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When Jesus Came

~ eternalwaitofglory ~ 1 Comment

Luke came around today asking about my memories of Jesus. He’s putting together the whole story so he can write it out for those that weren’t there or even alive when Jesus was with us. I put aside my work and sat down with him to remember.

There was this one time Jesus came to visit and I was so excited to host him, this man that healed so many. I mean, everyone was talking about him and how he was challenging to the Pharisees with their high and mighty ways. I was so ready for someone to confront them.

He had an entourage too, 12 guys, so when I heard they were accepting our invitation, I knew I’d need to provide a meal and wash feet and it was going to be a long, long day. I had staff and Mary but they all needed direction and that’s what I’m good at.

I wanted to do it right, you know, to show him how much we appreciated what he’d done for our community. I knew so many people who’d been healed, it just seemed like the right thing to do, to go all out.

I’d gotten a lot done by the time they all arrived. More showed up with him too! I should’ve known with the following he had at the time but it threw me for a loop. I was going crazy in the kitchen directing the servants and then I saw Mary, my sister, just in there with Jesus sitting in the main room!

She wasn’t helping at all! I started thinking that wasn’t right for her to leave me to do it all. She’d told me not to go overboard earlier that day. I knew how much she wanted to hear Jesus teach. We didn’t get that many opportunities to be taught as women. What we do get usually gets to us by way of other men like our brother Lazarus. He was great about passing things along to us.

But Jesus was always different. I’d noticed that in mixed groups he didn’t just engage the men but spoke personally to women too. One time I heard he actually talked to a woman about her cycle while on the way to heal a child of a priest. What man wants to hear about that?

He was different with women. He got us when no one else seemed to pay attention. It meant so much to me and now he was in my house. I just wanted to show him how much we loved him. But I got into my usual way and went overboard on prep and got “bossy” like Mary says.

In my mind, it just didn’t seem right that Mary wasn’t helping. I started sighing and making a little more noise than needed. It was our job to get the meal on the table and that’s all I could think about.

This is the funny party, I was sure Jesus would get it–how hard I was working for him and his guys.

I didn’t think he noticed, though, so I caught him in a calmer moment and asked him, ok told him, to tell Mary to come help me. I said more than that because I was pretty steamed at that point. If he really was caring toward women, he wouldn’t want me to be all alone in my chores, right?

I forgot how he kind of threw everything about our world and culture upside down.

I’ll never forget what he said. It really changed my life. With so much love in his eyes I can’t even describe it, he said my name…twice. Martha, Martha, he said. At this point I’d convinced myself he didn’t even know I was around. I was so resentful.

In that Jesus way, he showed me that I was so worried and easily frustrated by all my plans that didn’t even need doing! We could’ve gone without food that day. If I had realized that, I would’ve gotten to hear Jesus teach too.

I regret that. I didn’t sit there like Mary because I was making bread. Making bread, Luke! Of all things! Bread!

Of course I’d heard the stories but they didn’t sink in yet. Jesus fed crowds and crowds of people by miraculously providing bread. And there I was, making bread for the man who could provide it in an instant.

Crazy, right? I’ve always struggled with that, being so responsible and so good at keeping things running around our home. I put so much pressure on myself.

But then Jesus came and I could have rested but I wanted to show him my appreciation, worship I guess you could call it, when all he wanted was to give me rest…true rest. He didn’t want me making bread! He was showing me that I didn’t need to scramble to provide.

I didn’t need to make things so elaborate. I just needed to do what Mary did and be with him. The meal would work itself out. So what if we just ate bread bought from the bakery. Or what if we missed a miracle!

I missed out in some ways that day but I began to learn my lesson, the lesson. Jesus is the One, the Messiah and in Him all our needs are met. To sit at his feet that day, every day, is the best worship I could ever offer him. It’s all he really wants.

So when Lazarus died that time and Jesus showed up a few days late, I just knew I needed to put away all the chores and run to him. I still have that common sense, bossy side. I mean, I did tell Jesus the practicalities of opening that tomb. How laughable when I think back on it. Jesus, he’s gonna stink! I said, like he didn’t know!

