Fishtailing

The windshield wiper on the passenger side of my car is broken.  We have taken it in to have it fixed three times and it works a while then breaks again.  I hate it because in heavy storms when Phil is driving, I can’t help him and I know that he needs my help.  I hate that feeling of being out of control. 

Today on facebook Corey, one of the teens in our church, wrote that he fishtailed around a corner while driving his brother’s truck and he found it to be exciting.  I wish that I found such adventures exciting, but I am 50(+) and being out of control is not exciting anymore.  I think Corey is a little like God, a lover of adventure, and I am the passenger without a windshield wiper trying to trust in Him to maneuver me safely.

It’s hard to trust in God when my life is fishtailing around corners and my stomach is in my throat.  I wish there were three simple rules to follow to deal with such situations.  I wish God would take a driving test and drive safely like me, sometimes I wonder if He has read the rules.  I wish that faith was easy. 

Sometimes when I look at the difficulties that God has asked me to walk through I want to say—“wait, you have the wrong girl—I’m not the strong and adventurous type”, but maybe God sees something I don’t see in me and maybe He sees something in you.  Maybe He sees something special in our souls that He knows He can refine and beautify in a way that will bring glory to Him that only our unique crisis can do.

Isaiah 25:4 & 5

            You have been a refuge for the poor, a refuge for the needy in his distress, a shelter from the storm and a shade from the heat.  For the breath of the ruthless is like a storm driving against a wall and like the heat of the desert.  You silence the uproar of foreigners; as heat is reduced by the shadow of a cloud, so the song of the ruthless is stilled.

I hope that you find refuge and faith in your storms when visibility of what God is doing is very limited.  I pray you find shade in distress when you are melting from the heat of your difficult situations and I pray God receives glory in all of our faith-challenging, “real life” hurdles.

Easter

I know that today is not Easter, but tomorrow I will busy being “Martha” taking care of details, so I am going to set aside today as my day to worship my risen Lord and think about the glory of His resurrection.

I have read the resurrection story so many times, but this time I found a couple of things exciting about the resurrection and a couple of humorous things.  Since this is a joyous occasion, I hope it will be okay if I just mention the things that strike me as funny.

The first thing that is humorous to me is that I see how much my son-in-law, Justin, is like Jesus.  In John 20, verse 7, John points out that the burial cloth that covered Jesus head was folded.  That is just what Justin would have done. I am not certain just who folded this linen cloth, but I am going to presume that it was Jesus and this shows me that Jesus and Justin have something in common. They are neat.  (I’m just kidding, Justin is more like Jesus than just being neat.)  It's kind of endearing to me to think of Jesus coming to life and then getting up and folding the linen that covered His head.

Really though—of all the information that I am concerned about in this story and all my unanswered questions, the fact that this piece of information gets written in scripture leaves me wondering.  I am sure there is some deep theological reason or fulfillment of some prophecy for the inclusion of this tidbit of info, but for just the average student of God's Word, it strikes me as strange that these details have been recorded in this amazing story.  John must have been a person who paid attention to detail, like a crime scene investigator.

My second funny thought is that Mary, confused, believes Jesus to be the gardener and says, “Sir, if you have carried Him away, tell me where you have put Him and I will get Him”.  Did Mary think that she was going to carry Jesus body by herself? That is just like a person in grief to be nonsensical in their thinking.  I have been there and know how it works. This particular scene causes me to feel a sense of kindred spirit with Mary as I read her statement.

But seriously, I can’t even imagine the thrill of experiencing the revelation that the deepest grief you have ever experienced is immediately turned to joy as you realize that person that you believed to be dead is alive.  The horror of the crucifixion is assuaged as she sees Jesus restored.

One other particularly striking thing to me is that John 20:9 says, “They (the disciples) still did not understand from Scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead”.  Sometimes I feel pretty slow to catch on to things that God is trying to teach me, but I am in good company the disciples were there too.  Somehow knowing that they also struggled to understand makes me feel normal.

This is a great journey—confusing, sorrowful, faith-challenging, joyous, and exciting journey.  I love Easter!  I love the power of God that raised Jesus from the dead, I love Jesus and I love that He is so patient with all of us as we struggle to comprehend what is just unfathomable.

Black Friday

Today is Good Friday, but I prefer to think of it as Black Friday.  We remember Jesus’ death.  It is humbling to think about Jesus dying for us, that our sin made it necessary for Him to suffer, but it is also a time to realize how great God’s love is for humanity.  

