Let my
mouth be full of Your praise and Your glory all the day long. Psalm 71:8
In the messy, Jesus whispers, “What do you want?”
and in the ugly, I want to cry out, “I want to see–see You in these faces.” He speaks soft, “Seek My face.” I want
to answer with David, “My heart says to You, Your face, LORD, Your face do I
seek,” but I am desperate to grab someone, anyone, and shake hard, ”How do I
have the holy vision in this mess? How do I see grace, give thanks, find joy In
this sin-stinking place?” –Ann Voskamp
You would be very ashamed if
you knew what the experiences you call setbacks, upheavals, pointless
disturbances, and tedious annoyances really are. You would realize that your
complaints about them are nothing more nor less than blasphemies‑though that
ever occurs to you. Nothing happens to you except by the will of God, and yet
(God’s) beloved children curse it because they do not know it for what it is.
-Jean-Pierre de Caussade
A blasphemer.
Create in
me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Psalm 51:11
And my verse for today’s fixed prayers: Be still, then,
and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations; I will be exalted
in the earth. Psalm 46:11
And
my prayer for myself on Wednesdays has more profundity somehow today: May I not
lean on my own strength and understanding, but in all my ways may I acknowledge
you and have a heart of thanksgiving and be filled with Your wisdom and
grace. And may I live in the joy of the
Holy Spirit.
And
that joy of the Holy Spirit carried me under His wing all tumultuous day
long. Through some very dark stuff and a
few shining celebrations. A veritable shield of faith turning away every
flaming single dart of the Enemy. And I am quite sure that this shield of faith
is being wielded not by me, but by my prayer warriors who are standing in
battle with me, even as my knees are buckling under the onslaught.
And Nicole is leading the singles group at her church
tonight through the Lord’s Prayer. And what does it mean for Him not to lead us
into temptation? Why do we have to ask that of our loving Father? So I turned
to my friend Mr. Google with my question this morning and found lots of
insight. John Chrysostom teaches that this petition
encourages us to be prepared for anything and everything, “suffering of the
body, illnesses of the soul, the plotting of others, the uprising of enemies,
the guile of false friends, hunger, torment, mistreatment, legions of demons,
and the frenzy of the devil.”
Yes, deliver me, O God.
I know that frenzy first hand.
And when I slid into my car this dark
morning, Audrey Assad once again greeted me, and I joined her in this prayer:
From the
love of my own comfort
From the fear of having nothing
From a life of worldly passions
Deliver me O God
From the need to be understood
From the need to be accepted
From the fear of being lonely
Deliver me O God
Deliver me O God
And I shall not want, I shall not want
when I taste Your goodness I shall not want
when I taste Your goodness I shall not want
From the fear of serving others
From the fear of death or trial
From the fear of humility
Deliver me O God
Deliver me O God
From the fear of having nothing
From a life of worldly passions
Deliver me O God
From the need to be understood
From the need to be accepted
From the fear of being lonely
Deliver me O God
Deliver me O God
And I shall not want, I shall not want
when I taste Your goodness I shall not want
when I taste Your goodness I shall not want
From the fear of serving others
From the fear of death or trial
From the fear of humility
Deliver me O God
Deliver me O God
So every
day is chock full of the ugly beautiful that both Ann Voskamp and the impressionist
painter, Paul Gauguin, encapsulated as, “Le laid peut-etre beau…” Right now the kids are
getting yelled at again. With words like crap
and exasperation. And I have
difficulty making eye contact with all of those student eyes in their general sense
of powerlessness and hopelessness. What does anything matter?
But
Ann encourages me: Because, somewhere, underneath the grime of this broken world, everything
has the radiant fingerprints of God on it. With Jesus eyes, we have the
astonishing opportunity to daily love the unlovely into loveliness.
And during one of my parent teacher
conferences the momma with pink and purple hair wept a lot. Life is pretty
hard. But she said that the little haphazard note I wrote to her child for
Christmas about how much joy it brought me when his eyes lit up with the
answer, well, her child has posted the note on the refrigerator and reads it
out loud to every single visitor. And another kid raised his hand yesterday
during the discussion, the kid whose mom just got out of prison and makes all
kinds of bad choices all day long, and said that even though he had three F’s
last quarter he was feeling optimistic because he and Miss had a good plan in
place for this semester. And I showed the guy who has scrawled hate and death onto his forearm with black marker how to use the free
version of Sketch Up and his “student desk of the future” looks so cool that it
is getting posted on the school website and he has worked on it two straight
class periods, rocking his head back and forth to Slipknot, his favorite band.
I shall not want.
Grateful for the startling graces
of God today.
The ugly beautiful.
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