Up on a mountain

        "Get you up to a the high mountain." (Isa.40:9)
 

         Mr. B on a loooong car trip.  "How much longer?" you can sense him whining.
        Well, a lot longer than we anticipated.  For you see, two of our sons and I were sailing along in the old suburban, making great time and headed up to one of our favorite places--God's mountains.  We had just just turned onto the last leg of our journey and could finally glimpse the distant outline of those mountains up ahead.  Beauty, peace, and glory just ahead...only thirty minutes away.
        Suddenly, traffic came to a complete standstill.  Seriously.  Both lanes on our brief six mile stretch of Interstate 77 before we'd make our final turnoff to the mountains--Was. Not. Moving.   Every now and then, things would speed up, and we'd work up to a blistering two or three miles per hour crawl.  That last "half hour" of our trip took us nearly two hours.  No wonder Bingley was whining...and he wasn't the only one.
         First we worried this must be some horrific traffic accident, and I silently prayed for the occupants of the cars.  But aways up the road, we finally came to lots of signs and orange cones alerting us that this was apparently all due to some kind of road construction. "Wow, they must be building the Hoover Dam or maybe another Disney World up there in the road ahead to have this kind of traffic, " we laughed (sort of).
         And then we saw it: the final sign that said something to the effect of "Caution: Highway Trash Pickup."  Sure enough, after waiting, sitting, and barely moving for an hour and a half, we arrived at the place where they had moved two lanes into one (why on earth this created  such a traffic jam is still a complete mystery as this highway doesn't have all that much traffic).  And there was a truck and a couple of guys chatting and absentmindedly looking for trash.
         Now don't get me wrong.  Removing trash and cleaning up the highway is a wonderful, noble thing to be doing.  But how in heavens name was it causing this much of a backup?  I still don't get it.  Not to mention, we're not talking about the Jersey Turnpike here...this highway already looks mighty pristine if you ask me.  But maybe that's because they have such a vigorous, traffic-stopping trash removal system.
         The good news is--in addition to the clean highway--we finally arrived at our destination!  Thank You, Lord!  And I'm sitting here looking out over God's magnificent creation and feeling both thankful...and convicted.  Thankful to be here.  Thankful for the Lord's glory and beauty reflected all over this world He fashioned out of His goodness and power.  Thankful to be able to see, smell, feel, touch, and simply marvel at all He has made.  Thankful for the people He has so extravagantly and graciously put in my life.  Thankful that I can sit here with His Word beside me--the very words of Almighty God to breakfast upon this fine June morning.  I could go on and on.
         But also convicted by my all-too-often failure to be relentlessly thankful to such a infinitely good and great Father.  All too prone to focus on what I don't have rather than grateful for what I do.  Too quick to selfishly go my own little way rather than seeking to walk with God in humility, dependence, and joyful gratitude.  And just like  yesterday, all too easily falling prey to complaining over a bit of waiting on a highway rather than thanking God for the privilege of spending time with those I love and headed to a place I love.  Geez.
          Thank You Lord for grace...forgiveness...love...and the joy of walking with You.  Thank You for how worship and thanksgiving realign our minds, renew our perspectives, and fill our hearts with joy.  "Giving thanks always and for everything to God." (Eph.5:20)
         Thank You, Father, for getting me "up to high mountain" and giving me a higher, holy view of You.  Thank You for Your mountain view, rather than my "me" view.
         To God be all the glory.

