A Dissatisfied Heart

Our church has started a series of sermons on the little, but important book of Haggai. Yesterday I could hear two sermons at one time--the one the pastor was speaking from the pulpit and the one being impressed on my heart by God through His Word.

Haggai was a prophet who lived during Darius' time and Israel was neglecting their responsibility of rebuilding the temple while building themselves luxurious homes. God told Haggai to tell them they were sowing much and harvesting little, eating a lot and never satisfied, clothing themselves and not warm, and gaining money that didn't last. It was like they were caught in this cycle of wanting more and never feeling satisfied, causing them to be so focused on themselves they neglected God's calling to rebuild. He also told them their struggle with dissatisfaction was caused by God's discipline on their lives. He tells them that because His house was still lying in ruins, though they sowed much the small harvest they experienced was due to the rains He withheld and the fruit of their labor that didn't go far was because He was blow it away.

I could relate to this passage on so many levels. There are times I have this deep seated dissatisfaction smoldering in my heart. It can be quite uncomfortable and I've tried many things to fill it. At times I thought a new house would fill it and it did. Temporarily! Then I wanted a house with a bigger kitchen, hardwood floors, or a swimming pool. There were times I believed a new car would satisfy my heart and it did. Temporarily! The satisfaction was short lived and I wanted a smaller car, then a bigger car, and now a sports car with a convertible top that I know would play havoc on these old dry eyes. There are times I've bought clothes, thinking I'd be more satisfied with my appearance only to glace in the glass doors at church and instantly want a different dress. Even food has exposed this dissatisfied heart of mine. Some nights I think I'm hungry and look for the food I'm craving. I grab it and eat it and realize it didn't satisfy. So I go back, look for something else, then something else after that. There were times, I even played with the idea that a different husband could make me happier.

When I look at the list, I realize not one of those things is bad. Each one of them brings some measure of pleasure and I don't think experiencing pleasure is sin or God would not have created me with a brain designed for pleasure. The problem is God created me with a heart designed to find its deepest satisfaction, fulfillment, pleasure, and joy in an intimate relationship with Him. When I neglect that relationship, my heart-hunger for God gets stirred and I tend to turn to the things that bring easy pleasure and find myself feeling more and more frustrated, looking for the one thing that satisfies.

But God--God knowing my heart was never designed to find deep soul satisfaction in a dwelling made with hands, in cute sports cars, in a new hair colors, in a new dresses, in different cookie flavors, or a different man has always intervened. He first intervened by inviting me into this loving relationship with Him by exposing my sin and my tendency to search for satisfaction apart from Him. Second, He' faithfully and graciously disciplines me when I begin to look for satisfaction apart from Him. As our pastor, Matt, said yesterday the discipline of God is a grace--a grace that prevents the sin in my heart from running rampant in my life. Without it, I would keep buying things that can't satisfy, I would be divorcing my eighth husband, I would be continually run from hard relationships instead of learning to love well, I would be looking for satisfaction in things, titles, jobs, and people that have no ability to satisfy the deepest desires written on my heart by the Creator, Himself.

Oh, there are signs I see, telling me I am going down the old path of dissatisfaction again. I find myself frequently window shopping for stuff not needed. I find myself thinking I'd be happier with________________. (You can fill in the blank!) I find myself going into the kitchen for the umpteenth time, stuffed but still looking for what can satisfy. I find myself living with an ungrateful heart, instead of thanking God for His gracious gifts. I find a slow burning anger dwelling within that comes from never feeling completely satisfied because I'm looking for satisfaction in what can't satisfy. These signs all tell me I've neglected my relationship with God. I've not spent time in His Word, not practiced His presence, not fostered a life of continual prayer, and not faithfully fulfilled the ministry to which He's called me.

So why do I tend to find myself dissatisfied? Sometimes I do it because my relationship with Him, like all relationships, takes time and effort and I tend to be a lazy soul. Sometimes I do it because I am selfish and I ten to want immediate gratification. Sometimes I do it because of unbelief and shame that causes me to forget God can and does use broken people like me who trust Him. Sometimes I do it because I don't want to face the pain I feel and obey God in confronting sin to stop the pain. Sometimes I do it because I don't want to face the discomfort of acknowledging sin to God and to others. Sometimes I do this because in the pursuit of pleasure and joy, I forget that the easy pleasures of this world are like a sugar high that feels good initially and then quickly drops me, leaving me more miserable than before.

