Thank God for the Fleas

James 1:2-4

"Consider it pure joy, my brothers, wheneve you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything."

I stayed up way past my bedtime last weekend reading parts of Corrie Ten Boom's famous book, The Hiding Place. It describes her life and experiences in Nazi occupied Holland and then in a concentration camp. She and her family were instrumental in running an underground network to hide Jews from the authorities who sought to arrest them. I'm sure you realize what happened to the Jews if they were arrested.

If you have never read her book, I highly recommend it. It is written in an easy to read format, and although the content is far from an easy read, I believe that you will be rewarded in many ways for your effort.

Following are some excerpts from the book that I haven't been able to get out of my head.

We pick up the story as Corrie and her sister Betsie have been assigned their permanent beds at the Ravensbruck labor camp.

We followed our guide single file--the aisle was not wide enough for two--fighting back the claustrophobia of these platforms rising everywhere above us. The tremendous room was nearly empty of people; they must have been out on various work crews. At last she pointed to a second tier in the center of a large block. To reach it we had to stand on the bottom level, haul ourselves up, and then crawl across three other straw-covered platforms to reach the one that we would share with--how many? The deck above us was too close to let us sit up. We lay back, struggling against the nausea that swept over us from the reeking straw. We could hear the women who had arrived with us finding their places.

Suddenly, I sat up, striking my head on the cross-slats above. Something had pinched my leg.

"Fleas!" I cried. "Betsie, the place is swarming with them!"

We scrambled across the intervening platforms, heads low to avoid another bump, dropped down to the aisle, and edged our way to a patch of light.

"Here! And here another one!" I wailed. "Betsie, how can we live in such a place?"

"Show us. Show us how." It was said so matter of factly it took me a second to realize she was praying. More and more the distinction between prayer and the rest of life seemed to be vanishing for Betsie.

"Corrie!" She said excitedly. "He's given us the answer! Before we asked, as He always does! In the Bible this morning. Where was it? Read that part again!"

In glanced down the long dim aisle to make sure no guard was in sight, then drew the Bible from its pouch. "It was in First Thessalonians," I said. We were on our third complete reading of the New Testament since leaving Scheveningen. In the feeble light I turned the pages. "Here it is: 'Comfort the frightened, help the weak, be patient with everyone. See that none of you repays evil for evil, but always seek to do good to one another and to all...'" It seemed written expressly to Ravensbruck."

"Go on," said Betsie. "That wasn't all."

"Oh yes:"...to one another and to all. Rejoice always, pray constantly, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus--'"

"That's it, Corrie! That's His answer. 'Give thanks in all circumstances!' That what we can do. We can start right now to thank God for every single thing about this new barracks!"

I stared at her, then around me at the dark, foul-aired room.

"Such as?" I said.

"Such as being assigned here together."

I bit my lip. "Oh yes, Lord Jesus!"

"Such as what you're holding in your hands."

I looked down at the Bible. "Yes! Thank You, dear Lord, that there was no inspection when we entered here! Thank You for all the women, here in this room who will meet You in these pages."

"Yes," said Betsie. "Thank You for the crowding here. Since we're packed so close, that many more will hear!" She looked at me expectantly. "Corrie!" she prodded.

"Oh, all right. Thank You for the jammed, crammed, stuffed, packed, suffocating crowds."

"Thank You," Betsie went on serenely, "for the fleas and for--"

The fleas! This was too much. "Betsie, there's no way even God can make me grateful for a flea."

"'Give thanks in all circumstances,'" she quoted. "It doesn't say, 'in pleasant circumstances.' Fleas are part of this place where God has put us."

And so we stood between piers of bunks and gave thanks for fleas. But this time I was sure Betsie was wrong.

**************************

Picking back up our story, Betsie has been placed on the light duty of a knitting brigade after an illness that required hospitalization (or what passed for hospitalization at the forced labor camp.)

Best of all, as a result of her hospitalization, she was given a permanent assignment to the "knitting brigade," the women we had seen the very first day seated about the tables in the center room. This work was reserved for the weakest prisoners, and now overflowed into the dormitories as well.

Those working in the sleeping rooms received far less supervision than those at the tables, and Betsie found herself with most of the day in which to minister to those around her. She was a lightning knitter who completed her quota of socks long before noon. She kept our Bible with her and spent hours each day reading aloud from it, moving from platform to platform.

One evening I got back to the barracks late from a wood-gathering foray outside the walls. A light snow lay on the ground and it was hard to find the sticks and twigs with which a small stove was kept going in each room. Betsie was waiting for me, as always, so that we could wait through the food line together. Her eyes were twinkling.

"You're looking extraordinarily pleased with yourself," I told her.

"You know we've never understood why we had so much freedom in the big room," she said. "Well--I've found out."

That afternoon, she said, there'd been confusion in her knitting group about sock sizes and they asked the supervisor to come and settle it.

"But she wouldn't. She wouldn't step through the door and neither would the guards. And you know why?"

Betsie could not keep the triumph from her voice: "Because of the fleas! That's what she said, 'That place is crawling with fleas!'"

My mind rushed back to our first hour in this place. I remembered Betsie's bowed head, remembered her thanks to God for creatures I could see no use for.

I have nothing so difficult as fleas to thank God for. But I'm going to start thanking Him for a few other things that I can see no use for.

Silver Linings and Positive Perspectives

I gotta tell you, I'm a little bit ticked off about something. Pardon my strong language, and believe me, I'm restraining myself on the language usage here.

I am seriously offended at the reduction of Christianity to silver linings and positive perspectives in the face of pain and turmoil.

Certainly, there are often silver linings in the hardships that we as Christians face. The problem is that we are told to start squinting at clouds looking for glimpses of silver, and totally miss the obvious point of Christian suffering.

The incorrect view of suffering and pain goes something like this:

"Yes, a bad thing has happened to you, but instead of focusing on that, just think of all the wonderful things that God is doing for you! Child with cancer? Oh, you should just be thankful that you live in a society that has medicine and doctors. Financial distress? Be glad that you have a job at all! Depressed? Count your blessings! Betrayed by a loved one? Keep in mind that people can only hurt you if you give them permission!!! (And above all, never ever forget to lavish love upon yourself, because you deserve it!!!!!)

Are you hearing how ridiculous some of that sounds? And what's worse is that those responses are the kind of drivel that non-Christians are forced to comfort themselves with because they lack anything better.

The secular, non-believing world is reduced to sifting for pebbles of optimism in their sandbox of pain because they have no legitimate means of dealing with troubles and hardships in this life.

But the insane thing is that Christians have lined up right behind them!! I can't tell you how many times I have heard Christian sources tell me to "look on the bright side."

Let's take a look at a verse that is often misunderstood in the search for meaning in suffering.

Romans 8:28

"And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose."

On first glance, that seems to indicate that even if bad things happen to you, some kind of good is going to come out of your bad situation. Well, something that the world considers good might come about as a result of your difficulty, but then again it might not. If you or your spouse get laid off, the "positive thinker" might be tempted to quote this verse and assure you that God has an even better job already lined up.

He might. Or he might choose to give you something that most people would hardly call "good": a time of serious financial strain, in order to cleanse you of your love for this world.

The problem many people make with Romans 8:28 is that they don't read Romans 8:29. Let's take a look at that verse and see what kind of light it sheds on this "good" that God has promised in "all things" to those who "love God."

Romans 8:29

"For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren."

Going back to my previous example (of you or your spouse getting laid off) let's look at it in the proper light of Romans 8:28 and Romans 8:29. Being without your income hardly seems like it could be a good thing, I realize that. At least in the eyes of this world, being broke does not seem good. Surely the only good to come out of that situation would be a source of income that is superior in some way to the old one.

But no, according to Romans 8:29, the good that comes from all things is for the Christian to be "conformed to the image" of Jesus. Not for you to have a comfortable life. Not for "happy" things to magically appear out of "unhappy things." Sanctification, the process of being squeezed and pummelled and winnowed into a more Christ-like image--THAT is the "good" that God promises us in all things.

And God, in His plan to sanctify us more and more into the image of Christ, often employs suffering as a mighty tool. And it is good. I can say that to you as a fellow weakling who hates to suffer. I don't like pain, I don't like hardship. I certainly have no great love for experiencing loss or tragedy. But I do rejoice in being conformed to the image of my Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ. And I can only do that through the power of God. It is not a joy that I can muster up in myself apart from Him.

The reality is that there is going to be suffering in the Christian life. Lots of it. If anyone tells you otherwise, and promises you an easy walk in this life if you will become a Christian, they are contradicting what Scripture teaches. Consider just three passages that speak directly to suffering, trials and pain for Christians.

John 16:33

"In the world you will have tribulation, but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world."

1 Peter 4:12-13

"Beloved, do not think it strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened to you; but rejoice to the extent that you partake in Christ's sufferings, that when His glory is revealed, you may also be glad with exceeding joy."

John 15: 18-19

"If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love its own. Yet because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you." (all emphasis mine)

Do you see all of that tribulation, trial and hatred promised to Christians?

Why would we ever tell people that Christianity is going to make their life easy? And WHY would we ever try to convince the Christian that God is going to give her something that the God-hating world sees as "good" from her pain? Like I said earlier, positive perspectives are the sort of thing that God's enemies are reduced to scrounging around in to make sense of this fallen and sinful world. "Optimism" is the opiate of the unsaved.

