The Good Hand... Always

I am thankful for a husband who loves me, two children who fill me with awe, our sweet little home.  I’m thankful for a church family that inspires me and that I get to love and serve.  I’m thankful for deep friendships.  I’m thankful for a family who is so close to my heart. 

Being thankful for those good things in life leads me to trust the hand of God that provides them.  Yes, being thankful leads to trust.

What about the difficult and bad things?  Are we really supposed to be thankful for those?  For people who just can’t find it in them to believe God is good and that He is our only hope, they say the atrocities of our world show His lack of good.  And, for people who have called Jesus their Savior, many see these things as adequate reasoning for keeping Him at an arm's length.

Do we deserve only good to happen?  Who really gets what they deserve?  Laying peacefully in bed a few nights ago I wondered, “Why have we been so blessed to do just that?”  Don’t you remember reading the Diary of Ann Frank?  Why did girls and boys have to fall asleep from complete exhaustion with fear in their dreams?  Last night, why did  mommas squeeze their children tight begging for a peaceful sleep in Kenya?  Why do I take for granted a peaceful sleep? 

I deserve no peaceful rest when others are facing starvation.  Our geography is all that separates us.  I am merely riding on the blessings of the generations before me.  Tragedy and difficulty simply can not be calculated and dished out deservingly. 

If calculated, my sin would earn me much more strife!  I spent years being judgemental.  I make my own self sick thinking of the lies I have told and the lies I have lived.  It’s ridiculous to look at some of my motives.  And my quick tongue… ay yay yay!  How I have pierced the people close to me in meanness.  I have worshipped self promotion, possessions, and appearance.  All truly meaningless things!  But I have not received what I deserve for those failures.  It doesn’t make sense. 

Whether our lives are in a time of blessing or pain, we simply do not get what we deserve!  We all deserve punishment.  We will never be good enough to deserve otherwise. 

The hand of God.  How does He handle us?

“He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all-how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?”  Romans 8:32

Let those words sink in.  They are true.  His Good Hand gave Jesus undeservingly for me.  The reality of eternity in Hope are mine.  (Eternity is happening even now). I am living proof that those words in Romans are true.  That in all good and bad things I have gone through, He graciously gives me perspective, peace, hope, endurance, and even joy.  I am nothing special.  I am simply someone who is learning to see Him in all things.  Because His Good Hand is in all things. 

“Trauma’s storm can mask the Christ and feelings can lie.  Sometimes we don’t see that in Christ, because of Christ, through Christ, He does give us all things good – until we have the perspective of years.  In time, years, dust settles.  In memory, ages, God emerges.  Then when we look back, we see God’s back.” Ann Voskamp, One Thousand Gifts.

How about we take time to look back over our lives and ask Him to open our eyes to see. 

People in our lives will fail. Everyone dies sometime. Our world groans and disasters happen.  Illness changes everything.  Oh, but WE ARE GIVEN A CHOICE!  In all things, every moment. 

We are given the choice to trust His Good Hand or to clench our own hands in fear and control. In all my "stressing," I am really just choosing to call God unreliable.

Yet, we are given the choice to freely surrender to the Almighty God knowing that we are sinful and need a Savior. I get to choose to trust Him to lead my life. I don’t have to choose to seek meaningless pleasure that fades and leaves me wanting more fixes.  I get to choose real Love, passion, and purpose. 

How could I such a sinner, deserve that? 

So just as I am wrapping this up, this song just came on … http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iAMJKfWsS9o.  I’m not kidding.  It’s playing right now!  I’m not sure if He meant it for me alone or not.  You may like it too :) HIS GOOD HAND!

Logic: Fear's Carefully Crafted Mask?

Last night one of our former students came to our door at 10:30 and stayed until after midnight. Poor kid, we talked his head off! He is in his first year of college and went through some tough stuff last year. He is on the path to following God through all of it. 

Brent and I stayed up for a while after he left, truly praising God for what is going on in that young man’s life. You see last year at this time, he wanted nothing to do with us. We had spent time building into him and loving him. We committed to not giving up on him. And honestly, it seemed to us like it was all in vain. Then, the knock on the door that got us out of bed and to led us to praise God deep in our hearts for the work He has been doing all along!

One thing I have learned from working with teenagers is that they can hurt our hearts pretty deep. I have spent heart and time loving on lots of students. There are only a handful who I have had the humble privilege to see really “get it.” Logic tells me that all that time and emotion are not worth the results. Logic tells me to find some other place to invest. Something more profitable.

I spent most of my high school and college days dating someone I thought I was going to marry. All the future plans were made. Children’s names planned. Years of becoming best friends and helping one another through those tough transition years. Love. He was killed in a motorcycle accident. 