Grateful for fathers and our Heavenly Father

          Well, it's a day late, but still it's never too late to be grateful and give thanks to God, right?  So...
          Thank You, Father, for fathers.  Thank You for my earthly daddy.  What a priceless gift He was to all my brothers and sisters and to me.  Thank You for his legacy of love, faithfulness, and quiet, gentle, yet powerful strength.  He truly demonstrated the astounding beauty of humility.
         And thank You, Lord, for my husband and for the wonderful father that he is to our children. Thank You for the blessing of marriage and for the priceless joy of loving--and being loved by--another person.  And thank You, as well, for how through marriage, You reveal to us our own selfishness and our daily need to die to ourselves.  Whew, I have a long way to go!
          Thank You, Father, for my father-in-law and his example of tenderly caring for and serving his sweet wife, my dear mother-in-law, in the last years of her life on this earth.  And thank You for all the wonderful dads that are our friends and that we know and love.  Each of them, in myriad differing ways and through their own unique personalities, providing faithful and inspiring pictures of fatherhood.  Daddies who love, serve, sacrifice, protect, forgive, defend, help, and guide those under their care.          
          But Abba, thank You most of all for being our perfect Heavenly Father who is always with us, always for us, always forgives us, always leads us, always empowers us, always encourages us, and always and forever loves us.  It's a profound and incomprehensible mystery: the perfect, holy, ineffable Almighty God loves and redeems us.  How can it be?  Us--little dust people who so often fail, complain, disappoint, wander, reject, and rebel.  Yet the unmistakable message of the the cross is: You love us extravagantly and through Jesus' death and resurrection, You forgive us, redeem us, will never leave us, and have an astoundingly glorious future in store for us.
         Oh might we never, ever get over the shocking, joyous wonder of Who You are and all You have done--and will do--for us.  Thank You that we have a Good, Good Father, as the song says.  Thank You for loving us.  Thank You, Father, for all our earthly fathers and for being our perfect and never-failing Heavenly Daddy.  We love You.
         To God--our Father--be all the glory.

Orlando and people of the Light

          The tragic events of this past weekend brought to mind a very brief yet profound exchange between Jesus and Simon Peter.  Huge crowds had been following the Lord Jesus.  They were amazed by His miraculous healings.  They savored His miraculous feedings.  They enjoyed His authoritative preaching...until now.  His teachings became harder and harder to accept, for He destroyed their preset notions of a political messiah/warrior who would free them from the tyranny of Rome.
          He didn't come to free them from Rome...He came to free them--and us--from the ultimate slavery of sin and death.
          But as a result of all this, we're told in John 6 that many of His followers "turned back and no longer walked with Him."  And here is Jesus' moving question and Peter's powerful response: "So Jesus said to the Twelve, 'Do you want to go away as well?'  Simon Peter answered Him, 'Lord, to whom shall we go?  You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed, and have to come, that You are the Holy One of God.'" (John 6:66-69)
          Isn't that in many ways our heart's cry on this sorrowful Monday?  We don't understand this level of evil, this staggering loss of life, this monstrous tragedy.  There are no simple explanations.  There are no pat cliches.  There are no easy answers.  And most definitely there should be no politicizing and grandstanding in the rubble of such horror.
          No, this is absolutely not the time for any of that.  Instead, we simply mourn together.  We pray together.  We care for one another.  We seek to be there with and for each other.
          And we point to the only One with the words of life.  The words of healing.  The words of forgiveness.  The words of hope.  Where else can we turn but to our Savior who came down into this messy, dark, lost world that we might be reconciled, not only to God but to one another?  He came that we might be saved, not only for eternal life but for daily living.  That we might be loved and forgiven, not only for eternity but for each other.
          And that we might hear, receive, and believe His words of eternal life not only for our salvation but that we might share them with people in desperate need of light and hope and grace.  Jesus is our beautiful hope.  He is our shining light in the inky darkness.  He is our feast of grace in a starving desert.  He is the Way out of this morass.
         If we have the words of life, grace, forgiveness and grace, how dare we not share them?  How dare we not share them with unconditional love.  Share them with gentleness.  Share them without judging or assuming.  Share them without prejudice.  Share them as humble, underserving, grateful bearers of the Light...and we seek simply to lovingly share that Light with others.
         No, we don't have the answers for all this senseless violence and hate, but we have something infinitely, gloriously better.  We have Jesus...and we share Him joyfully, lovingly, unashamedly with those in pain, in darkness, in fear.  He died for every member of ISIS, every hater, every person with whom we disagree with every fiber of our being, just as surely as He died for you and for me.  "For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life." (John 3:16)
         We join with the Psalmist in declaring, "Whom have I in heaven but You?  And there is nothing on earth that I desire beside You.  My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever." (Ps.73:25-26)
          Orlando, world, what we have we give to you--the beautiful, gracious, loving, forgiving, merciful, powerful, holy Savior.  He has the words of eternal life.  Oh fellow Christ-followers, might we share His words.  Might we share Him.  And might His Light shine forth as never before in these dark days...that the world may know and see how good and great and full of grace He is.  
           The time has come to be the loving people of the Light.
           To God be the glory.

