From whom every family derives its name.

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."

As the rope frays, we get rather frantic.

The inimitable Joshua Rogers has done it again. (Go read "Dear Jesus, I am a Loser," then come back here for my follow-up remarks.)


No, really. Do it.


And if you want to read some of his other posts, you should. It's ok, I'll wait. (But please come back!)


So. Prayer is a frequent topic here, because (as I've said before) I suck at it. And I was just wondering about this idea of telling God every last dirty detail of how I really feel when I read Josh's blog.


The sad part of my story is that it generally takes weeks of the tidy, righteous prayers before I get to the end of my rope and start saying things like, "God! I can't do this anymore! I can hardly stand x, y, and z!" And then the truth comes out.


It's a messy situation. I've been hanging on to my dirty old rope for dear life, watching the point where it's rubbing begin to splinter, repeating my pretty, rote prayers. As the rope frays, I get more frantic and more honest. This is where the Father's wanted from me to be from the beginning - total surrender to Him.


By that point, I'm hoping for a miracle - I need fast-acting relief. I need the Claritin solution. But even God knows that drugs are never the answer: He wants me to learn something from this desperate situation, and He knows that if He gives me my miracle, I'll just repeat the whole scene next week.


So He waits. And He comforts me, but He tells me to wait on His timing.


Here's what I'm supposed to learn (and am only just now getting): If in the very beginning I will be open and honest and ugly in my prayers, the solution will come, the dangling will be less frightening, and my faith will be strengthened. Instead of waiting till I've reached my breaking point, I need to immediately pray with a loose tongue and an exposed heart. (I can feel my Father smiling and nodding: Well, that took a while, but she got it, guys!)


We're silly, fragile little creatures, aren't we? But oh, how He loves us!

Always on the tip of my tongue.

I think this is one of the hardest phases of spirituality that we ever go through: maintaining. It comes after I've learned a significant lesson about my Father (or in my case, several significant lessons - why do they always come in multiples?). And He is so kind and gracious - He walks me through the learning, holding my hand, encouraging me with each step.

But then this learning process reaches a point where I feel a little more confident in my self, and like a good Daddy, my Father steps back, releases my fingers from His hand. It's not that He's gone - He's near enough to catch me if I stumble - it's just that I need to learn to walk on my own a little.

This whole thing is a weird paradox: we are reminded throughout Scripture to be like little children, to depend fully on our Father, to lean into His arms and let Him carry us, but then we are encouraged, too, to be strong, stand firm, be ready to defend your faith, to work out your salvation... It seems like we can't be both.

But our faith is full of paradox. And I've found that most of the paradoxes unravel themselves when you start into them. For instance, as we set out to be more childlike, to lean on our Father, we become more confident - we are children secure in our Daddy's unconditional love for us. And even though we may appear to be strong and standing on our own, our strength comes in admitting our weakness.

Right now, I'm maintaining. I've come to understand so many new aspects of my Father and my faith in Him during the past year that my heart is overflowing with it all. (For the record, the learning never ends - I'm being taught how lovely I am to my Father, how to reflect His love to those around me.) And now a lot of what I'm being asked to do is be vigilant: remember the lessons, remember the pain, remember the joy of doing the right thing. Keep it always before your eyes. Walk in it every day.

And this part is the hardest, driest, least palatable part, I think. It's difficult to sustain emotions, and difficult to create desire. But right actions lead to right thinking, my dad says. And I believe he's right.

Oo, a shiny! What were you saying?

By the discipline of obedience I get to the place where Abraham was and I see Who God is. I never have a real God until I have come face to face with Him in Jesus Christ, then I know that "in all the world, my God, there is none but Thee, there is none but Thee." The promises of God are of no value to us until by obedience we understand the nature of God. We read some things in the Bible three hundred and sixty-five times and they mean nothing to us, then all of a sudden we see what God means, because in some particular we have obeyed God, and instantly His nature is opened up. (Oswald Chambers)


Then all of a sudden we get ourselves into a tighter mess than we could have imagined, and we throw our hands out, and we give up. That's a little more accurate than "all of a sudden we see what God means." And that act of surrender leads to obedience, and obedience gives us fuller access to God.


Man! That was a long time coming. I am a slow, slow learner. Literally traipsing, holding on to Daddy's hand and tripping over my feet and looking around and bending down to pick up shinies.


But I'm getting it. It's beginning to make sense. And more and more quickly, my instinct is to give up. I'm learning that if we keep even one finger on that thing - whatever it is - that we don't want to surrender, Dad's not going to force it out of our hands. He is infinitely patient; He will wait till we release it. But we are stubborn and do not realize how much we hurt ourselves by holding on. I can only imagine the tears in His eyes, the self-restraint that wants to remove the thorns and heal the wounds but waits until we are ready. What a tender, powerful love!