You know the rest though. Lazarus is still with us and that miracle chipped away another huge chunk of my hard heart. Not only can he provide bread, he raises the dead.

And that was what I was before I trusted Jesus. Dead. But now, I’m alive and will be forever with Jesus thanks to his final gift of himself… his Spirit in me. Then one day, even more, a reunion.

I could go on and on Luke. How much time do you have?

On George MacDonald

~ eternalwaitofglory ~ 4 Comments

Walking on Sunday nights and Monday mornings is exciting. Monday is big trash day in my neighborhood, the day when all you cleared out of your house over the weekend gets set on the curb for pickup.

Among the treasures I’ve accumulated from these piles are: a 6 person tent, a kids life vest, a trash can for the garage (ironic, right?!), and books.

My kids don’t like to walk with me on Sunday nights or Monday mornings.

On day, two whole boxes of books called me over to the side of the road. As I searched through them, I gleaned the giver was probably a professor with lofty literary leanings who was interested in Christianity. I picked up a couple C.S. Lewis books, one of which was a book of George MacDonald quotes compiled by Lewis.

The preface gripped me as I delved into the book back at home. C.S. Lewis admired MacDonald. Wow. Just that one fact drew me in deeper. Anyone C.S. Lews counts as a mentor deserves attention.

As I learned more about MacDonald and read his quotes, I met one who saw deeply into the nature of people across generations. George saw the world, the times, and the people in it with a lens honed in on God’s heart. He knows God and cuts through all the add-ons we tend to accumulate in our lives.

Its always surprising to me when a person from a culture and time period so different from mine can relate truth that transcends to the here and now. How do they do it? I think it has to do with the nature of truth, it transcends.

So, here are a few of my favorite quotes from a novel I read by George MacDonald entitled A Daughter’s Devotion. Doesn’t that sound so Victorian and romantic? In reality, it is like meeting a mature sister and her father and following their life of fath.

I hope you enjoy some of my favorite George MacDonald quotes from A Daughter’s Devotion: 
Some will answer that you must have either distrust or self-confidence. "You must have neither," I reply. You must follow the truth and in that pursuit, the less one thinks about himself, the pursuer, the better. 
Let him so thirst after the truth that the dim vision of it occupies all his being, and leaves no time to think of his hunger and thirst. Self-forgetfulness is the healthiest of mental conditions. One has to look to his way, to his deeds, to his conduct--not to himself. In such losing of the false, or the merely reflected, we find the true self. (p.44)
But what is the use of the most powerful of medicines while they stand on the sick man's table? What is the mightiest of truths so long as it is not believed? The spiritually sick still mocks at the medicine offered; he will not know its cure. (p. 214)
In God alone, who is the truth, can creatures truly meet. (p. 267)
Jesus is the only man who is no exception. We are the exceptions. Everyone but Him is more or less out of straight. (p. 286)
Happy is he who has learned the gospel according to Jesus, as reported by John--that God is light and in Him there is no darkness at all! Happy is he who finds God his refuge from all the lies that are told for Him and in His name!  (p. 220)
Love and marriage are of the Father's most powerful means for the making of His foolish ones into sons and daughters. But so unlike, in many cases, are the immediate consequences to those desired and expected, that it is hard for many to believe He is anywhere looking after their fate. And the doubt would be a reasonable one, if the end of things was marriage. But the end is life--that we can become the children of God. (p. 260)
All God's gifts are a giving of Himself. (p. 240)
We may spoil gratitude as we offer it, by insisting on its recognition. To receive honestly is the best thanks for a good thing. (p. 45)
For me, this photo evokes that idea I get with George MacDonald of seeing something beautiful from a long way off.

My 4 Holiday Best Practices

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I’d love for my holidays to be magical and nostalgic this year like a Hallmark commercial but, in reality, I’m pretty wiped out and its still a few weeks until Thanksgiving break.

College students I talk with face longer than normal school breaks too. So many of us are home so much more, its come up that we’re a little nervous about more together time.

I’m not sure where you are as you anticipate the holiday break, but I’m already thinking through what might help my break feel restorative…or maybe just not totally suck.