Praying even when we cannot see

          "Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble, and He delivered them from their distress.  He sent out His word and healed them, and delivered them from their destruction.  Let them thank the Lord for His steadfast love, for His wondrous works to the children of man!" (Ps.107:19-21)
          Oh how thankful I am for Almighty God and His powerful Word!  I'd read these words from Psalm 107 earlier today and was so encouraged and convicted by them.  The power of God's Word.  The power of God's deliverance.  The power of God's healing.  He is able, able, able.
          Then, about an hour ago, we learned of a friend's child who is in ICU...and God immediately brought these words to mind.  What a comfort, what a supernatural strengthener to be reminded of God's omnipotent ability to heal, to deliver, to love, and to do the miraculous.  Thank You, Father.      Thank You that even when we feel utterly helpless, we trust, we know that You are fully in control.  You are fully sovereign, fully working and moving in countless ways that we cannot begin to even see or imagine.
           And You. Have. Got. It.
           When circumstances seem dark or confusing, Lord, remind us anew of Your steadfast love.  Your amazing grace.  Your perfect faithfulness.  Your infinite power.  Your unending compassion and mercy.
           John Piper says, "God will not turn away from doing you good.  He will keep on doing good.  He doesn’t do good to His children sometimes and bad to them other times.  He keeps on doing good and He never will stop doing good for 10,000 ages of of ages.  When things are going ‘bad’ that does not mean God has stopped doing good.  It means He is shifting things around to get them in place for more good, if you will go on loving Him.  He works all things together for good ‘for those who love Him.’" (Rom.8:28) 
          Oh how immeasurably great are God's promises.  How glorious are His deeds.  And how wonderful, how encouraging, how comforting, and how strengthening to know that no matter what's going on around us, the Almighty One is always with us, always for us, and always working all things out for our good and His glory.
           We may not understood the why or the how, but we know and love the Who.  And He is able. (Eph.3:20)  He is infinitely, perfectly, completely, faithfully, and forever able.
            Father, help us to keep praying even when we cannot see, to keep trusting even when we cannot understand, and to keep praising even when we do not feel.   For You are eternally worthy, and we choose to place our faith in You and Your promises rather than our ever-vacillating emotions. We love you, Lord.  
            To God be the glory.

Returning, resting, listening

          "And rising very early in the morning, while it was still dark, He departed and went out to a desolate place, and there He prayed." (Mark 1:35)
           After an unimaginably full day of preaching, healing, and casting out demons that stretched from morning till far into the night, Jesus arose early the next morning.  In the predawn darkness, He went to a desolate location to commune with and enjoy His Father.
           If that's what the King of Kings and Creator of the universe needed to do to be refilled and revived, why on earth would we--little frail dust people--assume we'd need any less?  No wonder we stumble in exhaustion...or droop in discouragement...or blow up in frustration.
          We're human beings not human doings, yet we rush madly about like the energizer bunny:  going, and going, and going...until we drop.  If Jesus needed that restorative time-out and time alone with His Father, how much more do we need it?
           It's really something: we need that time with our Heavenly Daddy most desperately, yet we allow all sorts of interruptions, busyness, distractions, pleasures, and even plain old laziness to divert us from that which is most vital, important, life-giving, and joy-sustaining.  "Prone to wander, Lord I feel it.  Prone to leave the Lord I love."  That's me--prone to rushing, prone to accomplishing, prone to wasting time, prone to doing and doing and doing...rather than pausing to savor the Savior, treasure the Treasure, and love the life-giving Lord.
          James says, "let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger." (James 1:19).  Yes, this refers to the importance of our listening to others more than speaking ourselves (hence God gave us two ears but only one mouth!).  But, James was also--even primarily--emphasizing here that we need to be quick to listen to God.  If we want to know and love the Lord better, if we want to experience His peace, hope, and joy, if we want to grow wiser, if we want to be encouraged and equipped by the omnipotent Lord, well then, we need to spend far more time listening to God in His Word rather than blabbing away ourselves!
          I love these words of Thomas Aquinas: "I charge you to be slow to speak and slow to frequent places where men talk.  Embrace cleanness of conscience.  Be constant in prayer.  Love to dwell in your inner room if you would penetrate into the inner room of your Beloved."
          Thank You, Father, for the priceless gift of entering into the inner room with You.  It is there we find restoration.  It is there we find renewal and recovery.  It is there our Redeemer once again revives our weary hearts and refuels our empty spirits.  As we sit quietly with You, listening, You speak.  And Your Word is hope.  Your Word is joy.  Your Word is Truth.  Your Word is Life.
           Might we slow down, quiet down, and listen.  
          “In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and in trust shall be your strength.” (Isa.30:15)  As we return and rest, please revive us again, Father.  To God be the glory.  

