The View through the Veil

Like many of you, I am participating in an exciting 40-day adventure to seek the heart of God for myself, my family, and this nation.  God has called us to set aside this time for fasting (as to the type of fast, that is between the individual and God), prayer, and soaking in His presence.  The thing that has amazed me most about this experience is how very present God has made himself.  He seems to be so excited about my weak, insignificant little efforts to set aside “normal” life and seek Him, that He is running to meet me.  Throughout my busy days, as soon as I turn my heart toward Him for a moment, He is right there.  I have had to survive on much less sleep than usual, because the Lord is constantly speaking to me in the night, or waking me up just to bless me with the sense of his overwhelming love.  It is as if the veil between earth and heaven, that seems so impenetrable at times, has become thin as a bride’s gossamer headdress.

I am so thankful for the privilege of being able to participate in this exciting process.  I wish it could last forever (well, not the fasting part, but everything else).  God is so very, very good to me; far beyond what I deserve.  Thank you, Lord, for your abundant grace.  Pour out your Spirit on this nation as never before.  Move on the hearts of unbelievers to let go of sin and worldly desires and embrace the far better gifts that you are waiting to give them.  Your family is not yet complete, Lord.  Your Bride is not yet ready.  Come, Lord Jesus, and finish the work you began 2000 years ago.  We await you with longing in our hearts.  Amen.

A Difficult Path

For the past several weeks the Lord has been taking me through a hard season.  He has been speaking to me about persecution.  If I am going to truly follow him with my whole heart, I will face persecution, and not just from unbelievers.  Much of it will come from fellow Christians.  He is also speaking about crucifying the flesh.  By that I mean leaving behind sources of pleasure and comfort that, though not necessarily sinful in themselves, rob me of the highest God has for me.

I am struggling with both of those words.  I am a people-pleaser by nature.  As a child, I was the “good kid” who followed the rules, never made trouble, and loved the praise and approval of authority figures.  Later in life I realized that my drive to follow rules stemmed from the belief that if I did everything right, things would turn out well for me.  It was a formula I could follow to get what I wanted.  I thought this would work with God, too.  If I followed the commandments and tried hard not to sin, he would make sure I had a comfortable, successful life and people would love me.

Now he is telling me that if I walk the path of deeper knowledge of and fellowship with him, people will hate me.  Some will think I have been decieved; they may call me a heretic; I may even be branded as evil.  This is hard for someone like me to contemplate.  For so long I have judged the rightness of my actions by whether or not others approved of them.  Now I may have to make choices that some people whom I esteem do not approve.

I am ashamed at my hesitation.  If I love God as much as I say I do, this shouldn’t be such a big problem for me.  The depth of my struggle reveals how much I still love myself, and how little I trust God.

Oh Lord, please forgive my lack of trust in you.  I strive for what I think I need for security and happiness, but in the end it does not satisfy.  Give me the strength to let go of the comfortable and familiar in order to embrace the sublime.  Help me to welcome the crucifixion of the flesh, so that Christ may truly live in me.   If the thing I love most in this world is the approval of man, I know that you will liberate me from it, so that I may be wholly yours.  I cannot yet embrace this path, but I know that you will give me grace to walk it, one step at a time, in Jesus Name.

Why Not Me?

Are you looking for someone to serve you?

You bent low and washed my feet.  I will serve you.

Are you looking for someone to follow wherever you go?

You followed me to the darkest place and brought me back.  I will follow you.

Are you looking for someone who will leave comforts behind for your sake?

You forsook throne and glory and power to be born a helpless babe.  I will leave all for you.

Are you looking for someone who will empty her life?

You poured out your life on the cross for me.  You may have mine.

Are you looking for someone to feed a hungry mouth, clothe a body, dry a tear?

You have fed me and clothed me and comforted me.  I can do no less.

Are you looking for someone to share the Good News.

You have filled my heart with joy.  I cannot keep quiet.

Are you looking for someone who will sit at your feet and gaze upon your beauty; who will listen to every word you speak; who will anoint your feet with costly perfume and dry them with her hair?

