Oh, Those Faithful Waiters

Our church recently started a study on the book of Luke. In the first two chapters there are three people mentioned that brought to mind a struggle I used to have with waiting. First, there was Zechariah who was a priest. Him and his wife Elizabeth were righteous in the sight of God and faithfully observed the Lord's commands and decrees. They were, in God's own words, very old and childless, which in those days carried great shame as people in their culture assumed being barren was a result of God withholding blessing from a couple because of sin. In spite of their childlessness and all that would come with that, they remained faithful for years and years. 

Second, there was a man named Simeon who was living in Jerusalem. He was waiting faithfully for the consolation of Israel. That would be the equivalent of believers like us living with an expectation and a longing for Jesus's return. Simeon was filled with the Holy Spirit, who had revealed to him that he would not die before he had seen the Messiah. 

Third, there a prophet named Anna. She, like Simeon and Zechariah, was very old. She had not had an easy life. She had the joy of getting married, but her husband had only lived for seven years after the wedding. She was a widow for eighty-four years and had never left the temple after he died. She was someone who worshipped night and day, and someone who fasted and prayed. Before I tell you more about these people, I want to tell you why I am so drawn to and in awe of them. 

For years I had struggled with the waits we all have in this Christian life we live. When I prayed for something, I could easily accept yes or no answers. But it was the waits that would cause me to spiral into a funk and I didn't know why. Then one night at our couple's Bible Study the pastor said that instead of our usual discussion he wanted to talk about waiting on God. After he opened us in prayer, he asked us what was hard about waiting. Everyone was giving great answers, but I couldn't identify what was so difficult about it for me. As he progressed through the Bible Study, he shared a verse from Psalms that says that God has His ear turned to those who wait on Him. I immediately blurted out that's it! The pastor asked what I meant. I told him, that whenever I prayed for something or discovered a promise that had a wait attached to it, I often felt unheard, overlooked, maybe even invisible. I am an extreme extrovert and as a young person if I made a request or asked for something and no one responded I believed I didn't matter enough for others to meet the needs and didn't matter enough to make the request more assertively. 

That night I realized that if God had His ears turned towards me in the waiting that it was an open invitation to keep asking. It was also an invitation to keep talking to Him until all the lies I had believed about Him or myself , had been replaced by truth. It was an invitation to keep talking until all the unbelief with which I struggled had been identified and replaced by a much deeper faith and until I had expressed to Him any pain experienced and let Him melt it away with the soothing balm of His perfect, extravagant love. I admit I haven't always been as faithful as Zechariah, Simeon, or Anna, but I am getting better at it. 

Let's look at the results of our faithful trio of waiters. In Zechariah's faithful waiting he got to meet an angel at the altar of incense. The angel told him he and his wife would have son named John who would bring great joy to them and be filled with the Holy Spirit while still in his mother's womb. John's job was going to be to call Israel to return to the Lord after 400 long years of silence and He would pave the way for our Jesus. Because of Zechariah's faithfulness, John, leapt in his mother's womb, immediately recognizing Jesus in Mary's womb. John wrote beautiful words, declaring that the God of Israel had visited and redeemed his people by raising up a horn of salvation for them and that they might be able to serve him without fear, in holiness and righteousness and that his son as a prophet would give knowledge of salvation to his people for the forgiveness of their sins. 

Simeon in his faithful waiting, was able to take Jesus into His arms and bless Him who he had been faithfully looking for, declaring that he would be able to depart this world in peace for he had seen with his own eyes God's salvation prepared in the presence of all people as a light for Gentiles and the gory of God's people the Israelites. 

And then sweet Anna, who as a widow faithfully served in the temple. She, like Simeon, was in the temple when they brought the baby Jesus for the purification ceremony and immediately recognized the Christ and gave thanks to God and began speaking of Him to all who were waiting for the redemption of Israel. declared for all to hear. 