So, here are a few lifelines I’m holding on to over the holidays in this very tumultous year.

#1: Read.

Fiction is always important to me. I read fiction every night. Lining up a few really good books for the holidays is a high priority on vacations and holidays. Good fiction helps me put worries and to-do lists aside at the end of a day and mentally unwind.

And when I say good fiction, I’m saying all fiction is not created equal. Remember that episode on Friends where Joey reads Rachel’s novel? He’s spot on. There’s plenty of good books out there that satisfy our God-given hunger for good stories.

Check out my top ten all time favorites!

#2: Ritual.

Ok, that sounds weird. I’m not into empty or evil rituals. I am into grounding patterns for my day that can reset my world a little bit. This is especially helpful when there is no outside schedule I laid out for me to follow, like during holidays when school and work are on a back burner.

One ritual I plan to keep is waking before my kids to a cup of coffee and reading my Bible. Another is taking a walk before it gets dark each day. These activities are not new and carrying them on helps me process through my days or prepare for them.

#3: Relax.

For the past few years, I’ve set aside one day of personal vacation before my kids are released on holiday break. On that day, my focus is to do indulgent things like watch a movie at 9am, wrap presents in the living room, and eat what I want to eat from a restaraunt even if I already have a sensible meal in the fridge.

Last year I assured my husband I loved and liked him and politely asked him to make himself scarce that day. He is so gracious and made himself scarce that day. It is a wonderful day. I’m looking forward to it this year so much!

Its my version of Treat Yo’self.

#4: Review.

I always spend the early hours of January 1st engaging my soul with some reflection on the past year. This year is one for the books, literally! If there was ever a year to reflect on, this is surely at the top of the list.

I know there are a few ways to do this so pick one that works for you. My favorite is Michael Hyatt’s Seven Questions to Ask About Last Year. Something about sitting in the quiet, remembering, grieving, celebrating, and recording my thoughts on my year helps me face the new one.

If you haven’t tried an exercise like this, consider setting aside some time to reflect and record.

Will more time at home be a gift after so many months of more time at home? I’m trusting that God always has more good in store for all of us in whatever circumstances we find ourselves.

I’ve enjoyed the Lord in each of these practices in different ways and I’m all about sharing the wealth! So let me know if you adopt one. I’d love to hear how it went for you.

In the Market

~ eternalwaitofglory ~ 3 Comments

Perusing through unpublished drafts, I found this post written while we still lived overseas. Its strange to think these markets are cut off from me right now in our current reality of a global pandemic. I still miss many aspects of our life overseas and this ranks up there–the fresh (or wet) markets.

I grew up accompanying my mother to the Piggly Wiggly to buy our food.  The shrink wrapped packages of meat beckoned me to poke them. Poke them I did! The vegetables in the frozen section came in neatly packaged bags. Milk sloshed around in large plastic gallon containers.

The checkout line tempted one with magazines, gum, candy, and a fun conveyor belt with a cashier and a whole person dedicated to placing items in bags for you. Sometimes…often…the cashier called you by name and actually thanked my mom for shopping in the store. Then the bagger pushed the cart to your car and loaded them up for free!

Fast forward several years and I find myself slipping around in the mud at the open vegetable market buying my family’s food in a foreign land. Yes, I chose this. I can drive or walk to the grocery store, but recently the parking garage is always full because it is free. So now I walk or bike to the fresh market across the street.

Biking gets tricky when I have to buy eggs because eggs are packaged loose in plastic shopping bags. I find it takes special skills to hang the bag over the handle bars and arrive home with all eggs intact. 

At the vegetable market I bump into neighbors, hear multiple invitations to come shop at different stalls, and all is accompanied by the occasional cluck of a chicken back in the live animal section. Unrefrigerated meat hangs on hooks all day and vegetables are so fresh they still have mud on them. Tofu comes in a hundred different varieties.

Tofu is kinda pretty!

It’s a social gathering place where any number of opportunities beckon the curious shopper. You can get a spare key made that may or may not work.  You can buy really expensive Tupperware or a really delicious and cheap breakfast. 

