Dave and I were married 2 weeks ago in a beautiful ceremony performed by our counselor. Hayne read Ephesians 3 to us, and it turns out that several well-wishers penned it in their cards, too. I hadn't read it in the context of a marriage before, but now - as a wife - I believe I'll come back to it over and over:
"For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man,so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted andgrounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God.
"Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think,according to the power that works within us, to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen."
Today is Good Friday. I've been thinking about Jesus' death and resurrection a lot already this week and what it means for us. There are so many things to notice about the events of that week - both immediate and eternal, and I hardly know where to start. So forgive me if this feels pieced together; it is.
In John 2, when Jesus says He will destroy the temple - the singular meeting place of God and man in the Jewish religion - He's talking about Himself. He literally destroyed the need for a physical place to commune with God, and instead He built a direct connection to the holy Father, satisfying the Father's demand for atonement. His body - also a temple of sorts - was destroyed and rebuilt. The temple's necessity was voided.
I attended my first Campus Crusade meeting this week with Dave and heard a powerful message on a real God who gives real life. Most of what Darrell said caught my attention, but one passing observation has haunted me. He pointed out that throughout His life on earth, Jesus spoke of God as "the Father" and "My Father." But when He was on the cross - in that moment that the sins of the entire world fell on Him, and the holy Father-God turned His back on the ugliness of His son - Jesus cried out, calling, "My God, my God! Why have You forsaken me?" In that moment that their perfect unity was broken by our sin, Jesus couldn't call God His Father - like us, He was reduced to calling, in humility and fear, on the righteous God of the universe.
Darrell also pointed out that for the three days that Jesus was dead, He experienced every weakness, anguish, struggle, and pain that humanity has ever known. Not as punishment - because He never sinned and therefore merited no punishment - but so that He could know intimately the things we go through: "For we do not have a great high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin."
There was a second reason for Jesus to understand our weaknesses: with that knowledge, we have no fear. "Perfect love casts out fear." Hebrews says, "Therefore, let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need."
Another observation of Darrell's was the meaning of the word "resurrection"- he said it holds the connotation of "return to life, never to die again." In my limited access to study tools, I can't confirm the original Greek subtleties, but the idea makes sense. Lazarus was revived (he died again later, at the end of his natural life), but Jesus died once and was resurrected. He will not die again. And when we have lived out our natural lives, and died, we too will be resurrected to live forever with Him.
I've been working through this, trying to absorb it. I'm not sure I'll ever fully understand, this side of heaven. But I look forward to grasping it all, standing face-to-face with Him, holding His hand, and knowing.
I'm a little bit pathetic this morning. And I hate it.
Read Oswald and 1 Corinthians 1, but there's no heart behind it. I've been trying to lay my heart out before my Father (in my mind it looks like Mom's pie dough rolled out on the counter). It just feels thin, bland, and sticky. There's very little color to it. No one would want it in that condition.
And then 1 Corinthians reminds me that God didn't choose the noble, the wise, the graceful, the attractive, the perfect, or the do-gooders to bear His love note to the rest of the world. He didn't pick the ones with 4.0s, the ones who never have an angry thought, the ones who have never broken a rule (or even a nail). They wouldn't have been good messengers, and God knew it.
Instead, He chose me, and He chose you. He chose the meek, the mild, the humble, the tearful, the ashamed, the foolish, the rebellious, the silly. He chose the ones who can't follow the rules to save their lives, the ones that mess up and can't seem to learn from it, the ones that are tired to death of trying to be good and just sit down in the mud and give up.
He did it so we can't brag on ourselves. I'm not a perfectly baked apple pie. I'm icky, sticky, salty, crumbly dough on a countertop that won't roll out and won't let go of the pin and refuses to slide into the pan. I never do the right thing twice, and I rarely do the same thing twice.
But you know what's cool? It's ok that I'm messy. God takes me just like this, and then He uses me! That second part blows my mind: even as akimbo and tousled as I am, He sometimes lets other people see His glory through me. Talk about humbling. No one knows how insignificant I am more than I do - and yet my Father knows me inside out, and He lets me help Him.
Dad,
Thank You for a morning to reflect on how much You love us, and how desperate You are for a relationship with us - You take us even as dirty as we are! Thank You for making us Your little children, for picking us up when we fall down, for kissing our wounds and making them better, for seeing further than we can, and for dreaming bigger dreams than we even dare. Help us to love You! Amen.
Oosh. This being faithful thing is hard.
I'm weary.
And while there are good things in the future, there is no end in sight.
I don't think there ever is, though. We're not promised an easy ride. John 16:33 says, "In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world."
It's really cool to think that in the end, we win! But it's hard to remember that in the middle of everything going not quite right.
And you know what I've learned? It's ok to let the low end drag - especially when you're worn down, when you can only shuffle instead of walk, when looking for light and hope is more disappointing than just resigning yourself to the murky twilight around you. Because our Father is a kind and gentle Daddy; He is strong enough to deal with our disappointment, our lapses in faith, our utter exhaustion.
And sometimes, it's only in our utter exhaustion that we can finally let Him do what He most wants: to tenderly lift our dirty, bruised, raggedy bodies, cradle them to His strong chest, and carry us a ways until we've rested enough to stand at His side again.