As Christians, we should reject worldly optimism and "looking on the bright side" as a response to pain. Yes, good is promised to all those who love God in all things. But the good is not what the world expects. The good is becoming less like our natural flesh and more like Christ.

And it makes me kind of angry to hear well meaning people try to make me choke down silver linings and happy attitudes. When a horrible thing happens to me, I don't want to be forced to deny it, and conjour up some kind of sunny alternate reality. I want to look forward with joy to the day when all of my tears will be wiped away. And I want to rejoice that God is purging me of sin and polishing me to a brilliant sheen, a sheen that dimly reflects the glory of His Son.

Worldly optimism is a lie. Christian, know the truth.

Big Britches

I have been thinking about my tendency to get "too big for my britches." It's kind of a funny thing, because I work so hard at staying humble and restraining my natural feelings of pride and self-righteousness. I'm not a total failure at doing it, but it appears that for me at least, this is a life long struggle.

Lately I have been thinking about Peter, and his triple denial of Christ. It strikes me that Peter and I might have a few things in common. I'm obviously not the rock upon which Christ has built the church, but personality-wise, me and Peter might be formed alike.

He had a tendency to get too big for his britches too. To put it in gentler terms, he sometimes made grandiose claims in the heat of the moment that he couldn't follow through with later on.

In Luke 22:33, Peter said to Jesus, "Lord, I am ready to go with You, both to prison and to death."

Less than 24 hours later, Peter did just the opposite.

Luke 22: 55-60

"Now when they had kindled a fire in the midst of the courtyard and sat down together, Peter sat among them. And a certain servant girl, seeing him as he sat by the fire, looked intently at him and said, "This man was also with Him."

But he denied Him, saying, "Woman, I do not know Him."

And after a little while another saw him and said, "You also are of them."

But Peter said, "Man, I am not!"

Then after about an hour had passed, another confidently affirmed, saying, "Surely this fellow also was with Him, for he is a Galilean."

But Peter said, "Man, I do not know what you are saying!"

The thing is, I have no doubt that when Peter claimed that he would follow Jesus to prison or death, he absolutely meant it. He wasn't saying something that he didn't believe in his heart at that moment. I've done the same thing.

"Lord, I will always be this passionate for Your glory!"

"Lord, I will always seek Your face before anything else in the world!"

"Lord, I will never be distracted from loving and serving You above all else!"

But of course, when life takes an unexpected or disappointing turn, the reality becomes much less glamorous than my momentary exuberance could possibly have expected. And like Peter, I fail to do what I so earnestly claimed I would.

You see, Peter got quite a shock when Jesus was hauled off by that band of thugs in the Garden of Gethsemane. Peter, and all of the disciples, had the wrong idea about Jesus's kingdom and His victory. They were still expecting a great military hero who would overthrow the earthly enemies of Israel and reestablish her as a mighty, victorious nation. Despite the fact that Jesus told the disciples many times that he was going to suffer and die, they just didn't get it.

So when Jesus was in the custody of the high priest, you can imagine that Peter's expectations of going to prison and death with Jesus were turning out a little differently than he thought they would. Maybe Peter thought that he would die in a glorious civil uprising, fighting alongside his Master. Or that they would be thrown into prison together and somehow defy the odds and still emerge as the victors.

But little did Peter imagine, in all of the scenarios he could conjure up, that Jesus was going to blindfolded and beaten, mocked, scorned and spit upon, by the very men Peter imagined that Jesus was going to defeat.

And in the disappointment of this reality, Peter failed. He denied the very One whom he had so passionately claimed he would never deny.

But, you see, there is more to the story than just Peter's failure. Jesus knew ahead of time that Peter was making claims that he wasn't going to fulfill. He saw ahead to Peter's denial of him, and He even told Peter that it was going to happen.

Luke 22:34

"Then He said, I tell you, Peter, the rooster shall not crow this day before you will deny three times that you know me."

And even more than foreseeing the event, Jesus comforted Peter before the denial had even taken place.

Luke 22:31

"And the Lord said, "Simon, Simon! Indeed Satan has asked for you, that he may sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for you, that your faith should not fail; and when you have returned to Me, strengthen your brethren." (emphasis mine)

Look at what Jesus says. He has prayed for Peter, and when, not if, but when Peter returns to Him, He will be equipped to strengthen his brethren.

Do you suppose that a man of big-britches claims is very encouraging to a struggling, distraught brethren? I don't tend to think so. I can only imagine that if I were always in a state of big-britches boasting, I wouldn't be very encouraging to my fellow brethren at all. It would be hard to relate to a sister in Christ who is experiencing the real disappointments and pain of life, if I always lived in the place of sheer happiness in the Lord.

You should know, I don't. I go through peaks and valleys in my walk with God. Once, I spent over a year on the mountain top. It was the best year of my life. But I'm afraid that all that high-mountain living brought our some pretty big britches claims from me. I kind of thought that I would always be 'high.' That it was the natural result of my faithfulness and dedication in seeking God.

But in reality, life threw a disappointment at me. Things didn't go as I imagined they would. Like Peter, my expectations of fighting for the Lord turned out differently than I thought. And before long, I ended up in a valley, in a place of denying the very claims I had so boldly made.

God knew I was going to do that. When I was making my big claims, He already knew I was going to fail. But that's OK. He knew I needed some humbling, some ability to relate, some equipping in order to strengthen my brethren. It was for my own good, and hopefully for the good of those around me as well.

I really want to get back to that place of 'highness' with God. There really is nothing better in all of life. If you have ever been there you know what I am talking about. Nothing, nothing, nothing even begins to compare to the delight of that 'place.'

But perhaps I will cherish it all the more next time, knowing that it is a gift not meant to be permanently sustained in this life.

Even Paul, who was temporarily caught up into the ecstasy of Heaven, was given a thorn in his flesh immediately afterward. Maybe a person who is very naturally humble can handle the headiness of God's fullness without getting too big for his or her britches. But I am not that person.

For me, I suspect it must come and go.

It has been 'going' lately. But I am not discouraged. Because I know that Jesus is praying for me, just as He does for all the saints, and the Holy Spirit is making intercessions for me that I cannot even comprehend to ask for myself, since I don't know how to pray as I ought.

And because of those things, my faith will not fail.

Against You, You Only, Have I Sinned

I've been in a weird place the last few weeks. You can see that my blog posts have been less than frequent lately. And I can't seem to get anything significant done on the Ruth study I am working on. I had a big breakthrough in that area a few weeks ago, and it was thrilling: I finished the first speaking session and discussion outline. But since then, nothing. I literally feel a deep resistance to working on it any further. I keep writing outlines in my head, and thinking of scripture that would be good to bring into the discussion, but I can't make myself sit down and write anything.

Last night I prayed for some clarity, and I think I got some this morning. I read Psalm 51, David's prayer of repentance after he was confronted by the prophet Nathan over his affair with Bathsheba. I was struck by David's astounding statement in Psalm 51:4,

"Against You, You only, have I sinned,
And done this evil in your sight--"

How is it possible that David can qualify his sin as being only against God? Um, what about poor Uriah? Or Bathsheba for that matter? Or David's many other wives whom he dishonored by committing adultery with Bathsheba? How about the entire nation of Israel? Didn't they get cheated by a king who acted so deceitfully and treacherously?

Yet despite all of that, it is God (only!) who David says he sinned against. Have you ever really thought about that and its implications? We think about sinning against other people all the time; gossiping or lying or cheating or stealing from someone. Or even just treating people disrespectfully or without love. Aren't all of those things sins? Aren't they sins against our neighbor? I've always assumed that they were. But the longer I think about it, the more convinced I am that David's words in Psalm 51:4 are more profound than I originally gave them credit for.

God is the one to whom we owe obedience. Every time we sin against our fellow man, we are ultimately sinning against the commands of a holy and righteous God. Our neighbor may get caught in the crossfire of our sinful actions. But come judgement day, it is not our sinned-against-neighbor who will sit in jugement of our actions. It is God. And all of our sin will be counted as offenses against His holiness and His commands.

Which brings me back around to the spiritual slump I find myself in. I've tried to think of all the reasons that I find myself in this situation. I could lay the blame on any number of things, and believe me, I've tried. But this morning, as I was reading Psalm 51, I saw something very clearly. If there is anything to blame for this thickness I am struggling to cut through, it is my sin, specifically, my sin against God.

I can't blame it on this, that or the other. I have to look straight inside at my own heart. It is a disheartening prospect (slight pun slightly intended.) I've been on the spiritual high. I've been to the peak. I've been dedicated and motivated and everything you associate with a woman who is "on fire" for God. But I don't think any of us get to stay there forever. We have, and will always have, too much natural sin remaining in us in this present flesh. There is no final escape from it until we leave this life for the better life that comes next.

Not to say that I won't get back to the peak. In fact, I'm determined to push past my natural inclinations and get back up there again. But it's hard. I have to fight myself in the process.

I don't want to stand out as strange. I don't want people to think of me as bizarre. I don't want women to walk the other way when they see me coming, because I might want to talk about something spiritual. I don't want to be constantly vigilant against pride or anger or idols or apathy creeping up on me. I'd rather just float through life, enjoying the luxurious and self-absorbed modern American lifestyle, and worry about eternity, well, right before I get there. Those are the things that I want.