Though God’s plans were clear and He blessed me with an incredible man to marry, logic had taught me that truly loving him would be too painful and that he too would be gone somehow. All it would take is one careless driver or one wrong decision and he would be gone. Logic said, “Don’t love people because they don’t last.”

We are programmed to learn based on extrapolation. What are the facts we can pull from a situation? What are the consistencies and norms? Don’t give much attention to the anomalies. They’re just flukes. Our logic and reason can solve most things. We humans do possess the highest form of thinking, right?

I think we’ve got it all wrong.

I see right where my logic was taking me. I would still be in a difficult marriage, living based on my understanding of what love does to a person. I would have passed that mentality onto my precious daughter, continuing the cycle. I would have never experienced the freedom of loving my husband fully. Or, the freedom of being gripped by the beauty of my children and loving so deep I feel it in my chest. I would never have had the privilege to walk with Brent as he faces trials and be the one who God uses to build him up. I would have never known the ironic freedom of giving myself to the one God made me to love.

 

Also, logic would have caused me to avoid teenagers at all costs. It would have bred a cynical view and led me to a commitment of hopelessness for the future generations. I can hardly write the words… those kids that have experienced His love and purpose, their lives set on a new path; that would not have been so. I would have found some other “self” thing to fill my time with. I would have been led further down the path of control and misery.

What has human reasoning led you to believe?

 

Perhaps, our logic alone (without God’s leading), is really a carefully crafted mask to hide fear.

 

Here are some interesting words:

• "Without weakening in his faith, he (Abraham) faced the fact that his body was as good as dead… yet he did not waver through unbelief…” Romans 4:19-20. 
•  “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher thanyour ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” Isaiah 55:9
• “To God belong wisdom and power; counsel and understanding are his.” Jon 12:13
• "The fear (awe, respect, reverence) of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.” Proverbs 9:10
• “Wisdom’s instruction is to fear the LORD, and humility comes before honor.” Proverbs 15:33

Our logic is faulty! Our human minds alone, do not have the ability predict outcomes! Len Schlesinger, a Harvard business professor says, " Treating an uncertain world as if it were predictable only gets you into trouble."

 

Those anomolies that we learn are flukes, actually ruin the whole argument for logically predicting and controlling our outcomes. The boy on our porch last night with his head in his hands saying thank you and getting a glimpse of the fact that God really does have big dreams for his life. The twenty nine year old grown girl who has been left and abandoned and is now pouring love out… me. We are anomalies to this whole logic thing.

 

The less of me and my logic/control/fear, the more I am open to being led by the One who made me. What about you?

 

I know that there are more painful times ahead of me. Do I want to squeeze tight and trust in the illusion of control? Or do I want to open my arms, my hands, my heart and trust in the reality of my Savior who is in control?  Does all of life come down to fear or trust?

 

Is the most important thing about us what we believe about God? (as A.W. Tozer says)

 

Forgive the Spanish subtitles. (I liked this video best!)

Finding My Way to the Root of Fear

I have been holding off posting because something is just growing and growing in my mind and heart. I’m one of those people who is not very patient. I was birthed with a heeping dose of passion instead of patience. I have a hard time telling stories because I just want to rush right to the point. I wonder if that is why I talk so fast? I’m not big on marinating food or waiting for bread to rise. Isn’t it true that those are the things that have the most flavor? Isn’t it true that we most appreciate and enjoy the things that take time? Perhaps, I am maturing. Perhaps, patience is developing.

Brent was a pitcher in his growing up years. I was a swimmer. He is infinitely more patient than me. He can see life as one step better day by day and enjoy the small victories. It’s one “pitch” at a time, one batter at a time, one inning at a time, one game at a time. Me, I’m always racing to the cross and the end of the lane, forgetting to pace myself, and holding my breath as I finish strong through the solid of the lane line. I get out of the pool heaving and spent.

This time, the things I have to share with you will not work in race form. Patience will have to outweigh my passion. As I write and listen to the Christy Knockles Pandora station, I’ll stop and raise my hands or sing loud and listen to these powerful words that mean more to me now than ever. This post may take hours, days, weeks, or months to come out fully. I will thank Brent now for locking me in the bedroom and playing with two sweet children to allow me to get part of it out today. I hear the loud boy hollering now and bowls of cereal clanking.

I’m sure you’ve heard the analogy of life having seasons. I’m learning it’s literal. This summer has been an incredible season of change… in my heart. Words can not express exactly what has happened. I can say that it is like my eyes have been opened to see life so much more clearly. It’s like colors are more vibrant. Scenes move by slowly. Moments mean so much more. It’s like caluses have been sanded away and I can feel touch, sound, color, emotion much more fully. I think I’ve gotten a taste of the life Jesus promised when He said, “Life to the full.”