I love the excitement and the challenge and the people. I love the fruit vendor who always asks me to give up a kid for adoption because three is just too many and she would like to take one home. When I refuse, she concedes and gives me a few bananas with a smile. My kids always stand far from her.

Then there’s my preferred vegetable vendor whose produce isn’t the greatest but she has three kids too. We share a connection. Families with three kids are very rare and I support her in her choice to support lives by buying her slightly older vegetables.

Sometimes I surprise even myself. Last week I took a risk and bought unrefrigerated beef off a wooden slab from the Muslim butcher. I heard many years ago Muslim beef was the best. I am finally ready to try it.  It is not wrapped in plastic. I’m not tempted to poke it. 

The butcher speaks English much to the astonishment of her neighboring vendor. He gapes at her in surprise and she smiles and hangs her head, chagrined to reveal this special skill. I imagine this gossip will spread like wildfire later that day and her prestige will grow. I smile too.

It all now seems more normal to me than the Piggly Wiggly. I still enjoy the order, cleanliness, and service at the stores of my youth like one enjoys Disneyworld. When I visit, I indulge in being thanked and smile wide when baggers take my purchases to my car.

The Piggly Wiggly model often seems like the answer to the messes of life. Shouldn’t life be more orderly? I often think I’m missing out somehow when life is messy. But in striving for neatness, there’s often sacrifice too. 

I think the fray and disorder of the marketplace may be more like real life than the pristine order of the Piggly Wiggly. Real life is dirty and slippery and involves compromise and risk but also standing firm and knowing when to do which one.

And grace for ourselves and others because there’s just going to be some broken eggs on the way home in life.

Death by Paper Cut

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Wearing a mask. Answering another Covid screening question. Missing life milestones. Not getting to chaperone that school trip. Another zoom meeting.

These are just a few of the thousand little things that are piling up right now in this season of immense change and suffering.

I hope you enjoy this post from a few years ago. It seemed relevant in this age of radical upheaval…

One of the most difficult things about life anywhere, and life lived across cultures for sure, is that often it’s no one big thing that slays me…at least not yet.

It’s all the small things that add up and threaten to take me down.

Taken alone, each cut seems relatively minor and superficial, like a paper cut, but they sting. Each and every cut stings and there’s no time to put on a Band-Aid before the next cut comes.

Talking about what hurts seems silly.  It’s just a paper cut, why am I so upset about a paper cut? I minimize and compare. I don’t want to complain. I don’t suffer like that other person who really stood up for their faith in a stressful situation of direct confrontation.

No one really hurt me, right? I’m still alive, aren’t I? I discount the cut and fail to treat it.

Again and again the cuts come. Forgetting my passport. The person who cut me off again just this morning. The man who makes me re-park my car so that the nose faces out warning me that I am breaking the law if I don’t. He doesn’t understand that at least 5 people on the road endangered my very life and parking my car in a “cultured” way is the least important thing to worry about now. The lady at the store who will not even try my credit card even though I know it works. I did not bring cash. Smog.

Here in Asia it’s called “eating bitterness” these paper cuts. It’s an old saying about the difficulties of life and just taking it. It results in kick the dog syndrome, though. People just lose it for no clear or sufficient reason.  But I know why they lose it because I lose it too.

Unseen cuts cover us all and then someone pours salt on the wound. The salt without the wound is nothing but with the cuts…it brings sudden pain and I react.

Kick the dog syndrome spreads like a contagion. A woman picks up a brick on the street to throw at a man. I’ve seen that. A family fights in the apartment above us. Furniture shakes and screams keep me awake.  I’ve heard that too.

I wish for a formula to combat the paper cut plague but it doesn’t exist. I know more now to look at the cut and say it hurts…to cry even if it seems silly to cry over a paper cut. I know that real life seems more death by paper cut than death by some brave act of martyrdom though those stories also move me to tears.  DSC_0064

Death by paper cut is not as futile as it seems when I count the Lord’s view of suffering. He calls me to die to myself as He died for me…even in the smallest things. He calls me to persevere and endure and even do it joyfully because He gives me resources I just cannot muster myself.