Thank goodness its not all up to me. Thank goodness that God has sent me a Helper, the Holy Spirit, who lives in me and constantly transforms me from glory unto glory.

But the path to the peak has a crucial first step that you can't hop over if you ever want to get up there. Its the all-important step of repentance. And if I want to get past stalled and start moving forward again, I need to get on my face and repent.

Against You, You only, have I sinned, O God. Against you have I withheld my heart, my mind, my soul and my strength. Forgive me.

Psalm 51:1,2,12

"Have mercy upon me, O God,
According to Your lovingkindness;
According to the multitude of your tender mercies,
Blot out my transgressions.
Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity,
And cleanse me from my sin."

"Restore to me the joy of Your salvation,
And uphold me by Your generous Spirit."

Wrestling With God

Genesis 32:24-31

"Then Jacob was left alone; and a Man wrestled with him until the breaking of day. Now when He saw that He did not prevail against him, He touched the socket of his hip; and the socket of Jacob's hip was out of joint as He wrestled with him. And He said, "Let Me go, for the day breaks."

But he said, "I will not let You go unless You bless me!"

So He said to him, "What is your name?" He said, "Jacob."

And He said, "Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel; for you have struggled with God and with men, and have prevailed."

Then Jacob asked, saying, "Tell me Your name, I pray."

And He said, "Why is it that you ask about My name?" And He blessed him there.

So Jacob called the name of the place Peniel: "For I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved." Just as he crossed over Penuel the sun rose on him, and he limped on his hip."

Have you ever wondered about this part of Jacob's story? I know that I spent several years being aware of it, but not really understanding its significance, or even what it really meant. I used to chalk it up as one of those strange Old Testament stories that just seemed plain confusing.

I don't feel that way anymore, but I only saw the meaning of this encounter between Jacob and the Angel after I went through something similar in my spiritual life. Don't get me wrong. I never have seen an angel, and I don't expect to in this lifetime. And that naturally precludes my wrestling with an angel in the flesh. But I have wrestled with God. In fact, I spent most of my young life and early adulthood doing exactly that.

You see, I have had the privilege of being raised in a Christian home. In fact, my parents were Christian missionaries in a foreign country for most of my childhood. And when we did return to America, I was brought up in a wonderful, Biblically solid church.

Jacob, likewise, was brought up by parents, who, however flawed, believed in and worshiped the one true God, Jehovah. Yet for all of his life up until this wrestling match with the Angel, Jacob was a striver and a schemer who relied on his own cunning and trickery to get ahead. His very name, Jacob, means trickster. And his name proved to be an accurate appraisal of Jacob's character. We see it in his dealings with his father Isaac and his brother Esau, and again in his dealings with his father-in-law, Laban.

Then here, in this climatic episode, Jacob and God have it out. They literally wrestle together in full body-to-body contact. Interestingly, it is God that initiates this struggle. And it is not an easy match, Jacob does not willingly concede to his opponent. In fact, Jacob struggles so hard and for such a long period of time, that the Angel reaches out and touches (strikes) the hip of Jacob, putting it out of joint.

If Jacob had any doubt that he was wrestling with God, at this point you would have to assume he realizes that this is no ordinary man he is fighting with. So does he give up the fight, realizing that his opponent is God? Nope. We read that "the socket of Jacob's hip was out of joint as He wrestled with him."

I hate to admit, but I can relate to that. I've had a few experiences that, in retrospect, I would characterize as God "touching" my hip. In other words, things have happened to me that should have caused me to submit. I should have given up and given in to the Lord. But, in my stubborn resistance and pride, I didn't. I stupidly kept up the struggle: "I want to be in charge, I want to have my way, I want to be right, I don't want to submit to anyone, even God."

So the wrestling continues, until the Angel brings it to a close by announcing, "Let Me go, for the day breaks."

It is at this point that a change occurs in Jacob. All of his life up to this point, he has relied on himself, his smarts, his cunning, his trickery and strength to get what he wants and needs. Now, after wrestling with God, and continuing to wrestle even after he has been disabled, he finally submits, and pleads, "I will not let You go unless You bless me!"

It might seem like a simple statement at first, but loaded into it is the implication that Jacob recognizes and admits that the Angel (God) is the one with the power to bless, and that Jacob's power lies in seeking God's blessing. It is a paradigm shift, as our popular culture likes to say. The rules have changed. Jacob has admitted he cannot prevail, He has recognized God's ability to bless, and he has pleaded with God to give him blessing. In prayer and supplication his strength now lies, and that is exactly where our power lies as well.

Then, what I think is the best part of the story takes place. The Angel asks Jacob his name. Now clearly God is perfectly aware of what Jacob's name is. I always assume that when God asks a person to speak something out loud that God obviously already knows, it must be for the benefit of the speaker, and not for the benefit of God. I think that is the case here. Jacob admits, out loud, that he is Jacob, the trickster, the striver.

The Angel answers, "Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel; for you have struggled with God and with men, and have prevailed." God has changed who Jacob is! The name Israel is translated "Prince with God" or, alternately, "One who has power with God." Jacob is no longer the trickster, he has been remade as the prince. Interestingly, throughout the rest of his life, Jacob is referred to sometimes as Jacob, and sometimes as Israel. I think, that just like us, Jacob continued to struggle with his "old" nature even after this experience.

God doesn't typically go around changing our names nowadays. However, God does indeed change who we are. He changes our character. Each of us is allowed to change from being a self-reliant creature to one who has "power with God." But an important aspect of this "power" is submission.

I spent so many years of my life giving lip-service to God. It was only after I fully submitted, gave up the wrestling match, and recognized God as the one with power and authority that I started to experience Christianity in a life changing way. Don't suppose for one moment that I think I have done anything special by "giving up." God was practicing condescension when He engaged Jacob in a wrestling match. God could have just reached down from His throne and struck Jacob dead. But in His infinite mercy, He allowed a struggle for dominion to take place. I don't think there was ever any doubt that God would prevail. But I suppose that Jacob's human nature needed to fight it out before he surrendered. I know that I needed to, and I think most of us are similar in that regard. But we can't ever forget that God is merciful in even allowing us the struggle.

Finally, there are two more details about this story that I love. After the wrestling, after the submission and the change in character, Jacob sets about to go on his way. In verse 31 we read, "Just as he crossed over Penuel, the sun rose on him, and he limped on his hip." Notice that the night is over, day, light, power, have broken forth over Jacob. There are so many references to God as light in the Bible that I think the symbolism in this verse screams out for recognition. Jacob has come to the light, he has submitted to God as Adonai, Lord and Master. But don't overlook the fact that Jacob is now limping.

Jacob, the formerly self-reliant one, has a critical injury that he will carry with him for the rest of his life. It brings to mind this verse from 2 Corinthians,

2 Corinthians 12:9

"And He said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness."

Jacob's newfound weakness is exactly why God's strength will be made perfect. That is the way God wants it. When we are weak, His power is evident. When we are broken and humble, God's grace is fully sufficient for us. Some of us just have to wrestle it out with God before we get to the point of weakness and submission. But, in the end, that is where our power lies. It's one of the great mysteries of the Christian faith--strength in weakness.

White As Snow

Isaiah 1:18

"Come now, and let us reason together,
Says the LORD,
Though your sins are like scarlet,
They shall be as white as snow;
Though they are red like crimson,
They shall be as wool."

Have you ever gotten a line from an annoying song stuck in your head, and you just couldn't make it go away? Well, that kind of happened to me last night, except it was this verse from Isaiah that I couldn't get out of my head. Today, I'm pretty sure that I understand why.

I've had an interesting couple of weeks. In 1 Peter 5:8, Satan is described as a roaring lion stalking about, seeking a victim to devour. I think that lion has been hot on my heels of late.

It all has to do with sin, my sin, and my past sin to be exact. If I was still writing this blog in total anonymity, I would give you all the ugly details. But since some of you happen to know me, I think I'll try to stay general here. Besides, all of us struggle with sin of one kind or another, and I think my experience can be applied to all kinds of sin, not just the specific one I happened to declare victory over.

I alluded in an earlier post to some sinful thought patterns that used to plague me. God has really brought about serious change in my thought life. It was not an easy battle. There were a whole bunch of lies that I had to overcome before I could really keep my mind stayed on the truth. And let me tell you, truthful thinking brings more peace to my life than you could possibly imagine. So I am not at all interested in revisiting those untruthful thought patterns. I want to steer as clear of them as possible.

Well, a couple of weeks ago, I found myself in a situation that challenged me in this specific area. I was faced with something that just begged me to indulge in sinful thoughts. I did manage to quiet those thoughts down, but the whole experience served to show me that I still have some work to do.

Now fast forward about a week, and I hit round two of a similar situation. Only a much more intense version of the first go round. I mean, the minute I realized what was going on, the first thing that popped into my head was, "I am under Satanic attack."

If you happen to know me, you will know that I do not typically use dramatic phrases like that. I know some people see spiritual battles every where they turn, and they might in fact be right about that, but I am not someone who spends a lot of time thinking or speaking in terms of spiritual warfare. So in other words, it was some serious testing that I faced. And I knew it.