But Grace! Grace is having a God who reminds me to "consider my ways!" Haggai (1:5) It is having a God that reminds me when I seek to fill myself apart from Him I will "never have my fill." (Haggai 1:5) Grace is having a God that wants me to experience true satisfaction that comes from intimacy with Him, loving others well, and doing what I was created to do--bring pleasure to His heart and glorify His name! (Haggai 1:8)

These Precarious Times

The last few weeks have been pretty unsettling. As I read articles, watched the news, and viewed the videos people that made to express their opinions and their rage, I searched for words to say. Over and over the word precarious came to mind, and to be honest I could use the word in a sentence, but I couldn't really concisely define it. So, I looked it up and google defines it as "not securely held or in position; dangerously likely to fall or collapse and the synonyms given were "uncertain, insecure, unpredictable, risky, hazardous, dangerous, unsafe, unsettled, unstable, unsteady, shaky." Yep, those words pretty much describe what this world feels like right now, especially from the view down here.

Cancer, diabetes, debilitating viruses, infections, and autoimmune diseases are making life tough for precious people and the medical system with delayed appointments, information and misinformation, and insurance battles add to the uncertainty people experience as they struggle with health issues.

PTSD, depression, anxiety, addiction, eating disorders and other mental illnesses rob people of peace, hope, and joy and a recent suicide left many of us wondering at what point her hope completely died and at what point did her ability to make choices that could lead to healing could no longer be made.

Family units, once haven's of stability, are radically changing as marriages break down due to long work hours that exhaust, isolate, and separate.

Marriages that were designed to be safe havens for two people doing life together crumble as porn allures men and women into false relationships with fake images that turn people into even more selfish, self -centered, demanding people instead of people trying to learn to love well as it normalizes the victimization of women and children and feeds the hatred of the rape culture.

And gender? It's now considered something to be assigned rather than Creator-designed. And marriage? Its been redefined to a contract between people rather than a life-long covenant between a man and a woman.  

Terrorists attacks both here and abroad make this world scary; Places once dreamed about now seem less inviting. And, while I've thought  the US to be a safe haven for people from all over, I am now finding myself fearfully contemplating the personal cost of welcoming the masses when the risk may be increased sexual violence of women and children as it was in Germany, increased risk of terrorists entering our country as it was in France and Turkey, and increased risk of the recruiting our own sons and daughters to do hateful deeds and even in just the writing of these things fear rises inside.

Mass shootings here at home make malls, theaters, schools, places of worship, and other places of social gatherings no longer feel safe, lending to the the break down of unity.

And gang violence, racial uprisings, and brutal attacks on our law enforcement have added to the insecurity felt as the ugly rhetoric on these things makes the stomach churn, especially when people evoke the name of Christ either verbally or through the jewelry they wear as they spout evil and hate, both so contrary to the character of the Savior.

I, like many others wonder how we are to live brave in a world that feels precarious and all I can do is come back to what I know to be more real than what I see. From the time Adam and Eve took the bite we have been living in a fallen world with a propensity to sin, a propensity to be driven by pride, a propensity to demand, and a tendency to clamor for some type of stability apart from God. The truth is Jesus warned us of precarious times, but we tend to forget His warnings. believing we deserve more, thinking He has abandoned us, doesn't really love us, is irrelevant, or doesn't even exist. But the truth is He was, He is and He is to come.

One of the stories we can draw wisdom from for days such as these is found in Luke 8:22-24. It is the story of Jesus getting into a boat with His disciples and saying, "Let's cross to the other side of the lake." As they sailed, He slept, and a strong wind arose, the waves grew, and the boat began to sink, causing great fear. The disciples frantically woke Him up and He rebuked the wind and raging waves and turned to His disciples and asked, "Where is your faith?" And they marveled at the One who could calmed the storm.

The storm they were facing wasn't a simple storm, it was hurricane-sized and even the seasoned fisherman were frightened because the boat was about to sink. The disciples fear moved from a healthy fear to frantic panic because they forgot one important thing--Jesus was in the boat with them! His question about their faith wasn't a judgement about their fear because God created them to feel this God-given, life-preserving emotion. It was a question as to why they waited to wake Him. They could have cried out to Him when the storm first started to become violent or when the stirring of fear began to rise. I wonder what kept them from crying out to the Lord sooner?