We have the ability to step back from the situation and view His death with understanding and also a foreknowledge of His resurrection, but the disciples and Mary, Jesus’ mother, didn’t have this.  When Mary stood at the cross and observed Jesus’ cruel death and listened as Jesus released power of attorney of her life to His disciple, John, she didn’t have the insight we have.  

Mary has always fascinated me.  Her Jewish life was flipped upside down and her faith was rattled to the core.   When she said, “may it be to me as you have said”, to the angel announcing that she would be the mother of the Messiah, I don’t think the cross was what she signed up for.  When she and Joseph went to their son’s baby dedication and Simeon said a sword would pierce Mary’s soul, I don’t think this was the sword that Mary understood.

Jesus rocked his follower’s world.  He rocked His family’s world.  Some scholars believe that when Mary and Jesus’ brothers came to see Jesus in Mark chapter 3, they were going to try to discourage Him from His radical teaching and the fact that Mary was at the cross alone and being turned over to John to oversee her care, shows that probably Jesus’ brothers deserted His teaching and remained in their comfortable belief system.

Mary was not only losing Jesus, but when she abandoned her former religious system it probably cost her the relationships she had with her other sons.  Jesus later appeared to his brother, James, in 1 Corinthians 15 and James became a follower because we see him in the upper room and as a leader of the church in Jerusalem, but at that moment at the cross, Mary must have felt very hopeless and alone.

The disciples scattered, their sense of comradeship was sunk, plans for a bright future caved in and it was a dark time.  Their faith was severely tested and none of them aced the test except maybe John and most failed the test miserably.   So to add to their grief of the loss of Jesus, there is the shame of their own personal weakness.

But that was not the end of the story and Jesus knew it—in the midst of all the chaos and grief, shame, guilt, and fear and all the other emotions associated with loss of someone dearly loved, Jesus knew what was coming.  He knew there would be a resurrection.  He suffered and died for the weakness of humanity, but that was not the end of the story.

Passover

It’s Maundy Thursday and in the past we have celebrated this day by participating in a Passover meal, but this year due to conflicts in our schedule, we are not able to host the meal.  It is the first time in several years I have not been busy with preparations for the celebration, but my thoughts are flowing to elements on the Seder plate and remembering Jesus partaking in the celebration with His disciples before going into the Garden to pray.

I feel amazed that Jesus “eagerly desired” to celebrate this meal with his disciples.  First of all, Jesus knew what was coming and He was still able to celebrate.  What a valuable characteristic to have.  When I have had something bad happen to me or have knowledge of a forthcoming crisis, the last thing I want to do is celebrate.  I believe this is a quality of faith to be able to celebrate the good things that God does despite what is looming in my future or right in front of my face.

The fact that He was going to have to address Judas’ betrayal and Peter’s denial would make me want to just not attend.  I would rather withdraw in privacy than have to deal with conflict on the night before I was going to be arrested.  Jesus amazes me—I am constantly aware of how much I am not like Him.  I am becoming more and more like Him, yet still so far away.

As the disciples looked at the items on the Seder plate—the salt water reflecting the tears of the Israelites while in Egypt, the bitter herbs reminding them of the bitterness of soul the people suffered in Egypt, the charoset symbolic of the mortar placed between the matzo bread representing the hard labor of the Israelites to make structures under Egyptian taskmasters, the lamb shank bone representing the lambs killed to sprinkle blood on the door frames of the Israelites home to spare them from the last plague of death of the firstborn son, the green vegetables representing rejuvenation and the roasted egg representing new birth, the wine and the matzo which Jesus took and gave new meaning, maybe they were only viewing the symbols through the lens they had always viewed them and weren’t prepared to hear what Jesus was going to teach them further in the meal about what was to come.

Sometimes my religious background can be a stumbling block to the fresh insight that the Holy Spirit wants to give me.  Much like the disciples partaking in a tradition with religious significance, but missing the meaning that Jesus was trying to give to the symbols.  I hope that I can have eyes of faith to be able to see the fresh revelations that God wants to teach me even in the commonness of my life.

The disciples listened as Jesus talked and washed their feet.  They took of the bread that Jesus used to redirect its meaning to represent His body that would be broken and the wine that he said would represent His blood that would be spilled.  They listened, but they didn’t fully understand.  I used to think the disciples weren’t too bright when I see how they followed Jesus and still didn’t get what was going on, but I find myself doing the same thing all the time.