And there are others we know who experienced long waits. Abraham and Sarah waited a long time for a child, Israel waited a long time for a land for His people, and the host of faithful people listed in Hebrews 11, many of which waited for God to save them. Some of them suffered and died in their waiting. They were tortured, refused to accept release, knowing in the resurrection they would have a better life. Some were stoned, some sawn in two, some killed by the sword, and some were destitute, afflicted, and mistreated. And God, Himself, commended their faith and declared that this world was not worthy of them and that they had been made perfect. 

It was important that I shared that not every faithful waiter has the same outcome in this life as Zechariah, Simeon, and Anna because so often we are a people who attempt to bargain with our God, believing that if we serve Him, if we attend church every week, if we have quiet times built into our lives, if we pray often enough, and a host of other religious activities that God is obligated to answer our prayers as we want him to. 

What if it is the waiting that purifies our faith and takes us from a people who are content with God's benefits to a people who are not satisfied by anything but Him?  That is what we see in the faithful waiters described at the end of Hebrews 11 of the people who were found faithful even unto death. 

     

Snapshots of Cindy Lou

We have lived in California for about 35 years. About 31 years ago we attended a small floundering church. It was there I met a really sweet lady named Cindy Jones. Her sweet family and mine went to church together until we all decided that it was time for this little church to close its doors. We went to a church on our side of town and the Jones went to a church across town near their home. Occasionally we came across Cindy's kids when our churches combined for youth activities. Then about twenty years ago, I was invited to give my testimony to a group of people in our church. I was surprised to find Cindy and her husband there. We visited a little after the class and I found Cindy to be the same sweet lady I had remembered when our children were young. I also found this longing to know Cindy better resurfacing, but we still went to different churches and both of our lives were full at the time, so I simply prayed for a connection to come about. A few years later after I had developed a healing ministry at my church Cindy joined our ranks ad served faithfully in our ministry for over ten years. 

Her daughter recently contacted me and told me her sweet mom was very ill and asked if I would ask her "tribe" of women to be praying for her and pray we did. Cindy was soon diagnosed with stage four cancer and put on hospice and quickly passed away. Her daughter asked people who had pictures of her to send them to her and when she asked, so many pictures of Cindy popped into my head that I thought I would have a bunch. Yet, when I went through my pictures, I only found two pictures. I was so confused, but the more I thought about it, the more it made sense, because Cindy often chose to be a behind the scenes person. So, in this writing I thought I would paint a picture of Cindy through the snapshots that are in my mind. 

Cindy was an amazing woman of God who loved God's word and served in Bible Study Fellowship. Through conversations I had with her, I knew from the first time we met, that she was not only a student of the Word, but she was also a whole-hearted doer of the Word. This played out in so many ways. 

She and her husband Roger were married for 51 years and that's a whole lot of iron-sharpening-iron living. Even though I never once heard her speak evil of her husband, I know they traveled in groups that encouraged deep soul searching, transparent accountability, and extravagant grace giving. I suspect they learned early on to keep short accounts and to not let the sun set on their anger. The reason I believe this was true of them was because whenever I saw them together, I never sensed the unspoken tension that resides in marriages where either one or both hold grudges and/or struggle with forgiveness. 

Even though Cindy held several different types of jobs, all of which involved caring and serving others which she did so well. She was very creative wife and took great pride in her home and raised her family with what I would call a fierce love. When her kids were little, I remembered her being very loving and kind to them, but correcting them when needed. When things went well, she was right there with them and when things were difficult as they sometimes are for all of us, she leaned in and loved even more fiercely. She loved being a wife, a mom, and a grandma and loved nothing more than their family get togethers.

What I saw of Cindy in our ministry were snap shots of her as she showed a deep abiding compassion for both the ladies we serve and the ladies who served on our leader team. Her presence in ministry groups was calming, especially for women who had often lived with chaos as their compass. She could listen and listen and listen some more. And the stories she heard in groups she lead, were held close to her heart and in the strictest confidence. I never heard her gossip and never in this case really means never. 

