Really, I just snuggle in a little more deeply

The LORD is my shepherd: I shall not want.  Psalm 23:1

So, wandering around google clarifies that “shall” indicates a promise, in fact, it carries with it legal implications that this promise is indeed binding.  

This is my comfort, a metaphoric blanket so to speak, to wrap around my shivering shoulders if I were to ever wake up in the middle of the night full of angst and bother.  Whenever I wake up, I mean, with chill winds breathing down my neck and dark thoughts twisting in my mind.  

He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: He leadeth me beside the still waters.

These are statements of fact, continuing present tense.  What is true.  Whether I choose to acknowledge the reality of His very active verbs.  

May I pull back the bramble bushes and lie down, content in His provision, at rest.   

Amidst the noise and clatter of my kitchen

The meek shall eat and be satisfied; they shall praise the Lord that seek Him. May your hearts be quickened now and forever!  All the ends of the world shall remember and turn unto the Lord, and all the kindreds of the nations shall worship before Thee.  Psalm 22:26-27

I never cease to marvel how He meets me every morning, answering the very questions that I am unable to form with words: Lord, all my desire is before You. Today He spoke through the famous dishwashing brother from the 1600s.   He whispers, "Follow me,” and I respond like Lucy, who went first, biting her lip and trying not to say all the things she thought of saying. But she forgot them when she fixed her eyes on Aslan.

Brother Lawrence: I ask His forgiveness, I abandon myself in His hands, that He may do what He pleases with me. I found myself changed all at once; and my soul, which till that time was in trouble, felt a profound inward peace, as if she were in her centre and place of rest. And I make it my business only to persevere in His holy presence, wherein I keep myself by a simple attention, and a general fond regard to GOD, which I may call an actual presence of GOD; or, to speak better, an habitual, silent, and secret conversation of the soul with GOD, which often causes in me joys and raptures inwardly, and sometimes also outwardly, so great that I am forced to use means to moderate them, and prevent their appearance to others.

This King, full of mercy and goodness, very far from chastising me, embraces me with love, makes me eat at His table, serves me with His own hands, gives me the key of His treasures; He converses and delights Himself with me incessantly, in a thousand and a thousand ways, and treats me in all respects as His favourite. It is thus I consider myself from time to time in His holy presence.

Sometimes I consider myself there, as a stone before a carver, whereof he is to make a statue: presenting myself thus before GOD, I desire Him to make His perfect image in my soul, and render me entirely like Himself.

At other times, when I apply myself to prayer, I feel all my spirit and all my soul lift itself up without any care or effort of mine; and it continues as it were suspended and firmly fixed in GOD, as in its centre and place of rest.

I know that some charge this state with inactivity, delusion, and self-love: I confess that it is a holy inactivity, and would be a happy self-love, if the soul in that state were capable of it; because in effect, while she is in this repose, she cannot be disturbed by such acts as she was formerly accustomed to, and which were then her support, but would now rather hinder than assist her.

Yet I cannot bear that this should be called delusion; because the soul which thus enjoys GOD desires herein nothing but Him. If this be delusion in me, it belongs to GOD to remedy it. Let Him do what He pleases with me: I desire only Him, and to be wholly devoted to Him.

May it be so.

He brought me to His banqueting table, His banner over me is love. 

a sunbreak in the clouds

For the king trusteth in the LORD, and through the mercy of the Most High he shall not be moved.  Psalm 21:7

In this psalm, David the king celebrates who he is and how he is, but with the understanding that it all is because of the LORD, Most High.  “Joy” is an action verb, the king shall joy in Thy strength, O LORD. 

I have a friend who holds my position in the Northwest and she is simply an inspiration to me as she faces the enemies of her gladness: an unemployed husband riding the emotional waves of job application after job application, chronic back pain and a crazy workload, with peace and with the action verb of joy.

It is sunny and GORGEOUS here in the NW.  Grateful for God’s blessings: my job… sunshine… great colleagues… family… shelter… clothing… and food.  God is GOOD!

And even if the circumstances of life do sway and uplift, with the force and heartbreak of a Japanese tsunami, my heart shall not be moved, because of His great mercy.

And really, I have no tsunamis.  Just the ins and outs of a regular day, hummed through with yet another tuneless tune from my childhood: The joy of the LORD is my strength which rolls right intoHe gives me living water and I thirst no more and ends with a  Ah,  Ha Ha - Ha Ha - Ha Ha ah.

May I joy all day long.  

As I hold the prayer list in my heart

May He grant thee according to thine own heart.  Psalm 20:4

As I meditate on this blessing, I realize how very little I consider what is in mine own heart.  What do I yearn for or plan for the future? My thoughts don’t go very far out.  It could be the mundane practicality of no one knows what tomorrow will bring, or the more-than-slightly bruised hopes that have been dashed and jumped upon in the past. Why bother looking up from the to do lists to daydream a bit?  

But looking beyond those tidy scratched out bits of paper that then sift over to the brown plastic bin next to the dining room table is what gives beauty and joy and all that is good for tomorrow.  And most likely what binds me to the lists is pride, the idea of self-sufficiency and tightly gripped control, and fear, will God prove trustworthy?  

Nicole makes me nervous.  She strides into the room, her arms bursting with Salvation Army orange tag treasures and her head bursting with visions just needing a little bit of spray paint and a lot of glitter and it will be beautiful and trendy and maybe we could all get together and drink egg nog and build a huge fire and blast dance music.  Which is not exactly me tapping away at Amazon.com with free shipping.  And maybe her sleeping patterns are not exactly regular and maybe sometimes she gets stuck by the side of road in some off-the-GPS road in Texas.  But maybe, just maybe, it will give beauty and joy and all that is good for tomorrow.