But about half a second later, I realized that I was getting worked up over nothing. I don't know how else to say this, so I'll just say it the best I can. God threw a situation at me that I have been dreading for a very long time. I used to spend time thinking through a "plan of resistance" in case it ever did happen. And I guess I have been living in victory long enough that God felt like I was ready to face it head on...and come out shining.

Which totally turned the situation on its head. Because as it turned out, it wasn't an attack at all. It was an opportunity for me to celebrate and praise God for how far I have come. I saw up close and in vivid detail that my sin, and the grip it had on me, has indeed been washed as white as snow. What was once a scarlet stain that I carried around in my heart, has become as white as wool.

Not only has my sin been forgiven, but all of the power that it ever had on me has been destroyed.

There is a victory song that King David wrote in 2 Samuel. Several years ago, I took a section of that scripture and read it as a personal declaration of victory over sin. I want you to read the following verses thinking of "enemies" as sin; and of the battle that is described as the very real battle that each of us must face as we deal with our sinful nature. (The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak, right?)

2 Samuel 22: 38-43

"I have pursued my enemies and destroyed them;
Neither did I turn back again till they were destroyed.
And I have destroyed them and wounded them,
So that they could not rise;
They have fallen under my feet.
For You have armed me with strength for the battle
You have subdued under me those who rose against me.
You have also given me the necks of my enemies,
So that I destroyed those who hated me.
They looked, but there was none to save;
Even to the LORD, but He did not answer them.
Then I beat them as fine as the dust of the earth;
I trod them like dirt in the streets,
And I spread them out."

Notice all of the hard work that the warrior (me) has to do in those first verses. Sin, our sin, does not just lie down and go away when we become a Christian. Rather, it is a constant battle that we struggle against, as long as we live. But God is more powerful than our sin: He will give us strength, He will arm us for the battle, He will subdue our enemies under us. And when it is all over, our enemies, our sin, will be as insignificant as dust spread out in the street. I love it. And today, I really understand it in a new way.

Isaiah 43:18-19

"Do not remember the former things,
Nor consider the things of old.
Behold, I will do a new thing,
Now it shall spring forth;
Shall you not know it?"

I know it LORD, I really know it. Sins like scarlet. White as snow.

Other Masters

Isaiah 26:12-14

"LORD, You will establish peace for us,
For You have also done all our works in us.
O LORD our God, masters besides You
Have had dominion over us;
But by You only we make mention of Your name.
They are dead, they will not live;
They are deceased, they will not rise.
Therefore you have punished and destroyed them.
And made all their memory to perish."



I am currently experiencing a fairly peaceful time in my life. I don't have any major crisis looming on the horizon at the moment. More important than my current peaceful circumstances, however, is the state of my heart. My heart is at peace. I have not always been able to say that. In fact, I spent many years of my life with no peace at all.

You might think the reason my heart is at peace is because my current circumstances are peaceful. But I know that's not true, because I know my heart well enough to realize that it would FIND something to be disturbed over if I gave it free reign. But you see, that is the secret. I don't let my heart go off on wild tangents anymore, wishing and seeking and desiring things that God has not given to me.

I can only accomplish that control of my heart because God has come in and established his authority over my life, thus removing my responsibility to satisfy myself. I know that whatever comes to me in this life, is God's perfect plan. And I also know that he only purposes good toward me. Now, God's good purposes don't always feel very good at the time I'm experiencing them, but I know that they are all for my good and for God's glory.


Verse 12 in the above Scripture passage says, "You will establish peace for us." God will do it! Thankfully, because I'm pretty sure we are inept at establishing peace for ourselves. The verse goes on to say, "You have also done all our works in us." An alternate translation offers, "You have also done all our works for us." God can and will do it, all of it, Himself. But there is another part of the equation that has to balance out first. That is the issue of authority, or masters, if you will.

You can see the confession in verse 13, "O LORD our God, other masters besides You Have had dominion over us." Umm Hmm. You all know what Isaiah is talking about. Ever had another master? How about wealth, or popularity, or physical beauty, or control, or relationships, or fear, or pride, or anger, or unforgiveness. I could go on. You get the idea.

There are countless things that we chase after and worship besides God. Or, that we cling to tightly and refuse to let go of, even though we know that we should. We can't help ourselves really, it is part of our nature apart from God's redeeming work in us. See for yourself in the next verse, "But by You only we make mention of Your name." Only by God's power do we even know enough to make mention of His name, much less cast of the oppression of other masters. How humbling is that!

And what about these other masters? When God gets to work establishing Himself as our authority and our master, what becomes of them? We can see clearly in verse 14, "They are dead, they will not live; They are deceased, they will not rise. Therefore you have punished and destroyed them, And made all their memory to perish." That sounds like a total victory to me.

So what do you do if you find yourself unable to stay in the place of victory? What if you find yourself creeping back under the authority of another master? Well, this very issue is fresh on my mind right now. One of the biggest victories God has ever given to me is control of my thought life. There are literally dozens of lies that I have overthrown in the battle to reclaim my thoughts, and it took several years for it to happen.

But this past weekend I found myself slipping back into a pit I thought I had sealed off for good. It wasn't a fun realization. I was so tempted to indulge it. Because in the short term, those other masters aside from God can seem like great fun. But in the end you always find yourself back in a pit, far away from the joy and peace that God promises.

What did I do? Several things. First, I pinpointed the lie that was masquerading as truth. Then I followed my sinful train of thought through to the ultimate conclusion it would bring. I prayed (many times) that God would take control of my thoughts again. I repeated the truth that spoke against the lie over and over in my mind. And, as a very practical matter, I spent time listening to Christian music, instead of indulging my thought life, even singing out loud if needed. So far it is working. I can't promise the thoughts won't creep in again. But when they do, God has armed me with the weapons to fight them.

There will never come a time in my life when I have it so together that I can stop guarding against sin. In fact, I have often heard it said that Satan will step up attacks when we are becoming a threat to him. Well, whatever, I don't know if that is actually true or not. But I do know that in the book of Job, we clearly see that even Satan must ask permission from God before He does anything. (Booooo Satan!!!)


Isaiah 9: 4

"You have broken the yoke of his burden
And the staff of his shoulder,
The rod of his oppressor,
As in the day of Midian."

Look, God has already done the defeating. There is no other master that can force you to stay under its control. God has broken the power of sin to hold you captive. There is only one Master, one Authority that you cannot escape, and that is Adonai, Lord and Master.

True peace apart from God is a lie. But true freedom, and peace, are found resting under the shadow of God's authority.

I'm Sorry...(Yet Again)

I have been working with God on the problem of pride lately. This is sort of an ongoing struggle for me. I think its probably a common sin to get wrapped up in. But I don't want anything at all to do with it. So I try to keep a close eye out for ways pride might be creeping in to my life. I can claim some victory here, things are much better than they used to be. But still, some sins are just a life long struggle, and pride just might be one of my ongoing construction zones.

I had a victory this morning! Its a small thing really, but its the small things that lead to bigger things, so I'm going to celebrate where I can.

It all started about 5 or 6 weeks ago. I was at the grocery store, pushing a cart full of groceries, with two wiggly kids, heading for the checkout isle. I also happened to be in the midst of a horrendous sinus infection. So I was kinda primed to act not-so-nice. That is when it happened.

I was about one cart length from the end of the checkout line, clearly about to enter it. A woman with an equally full grocery cart approached appearing as though she needed to pass through the line and keep going. I politely backed my cart up and gave a little wave of my hand to indicate that she could cut through before I officially got in line.

To my great dismay, instead of cutting through and passing by, she stole my place in line! I couldn't believe it! I still can't decide if she was taking advantage of me or if she really thought that a hunched over woman, with two highly active kiddos, a cart full of groceries, and tissues in both hands really intended for a relaxed, well-dressed, no children luggin' woman to just go on ahead. Anyway, being the restrained southern belle that I am, I seethed and thought ugly thoughts at her instead of saying anything.

Naturally, by the time I got to the front of the line, it was time for the cashier to end her shift. So I had to stand there another several minutes waiting for the drawer to be switched out. The very friendly and polite check out woman gave me a big smile and said, "It'll just take a minute, I'll be right with you."

I scowled at her. Then I let out a big exasperated sigh to make sure she understood how displeased I was with this whole scenario. She got my drift. Her smile disappeared, she started moving very quickly, and she didn't say another word to me. The equally cheery bag boy gave me a big grin and said, "How are you this morning? Do you want paper of plastic?"

"Paper," I whisper-shouted, because I was pretty sick, remember.

"You sound terrible," he helpfully added.

I just glared and him and decided I had said enough. We walked tersely to the car and I drove away in a grumpy funk.

I hope I don't have to tell you that I felt bad about it, almost as soon as I got home. It has bothered me ever since. I hate it when people are rude to customer service employees. I've worked in those types of jobs several times, and I know the abuse that gets heaped on them. I didn't want to be one of those rude, angry customers.

But every week, when I have seen that same woman working in the check out line, I have deliberately gone through another aisle. I was afraid she would remember me as that mean, loudly-sighing woman. And I was too proud to apologize for my rudeness.

