Severe Mercies

There are some people that come into our lives to the sound of explosions; i.e. they don’t sneak in quietly. They burst on to the pages of your story and disturb the comparitively quiet simplicity of your reality.  I met someone like that this past year. She refused to take life sitting down. She asked the hard questions and refused to settle for surface level answers. And as is so often true of these individuals, the depth of their thoughts finds its reasons in some of the darkest trials and pain to plague our sin-cursed race. 

Pondering the answers to her questions and the purpose of her sufferings forced me to re-evaluate the very nature of what I believed. These and so many other seeming injustices forced me wonder about the truth of God’s trustworthiness, of His goodness.  When distance kills relationships. When the ocean drowns a city. When the doctors give a death sentence. When parents bury children. When planes crash into buildings. When the cancer is stage four. When innocence is stolen from children before they even understand the meaning of the word.  When following Jesus feels like a never-ending suicide mission.

How can God ask us to endure so much and still be called good? Dare I even ask, what gives Him the right to demand that we bear such heaviness?

This summer I rediscovered the greatness that is Milton Vincent’s sermon series on forgiveness.[i]  Inevitably when we broach the subject of forgiveness we find ourselves studying the cross of Christ, and here Pastor Vincent made a point that I’d never considered before.

In Isaiah 53:5 it says: “But He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; The chastening for our well-being fell upon Him, And by His scourging we are healed.” We know this verse well, the one that tells us Christ died for our sins. But in the overwhelming implications of verse 5 we often forget verse 4, which says: “Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows…”

Am I the only one who never actually processed that verse? It had never occurred to me that Christ died for my hurts and pain; part of him defeating sin necessitated him bearing not only our individual sins, but also the consequences we bear as a result of living in a sin cursed world: like sorrow and pain and grief. Christ’s care for our aching souls goes so far beyond empathy! 

He is personally and intimately acquainted with my hurts. In his death he took even that on Himself; He bore even the torrents of my sin-tainted emotions unto death. Pondering this overwhelms me. And it occurs to me that that (at least in part) is what gives Him the right. 

Christ didn’t balk when faced with the weight of all of humanity's sins and sorrows; He carried it all. It killed him. Literally. He knows exactly what He asks of us when he allows trials roll into our lives like tsunamis, leaving devastation & death in their wake. He gets it.  When He calls us to die to ourselves, to our comforts, and hopes, and desires he knows the depth of what he asks and shares our heartbreak in choosing obedience. He understands, because He himself died in obedience.

I’m coming to realize that my mind is not right, that my perceptions of life and death and their definitions are somehow off.  My reasoning is tampered by the sinful state I was born into. Slowly, but surely I trust that God is eradicating that sin in me as he sanctifies me through these ever-present griefs and sorrows – these incessant internal suicides – these "severe mercies."

I have longed to drown the torrents of my wild emotions – my pains and sorrows - in His truth. To be quieted by His love. To know Him and to trust Him so unshakingly  that when He asks me to die I do so willingly knowing that because He said so: death will be better than what I have called life. 

And even as I write those words I am reminded of the promise of Christ’s resurrection: that this thing that I have called death, will surely end in life. 

How marvelous that Christ rose again! He defied death and conquered sin and sorrows so that our death, in Him, might also bring about life. And that life will be far beyond what our earthly minds can fathom. How comforting to know that because of Him, our death will result in life! He didn’t have to give us that assurance. We actually deserve to die. He could have just commanded us to die. But instead He takes our death and whispers the promise of His resurrection to our broken souls, “you will live.” 

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[i] You can listen to this sermon series here:  http://www.cornerstonebible.org/resources/sermons/series/forgiveness

I promise it’s worth it. ALSO Vincent’s book, The Gospel Primer, is probably the most influential book I’ve ever read on the Gospel/Christian living. Seriously. As in, second only to the Bible. Read it. 

Oh Love that Will Not Let Me Go

It's been a long time since I've written anything here. I just haven't been ready to let anyone read my thoughts - mostly because I could barely make sense of them myself. I’m hoping this post will be the first of several related accounts of the painful, but incredibly precious lessons of this past year. I’ve debated long and hard about whether or not to share them, but I think that when God reveals truths about himself to us that they are worthy of recounting. So to God be the glory.

