“Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion?
Come to me.
Get away with me and you’ll recover your life.
I’ll show you how to take a real rest.
Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it.
Learn the unforced rhythms of grace.
I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you.
Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.”
{Matthew 11:28-30 MSG}
I have to admit, I’m a romantic. I’m idealistic and hopeful and hopelessly romantic. So I don’t mind Valentines Day. Yes, it’s a commercialized, capitalized day where we’re all a little forced to do and buy things for our loved one, should we have one, whether we feel up to it or not. But for me, its an opportunity to take a random day to love on those we love.
However.
I also see the potential in Valentine’s Day every year for a whole host of evils. There is the temptation, for a romantic like me, to never be satisfied with what my husband has done, to build up impossible expectations and then be angry at him. It can be a chance criticize and feel disparaging things toward my loved one.
Valentine’s Day can become Entitlement Day, where I am owed SOMETHING from my husband, something from someone {anyone?} to tell me I’m loved.
It can be National Pressure Day, where men feel pressured to come through in some spectacular way for their love, and to top it every year, with yet the constant nagging hint that they will never succeed in this endeavor.
Which leads to National Disappointment Day.
It can be National Single’s Awareness Day, as we are all aware, because it can also be Single’s National Day of Complaint. Those without a current boyfriend or husband can be made to feel small, insignificant, unworthy, unloved, and unseen. They {incorrectly, I’m afraid} assume every other woman who has a man is being doted upon, dated, wooed, lavished with flowers and gifts, and feeling wholly loved and satisfied.
For married and unmarrieds alike, it can become National Comparison Day. This is a real danger. Women post pictures to all social media outlets to give their guy some props for the efforts he went to to lavish love on his girl. Women then compare and feel more or less loved compared to what so-and-so’s husband/boyfriend did for her.
Somehow for all of us, I’m convinced, this day has the potential to be a depressing day. But it also doesn’t have to be that way.
Our hearts were made for more. Our hearts were not made to be satisfied by a human love. A human love is wonderful and satisfying in a lot of ways, but for those of you who aren’t married yet, let me go ahead and tell you, it still doesn’t fill the void. You will still face the temptation every year on Valentine’s Day to be disappointed. Having a husband or a boyfriend will not fix that, because its an issue within our own hearts, not an issue with someone else’s actions.
We were made to want to be loved. Proverbs 19:22 says “What a person desires is unfailing love.” We were made with an aching need to be loved. That is right, normal, okay–don’t kill that off. The painful part is to keep that part of your heart open in the face of disappointment after disappointment.
I have the sweetest husband, who loves me tremendously. But, he is not built to be a romantic guy. It’s just not his strength. So for a romantic like me, I have struggled with being disappointed, angry, entitled, jealous, etc. But even the times when my husband has done an incredible job, I still find myself struggling with dissatisfaction. What is that?! What God has taught me is that disappointment can be an avenue to breaking my heart open. It can speak to a deeper longing. A longing that cannot be satisfied by human and the earthly and tangible. Disappointment can remind me that I was made for More. I was made for a love that is immeasurable. Disappointment can be the avenue through which God gives me the greatest gift, the gift of Himself.
The reality is, as Oswald Chambers said, “No love of the natural heart is safe unless the human heart has been satisfied by God first.” Before I got married, I heard the advice of a wise woman to pray every day, “Satisfy us early with Your unfailing love, that we may rejoice and be glad all our days!” (Ps. 90:14)
What great advice it was, something I have never forgotten. It’s HIS unfailing love that I was made for, that my heart longs for. A human love can point to it, even a broken human love will always point to my need for His far greater, far surpassing love.
In this way, I’ve come to see the disappointments as gifts. Arrows always pointing me back to my Savior. The Savior who made it that way, who wounds me so that He can heal me. So that I come to Him. So that I have nowhere else to turn, with a heart so prone to wander. That I’ll have tried every other well and found it to leave me still thirsty.
He can fill your hearts, ladies. He alone can fill your hearts. He wants to. He will. Ask Him to, today. Ask Him to blow your mind. Ask Him to be sweet to you in the ways you need Him to. Ask Him to minister to your human girly heart that craves affection, adoration, unfailing love. He is willing to be anyone’s Valentine.
Don’t listen to the whisper that your value and worth and dependent upon getting roses, or chocolate, or a card. It’s ridiculous! Your value and worth come from God alone, who made you in His own image, with incredible detail and foresight and love (see Psalm 139).