There are several reasons people wait to cry out to God in the face of storms. Sometimes it is because we are prideful, thinking we can handle storms by ourselves; but the truth is that some storms were never designed to be experienced alone.

Some of us fail to cry out, because we've been taught to ignore fear rising in the gut to warn us that something is growing dangerous--that fear that should be driving us to our knees on behalf of our families, our churches, our communities, our country, our world, and ourselves gets turned off or numbed when it is ignored.

Some of us have been taught that fear is sin, so we swallow it, we hide it, and we bury it deep and we feel so alone and so ashamed, weathering the storms through which Jesus wants to display both His peace that passes understanding and His magnificent power, and His heart loves us through through the storms.

Sometimes we don't cry out, because we're afraid of what others might think. This can be due to pride, but it is often because we've been shamed by believers for fear we experience, and the unbelief with which we struggle in face of huge storms. The fear one feels in the face of cancer, the loss of loved ones, debilitating accidents, acts of violence, growing terrorism, explosive hate groups, and the rising and falling nations is not sin. It is a call for the church to unite and encourage one another and to fall to its collective knees because the storms we are facing are not of this world; they are spiritual in nature and beyond our power to navigate. The unbelief we experience as we weather storms isn't sin; it is normal and it is healthy and it is being surfaced so it can be overcome. But sadly, Jesus image bearers often make it unsafe for unbelief to be expressed as was in Jesus day when the father of one sick child honestly cried out, "I believe, help my unbelief!"

We must not forget that we are people who are in the process of being transformed and we are all people who live with the reality of a faith that can be ambivalent. Ambivalent faith is faith that dwells first in head then moves to the heart where it can calm fear and anxiety and give peace. We must never forget that the movement from head to heart is sometimes a supernatural act that God performs, but at other times it is a process that takes place when the ambivalence is recognized, acknowledged, and confessed. To be like Jesus we are called to be people who allow each other the grace to be transparent with ambivalent faith and encourage one another to cry out to Him in our desperate need during these precarious times.

Love Part 5--His Love was Screaming in the Silence

If there was ever a man who deserved to live life filled with joy, it would have been Jesus. Though clothed in the clothes of the common, He deserved royal robes, a golden crown, and a scepter. His character was marked by a righteousness no other man had ever achieved. His was a ministry characterized by miracles, grace, freedom, and healing. He exhibited authority over nature, man, and demons. More importantly He possessed a pure, unadulterated love for His Father and an unconditional, sacrificial love for man that was the motivation for every act He performed and every word He spoke. 

To begin to understand the depths of Christ's love, we are looking past the life He lived to the death He died. In was in His death that He chose to set aside His right to live to experience our deepest fear--of death. He chose to set aside His glory to bear our heaviest burden--the burden of sin and shame. He chose to set aside His perfect relationship with His Father to feel our deepest pain--our separation from the Creator.  

During His life Christ expressed His love through through many active ways. But at the end He chose to express it in a different way. As He was arrested, tried, beaten, and crucified, He maintained a purposeful silence that spoke His love even more loudly than the all the words He spoke and all the actions He carried out. 

The same mouth that spoke the universe into place was silent when He was taken away. The same mouth that calmed angry seas remained silent as people twisted His words during His illegal trials. The same voice that called a man from the grave refused to answer lying accusations hurled. The same voice that caused soldiers to fall back remained silent as He was beaten. The same strong voice that confronted the Pharisees was silent in the face of the mocking. He who had every right to defend Himself and He who had the power to walk away remained silent--and His love it was screaming in that silence because in the silence He was actively laying down His life. 

He remained silent when soldiers took their whips with sharp stones and bits of bones and beat Him, ripping apart His flesh. He was silent when soldiers put a scarlet robe on His raw flesh and jammed a crown of thorns upon His brow. He was silent when the soldier's mockery was no longer enough to satisfy the angry crowd. They were so enraged by the perfect life He lived, the sinners He forgave, the broken people He healed, and the people bound by sin He had set free that they joined the cruel soldiers by slapping His face, pulling hairs from His beard, hurling curses in His ears, spitting saliva in His face, and bidding for the clothes He would no longer need.  

