Streams in the Desert

      I’m so thankful God doesn’t change his mind about us like we so often do about each other and even him. Once he’s adopted us into his family, we’re his children forever -- no matter what we do or how we perform. He promises that he’s “loved us with an everlasting love,” and that he's engraved our name on the palms of his hands (Jer 31:3, Is 49:16).While he is disappointed and disciplines us when we don’t walk in the Spirit, he won’t ever give up on us or leave us (Deut 31:6).
      Though God’s unchanging character and  unconditional love are comforting, I still struggle many times to communicate with him. Sometimes it’s because of severe trials which leave me depleted of energy and joy. At other times it’s boredom as I allow myself to get into a rut in my quiet time and start praying out of habit instead of focusing on my relationship with him. And sometimes I let sin remain in my life, which leaves me feeling convicted and uncomfortable in his presence.
       The most challenging part of feeling disconnected from God is dealing with it as soon as possible so I don’t miss out on the blessings of his love and the fruit of the Spirit in my life. I’ve recently been having an extremely hard time praying, so much so that I’ve been giving up after about fifteen minutes, not managing to say more than a few words. While it’s taken several weeks to realize that I’ve started a pattern of avoiding him,  I’m beginning to make out glimpses from the past that are strikingly similar to what I’m experiencing now. In fact, I’m seeing that I’ve been in this same place many times before. It’s a spiritual desert where dust is flying and there’s no sign of water.  I know enough from the past that if I’m going to come through this dryness to a period of refreshing the worst thing I can do is to keep ignoring it. Instead, I desperately need to refocus on who God is, what he’s done for me and how he wants to use my life to make a difference in the world.
     “I know that my Redeemer lives” (Job 19:25).  Job wrote this in the midst of a spiritual crisis to remind himself that no matter how far away God seems, he’s living and ruling with power.  I may feel tired and burned out, but I also have confidence that God is alive and reigning from his position of power in the heavenly places (Ps 47:8). At the same time, he’s tenderly caring for each of his children, including me (Ps 103:13). He gave up his Son’s life in exchange for ours, and Christ traded his righteousness for our sins so that we could stand justified, purified and accepted before God. “He who knew no sin became sin so that we could become right with God (2 Cor 5:21). As I focus on who he is and what he’s done, my mind is overwhelmed by the extent of his love, and my heart begins to melt and soften as he draws me back into his presence.
     “Apart from him I can do nothing” (Jn 15:5). It’s easy to lose a sense of closeness by avoiding him, so that before long we’re filling his place with anything and everything else. He says in John 15 that the only way we’ll ever thrive is by staying in a vital, communing relationship with him. After many years as a Christian, it’s easy to forget what life was like apart from him. As I look back at chapters from the past I feel gratitude for all he’s done – lifting me out of the pit and putting a new song in my heart (Ps 40:2), establishing hope in place of despair and leading me down paths that have brought purpose to a once self-absorbed, destructive life. Not only that, but he daily sustains me by his unconditional, relentless love, grace and mercy. Apart from his salvation and the Spirit’s work, I know that I can do nothing of any spiritual significance. To venture into even one day without his transforming power means to choose a dry, tasteless life. It’s a really terrible alternative to the joy and fruitfulness I can experience by abiding in him (Jn 15:8, Gal 5:22-23).
     “With God all things are possible” (Mat 19:26). While I can’t do anything of any eternal significance apart from God’s grace and power, he promises that the possibilities are limitless if I’ll remain in his love (Jn 15:5). When I’m going through a desert like the one I’m in right now, I often lose the vision to be a light to others so that they can come to know the One who rescued me. Life apart from God morphs into a selfish existence, one that’s all about me and how I can sustain my fleshly comfort. But life in the Spirit propels me to a transformed way of living and loving so that I desire to take part in God’s greater purpose. He desires to pour out blessings on all his children, to daily enrich us with his Word and Spirit, not only for our own good but so that we'll move out of our protective comfort zone and into the sphere of influence he’s given us (no matter how small), freely sharing with others the message of his redeeming love.
      God wants me to remember these truths each day so that unlike the Israelites I don’t give up, forget hope and lose my footing. They’re foundational to challenging me to keep pressing into God and praying even when I don’t feel it. He wants to bring refreshing through streams in the desert, so that I'll learn to live and walk by faith. When I come out on the other side, I’ll have improved strength and courage along with  an ever growing confidence in his goodness and faithfulness.
       As I sit down once again and attempt to talk with him about what’s going on in my heart it’s painful. Snapshots of previous days spent avoiding him crowd my thinking as I vividly picture all the sins I’ve piled up. But he’s there with even greater influence, reminding me of what Christ has finished on the cross. Because of his death and resurrection I can now stand unashamed in his presence – fully loved, fully accepted and counted blameless, not because of anything I’ve done but because of his righteousness, which was a gift of his astounding grace (Eph 2:8-9, Phil 3:9). He looks at me right now, and instead of seeing my sins, he sees the purity of his own Son. With the reminder of these truths, I’m able to push past condemning thoughts (Rm 8:1) and the pull of indifference and once again fix my eyes on him. My heart starts to warm, my spirit feels hopeful. The dullness gradually gives way to expectancy as I once again experience his refreshing presence.