As you let God minister to your disappointment and you need to receive love today, in return, pour out what lavish love He has given you on others. Find others to bless with little gifts, hugs, and love. Give what it is you yourself are needing to someone else today.
I hope that no matter who you are, you know your great worth and value today and that your heart is met in the sweetest ways by Jesus.
“May your unfailing love be with us, Lord, even as we put our hope in you.” {Psa. 33:22}
“How priceless is your unfailing love, O God! People take refuge in the shadow of your wings.” {Psa. 36:7}
“The Lord appeared to us in the past, saying: ‘I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with unfailing kindness.'” {Jer. 31:3}
“Let the morning bring me word of your unfailing love, for I have put my trust in you. Show me the way I should go, for to you I entrust my life.” {Psa. 143:8}
“May your unfailing love be my comfort, according to your promise to your servant.” {Psa. 119:76}
“Though the mountains be shaken and the hills be removed, yet my unfailing love for you will not be shaken nor my covenant of peace be removed,” says the Lord, who has compassion on you.” {Isa. 54:10}
Thirteen years ago today, at this exact time, 8:30 am on a Monday morning, I was freezing. Literally. I was huddled in the snow in the rugged backcountry wilderness of Colorado. I was sixteen years old at the time, and I was alone with my sister, who was twenty. We had spent the night stranded in the frigid conditions, lost. Helpless. The previous day, February 11, 2001, had been a gorgeous windy day in the backcountry. We had driven up from Denver with our brother and good friend Chris, and we were all planning on a fun day of snowboarding at Loveland Pass. My sister and I broke off from the guys, who were going to build a jump and play on that, to hike farther around the bowl and do laps. The wind was insane that day on the ridge, and as we hiked farther around the bowl, Jennie and I set our sights on a peak on the backside of the bowl. We had never ventured over there before, but from where we were standing, it looked entirely feasible. And fun. So we set off to hike the next peak. And thus began what would become an incredible story of survival.
We were young and foolish. We didn’t think about the fact that we were going far beyond where we had told everyone we would be. We didn’t account for snow conditions, or even cared (read: 16 years old). Or for the fact that it was late in the afternoon. It was incredibly deep snow and soon we were slogging waist deep, post-holing and fighting to just make forward progress. Long story short, we were soon exhausted and thirsty. And we were losing daylight. It was an extrememly vulnerable feeling. We knew how to get back where we had come from, but we couldn’t physically hike back up the mountain we had ridden down because of the deep heavy snow. We had decided to head a different way, hoping to circle around and meet up with the pass road on the other side of the pass. But the farther we ventured down into treeline, the less visibility we had, the sooner we realized we were lost.
The sun sank behind the towering peaks behind us. The shadows were lengthening. The temperature was immediately dropping. We had been hiking now for hours without water or food. We found a clearing in the trees where we could get a view of the valley below us, expecting to see the pass road. Instead we saw a mountain. My heart fell in that moment. We would never get over that in the couple of hours of daylight we had left. And with our level of exhaustion, I was skeptical that we would ever make it that far. It was an incredibly sobering and terrifying moment.
We changed plans. Instead of it becoming about getting out of the backcountry, we realized we were in a survival situation. It became about preparing to spend the night here, in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of snow, in the middle of February, with no supplies, no water, no shelter, no cell phone. What’s worse, no one had a clue we were here.
We trudged out a huge S.O.S. in the clearing, we dug a hole down into the snow pack just big enough for the two of us to crawl inside, we set our brightly colored snowboards out where we hoped they’d be visible. We crawled headfirst into the dark, freezing hole. We grabbed some branches and packed the sugary-like snow desperately into the branches, trying to cover the opening. It was dark in the snow cave. It was silent. It was growing dark outside, as we saw the light growing dim through the patched-over opening of the snow cave. It was insanity. Both Jennie and I had these desperate urges to just jump back out of this hellish hole and keep trudging. But instinctively we knew we would die if we did that. We knew the temps were going to be freezing that night and we would freeze, in our wet gear, traveling in the woods with no light. We didn’t know if we were making the best decision. But we had made it and we committed to stick to it. When light came in the morning, we would start hiking again.
So we thought. Thus ensued one of the most insane nights of survival I could ever have imagined. Temperatures that night, we later learned, dropped to -11 degrees, -21 with windchill. Negative 21! Thankfully we were protected from the wind in our makeshift shelter. We were not warm, however. We were shivering convulsively. We were wet and laying on wet snow in total darkness. We were thirsty.