He maintained His silence as the robe was ripped from His wounded back. He maintained it with each clang of the hammer as the searing pain of nails broke through flesh and bones. He remained silent as they picked up the cross and dropping it into the ground with a thud. He was silent as He gazed into a sea of faces filled with hate. He was silent through the searing pain of the nails and the pain of raw back rubbing against rough wood as moved to take each breath. He was silent--hanging suspended between heaven and earth and His silence...His silenced it screamed of His love as it was being poured out. 

He looked around at the people below and finally broke the silence with words we all need to hear. He didn't scream of the injustice or demand to be set free; He asked His Father to forgive--forgive those who rejected Him, forgive those who denied Him, forgive those who deserted Him, forgive those who falsely accused Him, forgive those who mocked Him, forgive those who beat Him, forgive those who hammered nails, forgive those whose sin evoked the Father's wrath. 

As the afternoon wore on darkness blanketed the earth and our sins--past, present, and future--ware laid on Him and Christ faced a realm of pain never ever experienced before or since. He felt the collective pain we feel when we are bound by sin--lonely, hopeless, and forsaken. For the first time He was separated from His Father because of our sin and in the anguish of being alone He broke the silence. It was a heart-rending cry from the depths of a deeply hurting soul, "My God, My God why have You forsaken me?"  With a heart broken by separation, He released His spirit, dying the death--the death we deserved. 

The silence surrounding His death speaks loudly of love. He loved deeply enough to die for disciples who deserted Him, for Peter who vehemently denied Him, for those who didn't recognize Him, for those who hated Him, for those who arrested Him, for those who beat Him, for those who mocked Him, and for those who hammered the nails. He loved deeply enough to maintain His silence and to stay on the cross as our sin, yours and mine, made Him feel alone and forsaken. 

His outrageous love endured the cruelty of the cross for the joy of presenting us, made holy and pure by His blood, as beloved children. We, the children who sin, who struggle with unbelief, who fail to love well, who at times deny Him, are the children purchased, purified, covered, and protected by the blood He shed. And His love? It was screaming in the silence. 

Love Part 4--The Unending Cycle of Love

One of the most interesting passages I've found on love is Ephesians 3:16-19, "That according to the riches of His glory He may grant you to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith-that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God." 

When I think of someone praying for strength, I tend to think of it as strength she needs to accomplish a difficult task, strength to withstand trials running runs long and hard, or strength to withstand temptation in which the flesh craves something that never satisfies. It is good to pray for strength in those times, but this passage indicates that Paul prayed for people to have the strength--strength to comprehend the love of God! While we comprehend and know God's love to a point, if we are honest we admit there is a part of us that knows to the core that a love like His love is incomprehensible!

When I realized I struggled with a stronghold of not believing I was loved, I spent some time exploring God's encounters with people--people just like you and me--who had infirmities, who were held captive by sin, who were struggling with unbelief, who were plagued by demons, who were lonely and looking to fill that loneliness in wrong places, who were longing to find significance through positions and power, many of who were mistreating others in the process that is until they encountered Jesus.

Those encounters were like no other encounters because the love encountered was pure, unselfish, unadulterated, and life-changing. His love touched lepers, restoring life to dying limbs. His love touched a woman caught in adultery, granting her life instead of stoning and silencing self-appointed judges. His love healed a bleeding woman who reached for the hem of His garment, restoring strength and giving physical, spiritual, and social life. His love granted sight to the blind, giving them the ability to see both the physical and the spiritual. His love granted acceptance to the woman encountered at the well who was rejected by five husbands as well as her community. His love touched the deaf and gave the mute a voice.

The depth, the breadth, and the height of His love becomes more vivid as we examine His prayer time in the Garden. As He entered it He felt sorrow so deep He was close to death. He wrestled long and hard with His Father's will, so full of angst His blood-tinged sweat dripped. As He prayed, His spirit was strengthened and love motivated Him to obey, to choose the cross, to bear our sin in His body, to experience God's wrath so we would not.

We are called to love as God loves, but it is impossible to do without experiencing it. We may have experienced at salvation, but we need experience daily . We do this by choosing every day to trust His love by taking God at His Word. We even do this when the circumstances we face are hard, when relationships are breaking down, and when the enemy is telling us we are unloved, unseen, and forgotten. By faith we believe and we His love to be as real and tangible for us today as it was when He walked the earth and He demonstrated it on the cross. We can find love in the difficult, broken, confusing, and loneliest places because His love never fails. When we memorize and mediate on verses that speak of God's love, His love will permeate our souls, becoming a strong, core belief that enables us to cling to Him no matter how hard life gets.