The past 6 months or so have been some of the most internally tumultuous months of my life. I've been broken and rubbed raw and laid bare in my selfishness and sinfulness more forcefully than I ever expected. It’s a jarring thing to wake up one day and realize that what you thought, albeit secretly, was a fairly good and upright life still only amounts to filthy rags in need of washing. 

In the process of all these distasteful realizations I realized that I was often giving my life to God in the same way you would hand a glass figurine to a toddler: "Okaaaaaaay ... you can hold it. But be very still and hold it just like this and don't drop it or play with it or do anything that could break it."[i]

In other words I didn't trust Him. At all. 

I was horrified by this awakening. And Terrified, very terrified. The implications snowballed in my mind until I doubted even my salvation. How could I tell God that I don't trust Him and still be saved? Isn’t trust implicit in the Gospel message?  I searched for proof of my once upon a time trust. I dug through my memories for evidence of a changed life, but I was saved at the age of five. I have no dramatic before Christ/after Christ testimony. I rehearsed my past sins, oh how they multiplied! No one who truly loved or trusted God would ever be so proud or manipulative or selfish.

But then after too many numb days and fearful nights, into the darkness of my rattled consciousness came the lyrics of a hymn I hadn’t heard in years. I only remembered one line.

“Oh Love that will not let me go.”

Spotify supplied me with the remaining lyrics. I played it on repeat for days:

“Oh Love that will not let me go,

I rest my weary soul in thee.

I give Thee back this life I owe,

That in your ocean depths its flow

May richer fuller be.

...

Oh joy that seeks me through the pain

I cannot close my heart to thee

I trace the rainbow through the rain

And trust the promise is not vain

That morn shall tearless be." 

One night with this melodic truth continuing to pull apart the lies[ii], I think I understood for the first time what Paul was saying when he wrote that “the Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God.” Maybe he wasn’t really speaking about the absence of all doubt, but more a promise that the doubt wouldn’t win. That night I wrote this in my journal:

“It comes to this – I am a child of God. And He will not let me go. No matter the severity of my doubt, or the length of my anger, or the stubbornness of my disbelief. I cannot escape from Him. I cannot be snatched from his hands. His love is relentless; it will not let me go. How can I but trust this kind of love? To give him back the life I owe, and finally rest my weary soul.”

Sometimes I think that God allows us to wander into deep dark places to break us and bring us to a new realization of our sinfulness, and therefore a greater understanding of His magnanimity. 

But I had forgotten the ‘therefore’. I had forgotten His goodness. I had forgotten His love, His grace. But mostly I had forgotten His faithfulness, and that His faithfulness is not contingent upon my own.[iii]

This meant that if I ever was His then I still am, and always will be His. I understood to my very core, perhaps for the first time, that assurance of salvation rests not in the steadfastness of the rescued, but in that of the Rescuer.

I had given leaving my best shot – ignoring His Spirit in a big way for much longer than I believed I could. I threw the grown-up version of a temper tantrum; I plugged my ears with headphones, and filled my every waking moment with people. I almost wished He would give me up, because in my deepest soul I knew He deserves infinitely more than me. But He didn’t give me up. And He won’t, because my guilt and self-condemnation are not stronger than his grace and forgiveness. I am not God's equal. 
What comfort and peace I feel just remembering this: that God’s is a jealous love, an irrationally relentless love. It is a compassionate love, that having once saved me, will never let me go.

“Soul then know thy full Salvation

Raise ore sin and fear and care,

Hope to find in every station,

Something still to do or bear.

Think what Spirit dwells within thee,

Think what Father’s smiles are thine,

Think that Jesus died to win thee.

Child of heaven canst thou repine?”

{this was step #1 on my epic, perhaps dramatic journey where-along God taught this stone-like heart to trust like a child. I shouldn’t have used the past tense. I suspect this will be a life-long journey.}

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[i] I’m actually stealing this illustration from a conversation with my friend Kristen while driving through the mountains of Washington talking about the deep things of life. She makes excellent analogies.

[ii] Another HUGE song that helped me to correct my thinking was Shane & Shane’s Embracing Accusations. You can listen to it here.

