Life on a Monday

April is coming to a close and every day continues press us further to trust and know Jesus, to live another otherwise unpredictable day, and join God in what he is doing in, around and through us.  Today Hosea 6:3 is on on my mind “Let us know; let us press on to know the Lord”.  I default to striving.  I so often can default to trying to live the life I believe I “ought” to live.  Trying so hard to obey a rule, please someone, achieve something, be something.  You don’t arrive at being something by doing something.  The doing comes out of your being, not the other way around.  I am also so prone to forget things I learn.  I want to obey God, but trying to was wrought with frustration and it seemed burdensome, joyless... But once again, I had it backwards; and so, ever so patiently, the Spirit is reminding me: know the Lord. Press on to know him.  To know him is to meet his character and in knowing we begin to trust which leads us to love him which leads to doing what he desires.  Obedience, then, is the fruit of knowing him.  It begins with who God is and what he does.  Then, as Acts 17:28 says “In Him we live and move and have our being”.  Finally, lastly, we get to what we do, how we live, the actions of faith.  But we can’t just go about in our own effort to do something in order to prove our worth, love or faith to God. He invites us to know him, to abide in him, to find our identity in Him; then He will lead us to live the life for which we were created, the one that is most satisfying, true and right.  There is then this amazing effect, that in as he leads us to obey, and we do so, we come to know him even more and the relationship deepens ever still.  

Saturday I enjoyed a very pleasant birthday.  Missed friends and family of course, but so blessed to have a relaxing day and at the end, two new friends surprised me with cake and gifts, the most precious being their offer of friendship and the few hours we spent together laughing, sharing in life and getting to hear a bit more of each other’s stories.  Be praying with us (and for me!):  we have been invited to a neighboring island to lead some ESL classes.  Now, I am not fluent in Spanish by any means, but since I know more than 75% of my team I get the privilege to be the point person for this.  I’m very much looking to it.   I expect it to be a challenge, for that is how we grow and where we recognize the end of ourselves and get to see God do great things.  I also hope to improve my own level of conversational spanish, and to see God raise up a unified community.  There are multiple tensions between different people groups and families in this eclectic part of the world and we watch to see God’s plans unfold.  As a team we were talking this morning with a pastor from the area:  the gospel is about the arrival of the kingdom of God.  Life lived as it was meant to be lived. Life in this kingdom extends into every part: culture, art, science, politics, family, society.  So our daily life includes restoring communities through practical means of medical care, education, clean water, job training, English classes.  Just some musings as I start off this Monday morning.  Praying for your day.

The heart is not a brownie

“But you, Oh LORD, know me; you see me and test my heart towards you” Jeremiah 12:3

I read this the other morning. It was one of those beautiful, delicious times on the deck. The dog and two cats were lying on the patch of sunlight coming through the trees. I’d been praying and enjoying time with Jesus over a cup of coffee when these pictures started to form in my mind as the Spirit spoke to my heart.  Perhaps you can identify with this. 

Sometimes (in error) I have conceptualized God’s testing of my heart like he is trying to push me till I break; finding all the weakest and most vulnerable places. Deeply I was believing a lie that God isn’t good nor does he act for my good, as in this scenario He has little involvement other than putting me through the hoops (sure there are all those verses about the good stuff that testing and trial produces, but if you start out believing the lie that God isn’t really that great, then none of those promises sound all that great either).  Then this other picture: God’s testing of us also isn’t like sticking a toothpick in the brownies while they are baking.  “Is she done yet?”  Like at some point the beating and baking, trials and testing, will produce something he will find pleasing (which might be true, but I was in error on the process and his involvement).  What then instead filled my mind was a picture of the most brilliant of engineers and inventors in the middle of sparks flying, molten steel, hammers crashing, huge beams being raised up on cranes and giant machines groaning as they lift massive loads from white-hot furnaces...He’s attending to a billion and one things, and yet at moments he’s looking through a magnifying glass making fine adjustments on a delicate piece he holds in his palm.  The air is electric with the passion, dedication and joy of this artist.  With each test he runs, he’s making his creation a little closer to perfection. With each trial, he is finding out where it breaks down and then actively removing that point of weakness to make it all the more magnificent.  He has this glorious end in mind and his project requires that things be melted and molded, then refined down and hammered, pressed and polished, cut and fine-tuned.  But all of it is done because he loves what he does and loves what he creates, all with a great, good, and perfect end in mind.  

"Oh taste and see that the Lord, He is good!" Psalm 34:8

The delicious morning tasted that much sweeter. I encourage you to hang out in Psalm 63 as a post script.