Walking worthy and resting securely

        As Fernando Ortega sings "In the morning when I rise, in the morning when I rise, in the morning when I rise...give me Jesus."

         Thank You, Lord, for the gift of new mornings and fresh starts.  Thank You for the beauty of the mountains and the joy of family.  Thank You for never ever leaving us and for always and forever loving us.  Thank You for the countless treasures You shower upon us each and every day--from that first deep breath of air and that first sip of hot tea to that last sound of your loved ones voices and that last page of reading in a good book before bed.
        Thank You for using even the hard places in our lives to teach us, deepen us, and grow us closer to Your likeness.  Thank You for Your Word and Your rock-solid, never-failing promises that all, all, all things are for our greater good and for Your greater glory.
           Today was one of those typical days in life--plenty of wonderful, joyful goodness--all praise be to God--but also a share of challenges and disappointments.  Lord, help us to praise You just as loudly and faithfully in both...for You are moving and working in each and every circumstance of life.
          One of our children had a particularly good day, while another one had a disappointing one...and that's tough on a mama's heart.  Happy, and yet sad.  Excited, and yet discouraged.  Thankful, and yet, well, just a bit weary.  In other words, an ordinary day full of ups and downs.  
         But God is so faithful...even when we are faithless. When I finally slowed down long enough to sit down quietly with Him, the Lord brought to mind something I read several weeks ago from the wonderful biographer, David McCullough.  Here's what he wrote:
       “Another of those moments in my work where I was almost lifted out of the chair by reading something was when I read the sentence in a letter to John Adams' wife, Abigail, written by Adams at Philadelphia in what seemed one of the darkest moments of the whole story, and he knew how worried she was, how frightened she was of what the outcome of all this might be. And he said to her, "We can't guarantee success, but we can deserve it."
          And when I read that I thought how different that is from our time, when all that matters is success, being number one, being at the top, irrespective of how you got there, what devices, what elbows and knees and the rest you used to get there. They're saying something exactly the reverse. And when I read that sentence I thought what a mind he had and what a moral lesson that is.
         And then I read the same sentence in a letter that Washington had written, and then I read the same sentence again in another letter that Washington had written. And I began to think, maybe it's not their line. And it isn't. I took down the good old Bartlett's Familiar Quotations and started going through all the things that dated from the 18th Century, and bingo, there it was. It's a line from the Play "Cato" by Joseph Addison, the most popular play of the time. Washington is said to have seen it maybe six or seven times. Actually the line in the play is even better. The line in the play is, "We can't guarantee success, we can do something better, we can deserve it."
          Now, what does that all mean? It means that what happens, the outcome of what happens, is in the hands of God, it's out of our hands. But how we behave, how we perform, how we measure up, that's something we can control. Or to put it another way, if we are in a noble cause, even if that cause is doomed to failure, let's fail nobly."
          I love that.  "We can't guarantee success.  We can do something better; we can deserve it."  Because we're not in charge of the results.  That's not our job.  All we can do is "Walk worthy of the calling" in the words of Paul in Ephesian 4.
          We do our best, do it faithfully, and do it to God's glory.  And then we leave the results up to the all-wise, all-powerful, all-loving Sovereign of the universe.  Whether it's an election...or a business...or a sporting event...or school work...or a nation's destiny...or a whatever...we do what He's called us to do as faithfully as we know how, and then entrust the outcome to Him.
           Walk worthy...and rest securely.
          Boy, there's such peace in that.  Peace in knowing our Heavenly Daddy's got it, no matter what, no matter how.  Even if His plans differ from ours, we trust and know that His will and His ways are always ultimately "good, pleasing, and perfect." (Rom.12:2)  So let's keep on showing up...walking worthy...and resting securely in Him.
          To God be the glory.