We can also read and reread about God's encounters with people. God revealed specific things about Himself when He related to the people in the Bible. When He encountered a barren couple surrounded by a culture that worshiped fertility Gods, Love called them out and provided them a man child in their old age, proving He was the Creator--the giver of life, the giver of joy, and the author of godly sex.

When He encountered young Joseph, He gave him dreams that stirred conflict between him and his brothers. They rejected him and betrayed him and sold him into slavery. But the boy clung to God who gave hope when he landed in a pagan nation. Then God provided food for him and his family in a famine by empowering the boy to love and forgive, and in doing so He preserved the Messiah's bloodline.

When He encountered the lady at the well, He ministered to her shattered heart, revealing to her and to us that He accepts, loves, and heals hearts that were used, abused, rejected, and treated like yesterday's garbage.

When He met the adulterous woman brought to Him in the temple, He exposed us to His grace, revealing that His acceptance sees past our sin to what we can become in Him.

When He reached out and touched the dying, rotting flesh of lepers, He showed He not only gives life to decaying flesh, but that His healing touch cleanses even when we feel the most untouchable.

As we examine God's encounters with people and look at those touched by His miracles, teachings, and prayers, we can't come away unchanged. Not only do each of the stories show restoration of human hearts, they show the restoration of relationships to a Holy God.

The more we meditate, the more we uncover of His grace. Through meditation we realize the first thing the Leper felt was the touch of God, the first thing the blind saw was His face, the first experience of unconditional acceptance at the well was being seen and heard by God Himself, the first exposure to grace the adulteress had was seen in the eyes of the only One who had a right to condemn.

Not only is God's love being showered on us, it is His desire to love others through us. He doesn't want us to continue to love in the mediocre selfish ways we are so prone to. He wants us to love sacrificially and unconditionally as He does. To do so we must choose to trust His love in the hard and choose to bask in it in the good. Because Christ loved even in exhaustion, grief, denial, desertion, and rejection, we can, too, with His help. His love strengthens us when we choose to love in the hard. We experience it as we love in the hurt. We experience it when we love the hard to love. We experience it as we love in rejection.

We will be more motivated to love when we remember His greatest act of love was expressed through the pain of the cross. As we we are rooted and grounded in His love, we are strengthened to begin to comprehend it, which strengthens us to love as He loves which strengthens us to comprehend it which strengthens us to love. No, I didn't accidentally repeat myself. For as long as we are fully present and plugged into our relationship with God we are in an unending cycle of comprehending His love and loving as He loves. I pray that God will strengthen you to comprehend the heights, the depths, and the breadth of His love.     

God Loves us through His Revelation -- How God Demonstrates Love Part 3

If I were asked to define eternal, at one time I would have said, "life that lasts forever" or "life that begins when I get to heaven." But my answer changed when I came across John 17:3, "And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent." The more I think on this verse, the more I realize that it is a very rich verse.

As children grow up there is a progression in the way they relate to others. When a mom first invites a child to play with her child, she soon realizes play is not automatic At age one a child is generally content to be in the same room with a friend, but each child is playing by themselves with their own toys. The interaction is very limited to and is usually a glance at the friend every now and possibly a push to get the other's toys. Over a period of time they will learn to play with toys together and will carry out quite creative, interactive stories with each other.  

When a child is first asked to describe a friend the description will be about external features like the color of hair or size. The description may also contain over behaviors like being loud, chatty, or mean. As children grow developmentally they see past the physical and communicate thoughts, ideas, viewpoints, hurts, and joys. At this point their descriptions of friends will include internal characteristics and one can get a clear idea of the character and personality of their child's friends. 

I think we do the same thing with God. When we first come to Him, we mostly know about Him. When I began to understand that eternal life is about knowing God I began to search my heart to see if I viewed God as an acquaintance or a more intimate relationship. I know the Bible reveals the character, thoughts, heart, and actions of God. So I knew if there was  lack of intimacy between me and Him it was on my part. I began to ask myself, "Do I really know God or do I only know about Him?" It is difficult question to answer and those who are task oriented may not give it much thought. However, those of us who are more relational by design contemplate the question long and hard and are often prone to shame in the process. To avoid that shame I've had to frequently tell myself all relationships, including the relationship I have with God takes work. 