"I will make rivers flow on barren heights, and springs within the valleys. I will turn the desert into pools of water, the parched ground into springs" (Is 41:18)

Grace Exceeds the Sum of Our Fears

       In watching The Sum of All Fears last night I realized that the title as well as the plot spoke volumes about the Christian life and facing trials. While God is undoubtedly reigning and ruling the universe, even down to the tiniest molecule, the enemy has been given some measure of freedom to wreck havoc on creation and in God’s people’s lives for a season. Jesus conquered him on the cross, crushing his head and declaring eternal victory over his rule, yet his final destruction won’t occur until the end of time. So he works to create situations and to orchestrate problems that will stir up in us the sum of all our fears so that we’re left powerless, without a passion for God’s glory and his Kingdom.
     As I was watching the movie, I started thinking back on the times over the past 25 years as a Christian that I faced the most overwhelming sorrow and fear, when circumstances seemed to say there was no hope and I should give up. One common theme throughout these experiences was that they equaled the sum of my fears – those things I dreaded most in life. As I reflected on them, I saw that in the middle of these earthshaking, emotion-gripping experiences God beautifully sustained me, provided for all my needs and never allowed me to be destroyed as I’d imagined.
     It's easy to look at past tragedies and say, “But I was left to suffer intensely.” These memories of rigorous suffering block us from seeing and appreciating the greater reality that God did provide relief, healing, restoration and deliverance after a season. The fact that we had to experience those things we dreaded most can leave us with a rift with God and an uncertainty that we can trust him to take care of and protect us in the future. If this happens, we tend to lose our passion to live for his Kingdom and his will and gravitate instead toward self preseveration and comfort. We lose our saltiness and begin to look and act like the rest of the world instead of who we are – children of the most amazing God of the universe.
     When I was a young girl I was raped repeatedly and no one was there to stop it or to protect me. That experience shaped me for the next ten years, and though I’ve been through a lot of healing it’s something I’ll never forget. I’ve wondered why that had to happen to me, why my parents divorced when I was small and my father wasn’t interested in getting to know me, why I struggled with certain things that others didn’t have to endure. Then I wondered for many years why God waited so long to bring me the husband I so wanted, why he allowed us to go through severe testing in the ministry, why he let me suffer from chronic fatigue for up to five years. I wondered why our daughters had certain struggles, why we had to move to Korea when I never wanted to leave the country, why others would ever do and say things to me that were so hurtful. And the list goes on.
     I’ve faced my greatest fears on more than one occasion. But the sum them does not equal defeat. They only represent the middle of the story, rather than the end. When reading any good novel, I rarely give up at a point of great tragedy, since it’s obvious that the author has a plan to reveal more details and likely to bring about change. In fact, I’m usually so sure of a better ending that I skip to the last few pages for reassurance that everything is going to somehow be sorted out and redemption will follow distress and loss.
     As Christians, we know that God promises to sort everything out in the end, that when we enter his presence all sorrow and pain will be removed. But even in this life we’re promised that God will restore us from trials, that he’ll be there with great power to lift us up out of the pits of life and bring deliverance, renewed strength, and a deeper understanding of his unfathomable love. For a season we may face our greatest fears, but he guarantees they won’t consume us. Joy will come in the morning. In 1 Peter 5:10, we’re given this promise: “And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you.” In reflecting on my past tragedies I can see the “already” of him working them out for good. He’s never abandoned me, never left me in a pit. He’s always, at the right time, lifted me up and brought about life-transforming restoration. Though the painful memories are sometimes more present than I’d like, he even uses these to give me compassion for others who are suffering through similar trials (2 Cor 1:3-11). He takes every ingredient in the enemy’s attempt to bring destruction and makes a redemptive masterpiece in its place.
     In light of this reality it makes no sense to dwell on the trauma experienced in the middle of suffering, but rather to focus on the ensuing chapters when God begins putting the pieces back together in a healing and restorative way. I, like you, may have to walk through the valley of the shadow of death, but we don’t have to allow the enemy or our emotions to distract and terrify us with the sum of all our fears. Instead, we can be certain that as Christians our trials never have a tragic ending. God reaches down, every time, and redeems what looks impossibly broken, no matter how terrible it appears. He gives us beauty for our ashes, and makes everything lovely in his time (Is 61:3, Ecc 3:11). With this certainty, we have all that we need to face today and the rest of our lives with courage and confidence. While we can’t predict what will happen, we know that God has promised that he’ll not only get us through it, but that we’ll come through with great victory (1 Jn 5:4).