Even though she had a quiet spirit, she also had an ability to speak truth into situations with both a bold sense of authority and a lavish grace that was beautifully blended. At our leader's retreats I can still see snap shots of her in so many different conversations with different ladies--the ones she knew well and the once's she barely knew but chose to get to know better. I saw her listening intently. I saw her empathiine big. I saw her speaking words of hope into many women's lives. I saw her praying over the women she spoke to. 

I was also a recipient of her love and encouragement. I am not sure she understood how valuable she was to me and to our leader team, but we all knew. At the retreats I got to see a few mom moments that I cherish so much. I got to see her beaming face as her daughter lead us in worship, as she created a beautiful pictures for craft time, or as she witnessed her using her voice to impart wisdom and truth to our group. As her husband shared at her memorial, Cindy was a prayer warrior. And I know I was on the receiving end of those power-filled prayers. 

There was only one little snag in our relationship...Cindy had a hearing problem, and I have an autoimmune disease that dries out my mouth and throat and makes it difficult for me to speak loudly without my voice hurting and cracking. Her children posted amazing tributes to their mom, which described her delight at being Mimi to her grandchildren. But her son shared something that spoke to my heart about our snag...In death Cindy was not afraid to join her Savior and that she is "whole once more and with her hearing restored, she hears the roar of Aslan. I haven't even seen that picture yet, but God has placed a living snapshot of it in my brain.  And it makes me smile. 

Context Always Matters

 A few years ago, I was in a Christian recovery group to gain support as I worked to overcome an eating disorder.  A guy, who was new to the Christian scene, started coming to group to deal with some issues.  One night as the pastor shared a devotional that included the gospel, the man blurted out, "That's crazy!" The pastor was not thrown by the gentleman's sudden outburst. He simply said something like, "Yes, God's love is crazy." He encouraged the man to express his thoughts and reactions freely, enabling him to understand exactly where the man was in his faith. I went home that night thinking of the times I, too, had found God's word confusing and had thought, "That's crazy." The first time it happened I was a ten-year-old who asked a Sunday male school who was teaching the class the Christmas story what a virgin was. I don't remember his answer, but I do remember his red face and discomfort with my question. 

Later on, I was a young mom when my husband and I were in an adult Sunday school class that was studying the Old Testament, and the circumcision of Abraham was discussed. I remember asking the teacher of that class why God would choose something like circumcision to be a sign of God's covenant to Abraham. Once again, I sensed great discomfort in the room at asking the question. And from that time the story of Abraham seemed to be a story that was shrouded in great mystery and the Bible continued to seem like a book with a bunch of disjointed stories in it.

But over the years, I have learned that context--the background and the culture--of the stories are what bring to light the continuity of the Scriptures and the rich truths contained in them. To explain what I mean, I will use Abraham's story, which when read out of context of culture and time period has some really crazy parts in it. When I was in the class as that young mom, I didn't know much about the culture Abraham and Sarah had grown up in. They came from the Ur of the Chaldees, which was a hot bed for polytheistic worship. One of the gods the region worshiped was a fertility god and acts of worship included sacrifices of children on alters. Just finding out these two things give a lot of clarity to their story.

When God introduces us to Abraham and Sarah, they are an old couple who had never been able to have children living in a society that placed a high value on fertility. It was in that state of infertility that God called them out of Ur and told them if they would relocate to a land He would provide, He would give them a child. They left Ur, believing God would provide them an heir. They didn't realize that God's plan for them included a season of waiting, which when one is already elderly did not make sense. In their waiting Abraham and Sarah had few lapses of faith, in which Sarah and Abraham began to try to figure out how to make God's promise come true. First, they thought it might be a young relative traveling with them and God said, "NO!" Then later Sarah offered Abraham her handmaiden so she could birth a child for them as was customary in those days. This complicated their lives, the lives of the child and his mother, and the generations that came after them. God visited them again and renewed His promise to Abraham and Sarah. Sarah laughed. Maybe she laughed at the absurdity of having a baby long after her menses had ceased or maybe she laughed because she had already waited so long, and nothing happened. Yet, God gave her grace and reiterated His promise as He challenged her laughter. And within the year she birthed a boy she delightfully named "Laughter" -- a reminder of both her unbelief and her joy that came through God's faithfulness.  