I know I am a person who needs to guard against falling into the trap of thinking of God as an ideal, a law, or a being that is high and aloof. He is a living person with whom I can have an intimate relationship in the here and the now. It is God's very nature to communicate and it's His desire for me to know Him intimately Christ used terms like servants, brothers, friends, and children to describe His relationship with us and these terms denote intimacy to me. A. W. Tozer points out in his book,  The Pursuit of God, "God is a loving Person who is always present, speaking, pleading, loving, working, and manifesting Himself when we have the receptivity necessary to receive the manifestation." 

God wants us to experience Him! I found the following verses that really indicate that! Notice the senses He calls us to use:

Psalm 34:8 -- Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good! Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him!

Palm 48:8 --  Your robes are all fragrant with myrrh and aloes and cassia. From ivory palaces stringed instruments make you glad

John 10:27 -- My sheep here my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.

Matthew 5:8 -- Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.

If I'm not experiencing God continually, I need to examine my heart and discern why. It could be that I lack knowledge and can rectify that through His Word. It could be because something in my past causes me to doubt that God wants to relate to me in the same ways He relates to others, especially those named in the Bible. But a careful read of His word dispels that lie and shows me me that the people in His Word were as human as me. They were just as fail, just as sinful, and even just as victimized as me. There is not a one of us to whom God doesn't want to reveal Himself. I may at times struggle with the lie that God's daily presence in my life is for others, but the lie is from the enemy. I can choose to confess the unbelief and choose to sit before Him, soaking up His truth, exclaiming I believe and asking Him to help my unbelief.

So, how do I make our relationship with God come alive? First, I have to check my thinking. Do I think of God and the spiritual world as a reality or a fable? I must be ever be mindful that God is a person who thinks, wills, feels, loves, desires, and suffers as we do. I need to remember that to know God is to come face to face with a real person, not an idea, or a theology, or a system. Because He is holy and I am not--I can trust that a face to face meeting with Him will forever change me in some way. God desires me to experience Him and He is not now, nor ever will He play hide and seek. Hebrews 11:6 says, "And without faith it is impossible to please Him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who seek Him." He also says that it only takes a mustard-seed-sized faith! 

I can also come to know God through His Words. John 5:39 says, "You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me." If I want to know God, I can spend time in His word, not just reading it, but meditating on it and looking at it as a personal love letter from a very personal God. Psalm 46:10 says, "Be still, and know that I am God." Our culture calls us to busyness and I for one am prone to rushed quiet times in which i quickly read a passage and then deliver a quick dissertation of my wants or demands. But my strength, my safety, my security, my joy, and my transformation will never  come in the busy, noisy, messy places of my life, they will come in quietness at the Savior's feet as gaze at Him. 

We will never really desire to spend time in God's Word until we come to recognize and believe that our God is not silent and that His Words are relevant to us today. The Scriptures will help us come alive as we that God uses His Word to articulate His love in very real and personal ways. As we begin to comprehend God's love, we will begin to respond to His love with the desire to love Him in return. 

Tozer also pointed out that the people of the Bible who knew God were never completely satisfied with the depth of their relationship with God. They always longed for more. Moses, who saw God's glory in ways others hadn't expressed this desire in Exodus 33:13, "Now therefore, I pray thee, if I found grace in thy sight, shew me now thy way, that I may know thee, that I may find grace in the sight." 

I do not want to settle for knowing about God. Nor do I want to let the complex society I live in or church system I participate in replace the joy of knowing God. Life and all that it holds will always have a way of drawing me away from the true treasure--but those earthly treasures can never satisfy the deep longing for God written on my heart when I was knit in my mother's womb, proof in itself that He desires a relationships with me. Knowing God requires an experience of the mind as I interact through His word, the will as I stand against temptation and choose Him, and my emotions as I sit at His feet to experience His joy and His peace. 

Limping to His Table

A few years ago I shared that one of the Old Testament stories I'e fallen in love with is the story of Mephibosheth.  His name is a mouthful, but. his story is an amazing story. It is a beautiful picture of our reconciliation to God. Mephibosheth was the young son of Jonathon and the grandson of Saul. It would have been customary for Jonathon to become king when Saul died, but because of Saul's sin, God appointed David to become the next king. Though David faithfully served the king, Saul was filled with a hot jealousy of David and his God-given abilities. He was also jealous of David's victory over Goliath and resulting popularity with the crowd and his anointing as the future king. In a fit of jealous rage, he tried to kill David and David realized through no fault of his own that the king viewed him as an enemy. This grieved the hearts of Jonathon and David who had a close friendship. Jonathon helped David escape and David vowed to show Jonathon and his family favor when he became king.