Look at me, Lord.  I am here, I am willing.  Why not me?

Fairy Tales do Come True

I used to think God could never use me because of the many ways I had let him down in the past.  I knew he had forgiven me, but I still thought I could only be a second-class citizen in his kingdom.  Others might be used to do great works for God, but I would have to be content with cheering them on from the sidelines.

That was before I discovered what it meant to be passionately loved by God.  Like any Sunday School graduate, I knew he loved me, but I pictured it as the kind of love one might have for a pet or a small child.  A smile, a few kind words, a pat on the head, and then I’m sent off to occupy myself while the grown-ups deal with more important matters.  But for the last several months, God has been revealing to me that he loves me with a consuming fire.  I’m not incidental to him, I am in the center of his thoughts all the time.  He desires me, he longs for me, he delights in me, even when I fail him out of weakness or immaturity. 

When I was a child, I used to dream about being chosen as a bride by a prince or a king.  He was a strong, powerful man who had important affairs to attend to.  But he would be so captivated by me that he would leave everything to come and find me.  Then he would take me back to his palace and make me his queen.  I think all young girls have that fantasy.  It is something woven into our nature.  We desire to be chosen, wooed, and won by a kind, noble and powerful man.  But we don’t want to be his pet or his plaything.  We want to be his lover and life-partner.

No human marriage, no matter how perfect, can live up to this ideal.  Whether we have an earthly husband or not, there is still an empty place inside that longs for our true king.  But listen!  “The voice of my beloved!  Behold, he comes, leaping over the mountains, bounding over the hills.  My beloved is like a gazelle or a young stag….My beloved speaks and says to me: ‘Arise, my love, by beautiful one, and come away, for behold the winter is past; the rain is over and gone….Arise, my love, my beautiful one, and come away.’” (Song of Solomon 2:8-13.)

Do you know that Jesus calls you his beautiful one?  He says that you are his chosen one.  Not later when you become mature, but right now!  When he thinks about you (which is all the time), his heart is aflame with love.  Nothing can quench his fiery passion.  He will pursue you until everything that hinders love in your heart is burned away.  And one day, you will be presented to him, along with the rest of the church, as a spotless bride.  You will share his throne, and rule and reign with him forever.

Oh, friend, if you can get that truth deep into your heart, you will be unstoppable.  Sin will lose its power over you, fear will flee away, shame will disappear forever.  You are the bride of the king, and he waits for you.

Counting the Cost

“After this he went out and saw a tax collector named Levi, sitting at the tax booth.  And he said to him, ‘Follow me.’  And leaving everything, he rose and followed him.  Luke 5:27-28.

What was it about Jesus that caused Levi to immediately leave everything he had worked for and follow him?  I asked myself that question as I read this passage this morning.  Jesus is calling my husband and me to do some pretty radical things.  Most of the time I am excited about his calling, but lately I find myself faltering.  What is this obedience going to cost me?  Financial security, relationships, a sense of home–things that have taken years to build.  I am no longer young.  My roots have grown deep in the soil of the Northwest.  I can’t imagine looking out my bedroom window and not seeing Puget Sound, or missing the laughter of my neice and nephew as they play with my son in the backyard.

Levi must have had all these things, yet he left them without hesitation.  Why?  I think it is because he was looking at Jesus.  There was the Savior, right in front of him, eyes filled with compassion, arms held out in love.  “Follow me, Levi.  I choose you.”

“Me, Lord?  You choose me?  But I’m a tax-collector, a sinner.  Why would you want me?”

“I hear the cry of your heart.  I know you want something different.  I know you love me, and I am captivated by you.  Come away with me now.”

That was what Levi saw.

Lord, help me keep my eyes on you and nothing else.  Let me behold your beauty, experience your goodness.  Let the awesomeness of your love chase all other thoughts from my mind.  It is only in you that I will find the fulfillment of my deepest desires.  All other things, good though they may be, are not to be compared to the riches of knowing you.  I hear your call, and I will follow you.

Wake Up!