There is so much that happened in that dark hole alone together that evening. There are a whole host of miracles that happened, people who were working and searching and sacrificing out in the dark cold, hundreds searching for us, due to my quick-thinking brother and friend, Chris, who called in search and rescue. But it’s not the purpose for which I write to you today. A story for another time. But as morning began to dawn, we couldn’t have guessed that our energy would be vastly depleted just from trying to survive and keep warm through the night. Our muscles were so tired from convulsing and shivering that we couldn’t imagine even walking. We realized that having gone almost a full 24 hours without water or food and yet expending all the physical strength we could muster to hike and to stay warm had left us completely depleted. Helpless.
We realized we were waiting now to be found. We realized there would be no way to hike out. We realized we were so cold, so weak, so lost. We were utterly dependent on the reckless hope that someone would be searching for us. That someone would find us, and soon.
And this morning, thirteen years later, I sit here as snow softly falls in the mountains of North Carolina. I sit here cozy in my bed tapping away on these keys, while my husband plays with and feeds our two precious children. I sit here almost 30 years old. I sit here, having been RESCUED. I sit here as one who received grace on that fateful day, February 12th, 2001.
As God would have it, I was studying Genesis chapter 15 and Romans chapter 4 this morning. My mind is reeling with what God was speaking to me, so bear with me, as I try to give words to it here.
I know what its like to be helpless. I know what its like to be desperate. I know what its like to realize you are about to face death soon unless someone comes through for you. To know that you have reached the end of yourself and you cannot save yourself. There is nothing you can do. It is the most vulnerable and terrifying position to be in.
It is the place where all pride and self-sufficiency falls away and grace alone can save.
But I’m all about pride and self-sufficiency. You see, I grew up with a faulty and broken understanding of righteousness. I grew up thinking that if I could be good enough, God would be pleased with me. I grew up thinking somehow that I had to earn my way into His favor, and that when I sinned, I lost His love and favor. And all my days, I have strived.
And then there’s Romans 4. There’s Abraham. A man who “believed God, and it was accounted to him as righteousness” (Rom. 4:3, Gen. 15:6).
“If Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. For what does the Scripture say? Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness. Now to him who works, the wages are not counted as grace but as debt. But to him who does not work, but believes on Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness” (Rom. 4:2-5).
If our standing with God is based on our good works, if we can be good enough, then God owes us our wage, which is salvation, heaven. We are good people who generally stay out of trouble so God is obligated to save us. But what about those of us who know we are helplessly flawed?? What about those of us who cannot see inherent goodness in ourselves? What about those of us who see that every inclination of our hearts is only evil continually? That our pride, our selfishness, our self-protectiveness runs deep? What about those of us who return over and over and over to our sin, like a dog to vomit? What is the hope of salvation for us? We need to be rescued.
If our standing with God is based on what GOD Himself has done, because God Himself knew that we would never be able to be good enough to stand before Him, then we would know that it is by faith. It is by believing this truth and resting all our hope upon it that we will be saved.
“Therefore it is of faith, that it might be according to grace, so that the promise might be sure to all seed, not only to those who are of the law, but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all…in the presence of Him whom He believed–God, who gives life to the dead and calls those things which do not exist as though they did; who contrary to hope, in hope believed…He did not waver at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strengthened in faith, giving glory to God, and being fully convinced that what He had promised, He was also able to perform” (Rom.4:16,17-18,20-21).
What had God promised, that Abraham was convinced He would be able to perform? Head back to Gen.15 and remember that God covenanted with Abraham to make a great nation from Abraham’s line, even though Abraham and Sarai, his wife, were old in age and barren. God promised they would in fact have a son, an heir, through whom God would bring the Promised One, the Savior, who had been promised back in the Garden of Eden (Gen.3:15), whom all humanity had been waiting for and looking for since the fall of the first parents, Adam and Eve. God covenanted with Abraham, He promised that He would rescue mankind, He promised that He would do it through Abraham’s family, and He alone took on both sides of the covenant agreement (see Gen.15:17). God did not require Abraham to make covenant with Him, because God knew Abraham would never be able to hold up his end of the deal. God made covenant with Abraham and covenanted to uphold both parties’ commitments. He alone would do this. Would Abraham believe? God then told Abraham what would happen to His people, those descendants of Abraham, for the next 400 years (all of which was perfectly historically accurate), and foretold to Abraham that His plan would be to rescue the people once they were desperate and hopelessly in bondage/slavery to Egypt. God’s plan was for Israel to inherit Canaan through God’s supernatural act of redemption from slavery.