I try to hear Jesus and follow Him—to model my life after Him, but I miss the mark in so many ways.  I would like to think that He didn’t need to spill His blood for me, but I am so in need of redemption and He had to pay the price for my sin.  Maybe that’s why they couldn’t get it—it was some form of subconscious denial because it was too hard to accept that Jesus would have to suffer for their personal sin.  I don’t really know exactly what they were thinking or why they weren’t able to fully understand, but I do know that I love that their humanness is so evident in this particular story as my humanness is evident in my life’s story and Jesus loved them and returned to them as He does for me.

The other thing that is on my mind related to the celebration of Passover, is that from the time those precious babies were being thrown in to the Nile River and Moses mother placed him in a basket in that same river to protect him from being annihilated till the time Moses appeared before Pharaoh to relay God’s message, eighty years had passed.  I have had about a decade of partaking of bitterness and tears, but not eighty and the Israelites were in bondage in Egypt for 400 total years.  The Lord heard their cries, but was not in a big hurry before He stretched forth His mighty hand to bring about their deliverance.

God’s ways are a mystery to me.  Maybe because I am a softy, I have a hard time identifying with what God is doing sometimes in the Bible and also in my personal life, but that is where faith comes in.  I not only have to trust in God, I also have to trust in His timing even though He appears quite slow to me.

Read through the story of God’s deliverance of His children in the first thirteen chapters of Exodus and be amazed at Moses faith and God’s mighty hand.  Read it and seek fresh revelation from the story.  Also read in the gospels the story of Jesus celebration of Passover with His disciples today.  I hope you will find meaning and increased faith.

Facing Waves

My husband and I went to Oahu, Hawaii, in November this year for our 30^th anniversary.  We were not aware that November is the month Van’s Triple Crown holds its surf competition on the North Shore of Oahu close to where we were staying.  It was exciting to watch all kinds of surfers riding the huge November waves off the north shore.  We watched surfers on the beaches who were the best in the world and some just pretty good catching the great November waves.  Not many beginner surfers started learning to surf when the waves were the size they are in November—only the really adventurous or stupid.

As we sat on bleachers and watched some of the competition in Haleiwa and I looked out at those waves, I thought, I’ve had some big, honking November north shore Hawaii waves in my life.  Most of the time instead of surfing them I found myself with my nose in the sand of hopelessness, but I’m still up and attempting to learn to ride them well—or at least better.  Not because I’m adventurous or stupid—I just don't want to drown.

This week is Holy Week, yesterday was Palm Sunday and we reflected on Jesus ride through Jerusalem on the back of a young donkey.  People were waving palm branches and laying down their cloaks, fulfilling prophecy.  It was exciting.  I wonder if some of those same people who were waving the palms later found their noses rubbed into hopelessness as they watched while Jesus was crucified.

As Jesus celebrated Passover with His disciples, it was clouded with the ominous knowledge of events to come.  On this holiday that held many happy memories of previously celebrated traditions for Jesus, He now prepared to celebrate His last supper with the people in whom He had the most hope.  People who were going to betray Him and deny Him; yet he washed their feet and prepared them for things to come in a very visual and meaningful way.  It was hard for the disciples to believe that they could let Jesus down, but they hadn’t yet met the wave and looked into its face.

Then there is the Garden scene where Jesus asks His followers to pray, but they can’t stay awake.   Jesus doesn’t even ask them to pray for Him, but pray for themselves that they will not fall into temptation--the temptation of fear and hopelessness in the face of the future coming events.  Jesus was well acquainted man’s tendency to despair, not from an outside perspective, but from dealing with His own humanity.

I tried to watch the Passion of Christ last night and couldn’t do it.  I recorded it to watch in segments because it overwhelms me to watch the whole thing at one time.  Yet, Jesus’ mother stood at the cross along with other women who stared right into the face of the wave watching what I can’t even bear to see reenacted.  The sword Simeon had told Mary about had pierced her soul, but she stood facing the wave head on.  No wonder God had chosen her to be the mother of the Messiah—she was a true woman of faith.

And then the best part of the story--the resurrection, even here we find fear and hopelessness and Jesus invades.   The women go to the tomb and can’t find Jesus.   The women “ran” and told Peter and John and they ”ran” to the tomb.  There is running and crying.  I would say it’s because it is women, but there are men involved here too.  