I understood the promise of the Messiah coming through the Abrahamic covenant a long time ago. But the question on my mind was, why did the Lord wait so long to give them a child? I wrestled with the question and overtime I came to believe that the answer lied in the context--the backdrop of their story. After the fall, people had moved away from the living God and had created many gods of their own and they offered sacrifices to those idols in an effort to gain things or to quench the anger of the gods when blessings were withheld. God, in His mercy, called Abraham and Sarah out of Ur to reveal to them the truth that He and He alone is the living God, the author of all life. By delaying Sarah's childbearing to a time that she was reproductively dead He was able to reveal to her and Abraham that He alone had the power to create life. And when we understand the details of their story it doesn't seem so odd that God would choose circumcision to be a sign of His covenant with Abraham. For with circumcision, Abraham was reminded every time he and Sarah were intimate that God is not only a covenant keeping God, and He is a life-giving God, 

The context, the backdrop of their story, also takes the mystery and confusion out of God telling Abraham to sacrifice Isaac. I understood early on the testing of Abraham's faith, but I struggled with the why of it. Going back to the polytheistic religions Abraham and Sarah left, I came to believe God was giving Abraham a physical spiritual lesson by asking Abraham to do something with which he was familiar as child sacrifices were offered in his homeland. But the beauty of it was how God stopped him and provided him a lamb to sacrifice, pointing to Jesus who would be the ultimate sacrifice for us all. God introduced Abraham to grace by showing Him that His wrath for sin would be dissolved through the sacrifice He himself provided. Abraham and Sarah would be able to rest joyfully in God's promises and grace, not fearfully sacrificing their child to appease angry stone gods or to gain favor to have a long-longed for child. I love how God used the known to reveal what was not known to them.

Context often answers the questions of why about the stories written in a different time and a different culture. I can't help but wonder, if we miss some of the life lessons God might be trying to teach us by ignoring the context of our own stories--stories that He is penning. I also wonder if sometimes we might misapply what God says in one situation by not understanding the context of His direction. I love that we have a relationship with a God who walks with us, bringing to life His truth and grace through life lessons, which we can test against His written word. When the stories He tells in His Word or the events of our own lives seem disjointed and confusing, we would do well to remember that context always matters.          

         

The Gift of Friendships

 This summer our church is doing a sermon series on topics from the book of Proverbs. One of the sermons was on the wisdom of having Godly friendships. Ironically at the time of this sermon one of my dearest friends is in the process of moving. We have chosen to lean into change this will bring to not only us, but to the many who call her friend. Not only has she been a friend, but she has also been a partner in the ministry that we serve in together. We recently had a going away party and I am going to share some of the thoughts I shared with her at that party. Her name is Tanna and I started by sharing adjectives for the letters of her name

T -- tactful, talented, thoughtful, trustworthy, tenacious

A -- admirable, ambitious, affectionate, adventurous

N -- natty, natural, nectarous, neighborly, nurturer

N -- noteworthy, noble, nourisher, nice, nifty

A -- altruistic, approachable, amiable, amazing, awesome

The emotions I have felt about Tanna leaving have been big. I am experiencing a big sadness that there will be so much physical space between us, that her face won't be seen at our Monday night groups, Sad that coffee and lunch dates will be so far apart, that our plans of a long-term partnership in ministry have ultimately been changed by our good and loving Abba.  

I am experiencing a big anger that the timing of her move is out of my hands as it should be. For we both truly want to follow hard after our God. 