As I contemplate more on this concept and acknowledge the cuts, I do find more joy because I find grace and mercy. I still kick dogs some days…not real dogs but proverbial dogs. I do a lot of apologizing. It is coming easier to apologize because I get a lot of practice.

But His grace and mercy, this is the salve that allows my soul to lay down and rest.

On Authority

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My dad and I snuck into a national park one time. We drove up, parked, and vaulted a low level fence.

To be fair, we couldn’t find the door. Did we look much? No. But we did see the fence and we jumped over. It wasn’t that hard.

This is the type of fence people don’t climb over.

Our first clue that we might get caught was that everyone wore one of those headsets that gives you an audio tour. We did not have one. We expected a security guard would notice and throw us out so we began avoiding them.

Real cloak and dagger stuff. I miss that man!

It was the most fun I’d had at an historical building in my life. We had no right to be there. I think there’s a connection.

There’s so much going on in my mind these days as the divisions in our world and nation lie exposed before us. The word authority is in its second week of grabbing my attention as I continue reading the accounts of Jesus’ life on earth (aka the gospels).

It screams of the pages…authority. He had a authority. He spoke like one with authority. He claimed authority. He did not need authority from people. He taught like one with authority.

What did that look like? Sound like? What does it mean to have authority?

I have a measure of authority in certain spheres. I’m kind of an authority on what’s in the pantry, the kids’ schedules, how much laundry detergent to use, and bargaining.

But its all a bit eye-of-the-beholder stuff. I totally forgot about the expired coconut oil I bought 6 years ago sitting unused in the corner of the shelf. Kids’ schedules change and I’m late for pick up. Detergent dosages are up for debate and ultimately set by Tide or Whirlpool.

When it comes down to it, there are few areas of my life that I am free to act with complete authority.

And, even if I had that kind of authority, I know myself well enough that I would also need many wise, honest people around me to check my propensity to make many, many mistakes.

Jesus made an impression because He acted according to the truth because He is the truth. He needed no stamps of approval, oversight committees, or consensus. Everything was His and everyone knew it the moment He arrived. They may not have liked it but they could not avoid the truth.

He possessed authority and wielded it perfectly even as a humble carpenter of doubtful parentage (to the critics) without the highest-level education available for the day–because of His divinity.

There was something fun and terrifying in seizing authority that day in Tennessee with my dad. All along, though, I knew I was a trespasser… a fraud.

Learning to truly submit to God’s authority in my life from the depths of my soul–that is a daily deeper dive for me. I find that I’m becoming most truly myself when I submit to God.

That’s true freedom, not to live as my own authority but embracing my place under the One who has all authority.

Finding Lost Things

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I am the #1 finder in our house. If something is lost, I’m the one that gets called in pretty quick. Sometimes too quickly.

I’ve threatened people in my family. If I find it upon entering your room and just looking around, I’m going to be…not happy, I say.

While I packed to go on a trip once, I opened the cabinet where we kept our nice DSLR camera. My destination was beautiful and I wanted to beef up my stock of photos. The cabinet opened and no camera.

This puzzled me because I’d taken a trip the week before with the camera and was sure it came home with me. I backtracked my steps and remembered that when I got off the plane at home, I left it in the overhead bin. I’d left it and lived in great peace and calmness not knowing our expensive camera was gone.

But I was headed to the airport so I decided to just check and see if they had a lost and found. My experience with losing things in Asia was not great. If you left something somehwere, it was no longer there 5 minutes later. My hope was almost nonexistent.

You know what? I came home with our camera.

There was a lost and found. The camera was waiting. To claim it, we needed to look at the photos. Bummer, dead battery. So I described the photos of the panda reserve, little blonde kids, and a wide smile wreathed the woman’s face.

She remembered the photos and gave me back our camera! I was so happy.

The camera is still with us taking great pictures.

Losing things is not fun. Finding things is so much more fun.

Here’s a few things that guide my searches…

It will not come to you. The essence of lost things is that they do not know they are lost and they cannot get back. We’re talking about things here. They just are where we left them. They’re not going to come back to us on their own. They must be found. Waiting around isn’t going to bring them back.

Lost things do not come back on their own.