“And there was a prophetess, Anna, the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher.  She was advanced in years…. She did not depart from the temple, worshiping with fasting and prayer night and day.  And coming up at that very hour she began to give thanks to God and to speak of him to all who were waiting for the redemption of Jerusalem.” Luke 2:36-38.

I wouldn’t call myself “advanced in years,” but I remember the days of the Jesus movement in the ’70s.  We were all on fire for God and convinced that Jesus was coming back at any moment.  We strummed our guitars and sang “I Wish We’d All Been Ready” on the street corners and in the school gymnasiums.  We worried our parents with our emotional and demonstrative faith that sometimes crossed the line into disrespect as we challenged their staid and traditional religion.  We were the generation that was going to conquer the world for Christ.  We were going to see the Lord’s return!

It’s thirty years later and most of my generation has settled in to a quiet life.  We raised our kids , worked hard at our jobs and served in our church.  Sometimes we look back on those old times and smile wryly.  We were so gullible then!  We had our pie-in-the-sky ideas, but they weren’t very practical.  Life is hard.  It takes work.  Dreams rarely come true.  People and churches disappoint.  Marriages fall apart.  Kids rebel.  Better to hunker down and try to gather what crumbs of happiness come our way.

But, if you listen carefully, you can still hear the drum beating.  It’s a marching beat.  It’s the same drum beat we heard so loudly years ago, before we began to turn a deaf ear.  God does have a plan for our generation.  And it isn’t just to produce children and grandchildren, although that’s part of it.  We weren’t mistaken.  We weren’t being carried away by crazy ideas.  God did call us, and he is calling us still.  Come with me.  I am not finished with you.  I still have a job for you to do, a destiny for you to fulfill.  Now is not the time to rest.  There is no retirement in my kingdom.  Get on your feet, gird your sword to your side, sharpen your skills in prayer and in the word.  I have called you into the battle.  In my army it is the old, not the young, who lead the way.  Your gray hair is a crown of glory in my sight.  Come!  Raise my banner.  Declare my name to the next generation.  Show them what a lifetime of spiritual truth looks like.  Come!  I will march with you.  You will fight at my side.  Together we will take ground from the enemy.  Be strong and of good courage, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go!

Come, my friends.  Come, you Annas and Simeons.  Do not let your children outrun you!  You know what you heard the Lord speak to your heart long ago.  That word still lives!  God hasn’t given up on you and he hasn’t taken his anointing away from you.  Don’t give up.  He who perseveres to the end will be saved.  Let us follow him in glorious procession, declaring his goodness to all generations, and his mercy to all who call upon his name!  Wake up, my friends.  Arise!

It’s All About Jesus

I tried to tell someone today how much I love God.  I said “I am completely in love with Jesus.” But I didn’t feel the sentence connected with my listener’s heart.  This is a woman who has known me for many years.  She’s seen me at my worst as well as my best, and more frequently at my usual state of mediocrity.  How can I communicate what is in my heart when my life so often does not reflect it?  Do people ever see Jesus in me?  I could feel myself sliding down that well-travelled slope to the Pit of Guilt, but I managed to execute a radical turn at the last minute and run to my Savior instead.

Oh, Jesus, you know how much I love you!  You hear my worship.  You discern my thoughts from afar.  You have completely captured my heart!  Yes, I am weak and imperfect and awkward.  I give in to temptation, and fall far short of your glory.  But you do not withhold your love from me.  In fact, you are passionate about me!  You are not waiting for me to become mature before making me one of your favorites.  I am your favorite right now!  Others may see my failings, but you see the intentions of my heart, and you are delighted by them.

So I will delight myself in Jesus.  I will declare his greatness. No matter how awkward and imperfect and foolish I feel, I will extol the beauty and majesty of my Savior.  I hope my words and my life will have an impact on those around me, but even if no one listens to what I say, I will sing for the only audience that matters, my audience of One.

“Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you.  My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever” Psalm 63:25-26.  May this blog be a place where the name of Jesus is lifted up, and where we can travel together on our journey to the Eternal Kingdom.