You see, He knows we are helpless. He knows we cannot be good. But He allows us to experience that truth for ourselves physically in our lives, often to get into a place of physical helplessness, so that we make the connection to our spiritually helpless, lost state, apart from Christ. We can do some good things in our lives, sure, but if we can be honest, we are prone to serve ourselves. We are prone to greed, selfishness, hatred, bitterness, jealousy, sexual immorality, and on and on. We are bent away from God, away from holiness. We can try and be good some days, but we are never perfect.
And it hits me fresh, and it hits me hard this morning.
It isn’t the good-enough who inherit the kingdom of God. It isn’t the people who do it all right who get to go to heaven. It is those who believe. It is those who hang all of their hope on Jesus. As Romans 4 says, “it is of faith that it might be according to grace” (vs. 16). God wanted to show off the sufficiency of His GRACE. If it were works, I could earn it. I could lose it. And God would be my debtor. But as it stands, it is all of faith. It is given to me, its a gift. But I have to receive it. I have to believe it in order to appropriate it. And because of that truth, I am forever God’s gladdest debtor.
So back to that freezing cold, blinding cold morning, thirteen years ago. The first sound of hope that we heard was the blurry, distant chop-chop-chop of helicopter blades. It barely pulled me out of the fog that I was in. I could barely put two thoughts together to figure out what that vaguely familiar sound was.
It got closer. And closer. And closer until it was like a thunder roaring right over us. Jennie burst through the roof of snow above us, screaming and waving wildly at the smiling faces of two men above us, circling over and over above us, just barely above the trees. Soon, two men hiked down to us, two rescuers, who offered us snickers bars and some warm layers and helped us to hike to another clearling where we were able to board that helicopter and be rushed to Summit County hospital for treatment. We exited that helicopter to be greeted by our dearest loved ones, whom we clung to. We were greeted by several news stations. And in the coming days we were interviewed over and over again, on the Today Show, in Teen People Magazine, in newspapers and women’s magazines. It was incredible.
What if we had said no to it all? What if when those two rescuers showed up, we had said, “No I don’t believe you’re really here. I don’t believe you really have my best interest at heart. I don’t think you care to rescue me, I don’t believe you that right below this clearing is a large clearing where a helicopter is waiting for me. I don’t believe that if I stay here in this dark hole, death is certain. I think I can do it on my own. I think I can be strong enough to get out of here.” What if the gift that was offered, what if we refused it? We had the FREEDOM to do that. Those men could not have forced us to come to safety. They could have given us many convincing proofs and arguments. They could have pled with us. But ultimately, we had to trust them, total strangers, we had to believe their word. We had to place our lives in their hands.
We had to let them rescue us.
Because “rescue” implies submission, weakness, trust, dependency, helplessness.
Whoever you are, reading this today… that is the Good News of Jesus Christ. He came for us. He is God, who came from God, to make a way for humanity to get back to God, when we used our freedom to flee from Him. But you must let Him rescue you. You must believe that He is good, that He has a plan to redeem you, and you must put your hand in His and let Him lead you to safety.
The Christian life is not about being a good person. NO!!!! The Christian life is about placing your trust in Jesus, who was perfect, and believing He is the Savior of the world, and letting Him rescue you.
Will you do that today? Will you believe?
“By entering through faith into what God has always wanted to do for us—set us right with him, make us fit for him—we have it all together with God because of our Master Jesus. And that’s not all: We throw open our doors to God and discover at the same moment that he has already thrown open his door to us. We find ourselves standing where we always hoped we might stand—out in the wide open spaces of God’s grace and glory, standing tall and shouting our praise.” (Rom.5:1-2 MSG)
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
A special word of thanks goes out to all those who worked and sacrificed and prayed that night on our behalf. To my parents, my brother Andrew and Chris Harrison, Bill & Cindy Scott, Littleton Bible Chapel, Dan Burnett {our burliest mountain man}, Pat Mahaney {the pilot}, Mike Everest {the scout who found our tracks on a whim}, Bill Barwick, Loveland Ski Patrol, Alpine Search & Rescue team. Because of what you did, I am here today with my precious children and husband. I am forever indebted and “thank you” is simply not enough. You all are my heroes forever!
though our sins be as scarlet,
they shall be white as snow;
though they are red like crimson,
they shall be as wool.
isa. 1:18
in His sight, covered in the precious blood of Jesus, you are clean. you are spotless. stand in that rest alone this weekend!