Eventually, both Saul and Jonathon were killed, leaving behind Jonathon's young son Mephibosheth. When Mephibosheth's nurse heard of their deaths, she feared they would be taken captive and killed and she fled with the young boy. In her hurry, she fell and injured both of his legs, leaving him crippled.

After David was established as king, he remembered his promise to Jonathon and he called one of Saul's former servants and asked him if there was anyone left from Saul's house to which he could show favor. When the servant told him about Mephibosheth, David sent for him.

I can't imagine how scared Mephibosheth would have been when he was called to the palace of the king his grandfather had tried to kill. He could have run, but he chose to answer the invitation. When he arrived, he humbly bowed before David and David, much to Mephibosheth's relief, told him not to be afraid because he planned to show him favor. When he came to the palace, Mephibosheth offered himself as a servant, but he was given a seat at the king's table,which meant he was now considered one of David's sons. He was also given all of his Grandfather's land so servants could work it and to provide all that he needed, which gave the crippled Mephibosheth dignity. Mephibosheth bowed low and said, "What is your servant, that you should notice a dead dog like me?" There is no answer given to Mephibosheth in that moment. But the answer is wrapped up in the love that David had for his friend Jonathon.

I love this story because each one of us is Mephibosheth! We were born enemies of God because of Adam and Eve's sin. Each of us have also been crippled by sin we have committed and the sin that has been perpetrated against us. We have been crippled in our ability to do good, crippled in our ability to manage our emotions, crippled in our ability to discern the truth from lies, crippled in our ability to love well, and crippled in our ability to worship and to honor our Creator.

Yet, just like Mephibosheth, we have been invited to the palace of the King of kings. But this palace doesn't belong to an earthly king, it belongs to the Lord, God Almighty. Like Mephibosheth we've come with nothing to offer our King. Just as Mephibosheth found mercy because of David's love for Jonathon, we have found mercy because of the Father's love for Jesus and His payment for our sin. Like Mephibosheth, we who didn't even deserve to be servants have been made joint heirs with the Son of God. That means that we, too, have a place set at the King of king's table.

There is a reason this story is so precious to me. A few years ago, I suffered a severely broken ankle. After seven months in a cast, I was finally given permission to walk without crutches and without the cast. At first, my ankle joint was frozen and my walk, as one friend called it, was a slow, labored hobble. Oh, how I hated the hobble, until God reminded me of Mephibosheth's story. I could so relate to him making his way to the king's table. I could even imagine the sound of his labored steps as he came to the table. Over time the joint loosened a bit and on good days the limp is barely noticeable. However, occasionally I overdo it and I hurt and the limp becomes more pronounced, reminding me once again of Mephibosheth and how he, who was once David's enemy, came to be seated at the king's table. And once again I am reminded of our stories and how we, who were once enemies of the King, are seated at His table. I am also reminded that through through His divine power He has given us every thing we need for a godly life through the knowledge of Jesus who called us by His own glory and goodness. Over time I've let go of the shame I associated with my limp and have grown thankful for a very real physical picture of how I have been reconciled to the King of kings. I know that as we, God's crippled children  hobble to His table, we are met with grace and mercy and we are loved with a love that has been shown through Christ's work of reconciliation. We come limping, but the Father sees us as we will be in glory.

God's Love Demonstrated Part 1

Every so often I find myself in need of revisiting the great love of our God so for the next few weeks I will be writing on the different ways God has chosen to demonstrate His love to us. So often we say we know God loves us, but our actions don't convey that we truly believe it. When trials and temptations come we often find ourselves hearing the enemies voice trying to convince us that we have been forgotten, deserted, or at the least less loved than others we know.

As a young believer, I believed God loved me only because He created me. That belief didn't translate into a passionate, radical, and personal love that a perfect Father has for His children. In my mind it was more like a love of obligation and a sense of "I will put up with you" because I have to kinda love.

