still am) so very thankful for so very many things-my family, daily physical provision, ongoing care and love of friends, the enduring faithful mercy of God.

But there’s something else too: there is deep sorrow at the unavoidable FACT that when God COULD have stepped in and changed an outcome, He DIDN’T.

And I’m having to learn to open my heart to thankfulness while also bearing witness to this pain.

Praise and lament in the same breath.

I have plenty of company.

The world we live in is full of pain and suffering. Injustice reigns. We make our way through thorns and by the sweat of our brow.

It is just plain hard.

The psalmist acknowledges that. He doesn’t rush past the pain. He doesn’t gloss over the broken places.

He empties his heart of the feeling that God has forgotten. But he doesn’t stop there-he chooses to bring the emptiness back to the only One Who can fill it up again.

Like the psalmist, I’m learning that I must exhale before I can inhale.

I must admit the burden of hopelessness to make room for the blessing of hope.

“With my voice I cry out to the LORD: with my voice I plead for mercy to the LORD.”

I ADMIT I FEEL ABANDONED:

In the path where I walk
they have hidden a trap for me.
Look to the right and see:
there is none who takes notice of me;
no refuge remains to me;
no one cares for my soul.

AND YET I WILL CHOOSE TO TRUST:

I cry to you, O LORD;
I say, “You are my refuge,
my portion in the land of the living.”

IN THE HOPE THAT GOD HEARS:

Attend to my cry,
for I am brought very low!

SO THAT MY TESTIMONY MAY BE ONE OF PRAISE:

Bring me out of prison,
that I may give thanks to your name!

Psalm 142, selected

As I sit at the table, cherishing the companionship of those I love and missing the one I can no longer see, I will embrace thanksgiving and lament.

I will exhale and inhale.

I will beg for grace and mercy because I can no longer beg to be spared from sorrow.

I will ask for eyes to see and a faithful heart while I wait.

What if My Testimony is Endurance?

Clearly marked boundaries, categories and rules make things easier.

But life rarely fits in the tidy boxes I like to create.

And when it doesn’t I’m tempted to ignore the parts that don’t fit-tempted to pretend they don’t exist-so I can maintain the world I’ve created for myself. I would rather march on in ignorance than drag out my underlying assumptions to figure out if they are true or false.

That takes a lot of work.

In the church we like to line up the “Overcomers” to give testimony of how faith in Christ has turned their life around.

And He absolutely does that.

Some are delivered from addiction, sin and abuse. Some receive healing-none the less miraculous if it comes through the hands of skilled physicians. Some enjoy restored relationships.

But not everyone gets what they long for. Not every loss can be undone.

And those left to live their lives hoping but not healed can be labeled “losers”. We can be marginalized because our story is messy and can’t be tied up in a neat spiritual package.

It MATTERS how we frame the very personal tragedies that people around us experience.

My friend and fellow loss mom, Janet Boxx, has written a beautiful post that exposes one of the ways life doesn’t fit the neat categories we like to use.

Please take a moment to read her post It’s Personal .

Sometimes people outside our experience toss Scripture at us who are suffering like confetti in a parade-as if we are heroes who only have yet to take the podium and declare the victory.

But what if there IS no victory in this life for some of us?

What if there is only endurance–which is a sort of victory but one not highly valued?

Paul never declared a final victory over his thorn in the flesh. He characterized his life as one “poured out like a drink offering”. He said he “groaned” in his earthly tent and “longed” to be clothed with the heavenly.

I am living. I don’t spend my days curled up in a ball (even when I want to).

But I groan–I groan for the time when what the enemy has stolen will be restored.

Until then, even if I have to crawl, battered and bruised:

“I push myself forward toward the goal to win the prize. God has appointed me to win it. The heavenly prize is Christ Jesus himself.” (Philippians 3:14 NIRV)

The final destruction of death is still in the future. It hasn’t happened yet, but it will. Not only will I see Lenya again, but I will hold the same body I held here, only better, because what the thief has stolen will be restored sevenfold (Proverbs 6:31)!
This is why it’s crucial for you to see that we don’t need to put a nice face on our pain or hurry people through a process that can’t be rushed; the fact that our sadness doesn’t go away makes our triumph even more powerful. Our faith works in the fire, and not just when life is fun. We can be hard-pressed and yet not crushed, struck down and yet not destroyed — not because we know general facts about the resurrection or that there is a heaven, but because we trust in the one who said that he is the resurrection and the life, who took the keys from death and hell, was dead, and lives forever. His name is Jesus, and he always leads us in triumph!
~Levi Lusko, Through the Eyes of a Lion

Lesson From the House of Mourning

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

Assurance

I know many who wonder about the eternal destiny of loved ones.