Sometimes the barrenness and deadness of winter gets to me. In the gray and brown bleakness it can seem that all beauty and life has faded from the world. The daylight shortens, the cold sets in, the life and bounty of summer shrivel into shades of brown, crisp papers carrying forgotten stories. And the winds blow the weightless shreds away.
And what is underneath are the skeletons. They have their own stories to tell. They have their own beauty to proclaim. From a distance and from a quick scan, it all looks like death. You have to look harder, listen closer. Slow down and draw near to really see.
Sometimes it’s good to just go out and search for it, to see in order to remember:
There is beauty here. There is life here, contained, ready to combust. There is hope here.
happiest birthday today to this guy!
so thankful to do life together with you, to raise these precious kids together with you, and to continue on the adventure set before us together! i love you forever, B.
xo
“Take more ground on the good days.”
I read those words some months ago, back in the heat of North Carolina’s summer. I have thought of them so often since then. Susie Larson, author of Your Beautiful Purpose, was writing about a concept from her fitness-instructing days. The concept is that there are days you wake up feeling somehow stronger, with more clarity, energized. Those are the days you take extra ground in your fitness goals: push harder, lift more, run farther.
“Leverage the day to your advantage…because a day is coming when you’ll feel less than stellar and it’ll be all you can do to show up for your workout. In order not to lose ground on those difficult days, you need to gain ground on the favorable days.”
What am I doing with my good days, the days where running feels easy? What am I doing with my strength, with the seasons of blessing?
The hard days just come. God tries to prepare us, He is as up-front as He can be: “in this world you WILL have trouble,” He says {John 16:33}. You don’t wait for the storm to be upon you before you start building up a strong home, a safe haven, a good foundation. If you wait, you will surely come to ruin! You run hard in the good days. You run a little harder, a little farther. You leverage that strength. You prepare for the storms that will inevitably come.
You know they are coming, they are not going to derail you.
You know they’re coming, they’re not to going to make you question why a good God would allow them. He has told you He will allow them. He has told you to take heart because even though the trouble WILL come, He has already overcome it. And so you plan to lean hard into that future grace.
And so when you feel like you have earned a rest, that maybe you can sit back a bit on your laurels, maybe this is the time to run ahead.
Don’t wait for the storms to come to start battening down the hatches. Batten down the hatches on the good days, when you’re feeling strong, when you can hardly imagine a hard day in sight. When you feel like your marriage couldn’t be stronger. Your parenting skills are pretty great. Your relationship with God is good. You’ve got this “quiet time” thing down pat. You pray like you want to. Your finances are ship shape. Your portfolio is impressive. Your job is smooth sailing.
Use that good season, leverage it. You know hard times will come. And will your faith stand? Will your marriage stand? You won’t have the strength to set a good foundation in your marriage or in your walk with God when the hard blows come. It’s then that you need a strong home already built to weather that storm.
It’s part of what is so hard and broken about this life here on this terrestrial sod. The working never really ceases. You clean the floors, and that’s about as good as it gets for a few minutes. Because part of the fallenness of this place is that left to its own devices, everything naturally falls into a state of decay. Nothing improves without our working. Without maintenance and constant, persevering attention. And without our attention, everything slowly quietly falls into disrepair.
You don’t do this out of fear. You do this out of wisdom.
You need some scripture planted deep down in the marrow of your soul for the times when you don’t know when to turn in His Word. For the times when you’re groping for His voice. {Consider joining in here with a group to memorize scripture, soul-sustaining words from Christ in the Gospel of John.}
Maybe you need to try some new things in your marriage, make some goals that include sustaining and nourishing your marriage in new ways.
You place yourself in a network of other moms, maybe some older moms too.
Maybe you seek out and build up some solid friendships even though you’re feeling pretty good and independent.
I know some people aren’t into January and new year resolutions. Who wants to set goals when you just finished the last year and feel like you blew it? Who really wants to try again? And some people argue we should always be living in today so we don’t need to be setting goals for tomorrow. But what about stepping back and taking stock? What about seasons where we evaluate how we’re doing, where we clear our muddled vision and set sights afresh on the goal, and consider how to run for that goal well? This is what I love about January, and the freshness of a new year, and the setting of goals or resolutions.