Look how humble I'm being! ...Oops...

In small group a couple weeks ago, we were talking about the irony of humility. We work and work for it, and we finally attain it only to realize that we're humble - and destroy the whole thing. I find it divinely humorous that we were created self-aware and then were asked to give up all awareness of self for others. But it's that striving, that process that shapes us - consciously or otherwise - into living channels of our Father's love.


Oswald (emphasis mine):
It is one thing to go through a crisis grandly, but another thing to go through every day glorifying God when there is no witness, no limelight, no one paying the remotest attention to us. If we do not want mediaeval haloes, we want something that will make people say - What a wonderful man of prayer he is! What a pious devoted woman she is! If you are rightly devoted to the Lord Jesus, you have reached the sublime height where no one ever thinks of noticing you, all that is noticed is that the power of God comes through you all the time...It takes Almighty God Incarnate in us to do the meanest duty to the glory of God. It takes God's Spirit in us to make us so absolutely humanly His that we are utterly unnoticeable.


I cannot fathom what that state of being might feel like, although I'm finding out quickly what it's like to truly want another's best. Now if the two - the selflessness and the power of God in me - can meld, perhaps then I'll understand a little.

This smacks of fairy tale - and I love it.

Our story - as wandering into redeemed children of our Father God - is the best fairy tale story ever. Except that it's real. I think it's the story, the basis for all other stories, the heart of story.


And if my redemption story is a fairy tale - and Jesus is my Knight in shining armor, truly - then every love story is a dim reflection of the first love story.


It's funny, though - if I'm a princess, and my Knight in shining armor has already swept in and stolen my heart, why do I not live like a princess who is the center of her Knight's life? My life should reflect the grace and wealth and calm of a daughter of the King: I should be quick to love, quick to give and help, quick to soothe, quick to honor responsibility. And all this should flow out of the glorious knowledge that I am loved - truly and deeply and for every fiber of my being but especially for my heart.


As my every day life is beginning to change, I'm understanding more clearly how my Father sees me. And that tiny glimpse into His unfathomable heart has already undone me. Walls and reservations and fears that I didn't even know I was harboring are breaking up and drifting away. I'm also discovering just how deep the wounds of my past are, how jaggedly they have healed, how much pain they still manage to create in me.


Daddy,
As I follow You down this new and long-awaited path, I ask that Your heart beat within and around mine. Drench me in comprehension, compassion, and passion as Your Son's love drenched Him in blood. May those who look on at my life marvel at the difference in my love for them and for You. Father, though it hurts, continue bringing the unreachable places of my heart to the light. Heal them in Your perfect and gentle time. Assuage my fears; fight fiercely, Lord - save my heart and mind from the black darkness. Oh, my Rescuer, I owe You my life - take it; it is Yours.
Amen.

O-bey. OOOO-bey. That's what they remember.

Bill Cosby reference in the title - sorry if it doesn't crack you up like it does me! Ok, I'm not sorry. Whatever.


Oswald is a butt-kicker, man. I've been fighting these last couple weeks to find motivation to empathy, to activity, and to engaging. Let me break that down a little bit:
Empathy - as followers of Christ, we're asked to have the same attitude as He did: He humbled Himself, but He also had compassion on the crowds. I hate how many times I walk away from a crowded place (whether it be work, church, or even the Sunday market) and want to kick myself for pretending to be an island. Who knows? Rather than a sliding glance, a direct smile may do more to soften someone's heart than preaching or tracts ever will. And I'm not afraid of interaction. I don't understand my recent troglodyte inclinations!
Activity - Being tired isn't an excuse, because I'm not. I have enough energy to split pallets and burn marshmallows. I hiked two hours Saturday, and I've cleaned my house. Plus I workout at the gym several times a week - I've got the energy to do what I want. It's lining up what I want with what my Father is doing. Someone explained it this way one time: Remember that verse in Psalms? "Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart." If your desires are His desires, how on earth could He deny you anything? But there's the trick - the delighting yourself in Him, the aligning your heart with the Heart of God.
Engaging - Kind of goes with empathy. If I want to touch people's lives, I have to step forward and talk to people, I have to love them the way Jesus loves me, I have to remember we really are all ragamuffins...but then I have to act out of that knowledge. Which means I've gotta get it lodged (wadged?) in my head first. And then - once I'm sure of all this - how do I do it?!


