Former things.

June 20, 2018

Remember ye not the former things, neither consider the things of old. Behold, I will do a new thing; now it shall spring forth; shall ye not know it? I will even make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert. Isaiah 43:18-19

The former things haunt the present. As we eat our chicken shawarma sandwiches, Deborah points across the street. Just two years ago, that dusty church lot was filled with 400 families living in storage containers. The families had arrived overnight, each holding just an armload of belongings hurriedly stuffed into plastic bags as ISIS cleared their villages.

If there is a loving and just God, we Americans should fear and tremble for our multitude of careless selfish policies that have wrecked and are currently wrecking destruction around the world.

And last night I read an Iraqi poem which flipped through the photos on the wall, remembering the lives and stories of fear and loss and despair. And some of the lives wrapped this despair around themselves like a heavy woolen shawl and crouched in a dark corner, their only comfort being a gentle rocking back and forth with eyes squeezed tight.

Yet others chose to straighten up, refusing to assign blame or to hunch over, waiting for justice to sift down like flakes of snow.  With girded courage, some set off to new pastures with just the faintest of breezes whispering hope. And yet some brushed aside the rubble, expectantly, to reveal ancient foundations upon which to build.

We including I cannot let bitterness take root. We including I cannot let the things of old shadow the decisions of today, We including I must look up expectantly, that we might know His new thing, a way in the wilderness.

Behold.

But all who wander are not lost.

Jesus taught the people, saying: “Take notice of what you are hearing.” Mark 4:24

I hope the book of Ruth affects you the way a trip to the Grand Canyon might. How do you apply the Grand Canyon? Of course, you don’t apply the Grand Canyon–you are stunned by its beauty. You stop talking as you let it fill your soul. You are silent as your soul expands. You sense that you don’t have enough capacity to capture the beauty.

​One of the oddest things about deep suffering is that the sun comes up in the morning. Life limps along. We have to hang in there with the story that God has permitted in our lives. As we endure, as we keep showing up for life when it makes no sense, we learn to love, and God shows up too.

Hesed, His steadfast love, a one-way love, a stubborn love. Your response to the other person is entirely independent of how that person has treated you. Love like this is unbalanced, uneven. There is nothing fair about this kind of love. But commitment-love lies at the heart of Christianity. It is Jesus’ love for us at the cross, and it is our love for one another. We rightly sense that death is at the center of love.

When feelings are the standard, we are left adrift on a turbulent sea. But with hesed love, you don’t allow your spirit to pull away. You move towards the other person; you don’t allow an ugly space to grow. –Paul Miller, A Loving Life

So one of the very cool things was that Manuel wanted to watch dawn rise over the Canyon. We had endured a sort of awkward and not-enough-blankets dozing in the car by the side of the road night in Nicole’s big old Cadillac and even before the tiniest hint of light had started to edge the horizon we stumbled along a trail to the very edge.

And waited in silence. Awake. Eyes open.

And the Monday night ladies have started a new book. And in each of our lives there is some of that darkest-before-dawn aching limping forward, in hope of the resurrection love. And we don’t really understand what it will look like, and maybe there is a little doubt mixed in as well, that keeps us from recognizing Him as He comforts us outside of the tomb of smashed expectations.

His lovingkindness. Hesed, His steadfast love, a one-way love, a stubborn love.

And one more morning before dawn I pray the prayer of hope and strength and courage.

Make us strong and courageous to do the new thing, because You are not the God of I was but You are the God I am and You are doing a new thing and that thing is unfolding right now in us. We will be strong and courageous and we will not be afraid, and we will not be discouraged, for You are the Lord our God & You will be with us where we go, so we take the next step which may feel like a leap of faith but our best mode of transportation through anything is always a leap of faith. –Ann Voskamp

And this morning’s wonder watching was through Arroyo Chico under bulbous pregnant-with-rain clouds shaded with silvers of every hue. The creosote were so bursting with flowers and fluffy pods that I could barely breathe. It was too dark to see the compass point mountains so I wandered around and around under yellow-drenched waterfalls of palo verdes and paid attention past the prickly pears and chollas. And pretty much the moment I stepped back through the front door the clouds let loose and birthed.