This is what I love about a God who gave us the physical illustration of seasons, each season bringing its own “now” and each season calling us to prepare for what’s ahead. Tilling soil and planting seed in spring, months before you’ll see that harvest. Chopping and stacking wood in the heat of the summer, months before you can even imagine a cold bone-chilling wind, so that it dries out and is ready for the unexpected need. Canning and storing the yield of that harvest for the days when the ground is cold and hard as iron and no fruit is hanging from the vine.
Always, the working, the leveraging today’s strength for tomorrow’s weakness. For what unknown but certain storm is ahead.
So tell me.. what are you doing with your good days?
I believe in the power of words, the written word especially. Words are highly flammable, explosive. And I believe in resources. In fact, I’m somewhat of a resource geek. I know the power of a good book at the right time, words that can wake up the dead, words that can be used of God to heal, to transform. I have a passion to connect others with good resources, because when you’ve been set free, when you’ve been transformed, when you’ve been brought to life, you can’t help but share it. It burns in you to be told, and it’s a crazy dizzy happiness in you that must bubble out.
I also believe that reading is a discipline we must continue to cultivate. Since God gave us His Word in written form, I believe even for those of us who find reading dull or difficult, we must continue to teach ourselves, discipline ourselves, to read. It was eleven years ago that I read J.P. Moreland’s wonderful book Love Your God With All Your Mind and I believe that reading God’s Word and good books is a part of how we do that. The Christian faith is not a mindless, reasonless faith. The Bible has satisfied some of the greatest minds in history, and continues to today.
With that said, I believe in sharing here in this little quiet space of the internet my humble finds. The books that are speaking to my soul, the truths that are ministering to me. I hope that it can be helpful to you in some way.
This stack of books were some of my very favorites from this past year, the ones I just couldn’t {and still can’t} stop thinking about and flipping back through. The ones I know I will read over and over again.
Anything by Jennie Allen
This one rocked me and gave words to a restlessness that I have been struggling with for a solid year. {I will have more to say on it in a separate post.} Jennie Allen wrote this book to describe her & her husband’s experience of leaving behind the Christianized pursuit of the American dream. She writes of becoming restless with worship of a small “plastic” god and finally surrendering to the one true God. They prayed a prayer, a one-word prayer that forever changed everything: “Anything.” Whatever You want God, wherever You would have us go. You can have us for anything. This book is the story of how that little prayer exploded in their lives and led them on the adventure of a lifetime. An incredible read, I flew through it in a few days.
“God builds our lives whether we give him permission or not. It is the fight for control that has us all tied up, while it’s really an illusion anyway. We control because we are afraid of what may happen if we let go. Do we really think we are better captains of our lives than a God who sees everything and deeply loves us?…He calls the shots on what happens to us in this short stint here. He calls them, whether we want to let him or not. Our faith must remain greater than our pain and our fears.” (Allen)
Weakness is the Way by J. I. Packer
Ever since doing Priscilla Shirer’s recent study on Gideon earlier this year, I have been deeply affected in the way I view weaknesses, my own in particular. Why are we trying to present a shiny veneer to the watching world? Why are we trying to craft a pinterest-perfect life? It is natural for us to want to cover our ugliness, our weak areas, of course. But what if all our posturing and pretending serves only to suffocate us, to stir up pride when we gain other’s much-sought-after approval, or to further isolate us from others who find us too “perfect” to be approachable or real? What if all our pretending-perfect only makes others feel like less? Is that really the goal? What would happen if we let the guard down and let our weaknesses show? What if we stopped trying to be sufficient on our own and let our weakness drive us to Jesus? What if we stopped resenting our limitations and instead let the one whose strength is perfected in weakness perfect His strength in those limitations? This is essentially what Packer is reflecting on in this little book, as he unpacks truths from 2 Corinthians.