Where was it last? Start there. You see, lost things are where they are. They are things and they don’t know they are lost. They do not move on their own. It’s obvious and easy to forget when looking, but you must backtrack and determine where the item was last.

You must go and discover where the lost thing is if you want to find it.

What was happening? If backtracking doesn’t work, then think about what was happening. In the panic of losing things, my family members generally resist my questions. They feel antagonistic and blaming. What were you doing? spoken to a sensitive soul feels accusatory.

But, it helps me to know if the shoes are under the chair where Xbox is played or in the backyard because they were contaminated with the dog waste.

Discovering the story around the loss will help you know where to look.

Why can’t we see it? So often, I find things because I lifted something else. The calculator was under the shirt. The keys were in the pants pocket. The stuffed tiger was in the microwave (yes, that’s a funny story of sibling rivalry).

Sometimes the item is hiding under something. Well, it isn’t hiding but it got covered up and needs to be uncovered.

Be persistent. Ask dumb questions. Basic elementary questions like what was I carrying? Where would I be if I were Ali’s camera after an airplane trip? Keep asking and don’t give up hope that there’s a lost and found when nothing ever seems to get found.

Persistence and hope lead us much farther than despair.

Wait. Somethings are only found by waiting. When we’ve exhausted the search, sometimes we need to wait. Often, one day it will just show up in the least expected place.

Time can uncover what our abilities cannot.

Pray. The much loved stuffed Tiger was lost for three days. Three days of comforting a crying boy with a second best toy at night. I related my small dilemma to a friend on the phone. She said she’d pray. I prayed a one liner to God that moment, looked to my left and saw Tigey stuffed between the fridge and the wall.

God can find things for us when we ask for help.

…

As I walked around campus and my city this week and talked to people who are seeking God, I started thinking about finding.

Do I really search for people? It haunts me a little

I hope I can be as good at finding lost people as I am at finding my kids calculator.

Gardening Gems

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Every so often I’m in the car around noon on the day the gardening talk show is on the radio. Somehow I just never want to turn the dial eventhough I don’t garden.

It might be his soothing voice saying who knows what about a topic of which I know little. Or, maybe this will be the year I’ll need to know these things because this will be the year I become a planter of things. 

But a couple times over the past month, I’ve stayed tuned because what he’s talking about resonates on a deeper level than maintaining my yard. 

Once it was soil. Yes. Dirt. He was talking about dirt. It caught me because he said something like 75% of the chance that a plant grows is determined before the plant is put into the dirt. He was talking about the soil. If the soil was prepared well, the plant would grow well.

That explains a lot of why my flower bed look like they do. I just dig holes, put stuff in and pray. It hasn’t worked great. 

Then, today they were talking about pests and diseases in plants. They complained about people who see pests and disease and just want some spray to take care of it. So silly their tone suggests.

20130822-103544.jpg
No, I did not grow this. Beautiful, isn’t it?

Hmmm. That’s kind of what I do. Just get rid of the pest and we’re good, right?

No! They talked about looking at the whole situation and taking care of what was causing the issue in the first place or it would come back.

I realized my gardening is very surface level. I’m in it for fast results, not really the long term cultivation. I’ve not learned to cultivate the land and truly care for it. 

The same is often true of my spiritual life. I want fast methods to lead to quick results.

Instead the Bible talks often about gardens, cultivation, tending, and shepherding…all activities that are wholistic and slow but when embraced in our soul, yield the lives we really want. 

Lives that grow and produce beautiful things that can sustain others too. 

We don’t know what to do but…

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I encounter more people now as our community stumbles forward and we try to feel each other out. How close is it ok to approach a person on a neighborhood walk? What criteria do I use to decide if I go back to church in-person or watch online? What level of risk is appropriate to be with people and for what purpose?

Figuring out this new world, learning how to live in it as we hold in tension so many competing realities is a weight we are all learning to carry.

The other times in my life that I remember talking this much about how to interact with people on a daily basis was when we first moved overseas. My husband and I experienced an onslaught of new our first few years overseas that left us speechless, staring at our McDonald’s cheeseburgers.