I might have to take the bus to school.

O God, whose blessed Son made himself known to His disciples in the breaking of bread: Open the eyes of my faith, that I may behold Him in all His redeeming work; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

And all I really had to do is stand up straight, look her in the eye and say, "No."

For God alone my soul in silence waits; truly, my hope is in Him. He alone is my rock and my salvation, my stronghold, so that I shall not be shaken. In God is my safety and my honor; God is my strong rock and my refuge. Psalm 62:6–8

When Jesus was at dinner in his [Matthew’s] house, a number of tax collectors and sinners were also sitting at the table with Jesus and his disciples; for there were many of them among his followers. When the scribes of the Pharisee party saw him eating with sinners and tax collectors, they said to his disciples, ‘Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?’ When Jesus heard this he said to them, ‘It is not the healthy who need the doctor, but the sick. I did not come to call the upright, but sinners.’ Mark 2:15–17

…You’ll laugh a bit like it all doesn’t matter, or least doesn’t hurt, and there will be broken eggshells left on the counter and broken promises left after the fact and the real, exposed truth of it is, after it’s all said and done? Is that under it all, we’re right broken.

No one knows but you do war every single day with the slanderous voices in your head and you wrestle a bit with the death dark that encroaches around the edges of everything and you’re never the only one: anyone who gets up has to push back the dark.

I’m standing there in front of the mirror.

Standing there, looking right into me and the abyss of the mess of me that I’ll never get all right. And it comes down to this:

Christianity is the only hope for this broken world because there’s no other way for the broken to get the nails they need to rebuild.

That’s what this week needs, that’s all this week needs most:

More than needing schedules and productivity, this week will need a Savior and a prayer.

God’s not asking me to produce — He’s asking me to pray.
God’s not asking me to climb ladders — He’s asking me to kneel and let go. –Ann Voskamp

So today part of my lesson plan on scientists includes a story from my middle school when I stood up (rather inadvertently) to a bully who shoved and taunted me every single day on the way home from school.  Because pretty much I am one who caves into bullies. If someone acts angry or disgusted or disappointed I will cower quickly. Which is not the way to go. And the point of my story is going to be that scientists, world-changers, have certain characteristics like courage and creativity and a desire for truth.

And today, Lord, let me remember the truth that You came to seek and to save those who were lost. Which is every single one of us.

My hope is in You.

And no one else.

Especially me.

And You are my courage. You are my creativity. You are the Truth. The Way, The Truth and The Life.

Glory.

"But they won’t believe me!" said Lucy

Heal me, YAHWEH, and I shall be healed, save me and I shall be saved, for You are my praise. Jeremiah 17:14

I will call upon God, and the LORD will deliver me. In the evening, in the morning, and at the noonday, I will complain and lament, and He will hear my voice. He will bring me safely back . . . God, who is enthroned of old, will hear me. Psalm 55

Out of the depths I called to you, O LORD; LORD, hear my voice; let Your ears consider well the voice of my supplication. Psalm 130:1

“Or do you despise the riches of His goodness, forbearance, and long-suffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance?”

Prayer: Father, thank you so much for your goodness. I pray that You would show me Your goodness to a whole new level today and that it would cause me to be transformed by the renewal of my mind.

So Jack wrote me today, and asked, “How do you know this timing is the Hand of God?”

And I have to say that the Mexicali word from God was the clearest indication: The pain you are in, it is not your fault. I am at work, even as you are here in Mexicali. Do not be afraid.

And the gift of my trip through Istanbul, Italy, France, Spain, Italy, London was God saying over and over and over: I am powerful throughout all generations, I love people that one and that one and that one, I am trustworthy even though you cannot see around the curve, I am The Healer, and Stand back and be amazed.

And even now, step by step, He is there in conversations, in Scripture, in clarity, in chance meetings that shout to His timing from the dawn of ages.

But no one except Lucy knew that as it circled the mast it had whispered to her, “Courage, dear heart,” and the voice, she felt sure, was Aslan's, and with the voice a delicious smell breathed in her face.

Aslan is on the move. He has heard my lament.