God in His mercy extends grace to everyone who believes.

thief-on-the-cross-yancey

NOTHING can separate us from the love of God:

nothing-can-separate-hands

God promises that HE holds on to US–HE finishes the work He began in us.

“And I am certain that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns.”

Philippians 1:6 NLT

Even if the last choice someone made was a foolish one, or a desperate one, The Good Shepherd brings all His sheep home.

“My sheep recognize my voice. I know them, and they follow me. I give them real and eternal life. They are protected from the Destroyer for good. No one can steal them from out of my hand. The Father who put them under my care is so much greater than the Destroyer and Thief. No one could ever get them away from him. I and the Father are one heart and mind.” ~Jesus

John 10:27-30 MSG

sheperd

Homesick

desire-for-another-world-c-s-lewis

Forty years!

Forty years Israel wandered in the desert, unable to claim the promise given them through Moses.

Forty years forbidden to set foot across the Jordan and partake of the bounty that lay on the other side.

Forty years of death as the rebellious ones were laid to rest because of their rebellion.

I bet they got tired of traveling. I bet they were weary of moving on. I bet they wondered (even though they had sure knowledge) just when this would be over.

And all that time, even in the midst of their heartsick longing to go back, have a do-over, make it right and the heavy weight of knowing, knowing, knowing there would be no going back, the LORD was in their midst-a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night-He was there.

I understand completely.

Sundown yesterday began the Feast of Tabernacles for Jews around the world. It’s a seven day period to celebrate God’s faithfulness in the wilderness and to remember that this world is not our home.

Feast of Tabernacles Transp.png

I think it is a beautiful tradition and a wonderful way to speak truth to our hearts.

Because it’s easy to forget.

Unless something happens that sharpens the homesick longing that lies latent in all our hearts, it’s easy to get comfortable here. Life seems pretty good-we gather our people and our stuff around us and think, “I could stay here forever.”

But no one stays here forever.

This world is not my home.

It never has been.

And I am tired of traveling. I am tired of moving on. I wonder just when this is going to be over.

But even here, God is in the midst of it.

Emmanuel-God With Us-is near.

Jehovah-Shalom-The LORD My Peace-is speaking peace that passes understanding to my weary spirit.

I was created for a place where love and light reign and sickness and death cannot enter.

I feel it every day.

“I began to try to define the pain I felt. Yes, it was sorrow, but it was something more, something infinitely deeper. I felt it all the time, even when I was happy. It wasn’t just sorrow. It was a longing; a pining for a better place and time … no, not just a better place and time, a perfect place and time; a different reality. It felt like longing for home, but not for a home I had ever been to. I began to see that it was something like homesickness …. Perhaps Christians are the most consistently homesick people in the world because they know this world (as it is) isn’t their true home. Yes, I was home, but I was still homesick.”
~Elyse Fitzpatrick, Home

Eternal Atonement: Hallelu Yah!

The Fall Feasts of Israel are a beautiful reminder of Who God is and what Christ has done for us.

Beginning this evening and continuing until sunset tomorrow, Jews around the world are observing Yom Kippur or The Day of Atonement.

According to Scripture (Leviticus 16), The Day of Atonement was commanded by God for Israel to remember the terrible debt of sin and the only acceptable payment–blood.

The high priest would enter the Holy of Holies and apply blood to the horns of the mercy seat, thus covering over for another year the individual and corporate sin of Israel.

According to Jewish tradition, God inscribes each person’s fate for the coming year into a book, the Book of Life, on Rosh Hashanah, and waits until Yom Kippur to “seal” the verdict. During the Days of Awe, a Jew tries to amend his or her behavior and seek forgiveness for wrongs done against God and against other human beings. The evening and day of Yom Kippur are set aside for public and private petitions and confessions of guilt. At the end of Yom Kippur, one hopes that they have been forgiven by God.