Back to Oswald and O-bey. I'll let him finish (he pierces my heart... truth'll do that, won't it?):
The Lord does not give me rules, He makes His standard very clear, and if my relationship to Him is that of love, I will do what He says without any hesitation. If I hesitate, it is because I love some one else in competition with Him, viz., myself. Jesus Christ will not help me to obey Him, I must obey Him; and when I do obey Him, I fulfil my spiritual destiny. My personal life may be crowded with small petty incidents, altogether unnoticeable and mean; but if I obey Jesus Christ in the haphazard circumstances, they become pinholes through which I see the face of God, and when I stand face to face with God I will discover that through my obedience thousands were blessed. When once God's Redemption comes to the point of obedience in a human soul, it always creates. If I obey Jesus Christ, the Redemption of God will rush through me to other lives, because behind the deed of obedience is the Reality of Almighty God.
(My Utmost for His Highest, Oswald Chambers, 1935, from StudyLight.org)

What's in your wallet? Not CapitalOne!

Sunday we had the privilege of hearing Dan Hickling speak at Calvary.  He's a pastor at Calvary Fort Lauderdale, and he's Frank's mentor.  I don't know why, but I always become apprehensive when he speaks, but at the end find myself completely taken with his message.


First, Dan asked us to write down the one nagging, sits-in-the-back-of-your-mind thing that we wrestle with when we're lying in bed at night. Then he asked, "What's in your spiritual wallet?"


Walking through Romans 5:1-5, he gave us five things to remember - things in our wallet to pull out when we need, when we fear, when we lag.


1. Peace with God.  There are two ideas working here: absence of conflict (we are no longer struggling against God); and being "face-to-face" (no issues, no fear, no dread - looking one another in the eye takes peace).


2. Access to Grace.  Again, two ideas: there's grace that saves us from our sins; and there's access to God's power in our moments of need - it is instantaneous, freely given, divine enablement.  Dan said (so appropriately), "I love that the thing which we need most is the thing we have most access to."


3. Hope in what's ahead.  "The glory of God" talks about heaven, the immediate presence of God (face-to-face!).  Compare: worldly hope has a degree of uncertainty to it; biblical hope is "an assurance that sees beyond the present conditions and circumstances!"


4. Transcendant perspective on trials.  Trials bring perseverance; perseverance develops character; character builds hope.  So those of us who believe that God is in control know that the trials eventually work for us, not against us.  "We're not dominated by what happens because we're dominated by Who is controlling it all."


5. The Holy Spirit.  I am not alone.  We are never alone!  God lives in us in the form of the Holy Spirit - he is our constant companion.  The worst punishment our prison systems use is solitary confinement - we cannot live alone.  But when we believe in Jesus, we are given a living, serving, internal friend, a help-meet.


I can't tell you how amazing this message was to me.  The word I wrote, the one that I am conscious of when I'm going to sleep, when I wake up, every few moments of my day, is "alone."  My fear of being alone affects the way I interact with my friends - I find myself peering into their reactions, searching for a guarantee that they will be my friend forever.  Every man I meet, I examine as a potential life companion - I don't want to be alone!  It filters into every aspect of my life, and I hate it, and I fear it.  Because what if I'm intended to be alone - to rely on God for everything?  That's a scary place to be, too.  Almost more scary than trying to make a broken, earthly relationship work for the rest of my life.


I don't have any profound revelations to add: Dan did a good job stating things clearly.  But I want to assure you - from my own personal experiences - no matter what skin your beliefs wear, what stage of life you are in, how big your fears or your sins, or how far from God you are, He is faithful to meet us.  Right there, in the middle of our mess, in our hopelessness, He comes and He touches our faces, and He reminds us of how unfathomable His love is for us.


For another perspective on God's wild love for us, check out the Spiritual Klutz's recent blog.

But I will not tell you how long or short the way will be...

I'm struggling with grace this week - grace for myself (because I am such a mess, and Someone has shown me enormous grace), grace for those around me (because I am such a mess, and Someone has shown me enormous grace, and I am training my heart's response to also show that grace to others).


But we've been talking in our small group on Wednesday nights about love and what love looks like and where it comes from.  We've concluded (as, I think, my father so wisely pointed out several years ago) that if you act lovingly toward someone, eventually you will feel lovingly toward them.  It's not easy, and it's certainly not fun.  And the battle I have to fight against the bitter little voices in my head - I am only weary.


To finish the headline quote: "But I will not tell you how long or short the way will be, only that it lies across a river.  But do not fear that, for I am the great Bridge Builder."  I'm going to start re-reading the Chronicles of Narnia this week.  When we read them as children, they were a story.  But I'm realizing they are a story about Someone, and I want to taste Him.