[iii] “When we are faithless, He remains faithful, for He cannot disown Himself.” 2 Tim. 2:13

A House by a Lake

This morning I woke up all curled up under a nice, tick blanket with my head cushioned by two soft pillows. After creating the courage to actually get out of bed, the first thing my feet touched was the soft carpet that  covers the majority of the house I live in. Lifting up the blinds allowed the sun to come streaming in the glass paned windows exposing the chilly morning outside. I curled up on the couch for a few minutes with a warm cup of freshly brewed tea, and watched the world outside my window. I was comfortable.

I live in America, Southern California, to be exact (for now). We like comfort and convenience here. When our beds aren't soft enough we buy memory foams to go on top, and when our Internet connection takes longer than 30 milliseconds to switch web pages we get impatient.  We want name brand clothes, organic groceries, and top of the line appliances. What we call necessity here, the rest of the world calls extravagant. Sometimes I feel a little pang of guilt living in what the majority of the world's population would consider to be a plush lifestyle.

Now everyone reading this probably thinks they know where I'm going, and maybe you do but don't tune me out yet.

I realized that this lifestyle isn't inherently wrong. It's not. It's not wrong for someone to want a softer bed, expensive - but healthier - food, or appliances with fancy functions. We are privileged and blessed to be able to have those things in America and I don't think it's wrong to have them. What I do think is wrong is if we begin to think, for even a minute, that we are entitled to these blessings.

My life goals are not popular ones. I want to live overseas - most likely in a third world country - to work with Missionary Kids and tell people about Jesus. My parents' life goals weren't common ones either. When I was five months old my dad took my mom and I to the city of his early childhood right at the mouth of the Amazon to tell people about Jesus. It's normal for the world not to understand this kind of decision, but even people in the Christian community don't always get it.

"What about the bugs!?" they say. "I've heard that the heat there is unbearable! Do they even have carpet there? Tile floors are so cold! *Gasp* they don't even use western toilets in that country! Why don't you just go there for a short term trip - that would be sacrifice enough. How could you possibly stand to live in those conditions!?"

It's simple. This life is not about the pursuit of comfort - and sorry, Thomas Jefferson, but it's not about the pursuit of happiness either.

A couple days ago as I was driving to work I caught myself daydreaming. As I stared off at the mountains in the distance I imagined what it would be like to live up there in a house by a lake. It would be somewhat secluded - away from the big cities, surrounded by forest - but close enough to a small town that I could be with people and access the necessities of life like, food and the occasional new pair of shoes. It would have a room with floor to ceiling windows facing the lake, and a room with floor to ceiling book shelves and a cozy reading nook. There would be stairs dropping down off the back patio(which would definitely have both a porch swing and a hammock) that led to a dock where you could sit and fish or run and fling yourself into the cool water on summer days. There would be a wood burning fireplace inside, and my bedroom would be a loft with a skylight so I could see the stars at night. I sighed happily - could there be anything more wonderful?

My little daydream was rudely interrupted as my fantasy world crossed paths with reality. If I wanted to go overseas to work with MKs it was highly unlikely that a dream home by a lake would ever be mine. My heart sort of fell as I weighed in my heart whether I would be willing to give up my dream life for the comparative dis-comfort of a missions-minded one.

Then another thought occurred to me:

Heaven.

I laughed out loud. I could have that house in heaven! Why not!? Grinning irresistibly I tried to conjure up what my little dream world would be like in the context of sinlessness. Would the water in the lake be crystal clear? Would it always be the perfect temperature? Would the books in my mini-library come in an endless supply? Maybe some of the books on my shelves would even be my own books! Would the rain come and the sun shine and the snow fall all in their time without the muddy or sweaty messes they create now?

Oh what a world that will be. But it is not this world. That is a world yet to come, so far beyond my weak imagination. And it will be mine to enjoy for endless days. But It will come later, it is not now.

So for the sake of the Savior, and with the expectation of eternity, I realize that this world is not my reward - and therefore I am entitled to - well, nothing. Not the carpet on my floor, or the water in my shower. Not the pillows on my bed or the glass in my windows. Comfort on this earth is just extra, and so I should be willing to give it all up in an instant - not orient my life around obtaining it.

Right now I'm very thankful for the convenience of a Southern California home. I'm kind of attached to my car, and the TV in the living room can be really fun. But I think the day will come when I may have to set all these things aside - to give them up - and for the sake of the Gospel I plan to do so willingly. I'd rather live today uncomfortably so that  may pursue the eternal. Who knows? Maybe in eternity I can have that house by a lake.

 “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."
Matthew 6:19-21