Yet year after year, this sacrifice was not enough.

The blood of animals is insufficient to pay the debt owed by men to a perfect and holy God.

But the blood of the Perfect Lamb, Jesus Christ, has completely paid the debt I owe-I no longer cower in the shadow of my sin.

When I chose to apply that blood to my heart by faith, I was made right with the LORD.

As a believer in Jesus the Christ, I have a High Priest that has offered His own blood as the Perfect Sacrifice once for all (Hebrews 9).

I can rest assured that I’m not sealed only for a day, or even a year, but for all eternity!

Because Jesus is the eternal and sufficient propitiation for my sins, I need not fear death.

It is sin which gives death its power, and it is the Law which gives sin its strength. All thanks to God, then, who gives us the victory over these things through our Lord Jesus Christ!

I Corinthians 15:55-57 PHILLIPS

We do not have to bring a sacrifice to the altar and hope that our sins are forgiven. The Law holds no power over us who believe-Jesus fulfilled its every obligation.

But it is a good thing to take a day to reflect on the cost and the gift

Too often we grasp the gift and forget its cost.

Today, remember what the LORD has done for you. Remember the burden He lifted by His sacrifice. Remember His claim on your life–the life He purchased with His blood.

revelation-5_9

Remember.

If you are withholding grace and forgiveness–remember, and repent–give to others what God has graciously given to you.

If you are walking outside the will of God for your life–remember and repent-fall back in step behind the Lord Jesus and let Him guide you.

If you are dabbling in sin–remember and repent-turn from your wickedness and back to holiness.

Remember and be thankful.

“Blessed is he whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered.”

~Psalm 32:1

Choosing the Eternal Path

jer-6-16-web-21

It’s easy to develop the habit of hurrying.

An inner voice screams, “I’ve got to do it NOW, I’m running out of time!”

When I talk to people, or overhear others’ conversations, they say, “I just don’t have time” or “I’m so busy, I don’t know what to do”.

I have said it myself more than once.

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.

He walked everywhere He went even though His was the most important ministry ever executed on the earth and it would have been much more efficient to choose a faster mode of transportation.

The message I receive from His life in this regard is that the journey is as important as the destination.

We justify our lifestyle by claiming we have no control.

We just can’t help the fact that our cell phones ring, that we have to go here or there and that we can’t seem to get a handle on our schedules.

I think that as Christ followers, God would say: “Choose!”

We do have control over how we spend our time.

It is true that we have to fulfill our God-given responsibilities and that may include work-hours we can’t choose. But even those who work full-time have many hours that they direct.

How many conversations do we neglect with the very people God has put in our path because our minds are focused on the next thing?

How many times are we multi-tasking with our phones or Ipads and missing a divine appointment to show the love of Jesus to someone right in front of us?

God has not called us to be a people out of breath, with no energy or heart for the ministry He has given us.

He is the Lord of the Sabbath-the King of Peace and the Giver of Rest. He invites us to join Him and to take His yoke upon us-a yoke neither heavy nor cumbersome.

In Jeremiah, God called Israel back to Himself with these words:

Thus says the Lord; Stand by the roads and look; and ask for the eternal paths, where the good, old way is; then walk in it; and you will find rest for your souls

Jeremiah 6: 16

Our techno-toys should be used as tools not as taskmasters.

The activities that fill our calendars should be evaluated in light of the greater call God has on our lives, not chosen just because our friends are doing them.

We need to do “first things first” and make room for people before things and conversation before commerce.

We are free in Christ to choose.

Abundant life is a gift of God to be experienced right now, right where we are.

When we refuse to get sucked into the “busy-ness” of our culture, we open up a world of possibility to be the people God has called us to be.

Dig the Well BEFORE You are Thirsty

I am not a fan of church signs.

Most of the time they try to be cute and reduce eternal truth to a few words that often leave room for [mis]interpretaion.

But I saw one today that I DID like: “Dig the well before you are thirsty”.