I am experiencing big anxiety for her and all the new she will experience and anxiety for me as I have come to rely heavily on her wisdom, stability, encouragement, and ability to see things my emotions sometimes keep me from seeing accurately, and her validation of the things I sense and the emotions that at times still feel crazy to me. 

I am experiencing big fear that her new people at first might not recognize all the beauty, wisdom, and intelligence she brings to the table, which I know doesn't make sense cause those attributes are so pronounced in her. I also am experiencing fear in wondering if I can keep doing what I do with this huge gaping hole her absence will create in our beautiful ministry "family." 

Over the last few weeks, the most dominate emotions that keeps bubbling to the surface is gratitude. 

Gratitude that we have gotten to be in each other's lives for the last 16 years. Because of this I have had the privilege of watching her grow from a a young lady who could barely make eye contact and who often shook her head "NO," as if she didn't believe her own words to the confident princess-warrior she is now. She continues daily to fight for her own growth, her family's growth, and the growth of every woman who has been in one of her groups or who has simply crossed her path as friends.

Gratitude that she and God allowed me to be her prayer director as she walked through a healing prayer. It allowed me to hear more of her story and enabled me to recognize the miraculous growth God has done in her life. 

Gratitude for her sweet friendship and encouraging words and patience big enough to hear the same stories over and over when events trigger that pesky old stuff. Gratitude for the many times you have seen attitudes or heard things said with a sting and quietly and unassumingly let me know you saw it and reminded me it wasn't something I made up in my head, but a heart issue in another's soul.     

Gratitude that Tanna have been such an excellent sounding board for meeting and retreat prep, for writing that felt so vulnerable that it needed to be said out loud, and a willingness to listen to my blog posts, especially the most prophetic ones or the more vulnerable ones that tell more of my story to the world, as those felt a bit too scary to post.

Gratitude that her partnership in ministry changed from me being her mentor to having a mutual friend who became as a friend and cheerleader to our other ministry leaders. Gratitude that she has always be able to readily see others' strengths and point out how they can best fit into the ministry we do. Gratitude that she can see past all of our weaknesses and see where God is taking us. Gratitude that many have found her to be a safe person and that she has been so proactive in building relationships and offering rich encouragement to our team.

The things I desire for Tanny are many. I desire she go in the adventurous spirit of God's princess-warrior to wherever God leads her. I desire for her to be brave even when she might feel scared, unsure, confused, or invalidated, I desire for her to continue to use her beautiful strong voice to bring healing truth to the lives of women she has yet to meet. I desire for her to foster the same types of friendships in her new location that she fostered here--cause those ladies need Jesus with skin on, too. I desire for her to continue to look to our great God for help as she has been doing. I desire for her to continue doing the hard work of fostering healthy relationships with her family because that is what bondage breakers do.

Lastly, I most strongly desire her to continue to shine ever so bright as spending time with Tanna has been spending time with Jeus with skin on. As I have watched her navigate this move, I have seen her lean in to the hard with a willingness to experience both the big painful and the sweet joyful emotions. I have seen her align her thinking with God's truth, and because of that she has represented her Abba well.

So, Tanna girl, continue to grow and continue to represent Jesus well and you will do for others what you have done so well for us. You were one of the most surprising gifts God gave me in a move I drug my feet on.      

   

Love One Another

"This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you."

John 15:12

According to the Old Testament, we are to love the Lord with all of our hearts, souls, minds, and might and to love our neighbors as ourselves. The commandment given in John 5:12 tells us how we can begin to fulfill the Old Testament command. Essentially, this verse is telling us to look at how Jesus loved and to use that as our standard for loving. It's clear from both His words and His actions that Jesus loved His heavenly Father, loved His friends, loved strangers, loved Himself, and even loved His enemies. 