“When the world tells us, as it does, that everyone has a right to a life that is easy, comfortable, and relatively pain-free, a life that enables us to discover, display, and deploy all the strengths that are latent within us, the world twists the truth right out of shape. That was not the quality of life to which Christ’s calling led him, nor was it Paul’s calling, nor is it what we are called to in the twenty-first century. For all Christians, the likelihood is rather that as our discipleship continues, God will make us increasingly weakness-conscious and pain-aware, so that we may learn with Paul that when we are conscious of being weak, then–and only then–may we become truly strong in the Lord. And should we want it any other way?” (Packer)
A Million Little Ways by Emily P. Freeman
Oh gosh. I don’t know how not to write an entire blog post on this one. I’ve mentioned it a couple times on the blog already, but I don’t think this blog would even be here apart from this book. We continue to live in a day where the age-old dualism between the sacred and secular abounds {to learn more about this false dualism, I highly recommend this book}. Where we either don’t realize or live like Christ’s redemption extends beyond just our souls. I could go on, but that’s another blog post for another day. Emily Freeman writes to show that all of life can be lived to the glory of God, not just the time we spend reading the Bible or praying. All of life lived for His glory, even the small and mundane tasks of our day, can be the art that we offer to the world to the glory of God. You may not see yourself as an artist, I certainly didn’t before reading this book. But she argues from scripture how God made each of us a work of art, and each of us have an art to offer. Whether its washing dishes, decorating homes, hammering nails or hammering words on the keys, God is not so small that He is only glorified in what we typically call “spiritual” activities. He wants to be revealed and glorified in all that we do. These words are words I will read again probably every year. She is an incredible writer, and her words set me free and brought so. much. joy. {As an added bonus, there are videos that accompany each chapter with the author discussing here.}
“Exploring desire might be uncomfortable for you. In one way, it almost seems cruel to ask you to access this part of your soul, because really, on earth, there can never be complete satisfaction of our deepest desires. To imply that there can be is unfair and untrue. But hope does not disappoint. When we recognize the place where our desire runs parallel to that of Christ’s, then we will live in the midst of the now-but-not-quite-yet with a peace that goes beyond our ability to understand. When we rescue the dreams of our childhood and respect the hope of things to come, we are agreeing with the Trinity: I am an image bearer. I have a job to do. We trust he knew what he was doing when he made us as we are. We accept ourselves because of the work of Christ, and we accept his invitation to us to enter the world as co-creators with him.” (Freeman)
Your Beautiful Purpose by Susie Larson
Such a beautiful and practical read. I loved this one from cover to cover and slowly went through the study material, soaking it all in. Larson’s writing is scripture-saturated and Christ-exalting. This book encourages you to uncover God’s purpose for you and helps with practical things like when to move forward, how to wait on God’s timing or discern His voice, how to walk in your own calling and not coveting another’s, what to do with being criticized, etc. So very good and helpful and encouraging. I will return to this one often!
“Who we are and what we possess. These are the two targets the enemy aims for again and again. If he can get us to doubt, he can trip us up. If he can get us thinking we’re poor though we’re really rich, we’ll scratch and claw our way through life; and we’ll live anxious and afraid, like we’re without hope. And if he can convince us we lack something good, he’ll be able to tempt us to live frantic and hurried lives, never satisfied, always wanting more. We’ll skim life’s surfaces and miss its depths. We’ll live jealous, me-focused lives and forsake the whole reason we’re blessed: because God loves to love us, and He loves to love through us. Jesus promises that those who trust Him lack no good thing (Ps.34:10). These aging earthen vessels carry the treasure of heaven within. Ponder the significance of that truth every single day.” (Larson)
Simply Christian by N. T. Wright
One of my very favorite bible professors from college tells me if there were one great mind she could learn under for such a time as this, it would be N. T. Wright. I wholeheartedly agree! This book makes sense of Christianity and the basics of what we believe. It is easily readable for someone who is interested in understanding Christianity but has no current background with the faith. It helps one understand the longings and basic desires of humanity, the longings we have for justice, for beauty, for relationship with others, for spirituality, and how God designed us to long for these things so that we would seek and find Him. So that He could fulfill those longings. He beautifully weaves together the overarching themes and purpose of the Old and New Testaments so that one can see the whole of the story God was writing and our place in it. The truths and foundations of our faith revisited in this book brought solid joy, bolstered my faith and gave me much to chew on. I found his final chapter on “New Creation, Starting Now” especially compelling. His constant upholding of the full redemptive work of Christ made my soul sing.
“A great many arguments about God–God’s existence, God’s nature, God’s actions in the world–run the risk of being like pointing a flashlight toward the sky to see if the sun is shining. It is all too easy to make the mistake of speaking and thinking as though God (if there is a God) might be a being, an entity, within our world, accessible to interested study in the same sort of way we might study music or mathematics, open to our investigation by the same sort of techniques we use for objects and entities within our world. When Yuri Gagarin, the first Soviet cosmonaut, landed after orbiting the earth a few times, he declared that he had disproved the existence of God. He had been up there, he said, and had seen no sign of him. Some Christians pointed out that Gagarin had seen plenty of signs of God, if only the cosmonaut had known how to interpret them. The difficulty is that speaking of God in anything like the Christian sense is like staring into the sun. It’s dazzling. It’s easier, actually, to look away from the sun itself and to enjoy the fact that, once it’s well and truly risen, you can see everything else clearly.” (Wright)
Happy reading, friends!
“Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.” {Psalm 90:12}
A new year and a fresh conviction that our time here is short. It is limited. It is set in a fixed boundary. Our days are numbered. This year? It could be our last.
The very first mention of the word “number” in scripture, as far as I could find it in the NKJV, is here in Genesis:
“Lift your eyes now and look from the place where you are—northward, southward, eastward, and westward; for all the land which you see I give to you and your descendants forever. And I will make your descendants as the dust of the earth; so that if a man could number the dust of the earth, then your descendants also could be numbered. Arise, walk in the land through its length and its width, for I give it to you.” {Gen. 13:14-17}
“Then He brought [Abraham] outside and said, ‘Look now toward heaven, and count the stars if you are able to number them.’ And He said to him, ‘So shall your descendants be.'” {Gen. 15:5}
God, promising Abraham a land, a heritage, descendants beyond number. God, proclaiming from the outset that his grace-work would be beyond numbering.
Man counts the numbers in his bank account, the numbers on the scale, the numbers of his followers, the numbers of those who work for him. Like David, counting his men, measuring his own strength, his sufficiency, his weight.
God numbers our months, even our steps. He numbers His own. He numbers His mighty works, the lives of those who will receive His grace. An innumerable number.
“The Lord builds up Jerusalem;
He gathers together the outcasts of Israel.
He heals the brokenhearted
And binds up their wounds.
He counts the number of the stars;
He calls them all by name.
Great is our Lord, and mighty in power;
His understanding is infinite.
The Lord lifts up the humble;
He casts the wicked down to the ground.”
{Psa. 147:2-6}
Then this, one of the very last times the word “number” appears in scripture (according to the NKJV):
“After these things I looked, and behold, a great multitude which no one could number, of all nations, tribes, peoples, and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, saying, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!” {Rev.7:9-10}
And so the first mention of “numbers” is in context of God promising a land, promising a people who will receive grace and favor. And at one of the last mentions of the word “number”we see that promise fulfilled and consummated, a people beyond number from every tribe and tongue before the throne, before the Lamb.
A promise fulfilled because God chose to send His Son, Jesus, “and He was numbered with the transgressors.” {Isa.53:12, Lk.22:37} Numbered with the malefactors.
Teach us, O God, to number our days so that we may gain a heart of wisdom. So that we can participate in the grace-work You are doing in this world, through this particular and peculiar and set-apart people.
“Many, O Lord my God, are Your wonderful works
Which You have done
And Your thoughts toward us
Cannot be recounted to You in order;
If I would declare and speak of them
They are more than can be numbered.” {Ps.40:5}
The hard days just come. Suddenly, you realize you’re going to have one, when you thought everything was going just fine. When what was going along suddenly careens off course.
And the soup you made tastes like fish, and sour.
And the bread in the breadmaker is a flop, something went horribly wrong, and its barely cooked or edible (and how can you mess that up?)
And its a small failure but it wipes you out.
And you cry and your husband holds and says he’ll make dinner.
And you hear the news that the car is dead.
And the numbers in the budget won’t crunch down any further.
And you’re clinging hard to Jesus, to that simple sentence that is packed with power, that “perfect love casts out fear” {1 Jn. 4:18}
And you’re not feeling power at all. And it doesn’t feel like perfect love at all.
And you realize for all your clinging, you are not so much holding on as you are held.
And there comes rushing in the hope: nothing can shake this one truth. Nothing can change it. The mountains might crumble and fall into the sea, but this one truth will remain: I am His, and He is mine.
Forever and for all eternity.
And if by faith, and by quiet surrender, I let it be, it can be, enough.
In this life I will have trouble… but He has overcome the world.
I will suffer, but I don’t have to fear suffering, because I will survive it to glory and I know the sure end.
I know my sure end.
And it can be enough.
There’s nothing as effective as pain and need to wake one up, and I want to live awake.
I want to live awake to the reality that my tight-fisted grasping for control isn’t possible. And in knowing that comes rest because I cannot hold onto my life, but I am HELD. My life and all that concerns me is held in the hands of another–and He is good. He is love. He is out to give me ultimate joy and life. And He says, “Do not fear for I am with you” (Isa.41:10) and He promises that His presence with me is enough.
everything He gives 