Until today. As I have been praying about keeping my pride in check and cultivating a humble heart, God kept pricking my conscience about that grocery store incident. It was a sort of, "how can you ask me to use you in mighty ways and root out the pride in your heart when you are too stubborn to even apologize to a stranger, much less someone who is close to you?"

So I decided to offer her an apology. I prayed that she would be working this morning. There she was when I walked in the door. As I wove through the grocery isles, I kept checking to make sure she was still there. She was. As I finished getting everything on my grocery list and headed to check out, I was all primed and pumped up to give her an apology. But suddenly, she walked away from her register!

Confused, I made a hard right back into the frozen food section and looked at some truly disgusting frozen stuffed mushrooms for a few moments. After reading the ingredients and turning the mushroom box around a few times, the cashier came back to her line. Whew!

As she was scanning my items, I did it. I offered her an apology. She seemed confused at first, but eventually she understood what I was saying. Of course she couldn't remember the incident, I really didn't expect her to. She said she always figures someone is just having a bad day when they act ugly. But she smiled and thanked me for apologizing. I had shared with her that I was sick that particular day.

Right before I walked off, she asked, "Are you feeling better now?"

"Oh, yes," I answered. In more ways than one.

Proverbs 29:23

"A man's pride brings him low,
but a man of lowly spirit gains honor."

The "S" Word

No, not that "S" word! The one that is genuinely nasty and foul--sin.

Now that I think about it, I probably hear the four letter "S" word more often than I ever hear the word sin mentioned. I have a great story, by the way, of coming home from school in the second grade and announcing the four letter "S" word at the dinner table. I had literally never head the word before, and had no idea what it meant. But I knew that it was against the rules to say that word at school for some reason. (As a very helpful and newly made friend informed me in the bathroom.) And I wanted to be sure that my grandmother knew what all the rules at school were. I'm pretty sure she didn't appreciate my explicit detailing of said rules.

But anyway, back to that sin word. I didn't notice until very recently how rare it is to hear anyone, Christians included, talk about sin. You hear a great deal of talk about "poor decisions" and "bad choices." Girls, a bad decision is wearing a sleeveless t-shirt to the park when it is 40 degrees and windy outside. And a poor choice is eating that 5th piece of birthday cake.

Sin is a weighty issue. Its seriousness can't even compare to weak phrases like "poor decision." But we seem intent on downplaying sin. Maybe this does not apply to you personally. Maybe you have a real understanding of what sin is and the consequences of it. I hope so. In my experience, seeing the vastness of my sin was the starting point of massive spiritual growth. I'm not talking about making a list of every bad thing I ever did and then feeling really guilty about it. No, I am talking about understanding my total unworthiness to be forgiven and accepted by God. Only when I "got" that, did I begin to comprehend the awesome grace that God extended to me. And only when that reality sunk into my bones did I find myself truly free in Christ.

Psalm 130: 3

"If You, LORD, should mark iniquities,
O Lord, who could stand?"

"But wait!" you are thinking. "Aren't we supposed to be jewels and treasures and precious possessions and brides and all that? And aren't we supposed to relate to God on those terms?" Well, yes and no. Scripture does compare us to all of those things. Here are two examples.


Malachi 3:17

"They shall be Mine," says the LORD of hosts,
"On the day that I make them My jewels."

Isaiah 62:3

"You shall be a crown of glory
In the hand of the LORD,
and a royal diadem
In the hand of your God."

Heady stuff, I know. Who doesn't want to be a jewel or a royal diadem in the hand of God? But here is the thing: you are nothing like a jewel or a diadem in and of yourself. You require transformation and redeeming by the blood of Christ and the work of the Holy Spirit. If you spend all of your time trying to "believe" that you are a jewel, you will find yourself very frustrated. You know yourself too well. You can see all of your own imperfections and flaws. And somehow all of that knowledge doesn't quite square with being a jewel of God.

You can't skip ahead to the jewel part. You have to KNOW and ACCEPT that you are a sinner deserving the wrath of God. You have to SEE it and BELIEVE it. Calling your sins poor choices is not going to bring about that kind of understanding.

You are not a royal diadem in the hand of your God because of who you are. You get to be a royal diadem in the hand of God because of what Jesus did on the cross. One view is all about pumping up that all-important self esteem (please note heavy sarcasm intended here.) The other view is the truth. Truth is real, you can really believe truth. You can relish being a jewel and a royal diadem if you understand those things in light of God's amazing grace. If, on the other hand, you spend your energy trying to conjure up feeling like a jewel without focusing on God's total responsibility for it, you have a big recipe for confusion on your hands.

Because girls, there are days when being a jewel seems like the farthest thing from reality imaginable. I had one of those days recently. But instead of wondering where all of my sparkling jewelness had gone, I got to praise God that I am indeed a shiny treasure because of HIM. Not because of ME.

So, that is why the real "S" word is so vital. Our sin is what makes God's grace so unbelievably amazing. I don't know how else to say it. All of my words are failing me right now. If you find yourself constantly frustrated and confused, and wonder why you just can't seem to accept that you are God's treasured possession, I'd like to suggest that you might not have a clear understanding of your sin. That seems backwards, I know. But how can your socks be blown off by the reality of forgiveness if you don't see how badly you need it? How can you be stunned and awed by the grace God extends to you if you haven't seen how little you deserve it? And how can any of that happen until you see your sin for what it is?

Isaiah 54:11-12

"O you afflicted one,
Tossed with tempest, and not comforted,
Behold, I will lay your stones with colorful gems,
And lay your foundations with sapphires.
I will make your pinnacle of rubies,
Your gates of crystal,
And your walls of precious stones."

Did you see it? Did you see WHO did all of this magnificent crafting? That's right-- God. Not you. Amen.

It Shall Not Come Near You

Psalm 91:7

"A thousand may fall at your side,
And ten thousand at your right hand;
But it shall not come near you."

This verse immediately sprung to mind a few weeks ago while I was watching the movie Letters From Iwo Jima with my Dad. Normally, I avoid war movies like the plague, but I love my Dad, and I will usually watch whatever he is watching. I was visiting my parents with the kids, and he said it was a good movie, which it was, but much, much, much too gory and tragic for my usual taste.

There are a few scenes in which soldiers must run across open areas that are being riddled with bullets and explosives. Most of them never get to the other side, but are struck and killed as they attempt to make the crossing. Really, with all of those bullets flying around, it's almost impossible to imagine that any of them would make it across. The scenes were very similar to that scene at the beginning of the movie Saving Private Ryan. Again, a movie I did not particularly want to watch, but this time it was my husband who did.

Look at that verse at the beginning again, "it shall not come near you." What exactly is it that won't come near us? In verses 3-6 it is described this way:

"Surely He shall deliver you from the snare of the fowler
And from the perilous pestilence.
He shall cover you with His feathers,
And under His wings you shall take refuge;
His truth shall be your shield and buckler.
You shall not be afraid of the terror by night,
Nor of the arrow that flies by day,
Nor of the pestilence that walks in darkness,
Nor of the destruction that lays waste at noonday."

According to those trusty footnotes in my Bible, this Psalm was probably written to describe the realities of life for a soldier at war, who would be in fear of literal arrows and pestilence that might sweep through the camp. But most of us are not in a literal, physical war. We are however, faced with a very real war every day of our lives. A spiritual war.

We are constantly surrounded by arrows and threats of destruction and pestilence. Some of the wars we deal with might seem quite harmless on the surface. That television show that glorifies adultery. That magazine that worships beauty. The music that romanticizes things we should view as evil and corrupt. There are also the threats that we know are dangerous, the kind of thing that catches us off guard and threatens our safety and well being. An unexpected attack of some kind, a loss of job, an illness, the threat of financial ruin. You get the idea.

All of those arrows carry the threat of danger to our spiritual well-being, and in some cases our physical well-being. They are very real.

I Peter 5:8

"Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour."

But again, back to my original question. What does the scripture mean when it says that "it will not come near you?" This is just my opinion, but I think that scripture taken as a whole bears me out. It does NOT mean that bad things won't happen to you. I know there are people who believe that and even preach that. But, don't they live in the same world that I do? Don't they see very real tragedy and pain in the lives of people around them? Don't they read verses like James 1:2, "My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials,?" What about verses like 1 Peter 4:12, "Beloved, do not think it strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened to you;?"

So, I don't think that "it shall not come near you" means we will have a pain and trial-free life. But there are some things that it does mean. In the midst of our spiritual warfare, we are assured of very real help and comfort. God is described as a refuge and fortress in verses 2 and 9. We are told that He will be with us, deliver us and honor us in verse 15. In verse 11 we are told that He will give His angels charge over us, that these angels will keep us and bear us up. All of it is a very descriptive way of saying: We are not alone! God goes with us! He will take care of us! We do not need to be afraid!

The very best of all these victorious promises comes in the last verse, verse 16:

"With long life I will satisfy him,
And show him My salvation."

The greatest hope of all, eternal salvation. I believe that is ultimately what is meant when verse 7 says, "it shall not come near you." Eternal death and destruction will not come near us. It won't even get close.

So picture with me that battlefield full of flying bullets and bombs. In a sense, our lives are like a dash across that open field so full of peril. There are trials to endure, temptations to avoid, and even a roaring lion stalking about. (Interestingly, in verse 13, we are told that we will tread upon and trample underfoot the lion. How cool is that little tidbit?) But we can walk through it all with a head held high and a confident stride. We have no doubt about getting safely to the other side. We know that despite the dangers, it will not come near to us who have known the name of the LORD.