We are now back in the country we grew up in. But, with the sudden shift of culture caused by this pandemic, it again feels like we are learning a new world. We are in the same place physically as last year but doing so many things so differently adding to the strangeness of it all.

It’s like the world tilted and I’m left again grasping for firmer ground.

A passage of the Bible that captured my attention this past week was the story of Jehoshaphat (yes, like in Great Jehoshaphat!). He was one of the good kings in the Bible. He went around to the whole kingdom to talk to the judges and tell them, look guys, you’re working for God and He’s not a God of injustice, bribery or partiality so let the fear of God guide you.

Wow! I really appreciate that kind of leadership.

A lot of times you read these stories about the good kings and generally things go better for them, but not Jehoshophat. He soon learns a huge army is coming for them and they’re pretty powerless to stop it. He prays this great long prayer but at the end he says, We don’t know what to do, but our eyes are on You. 

So then, another guy stands up and says he’s got something to say from God. He basically says, don’t be afraid or discouraged. Go out to the battle but you will not need to fight in this one. Stand firm and hold your position. God ends up routing the enemy before they even get to Israel’s army.

There is something beatiful and right in determining you’re up against something bigger than you can deal with and saying I don’t know what to do. And, then, still showing up to the battle even when it’s not clear how it will all play out, just that God will be there.

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In all this upheaval, I’m realizing the importance of showing up to see what God will do. When I say show up, I mean open up opportunities, be available and trust that God can do something no matter how meager and anemic the method feels.

Somehow, he’s not limited by our physicality. I can tell you, God shows up on video calls, phone calls (they’re back in again–just give younger folks a pre-call text), and conference calls.

I guess that’s where I am today, I don’t know what to do often. I feel overwhelmed some days. But I want my eyes to be on Him.

Sometimes its more that I don’t know how to do it this way, but I am trying to take the step and trust Him to be there in the middle of it with me.

Each time, as I look back I can see that He’s never deserted me.

 

Open Your Mouth Wide

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School begins in a couple weeks…maybe. Who knows in all this uncertainty? The one thing I’m told to accept in this season is change. So. Much. Change.

I cannot think of many things that are certain besides what we will have for dinner…if the grocery store has all the ingredients, of course.

I wish this what I made for dinner but we can’t be happy ALL the time, can we?

As the pandemic continues my tolerance of change is wearing thin. I want to know things. I want to be sure of something. I want to be able to tell my kids a piece of information I’m certain will not change.

Right now, I want to do something normal. I want to buy school supplies. I want there to be a list and I want to buy everything new, neatly packaged and put it in a backpack because it feels normal.

But I don’t need all the things on the list. I don’t know if my kids will darken a school door in a historically “normal” way. But I don’t really care.

I want the order to calm the storm that is happening around us.

When I check the news or social media, it provides mostly grief. We are all trying to latch onto something certain like desperate people drowning at sea.

Maybe its a politician, a plan, an ideology, or conspiracy theory…but we want a life preserver.

And when we think it will save us, we latch on hard. So hard.

One phrase in my readings of the Bible comes to mind often when I feel so much want that I don’t know what to do with it. Where do I go with these impossible longings for a life that looks different than our current reality?

Open wide your mouth and I will fill it.

God wasn’t just talking about food. He is talking about total reliance on Him to fulfill our needs, wants, and desires. In the context of this verse, God’s people are going to many, many other people for stability.

It’s worth noting who they were going to:

Spiritual leaders who promised peace when God was promising captivity.

Political leaders who promised power when God’s power was with other nations.

Foreign leaders who promised alliance when God said rely on Him.

Material objects that promised fulfillment when God said only He could fulfill.

And nothing has changed, has it? I still want to go to these things and claim a place of power, of agency over my circumstances. More than many other turbulent times in my life, this era is unique in its universalism.

The whole world is scrambling.

The whole world is longing for the same things. But will we go to the One who is truly capable of providing for us?

I don’t know. I hope so. I labor towards that end.

And I open my soul mouth wide, naming all my hungers, and I wait and trust that God will feed me.

Somehow. In some way. Because He promised He would.

I don’t know how He will do it, but I am eager to see.