Peace Be Still!

     After a long walk on the oceanfront trail, we decided to stop for yogurt on the way home. That’s when my friend discovered her wallet was missing and that she'd probably left it in the taxi on the way to our apartment. Since there are hundreds of different taxis swarming Busan, she couldn’t remember the details about the cab, but she did know that she had several credit cards, her ID and a lot of cash in the wallet. Our hearts sank as we realistically assessed the possibility of ever getting it back.
     After praying, shock slowly gave way to wisdom as God showed us clearly what steps to take: Contact the security guard at the gate with the information and her number in case the taxi returned, call a friend to get the number for the bank, go get her bank book so we could run an update and be sure no one was using the card. While this was happening, God sent one of my best students down the hill. After explaining the situation to him, he joined us in the car as we went back to my friend’s apartment so that she could get the details about her credit cards. As she was upstairs getting information, a police car drove up and two smiling officers got out holding up a wallet and saying my her name. (Earlier Mark had received a call from one of them, since he’d given my friend his business card months ago. But we couldn’t understand him.)
     Thankfully, all her cards were intact, with only the money missing. Though it was a stressful two hours, God was doing so much in each of our lives to teach us incredible lessons and remind us of his faithfulness. I started thinking about how I use the cut and paste option so often in dealing with computer documents and wondered, “What if I were to cut and paste this situation and God’s faithfulness and love demonstrated in it to other situations that were more challenging and lasted longer than two hours, maybe for months and years. And what if in doing so I pasted the anxiety that overtook me for the first hour as we wondered if she’d ever get the wallet and her credit cards back? How much joy and peace could I lose? What if instead I chose at the beginning to praise and thank God for the victory he was going to provide, though I couldn’t be sure what it would entail, so that when he did give an answer I hadn’t lost so much time fretting?”
     Since God showed up in the recovery of her wallet, it’s only logical that he’s here with us in the larger problems like disease, death, loss of a job or home, a rebellious child, loneliness and depression. It’s natural to grieve and to feel fear and even to experience waves of anxiety (something that unfortunately happens to me often in trials). But we do make a choice about whether we’re going to live or remain in the fear. Feeling these emotions is something we can’t control; embracing them and letting them define us is. God commands and exhorts us not to be afraid or terrified (365 times “fear not” is mentioned in the Bible), because he doesn’t want us walking around living like we’re scared to death about anything, even the Goliath’s in our lives. Why? Because he’s absolutely, without a shadow of a doubt, going to intervene on our behalf. It’s not something we can only hope for, but a promise he’s made that he will rescue and deliver us, that he takes delight in caring for his children (Ps 50:15, Ps 91:14, Zeph 3:17, 2 Tim 4:18, 2 Cor 1:10).
     One of my favorite reminders of this is in Psalm 18 where David uses a metaphor to describe God’s zealous passion to protect and rescue his children. God mounts his chariot, riding through the clouds with flames coming out of his nostrils. He shoots arrows, scatters the enemies and then achieves his ultimate goal from the start: “He reached down from on high and took hold of me; he drew me out of deep waters. He rescued me from my powerful enemy, from my foes, who were too strong for me. They confronted me in the day of my disaster, but the LORD was my support. He brought me into a spacious place; he rescued me because he delighted in me” (Ps 18:16-19.
     This is sometimes hard for us to wrap our minds around isn't it -- that God delights in rescuing, protecting and providing for us. But he says it persistently in his Word. In fact, the Bible paints a continual picture of God reaching down, a zillion times it seems, and lifting his beloved out of pits, restoring their hope, healing them, giving them comfort and repeatedly exhorting them not to fear because he’s with them.
     Yahweh, the great I AM, the God who parted waters, knocked down strongholds, defeated powerful armies, healed diseases and raised his Son from the dead, is with us, living inside us by his Spirit and even taking hold of our right hand (Is 41:13). He says in Isaiah 41:14, “I myself will help you.” He’s not too important to snatch three men from a fire or to deliver one of his children from the lion’s den. He’s never too preoccupied to take care of a lonely woman at a well or to meet a worn out prophet in the wilderness and encourage him. His compassion toward us is so immense that it surpasses knowledge (Ep 3:19). We look at our children when they suffer and do everything we can to alleviate their trials. God looks at our suffering and in wisdom does what is necessary to not only comfort and help us but to allow us to learn and grow from the difficulty.
     God’s call to us today is to remember his unfathomable love and faithfulness in the past, to cut and paste the reality of it onto our present situations so that we can relax and know he’s God (Ps 46:10). The waves may try to overtake us and the fire may threaten our destruction, but God says, “Peace be still” (Mk 4:30). By standing on his promises, we can enter his rest, even in the most troubling times.

"Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go" (Jos 1:9).