Even when the fighting is fierce, when the shrapnel is flying and bullets seem to be grazing our ears, we have the shield of God's truth. We know truth! We do not need to be vulnerable to lies about God, that He doesn't love us, that He won't take care of us, that He will let us slip away from Him in the heat of battle. No, the truth is that we are tucked up under the downy feathers of His all-powerful wing. (verse 4)

Psalm 91:2

"I will say of the LORD, "He is my refuge and my fortress;
My God, in Him I will trust.""

Broken In the Pit

Psalm 88:6-9

"You have laid me in the lowest pit,
In darkness, in the depths.
Your wrath lies heavy upon me,
And you have afflicted me with all your waves.
You have put away my acquaintances from me;
You have made me an abomination to them;
I am shut up, and I cannot get out;
My eye wastes away because of affliction."

There is a reason this passage in in the Bible. God knows about brokenness, He understands our despair and disappointment and anger. He knows what it feels like to be betrayed, even by those closest to Him, whom He loved and lived in close fellowship with.

In Isaiah 53, Jesus is described as "A Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief." He is also called "despised and rejected by men." Why does this matter? And why am I writing about it today? Well, I have a friend of a friend who is going through a terrible time. Her entire life is crumbling before her eyes. People and things that she thought she could rely on have failed her, brutally and personally.

If I am not describing you and your situation right now, well, good, but I think all of us can use some reminding about these things from time to time. Whether we realize it or not, we are surrounded by hurting people. We see smiles every day of our lives that conceal pain and rage and despair. We are all so good at putting on a mask of ease and contentment, but the truth is that many of us are right in the kind of pit described in Psalm 88. The lowest pit, a pit of darkness, depths, and affliction.

And there is nothing in all of the world that can help besides God. People will always fail us. Science and technology, and counselors and friends--will all come up short in the end. Because they do not have any real power to comfort, no real power to heal and remake what is broken. They may provide some brief form of relief, but nothing lasting, nothing true. Only God has the power to heal us, to make us a new creation, to satisfy and deliver us from the pit.

I want you to read these scripture verses, and really dwell on them. They provide THE hope and THE cure. Nothing else will do it. Only God.

Isaiah 54:6-7

"For the LORD has called you
Like a woman forsaken and grieved in spirit,
Like a youthful wife when you were refused,"
Says your God.
"For a mere moment I have forsaken you,
But with great mercies I will gather you."

Its hard to imagine a more brutal rejection than the rejection of a husband. Just the thought of it makes me gasp inside with horror. But it happens, it happens all of the time. It has happened to so many women that I know. But even if a husband has rejected you, God can gather you back up again, and only He can do it with great mercies.

Isaiah 55:1-2

"Ho, Everyone who thirst,
Come to the waters;
And you who have no money,
Come, buy and eat.
Yes, come buy wine and milk
Without money and without price.

Why do you spend your money for what is not bread,
And your wages for what does not satisfy?
Listen carefully to me, and eat what is good
And let your soul delight itself in abundance."

These verses are so powerful. Did you see what they say? Stop wasting yourself and your energies on what does not provide life and satisfaction. We are all guilty of this sometimes--we chase after stale crusts of bread and brackish water. And we chase after them with all of our "money" and all of our "wages," everything that we think we have. But why? When God wants to fill us with rich things, good things, wine and milk, and all for free, for nothing.

Listen to how God's children are described:

Psalm 36:8-9

"They are abundantly satisfied with the fullness of Your house,
And You give them drink from the river of your pleasures.
For with you is the fountain of life;
In Your light we see light."

Abundant satisfaction, drink from a river of pleasures, life, light, all of these are in store for those who put their trust in the LORD.

So what does all of this have to do with being broken and in a pit? Well, for many people, the pit is where they first begin to search for God. This has largely been the case in my own life. Until I found myself in desperation, I did not think I really needed God all that much. I had managed to run my own life in a somewhat satisfying manner. But life has a way of turning out differently than we expect, of throwing a shock or a surprise at us that we don't welcome. And it often involves a great deal of personal pain. I don't want to minimize pain, I've had enough of it in this life to understand how powerful and crippling pain (or even the possibility of pain) can be. But in the midst of it, in the very worst of it, God cupped my chin in His magnificent hands and gently wiped every tear away. Not because I deserved it, but because He loved me.

He reminded my heart of the promise in Isaiah 43:

"When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;
And through the rivers, they shall not overflow you.
When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned,
Nor shall the flame scorch you."

He doesn't promise to make the pain go away. Sometimes He might, but that is not what He promises. Instead He promises to be faithful to us, to never leave us, to never forsake us, to be with us always, to love us unconditionally.

Isaiah 54:10

"For the mountains shall depart
And the hills be removed,
But My kindness shall not depart from you,
Nor shall my covenant of peace be removed,
Says the LORD, who has mercy on you."

Every single thing in this life may fail or disappoint you, even the mountains and the hills are not trustworthy compared to God and His promises. He promises us kindness and peace. Don't miss that last line of the verse: the LORD who has mercy on you. I prefer the NIV translation: the LORD who has compassion for you. Compassion, real compassion, that comes from a man of sorrows, one who is acquainted with grief, one who has felt despised and rejected. That is a Man who can understand, that is a Man you can trust and hold on to.

Don't chase after things that aren't bread. Don't spend your money on things that can't satisfy. Eat what is good-let your soul delight in the richest of fare. Let the LORD gather you up with tender mercies, hold on to Him in the midst of the storm, call out to Him from the bottom of the pit.

I want to show you one more thing, one more passage of scripture, and then I'm going to end this post. I know its a really long one. But I hope it helps someone, someone who needs to hear these things at this exact moment.

If you are the one who is in the pit, the pit that I described at the top of the post, listen to this:

Psalm 40: 1-3

"I waited patiently for the LORD;
And He inclined to me,
And heard my cry.
He also brought me up out of a horrible pit,
Out of the miry clay
And set my feet upon a rock,
And established my steps,
He has put a new song in my mouth--
Praise to our God;
Many will see it and fear,
And will trust in the LORD."

Don't stay in the pit. Cry out to God. He will lift you up and set you on firm ground. In fact, He is the only one who can. What better choice do you have?

The Measure of My Days

Psalm 39:4-6

"LORD, make me to know my end,
And what is the measure of my days,
That I may know how frail I am.
Indeed, You have made my days as handbreadths,
And my age is nothing before you;
Certainly every man at his best state is but a vapor.
Surely every man walks about like a shadow;
Surely they busy themselves in vain;
He heaps up riches,
And does not know who will gather them."

The past four years of my life have been nothing short of revolutionary. So much has changed in me and about me that I would be hard pressed to detail all of it in any format that you would be willing to read. That is how much change there has been.

I'm planning to share my testimony next month in my MOPS group, and because of that I have spent a lot of time thinking about what, exactly, precipitated all of this change in my life. The big answer or course, is that God is responsible for all of it. But God has used circumstances and events to shape and mold me, because that is often how He chooses to operate. He could have thought change toward me, and it certainly would have happened. But instead, He chose the messy way--pulling me through things I would never have chosen for myself. If I were to look backward, I would see two long ruts along the way. Those would be the heels that I dug into the ground in resistance to God's shaping and pulling. But guess who prevailed? And thank goodness.

If I had to pinpoint just one thing that dramatically impacted my relationship with God, and thus my entire being, it would be the day I glimpsed my own death, and kept breathing. Now, I'll admit that I am being a tad dramatic, but not entirely. The day my first child was born, I could easily have died. If God had not graciously orchestrated events to unfold exactly as they did, it is not unreasonable to suppose that I would have bled to death.

I won't go into all of the details here and now, but suffice it to say that I suddenly and totally unexpectedly began to hemorrhage while my husband and I were on a road trip. A hospital was less than 15 minutes away when I started to bleed. But if I had convinced my husband to stop and eat lunch when I wanted to, we could have been much farther from help. God is certainly a God of details.

I have thought for a long time that it was the horrible months that followed that particular day that brought about great change. And there is no question that they did. But in retrospect, I think it was an awareness of the measure of my days, and the inherent frailty involved in that, that caused me to see this life as so passing, so transitory, like a shadow and a vapor. Tied up in that realization is a letting go of the things that I used to spend so much time, energy and emotion pursuing.

This letting go, did not happen easily or even very quickly. But it began on the day that I saw for the first time, with startling clarity, and unavoidable certainty, that my days are as handbreadths. I no longer want to busy myself in vain. I want to busy myself with things that matter, things that are true, and things that are eternal.

If I had died that day, I know that I would have gone to Heaven, because I was already a Christian, and had been for almost all of my life. But I had never done anything in this life, besides believing God, that would have eternal consequences.

But I didn't die. My days were not finished, they were given new meaning. I want them to matter. I want them to matter more than anything I have ever wanted before. Not because I want or seek anything for myself, but because I want to glorify God. I want to serve Him. Here is my heart's desire:

Psalm 40:7-10

"In the scroll of the book it is written of me.
I delight to do Your will, O my God,
And Your law is within my heart.