What did Jesus' love look like? It looked like spending time with His Father alone in prayer. It looked like trusting His Father even in the midst of storms, mistreatment, rejection, false accusations, and extremely difficult tasks. It looked like resisting the temptation Satan placed in front of Him. It looked like seeking out people and teaching, admonishing, and exhorting them. It looked like touching the untouchable and healing the sick, the lame, the blind, and the deaf. It looked like spending time with those who were deemed less than--the children, those in bondage to sin, and those who were outcasts from social circles. It looked like casting demons out of the souls of men. It looked like crossing the cultural, gender, economic, and spiritual boundaries to invite all who would come into a relationship with Him. At times it looked like being social and partying with friends at a wedding a grieving with those who lost a loved one. It looked like sharing openly His heart and seeking out others where they were. It looked like wrestling 's so hard emotionally that He sweat blood over God's will for Him to go to the cross in the face of His own desire to avoid it. It looked like choosing to obey His Father, even in that severe state of angst, just so that He could demonstrate God's great love and reconcile us to Himself. It looked like loving His enemies.

When we think of Jesus' enemies, we tend to think of Satan, the Pharisees, and those who put Him to death. But according to Romans 5:10, we were all enemies of God before we were reconciled to Him through Jesus. That's such a sobering thought. If Jesus considered us His enemies when He chose the cross on our behalf, what right do we have to refuse to love those we call enemies? If we're serious about loving the way He loves, we must identify and acknowledge our enemies and choose to love them. They're the people who aren't for us and the people who are proactively against us. They're the people who glare daggers at us every time they see us. They are the people who are nice to our faces, but speak ugly words about us behind our backs. They're the abusers who robbed us of our innocence or who left bruises on our bodies, and on our hearts as well. They're those who criticized us, wounding us to the core of our being with harsh words, untruths, and judgements. They're those who refused to see us, withholding their love and compassion. They're those who isolate us through slander, who kill our joy, or who rob our hope on a daily basis. They're those in positions of God-given authority who use their positions to harm us. Some might even consider God an enemy because He didn't protect them from the evil they experienced. But, sadly, for many of us, our worst enemies are ourselves. 

Every person we hate is a person Jesus loved unto death. That same Spirit who loved us unto death indwells us and gives us the capacity to love when it's humanly impossible to do so. As we bask in His love, we are able to love with His love--and that's a love without limits. It's a love that offers the gospel to those we would deem the most undeserving.  

To love as He loves, we must take an honest look at ourselves and the motives behind the words we speak, the actions we carry out, and our reactions to life. Sometimes our motives are loving and at other times our motives are selfish, self-serving, and/or driven by fear. We are capable of showing what looks like great kindness with a motive of hoping another will return the kindness. Some of us look like people who love well, but in truth we are people pleasers who are afraid to say "no" out of fear that someone would get angry with us, abandon us, or think that we are bad Christians. Sometimes we are serving others, hoping to earn favor with God. Sometimes we may serve compulsively to avoid dealing with the pain in our hearts, the anxiety we experience in our souls when things are out of control. Sometimes we keep the peace and refuse to rock the boat by speaking God's powerful truth into situations and relationships that desperately need it to be godly and healthy.

If we want to love as God loves, we need to understand the truth of 1 John 4:19, "We love because He first loved us." We can gain understanding of His love by spending time in the gospels and seeing how Jesus loved others and by seeing his Sacrifice for our sin. We can understand it even more by studying the attributes of God, gaining and understanding of how pure and holy God's love is. God's love pours from His character, not from a desire to get something from us. His love never rejoices in wrong and will always want what is best for us. His love is eternal, and it is based on His omniscience, which means there never was a time that He didn't love us and there will never be a time when He will cease loving us. His love is not dependent on our behaviors, thoughts, service, intelligence, or our appearance. It is only dependent on God and His Character. Our great God is a relational God and He desires us to be relational beings who love in ways that foster growth in us and in those we love. May the truth of His love compel us to love God with all that we are, to love others, and to love ourselves as well. 

(Adapted from Glimpses of God 11, Loving from a Pure Heart, by Wendy J. Mahill and Nancy Keller, Xulon Press)