One day when my first child was waking up from his first nap in his "big boy" bed, he realized he could get out of the bed by himself. I heard his little feet hit the floor and he ran down the hall and slowed just as he got to the corner and peaked around at me to see if it was okay for him to come to me. I remember my heart beating faster as I heard him running down the hall and I held my arms out for him and he smiled big and ran into them. I sensed in my spirit the Lord saying to me that that was the same love He had toward me. That mean that His attitude when I approached Him in prayer, wasn't impatience. That meant I wasn't a bother demanding His attention. That meant He felt towards me the same kind of delight I felt towards my own child. I realized at the time that I had a hard time accepting that God delighted in me. Over the years I have tried to notice all the different ways God shows us His love. Today, I want to look at one of the most significant ways God demonstrated His love towards us--that is in the person of Jesus. We know God's word says Christ demonstrated His love by dying for us, but He also demonstrated His love by living among us.

The coming of Jesus was in no way a new plan conceived at the last minute by a desperate God watching His children walk in sin. No way! For in eternity past the plan was born in the heart of God. The Creator, the King of kings, the Lord of lords, the Sovereign God, chose to veil His glory and leave the incomprehensible beauty of His heavenly home and grow in the dark confinement of a human womb. While His heavenly position entitled Him to be born in a palace and wrapped in purple linens, He opted to be born in the middle of a sheepfold, wrapped in swaddling clothes. He by-passed a gold inlaid cradle for a simple manger so prophetic of His mission as Jehovah's sacrificial Lamb. He chose to limit His limitless abilities and powers to show us He understands us and is a sympathetic High Priest tempted in every way we've ever been tempted, yet without sin. To put it simply, to tell us He loved us Jesus chose to become a man.  

It is hard to comprehend a love deep enough that it would motivate Christ to leave His heavenly home as a baby and become dependent upon a woman who was His creation. It is also hard to understand how He would choose to grow up in a home with half brothers and half sisters who didn't recognize Him for who He was or what He came to do. It's hard to comprehend a love so outrageous it would cause Him who spoke the universe into place to become an apprentice in His stepfather's shop. There He no longer could use His limitless creativity as His medium was hardwood and His tools were tools made by human hands. Rather than speaking things into being, He chose to be limited to the use of His human hands--hands that now became dirty, callused, and rough--just like ours. Yet, those same strong hands revealed God's tender compassion by gently reaching out and blessing the children that followed Him. They were also the same hands that restored sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, and mew life to leprous flesh. They were the same hands that washed His disciples feet and healed hurts that were buried in the deepest parts of men's souls.

It is hard to understand a love so outrageous that it would motivate God to take on a human body and become vulnerable enough to experience physical  discomfort like our own--He was prone to hunger, thirst, and exhaustion. He even experienced emotional needs and found it necessary to ask three of His friends to pray for Him as He was facing His impending death. It is hard to understand a love so outrageous that it would motivate Him to set aside His own needs to meet the needs of those pressing in on Him. If they needed food, He provided it. If they needed healing, He healed them. If they needed comfort, He wiped away their tears. If they needed knowledge, He taught them through sermons, parables, and life lessons. If they needed courage, He encouraged them. If they needed rest, He took them aside to get it. If they needed freedom, He fought for it by casting out demons that vexed their souls. Even when His own emotions were raw and painful, He still ministered to others.

With the same voice He had used to speak the universe into place He comforted those who mourned. With the same voice He had used to calm the angry seas He dispelled the fears of His disciples and offered forgiveness to sinners. With the same voice that confronted the Pharisees, calling them vipers, He offered blessing to the children  and mercy to the guilty. It was the same voice He had used to comfort two sisters whose brother had just been laid to rest that turned the situation around with power and majesty, ordering the Lazarus to come forth from the tomb. It was the same voice that spoke with authority to cast out legions of demons that spoke so kindly that it healed the deepest shame of an adulterous woman.

It was His eyes that were capable of seeing everything that could penetrate the hardest of hearts. His eyes that sparkled in the early morning light as He communed with His heavenly Father also shed human tears when He saw the people were like sheep without a shepherd. It was His eyes that were the only eyes that had a right to condemn, but instead, being motivated by outrageous love, chose to use His eyes as instruments of saving grace. For as He gazed into the eyes of people broken by their sin and shame, it is obvious He conveys the heart of the living God--a heart so full of tender mercies, beating with a passions so strong and so outrageous Jesus chose to be the one to make it known by becoming a man. Oh, that we would truly begin to comprehend the outrageous love of God from which we can never be separated. It is not a high and lofty love, it is a rich deeply personal love that has that power to save, heal, and transform.