I have proclaimed the good news of righteousness
In the great assembly;
Indeed, I do not restrain my lips,
O LORD, You Yourself know.
I have not hidden Your righteousness within my heart;
I have declared Your faithfulness and Your salvation;
I have not concealed Your lovingkindness and Your truth
From the great assembly."

I'll admit--sometimes this newfound passion frightens me. Sometimes I wonder if I am on the verge of becoming that woman that people avoid or find obnoxious. I have no desire to be that kind of woman. But listen, if that is what God has in store for me in order to bring Him glory, show me the dotted line. My pen is poised and ready.

My Precious

All of you Lord of the Ring fans out there will appreciate this. The trilogy of movies was on television over the weekend here. Against my better judgment, I stayed up late three nights in a row to watch them, even though I own the DVDs of all three and could have watched them without all of the annoying commercial breaks. And gotten to bed at a decent hour.

At the end of The Return of the King, we see Frodo standing above the molten lava flowing in Mount Doom, poised to accomplish the destruction of the ring he has borne through great trial and sacrifice. But as you know, when the moment comes to separate himself from the thing that has brought him so much misery, he cannot bear to let it go. He loves and desires it more than he hates it or wishes it to be destroyed.

How like our sin. We love our sins so much more than we care to admit. We feel justified in committing them. We tell ourselves that they are harmless. We pet and feed and nourish them. Sometimes, even when the moment comes to cast them away and be forgiven of them, we cling to them, cradling them to our breast, refusing to be parted from them.

This would result in great tragedy for us if we were left to our own devices to deal with sin. Fortunately, we are not. For those who belong to Him, God provides sanctification.

Allow me to stretch the illustration of Frodo and the ring a bit more. When it becomes clear that Frodo does not have the will to part himself from the ring, a "terrible" thing happens to him. He is viciously attacked by Gollum, who was once the ring bearer himself. A mighty struggle ensues. In the end, Gollum seems to prevail, by literally biting the finger off of Frodo's hand, and with it, the ring. Gollum's victory is short lived, as he tumbles to his destruction, down into the lake of fire, all the while clutching the ring to himself in ecstasy.

Frodo is left with a permanently maimed hand. But, despite his resistance to the point of violent struggle, he has been freed from the terrible power the ring held over him.

I see a great parallel to sanctification in that struggle. Sometimes God uses "terrible" things to free us and give us life. Surely you know of someone this has happened to? To a small degree, that has been my own experience with sanctification. I resisted it. It hurt and was unpleasant to go through. But in the end, I found myself free. Usually I wasn't even aware of the destruction I was binding myself to until I was free of it. And then, oh, I could fall on my face in thankfulness for the mercy of sanctification.

It would have been so much easier to be obedient to God from the start. To look at my sin and cast it into the fire and be free of it. But I just couldn't. Not in my own power. Mercy was required. Mercy that certainly didn't feel anything like mercy when it happened.

1 Thess 5:23

"Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ."

One more thing here. In my own life, the mercy of sanctification has accomplished something I never imagined I would have. A real hunger and thirst for righteousness. I can honestly say that I have it for the first time in my life. I can also say that I have no doubt that I did nothing to get myself to this point. It was all God. It was all mercy.

A little sin...

Job 37:10

"By the breath of God ice is given, and the broad waters are frozen fast."

About four days ago, as I was sitting in my kitchen, quietly reading my Bible, before the whole house was awake, I noticed that my refrigerator was making a strange, tinny sounding noise. "Strange noise," I thought. Then I ignored it. This went on for about 3 days.

Then Friday, I took what should have been a frozen waffle out of the freezer. Problem was, the waffle was not frozen. It was kind of soft. "Hmm, maybe this is related to that strange noise I have been hearing." I decided to call in an appliance repairman immediately. He showed up at about 4:15 p.m. This is on Friday, remember.

He walked straight into my kitchen, pulled my fridge away from the wall, tinkered around for a pair of minutes (as Beth Moore would say), and pronounced that my compressor was broken and my refrigerator and freezer were worthless, and in fact had not been working properly since the first time I heard that strange noise. This was not a good moment for me.

There was, however, some good news. My fridge was still under warranty (being only 3 years old). The parts and labor would be completely covered under the standard warranty. Bad news? Oh yes. The broken part would need to be ordered, and would take 3-4 days to arrive, and they couldn't order it until Monday. It took me a while to realize what that would mean.

"Oh, that means I have no refrigerator or freezer all weekend? And probably until Thursday of next week? Umm, what am I supposed to do?"

This was apparently not the problem of the appliance guy. He was ready to go and enjoy the weekend.

At first, I thought things would be relatively fine. We have a mini-fridge in our wet bar. I emptied all of the bottles (I'll let you guess what those contained!) out of the mini-fridge and managed to salvage the milk, eggs, butter, lunch meat, cheese, juice, mayo, and cream (gotta have that for coffee). That was all that would fit. My husband brought home some bags of ice, and we stuffed them in the fridge and freezer and hoped that would keep things cool enough. I did do one smart thing, and took all of my chicken and put it in my deep freezer outside.


This morning I realized that the ice-stuffing had been pointless. There was a puddle of water in front of the fridge and condensation all over all of the things left in the fridge. So, facing reality, I got out the garbage bags, and to make a story that is already too long just a little bit shorter, I cleaned that baby out. Four trash bags worth.

Then, I took a good look at what the inside of my refrigerator and freezer looked like when emptied. It was horrible. I will spare you the details. Suffice it to say that I spent a majority of what was a beautiful day, up to my elbows in a sink full of bleach. I never realized how many parts could be taken out of a fridge to be cleaned. All of you women who do this on a regular basis, well, good for you. I don't.

As I was scrubbing mystery goo off the bottom of the freezer, I started thinking that I was going to find a way to turn this into a good spiritual illustration. I may have to stretch to make it work, but I was going to turn this into a good blog post. So, here is my best attempt....

Galatians 5:9

"A little leaven leavens the whole lump."

You know, if I had paid attention to that first tinny sound the fridge was making, I could have spared myself a whole heap of trouble. Chances are, the part would have arrived on Friday, and I would now be enjoying properly cooled food items. Sin is like that, too. We always get a warning sign when there is a problem. Even if it is just a little prick of the conscience. Sometimes it is much more than a little prick, it is more like alarm bells and red flags competing for attention.

At the point of first being aware of the sin, the smart thing to do is take care of the problem immediately. Before it "leavens the lump" and starts causing all kinds of scary things. Just take your pick of sins: romantic thoughts about that guy you dated before you got married, hateful feelings towards that neighbor who lets her dog bark at all hours, gossiping about that woman in church whose children are always out of control, not paying for your Bible Study book because it's done on an honor system, I could go on, but I hope you get the idea. They all start small, but left unchecked and unresolved, could lead you straight into disaster. And you should have at least a prick of conscience if you are doing any them.

But, say you see the problem and choose to ignore it. This is a bad idea. That strange noise my fridge was making should have been enough to make me call the appliance guy. But I chose to ignore it. Really, I did. It was a conscious choice. And by choosing to look the other way and let the noise go on, I ended up with stinky shrimp and slimy goo. The same thing can happen to our hearts and minds. Even our actions. And instead of handling a relatively small sin, with few, if any, consequences, we could be left having to break out the bleach bucket and do some serious work. I would rather deal with small problems, wouldn't you?

1 John 1:9

"If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."

Acts 3:19-20

"Repent, therefore, and turn again,that your sins may be blotted out, that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord,"


(Now, go back and read the verse at the top of this post. And smile with me!)

One of my friends who read this post told me that she was a little unclear as to why I had to bleach my entire refrigerator. So, in case any of the rest of you have the same question, I thought I would elaborate. There are two reasons I had to bleach everything. First, my refrigerator had not been cooling, AT ALL, for the entire three days that it was making the noise. I guess there was enough cool air, and ambient chill to keep things from being obviously not refrigerated, but by the time I noticed the problem, defrosting, dripping and oozing had already been happening. Second, and probably more importantly, I had not given my fridge a thorough scrubbing in the entire three years I owned it. Now, you know all my dirty little secrets. I don't clean my fridge on a regular basis!

The First Commandment

Matthew 22:36-40

"One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question:

"Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?"

Jesus replied, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind." This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: "Love your neighbor as yourself." All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments."

I have been thinking about this verse since last night. I've been be-bopping around a lot of blogs lately, and let me tell you, there are some strange ideas about God and Christianity out there. This post is inspired by a comment I read on another blog. I'll just leave it at that.

Here's the thing: Jesus identified loving God as the FIRST and GREATEST commandment. That is God Himself pinpointing for us what our life ambition should be. It is the center that all the spokes in our lives should revolve around. Until you get this commandment, all the rest is irrelevant.

You can give away everything you own, you can give all your spare time in back breaking service to others, you can preach and study until you are mentally and physically exhausted, you can advocate social change and sign petitions, you can forward "Christian" emails, you can write letters to congressmen, you can drive a hybrid car, or better yet ride a bicycle, you can even praise and worship in church, but until you love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul and all your mind, you are accomplishing nothing.

Here is why. Only when your actions are a reflection of God's glory are they pleasing to God. Until then, you are acting out of self-righteousness and pride. That is blunt, but true. It may not look like self-righteousness and pride, but make no mistake, that is exactly what it is.