It takes time to dig a well.

And it’s hard work.

You can’t wake up one morning, decide to dig and expect results in a couple of hours. If you want a reliable source of water to quench your thirst you have to plan ahead.

It’s been my habit for about 25 years to wake early in the morning, read my Bible and journal. I started this practice when my children were young and boisterous and our active household meant once they were awake I’d have no time for quiet meditation.

But after reading Scripture for so long, I’d noticed the stories had become too familiar. I would read through some of them with a “yeah, yeah-heard that before” attitude.

So I committed to SLOW DOWN and force my heart to look carefully and listen closely to what the Spirit was speaking from the page.

I decided I would read just a single chapter each day and copy out a verse or two that stood out into my journal along with notes and comments. I found as I went along that it was harder and harder to choose only a couple of verses, so I began to copy whole chapters.

Of course I missed a day or two here and there so it took about three and a half years.

Just a few months before Dominic left us, I finished my slow journey through the Bible. I had copied out most of it by hand in six journals. I had underlined and circled and annotated the pages, making it my own.

I was digging my well.

I had no clue that I would be desperately thirsty in such a short time.

The morning I received the awful news-my heart shattered, my world spinning, my life undone-words of Truth bubbled to the surface unbidden.

Living Water sprang forth from the deep well of promise that was dug before I knew I needed it.

When I began my slow walk through Scripture, I didn’t know what the future held.

But my Shepherd-Who knows the end from the beginning-was leading me.

When my hands trembled too much to open the pages of my Bible and my eyes were too full of tears to see the print, the words stored up in the well of my heart spilled out to soothe my soul.

I continue to draw from this deep well and drink the Living Water.

It is a source of life and hope and sustaining strength until that day when a well will no longer be needed-when faith will be sight and I possess what has been promised.

Then he showed me a river of the water of life, clear as crystal, coming from the throne of God and of the Lamb, in the middle of its street. On either side of the river was the tree of life, bearing twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit every month; and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. There will no longer be any curse; and the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and His bond-servants will serve Him; they will see His face, and His name will be on their foreheads. And there will no longer be any night; and they will not have need of the light of a lamp nor the light of the sun, because the Lord God will illumine them; and they will reign forever and ever.

And he said to me, “These words are faithful and true”; and the Lord, the God of the spirits of the prophets, sent His angel to show to His bond-servants the things which must soon take place.

“And behold, I am coming quickly. Blessed is he who ^[e]heeds the words of the prophecy of this book.”

Revelation 22:1-7 NASB

Broken, But Not Beyond Repair

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall

Humpty Dumpty had a great fall

All the king’s horses and all the king’s men

Couldn’t put Humpty Dumpty together again.

~children’s rhyme

Shattered beyond repair-that certainly describes my broken heart in the first days, weeks and months after Dominic’s leaving.

I felt like Humpty Dumpty.

The pieces were too small to find, much less glue back together in anything resembling wholeness.

And the essence of the “old me”-the person that existed before loss-was spilled onto the ground, leaking strength and life and joy into the dry earth.

Humpty Dumpty had no hope-the king’s men and horses were powerless to breathe life into the lifeless bits and pieces that were left.

But I don’t have to depend on the king’s men or the king’s horses.

I have access to the King Himself.

I am not separated by a veil from the Mercy Seat.

I can come boldly before the Throne of Grace and pile my broken life on the Altar of Hope.

Now that we know what we have—Jesus, this great High Priest with ready access to God—let’s not let it slip through our fingers. We don’t have a priest who is out of touch with our reality. He’s been through weakness and testing, experienced it all—all but the sin. So let’s walk right up to him and get what he is so ready to give. Take the mercy, accept the help.

Hebrews 4:16 MSG

The One Who made me can remake me.

He IS remaking me.

I have no illusions that the cracks won’t show.

But I am trusting that my new fragility will make me both more grace-filled and more grace dependent.

Blessed Assurance

One of the ongoing challenges in my grief journey is fighting back fear.

Fear of what COULD happen, now that I know by experience what it feels like when it does.

So I try to remind myself on a regular basis that my life and the lives of those I love have never been in my own hands:

Who’s Holding on to Whom?

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