I’m not sure where this journey of Dive will take us. But, I’m inviting you to come with me as I try to express it to you. Honestly, I’m on my face praying for me and you. I praying you experience Him through this… wherever you are on your journey. Some of you are my mentors and some of you think this whole God thing is a hoax but you love me and decide to see what I have to say. So I’m trusting Him to move and I’m really excited. Does that surprise you that I’m excited? At least we’re not in person so I can’t get on your nerves. :)

Sitting on the beach earlier this summer, I was reading a book that has absolutely rocked my world. One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp. A woman I love and respect deeply sent it to me. She had no idea that her twenty dollar act of obedience was going to change the direction of me and my family’s life. If you’re heart is pricked to some act of kindness DO IT. Who knows what a difference it will make! And, I triple dog dare you to read that book if you’re looking for something to read.

Back to my point. My stomach tightened and my eyes welled with tears. I felt the lump tighten in my chest when I read this.

"Agoraphobia, 'anxiety about being in places or situations from which escape might be difficult.' It’s my skin that is difficult to escape. I snap an elastic band around my wrist. For months, I swallow down the calm with the pills. I try to pray. Fear is like a piano wire cutting round the wrists, life shackled, cutting deep, and the hand spasms, fists of control. Fear keeps life small. The music dies and the joy drains. I’ve lived the strangle."

As I sat with the sun beating on me and the waves crashing, my mind raced. I remembered when I loved being far out in the water. The waves consuming me. It felt so free. Then my mind rushed back to my childhood. That quote made me think about how someone was always “leaving” when things were hard. My child mind struck with fear. Where will I go? Who will take care of me? No one ever stays. I had been brainwashed that escaping was the answer.

Is that why I would spend childhood nights sleeping on the bathroom floor after I threw up? Hurrying back to my bed before anyone woke and knew. It was so normal to me. Is that why I was woken from my dorm room bed years later with anxiety gripping me. My dear childhood friend watching as I tore my clothes off and heaved in the floor. She helped clean up the puke. Then, in a college apartment being taken over by it again, calling my boyfriend to help the heaving and sweating stop. What could calm me? He prayed over me. But, what to pray for this girl who didn’t understand.

I loved my God in those days. I have loved Him all of my days. With Him is where I experienced my first Peace. We lived out in the country. Flat land, sand, thin grass, barbed wire fences, and horses all around. A long dirt road led to a ranch house surrounded by trees. A house of tension set in the beauty of full sunrise and sunset skies. His Hope surrounded that house.

One Saturday, the tension was thick. I feel it even now. The weight I would tell my dad about was on my chest so heavy. They were arguing about me. So, I ran. I ran far. My legs burned as I sprinted down the lane into a farmer’s field. The hot August sun burned against my 15 year old skin. I collapsed in the shade of the trees lining the crop.

I cried out loud and begged God for peace. What does a 15 year old know of the word peace? What does peace mean to an egocentric teenager. Why would a child need to beg for peace? Then, the cool breeze blew. I shuttered. The tears stopped. I was filled with the Truest Peace. I knew in that moment that I was not alone. That He was with me and that He always would be. He would be with me through the tornado that raged in my house.

It was years later in the early morning hours in a home in St. Charles that my Peace turned into my Protector. I was a summer missionary with a family who lives radically for their Savior. After a run up steep hills in the hot summer, He brought reality to me. I recalled faint memories of mud, a car, a mean man, my mom, my brother, and crying. I remembered running out a door and glass flying. I remembered being scared to death of some man. I know that that man was in prison after it all.

It hits me. Why am I alive? Why did You save me? My 19 year old mind realized that I could have died. In Love, I resolve in that moment, that my life is His. That His glory is the purpose for all my days.

There at the immense ocean, I realize I’m scared to go out in the water. Yes, that water that I love. What am I scared of? I’m scared of being out of control. What if I’m no longer strong enough to swim against the waves? What about jellyfish? How small is my God right now?

I tell Him that I’m scared and He speaks in my heart. “Do it anyway. If something goes wrong, you’ll learn something valuable. I will prove trustworthy.”

That did it. I got up and walked determined to that ocean. Deeper and deeper until I had to dive. I swam out. Further and further. Letting go of control with each stroke. Everything changed.

“Oh, the joys of those who trust in the Lord,” Psalm 40:4

“May the God of hope fill you with joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.” Romans 15: 13.

Baby Heath walks off the edge into the pool with no pause, no hinderance, complete trust when his daddy is right there with arms waiting to catch him. That is the challenge.