Even after seeing the empty tomb and believing, there was a lack of understanding and just a few verses down, there are the disciples together with locked doors out of “fear” of the Jews when Jesus invades and says, “Peace”.  Jesus doesn’t scold or say, I was trying to tell you, but you didn’t get it, or where’s your faith?  He accepts them in their weakness and offers them the Holy Spirit.

I am probably never going to learn to surf real Hawaii waves, but I do hope to improve in my surfing the waves that come into my life.  I am glad that I have examples of Bible characters who learned to surf too.  I feel a little more normal when I’m smashed into the sand.  I’m also glad that Jesus is interceding for me and I know that I can trust in His power—the power that raised Him from the dead and I know that He loves me enough to face the cross and bear the sin of man for me.  I am glad He is patient and bears with me in my weakness and offers me the gift of the Holy Spirit to assist me in my endeavors to surf my waves.

God, teach me to trust in you particularly  this week as I look at the beautiful story of Jesus crucifixion and the events leading to his death and resurrection, speak to me truth that will increase my faith and help me during times of confusion and fear to hear you speak “peace” into my soul.

Vision Correction

I remember the first time I put on a pair of reading glasses.  We were traveling at night and my husband, Phil, asked me to look at the map to give him some guidance.  I tried to read the map under the dim lights that were on the rearview mirror and in my frustration at not being able to see, I grabbed up the reading glasses Phil relied on.  Suddenly the words that I thought were not visible to the human eye became clear.  The harsh reality was that the letters being small was not the problem; the way my 40-something eyes saw the letters, however, was a problem.

 I was hooked on reading glasses.  I went through the vacation with reading glasses on my head, glasses for nearsightedness on my nose and a pair of sunglasses on my nose over the glasses for my nearsightedness.  I juggled three pairs of glasses through the whole trip and became painfully aware that I had a problem.

I not only had a visual problem, I also discovered a slight pride problem.  When we would enter a town or city or stop for whatever reason, I would take all the glasses off except the sunglasses and pretend that I was cool and not needy in the area of visual correction. 

What might happen if we would just swallow our pride and acknowledge that our view of God could use some correction instead of walking around with spiritual sunglasses looking cool and pretending we can navigate our way through life just fine?   Reaching a place where we begin to recognize that our vision of the greatness of God is blurry creates an opportunity for God to begin the correction process from the cloudiness in our thinking that causes us to stumble in our faith.

Without faith it is impossible to please God, yet many times when I go through life and face struggles, difficult circumstances, grief, and spiritual and relational challenges, I have 20/20 fear vision and my understanding of the greatness of God and what He is capable of doing in every situation of my life is fuzzy.   My faith needs a visual correction to be able to see the possibilities of what God can do in all of my alarming circumstances. 

My fears will become blurry as my faith in the awesome power of God becomes clearer.  As I begin to know Him in His love and begin to understand His wisdom and greatness, I can release my concerns to Him and rest in His ability to take care of me. 

There are times in life when believing in the love of God is by sheer faith.  Sometimes God doesn’t act the way I think He should—He doesn’t act as fast as I think He should.  It is hard to reconcile Him having the power to order my circumstances in a way that would be more comfortable, yet choosing to let me walk through pain.  At these times, loving Him is challenging and believing in His love for me is only by faith. 

It takes faith to believe in God’s love when He isn’t working out the plans for our life in a way that looks “good” to us.  It is hard to believe in His goodness and love when we are abused by people who should be showing love to us—it takes faith to believe in Him at these times.  It is hard to believe in His provision when our resources are slim and not enough—it takes faith to believe He is providing a better plan than just a balanced budget.  It is hard to believe He is powerful to heal when we have been diagnosed with cancer—it takes faith to believe He is healing in ways besides just the cancer.

The combination of God's awesome power, wisdom and faithfulness plus the addition of His incredible love provide the safety net for me to trust in His ability to be in control of my life.  It takes both the ability to see God’s greatness and to trust in His love when He is working in ways that can be confusing to my view.

Lord, give me a visual correction in my ability to see you for who You are in Your greatness and power and to see You as the true lover of my soul and able to make me more in the image of Jesus in every situation.  Help me not to doubt Your love for me as you work out a greater plan for me—a “soul” plan, a plan to increase my faith.