Notice that Jesus said to love God first, and then to love your neighbor second. We are incapable of loving our neighbor in any real way unless our love is a reflection of God's love. Until it comes from the overflow of loving God fully, there is an awful lot of YOU involved in your motives and actions. Not only that, but you will wear out and give up if you are trying to love your neighbor in your own power.

Most people are not all that lovable when you get down to the nitty gritty. I am including myself in that statement. We all have fallen short of the glory of God, we all disappoint each other, we all fail and make mistakes. None of us is perfect.

And if you make the mistake of thinking that you can learn to love God by serving your neighbor, you have it all backward. You must serve your neighbor, not in order to love God, but BECAUSE you love God. It's a big difference. One is self-motivated, the other is an outpouring of God's grace in a practical way.

And if you take away God's grace, you take away all the good news.

Mercy to Job?

James 5:11 "Indeed we count them blessed who endure. You have heard of the perseverance of Job and seen the end intended by the Lord--that the Lord is very compassionate and merciful."

What's that? You call it mercy that he lost his CHILDREN, his possessions, his honor, his health? What kind of crazy mercy is that? I am not sure I like that kind of mercy. I am very sure that I don't want to experience it. But oh yes, mercy it is indeed, and in the end, compassion as well. I can relate. Well, only a tiny little bit. But still, it counts for me because it happened to me.

The day my first child was born, I almost bled to death. Now, I don't mean I lost a little bit of blood and they had to give me a transfusion, and then it took me a little while to get my strength back. No, I really did almost bleed to death. And I would have, it God had not mercifully orchestrated events to unfold exactly as they did.

My child, in utero, also could have bled to death the day she was born. In fact, she did have a blood transfusion.

In retrospect, it was the most merciful thing that God ever ordained for my life. Oh, don't get me wrong. It was a horrible experience. I hope I never go through anything that scary again. And I hope I never have to go through the months that followed again either.

But if I had not been through that day and all of the difficult months that followed, I wouldn't have the manifold blessings that I now have as a direct result of those trials. Yes, a direct result.

Here are some of the gifts that God had in store for me in the years after the birth of my first child:

1. humility
2. a servant's heart
3. compassion for hurting people
4. relevance to other traumatized mothers
5. deep faith
6. love for the Body of Christ
7. a heart of flesh
8. a yearning for heaven
9. hunger and thirst for righteousness
10. endurance for the race set before me

I could go on, but you get the idea. Those fruits did not happen overnight. Oh no, I had to spend months and even years in difficulty before they sprang forth. But it was all worth it. And I see the mercy of God in all of it. Yes, really, mercy.

If God had not gotten my attention, I would probably still be drifting through this life. I wouldn't be filled with purpose and joy and awe and love. God was merciful because He wanted more for me than I was providing for myself. He wanted me to get it, to get Him and how mind-boggling He really is. And unless He had forced me to see those things, I don't think I ever would have.

So yes, God's actions toward Job, and me too, were ultimately mercy.

Hebrews 12:5-7

"And you have forgotten that word of encouragement that addresses you as sons:

"My son, do not make light of the Lord's discipline, and do not lose heart when he rebukes you, because the Lord disciplines those he loves, and he punishes everyone he accepts as a son."

Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as sons. For what son is not disciplined by his father?"

Seek My Face

Psalm 27:4

"One thing I have desired of the LORD,
That will I seek:
That I may dwell in the house of the LORD
All the days of my life,
To behold the beauty of the LORD,
And to inquire in his temple."

Psalm 27:7-10

"Hear, O LORD, when I cry with my voice!
Have mercy also upon me, and answer me.
When you said, "Seek My face,"
My heart said to You, "Your face, LORD, I will seek."
Do not hide Your face from me;
Do not turn Your servant away in anger;
You have been my help;
Do not leave me nor forsake me,
O God of my salvation.
When my father and my mother forsake me,
Then the LORD will take care of me."

This Psalm means so much to me right now, as in this exact moment that I am typing this on my computer. My spirit is feeling so troubled, and has been for about 2 weeks now. There are plenty of reasons for it, I could just take my pick and make this post about any of them, really. But one thing has been weighing on my heart tonight, and I feel like this Psalms addresses it perfectly.

About a year ago, it was as if God did command me to seek His face. I don't mean that He appeared to me or communicated to me in some mysterious or supernatural way. He just grabbed my attention, completely and consumingly. He fueled a desire in my heart to seek Him with passion. And I did. Just like in the Psalm. My heart said, "Your face, LORD, I will seek." And the result of that seeking of God's face has been abundant blessing. I have written in other posts about how I feel like God has poured the Spirit out onto me. I was unprepared for how profound it would be. I feel like a different person, an alien, a strange duck, set apart, lifted above, all those things. And it is awesome. It is amazingly awesome. I don't ever want to lose it or go back to being just another pew sitting, powerless church-goer.

And I know that God will be faithful to me. I know He has not poured Himself out on me just to abandon me and leave me. But I feel like I am about to be tossed to some wolves. I really do feel like I am about to be uprooted and tossed out into the wastelands.

Here's why: we are changing churches. I don't want to. My husband does. And there is no way that we can go to different churches. And he is the one who gets to decide this issue. I'm not open to debate about that. He just is.

He doesn't really want to change churches either. But he has gotten to the point where he doesn't see any other way to deal with the situation. I'm not going to give you the details. That is not what this post is about.

But I have no confidence in the church we are going to start attending. We went there as newlyweds, and I was spiritually starved.

That is why the words in Psalm 27 are so powerful. "Do not hide Your face from me." "Do not leave me nor forsake me, O God of my salvation."


"Do not leave me nor forsake me,
O God of my salvation.
When my father and my mother forsake me,
Then the LORD will take care of me."

O LORD! Take care of me. I don't want to be forsaken.

Repairer of the Breach

Isaiah 58: 9-12

"Then you shall call, and the LORD will answer;
You shall cry, and He will say, "Here I am."

If you take away the yoke from your midst,
The pointing of the finger, and speaking wickedness,
If you extend your soul to the hungry
And satisfy the afflicted soul,
Then your light shall dawn in the darkness,
And you darkness shall be as the noonday.
The LORD will guide you continually,
And satisfy your soul in drought,
And strengthen your bones;
You shall be like a watered garden,
And like a spring of water, whose waters do not fail.
Those from among you
Shall build the old waste places;
You shall raise up the foundations of many generations;
And you shall be called the Repairer of the Breach,
The Restorer of Streets to Dwell In."


I read this passage of scripture last week and it grabbed my attention. I have not been able to get it out of my mind. There are a lot of reasons for that. I don't think I could cover all of the riches in this passage in one post. Well, I could, but then I would have to neglect other things that need taking care of around here!

I have been experiencing a great churning of my heart lately. I don't know how else to describe it. About a year ago I experienced something that I have a hard time describing. The closest I can come, is to compare it to an explosion that happened inside of me. A spiritual explosion. I have been set on fire for God and His Word. I know that this is the pouring out of the Holy Spirit because I know that it is not from within myself. And that all things related to faith are a gift from God, and not of our own doing, or earning.

I have been at a loss as to why this powerful thing has happened to me. Part of the reason is because I don't sense this same thing happening in the people around me. I'm talking about people who are Christians, and love the LORD, and seek Him diligently. I don't see in them what I am experiencing in myself. And that makes me think that God is working this mighty work in my heart for a specific reason.

Maybe I have it all wrong. Maybe this is how all Christians are supposed to feel all the time. And maybe what I am experiencing is supposed to be the norm for Christians. But if it is supposed to be, I don't think it is. I see so many fellow believers struggling with unbelief, prayerlessness, doubt, dissatisfaction and just plain old lack of interest in things spiritual. I feel like I am the one who is out of the ordinary.

I'll tell you this much. I don't ever want to lose this. It is better than anything else I have ever experienced. I can understand why Christians are able to willingly become martyrs. I can say with conviction that God's lovingkindness is better than life.

So back to the purpose of this post, being the Repairer of the Breach. I suspect that God may be preparing me for some kind of ministry. I haven't been able to confess that to anyone yet. I don't want to get ahead of God. I also don't think that being called to ministry means being called to some kind of flashy, high-profile position. I think that right now I am being faithful by leading two Bible Study groups. I have also been actively pursuing relationships with other godly women. I have also started taking a writing course, which could certainly prove to be something that God uses me to minister through. I just don't know yet.

But I do know this. That nothing can change or shake the plan of the LORD. And I can rest assured that by obeying Him, I am pursuing His plan for my life. What it looks like now and what it looks like five years from now may be drastically different. But He will accomplish what He will accomplish. I don't have to worry about missing some mysterious "signs" or "clues" that God has laid out for me.

Ecclesiastes 3:14-15

"I know that whatever God does,
It shall be forever.
Nothing can be added to it,
And nothing taken from it.
God does it, that men should fear before Him.
That which is has already been,
And what is to be has already been;
And God requires an account of what is past."

So where does that leave me? Well, with a churning heart for one thing. And also with a realization that if God is going to use me, I have a lot of work to do. I feel like I am getting a late start. Why have I wasted so much of my life just flitting from thing to thing? I haven't even read the entire Bible!


But I would love to be called a Repairer of the Breach. What a title.