And I am quite sure that old Bruce Olsen made a few people nervous as he barely packed off to Colombia.  Or Albert Schweitzer as he headed east through the purple slashed horizon.  Or Gladys May Aylward as she took the one coin from her pocket and purchased a one way passage to Yuncheng.

...This sphere of earthly soil 

Astounding plans e'en now are brewing: 

Still gives us room for lofty doing. 

I feel new strength for bolder toil... 

The Deed is everything, the Glory naught.

And today’s Psalm is full of David demands.  

May the name of the God of Jacob set you up on high,

Support, refresh, and strengthen you

May He grant you according to your heart’s desire and fulfill all your plans,

May the Lord fulfill all your petitions,

He will answer him from His holy heaven.

We are risen and stand upright;

O Lord, give victory; let the King answer us when we call.

Today I am praying birthday blessings over a couple young men, and I know darn-tooting that I am not praying for a safe and quiet hobbit hole for them.  Rather the generational prayer lifted up by my kneeling-by-the-bed parents of May they love God and may they have interesting lives seems pretty good.  And the David Demands. 

It looks like that I need to pay attention and listen as well.  What is mine own heart? And may He grant me accordingly.  

“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.”  C. S. Lewis

My arms can bend a bow of bronze

Thou hast also given me the shield of Thy salvation: and Thy right hand hath holden me up, and Thy gentleness hath made me great.  Psalm 18:35

You protect me with salvation-armor; You hold me up with a firm hand, caress me with Your gentle ways. Psalm 18:35

This is one of those fireball psalms with lots of consuming fire and shaking mountains and blasting breath of nostrils.  The LORD God stepping into the midst of our overwhelming situations and putting things straight, in a fairly Rambo-like manner.  Not that I have ever seen Rambo, but how I imagine it.  

And in the midst of all these great bolts of lightening and blazing burning coals, He reached down from on high and took hold of me; He drew me out of deep waters.

And all of the translations grapple with the concept of an Almighty sweepingly powerful God reaching down in humility and grace to rescue me.  And what a marvel that is indeed.  

You, Lord, keep my lamp burning.

Really not wanting to clump with the fools

Hold up my goings in Thy paths, that my footsteps slip not. I have called upon Thee, for Thou wilt hear me, O God.  Psalm 17:5-6 

There are bunches of things that I do not know– particularly things like five-year or ten-year plans.  I am struggling to wrap my head around the next month of calendar events, unable to imagine how it will unfold.  However is one thing that I can say with simple confidence– one conversation with myself that I have walked out all the way to the end: with my whole heart I can say, Hold up my goings in Thy paths.  I have reached the point of no return.  I have absolutely no interest in any other path.  

As Pastor Chris rolled into the Christmas season with yet another rendition of Matthew, I was struck by foolish Herod. Here was this classic wheeler-dealer (does that term come from used car salesmen?) who darn well believed in the ancient (re: 750 year-old prophecy) Micah words enough that he was willing to send in soldiers to murder his future tax base, but how in the heck did he think he was going outsmart the One who held both history and hearts of man in the palm of His hand?  And those foolish high priests and teachers of the law also whipped out the correct jot and tittle but had zero inclination or curiosity to go check out Bethlehem.  Here was a pack of fools who knew what was True in their heads, but their hearts said that there was no God.  

My head is way too full of eyewitness accounts of God answering through the mist of my calls.  Really only one breakthrough the material laws that bind us into unbelief would be proof of the other worldly, but my path is littered with the revealed hand of the Almighty–voices speaking out of corn fields, vision rolling out on the wall, cars running on empty through the night, multiplying peanut butter sandwiches, smashed bones wrapping themselves up in healthy flesh, yep my head gets it.  

And my heart does too.  I I can join in with David, Thou hast proved mine heart; thou hast visited me in the night; thou hast tried me, and shalt find nothing. Perhaps the flesh is weak. It will waver and mutter. And the turns are many and unexpected.   But with that said and very done, I will step out on the path. Really and truly As the hart panteth and the parched thirsty land my heart yearns for the water brooks. And like that ol’ desert, I perk right up straight and tall and with a little bounce in my step after slaking my thirst.  

 And my footsteps slip not.  For Thou wilt hear me.  

And the lemons have come back after the hard freeze

The lines are fallen unto me in pleasant places; yea, I have a goodly heritage.  Psalm 16:6 

One of the pleasant lines that have fallen unto me is the little early morning vuelta across the street.  Who could have possibly imagined twenty some odd years ago when we landed in Tucson Arizona with an orange van with shag carpeting and five duct-taped together suitcases, this beautiful home right across from meandering trails through the sunlit creosote and prickly pear and mesquite.  Besides Nicole’s dream about moving next door to Mrs. Tiggly Winkle’s I mean.  And the fading round moon is up high and the swelling sun is down low, casting sharp shadows on the sweeping Catalinas, which happen to be my “one place that may seem small on the surface but has a profound effect on you.”

And that backyard which was hard dirt and scrabbly oleander bushes with squawking geese nibbling at a few brave weeds for so long.  No longer.  The Friday night group nestled under the now-covered-with-twisty-vines-Marco-arch next to the blazing fire nursed by freshly split logs.  Freshly split logs that came from that very house so many years ago that we cleaned up after one of Jean Doerge’s diabetic patients who lived with a billy goat and four huge dogs and Alan shoveled four fifty-five gallon drums of trash and used needles from the kitchen floor and I tried to paint over the living room walls covered in scrawled poetry and behind every single picture frame packed exact solid squares of hiding cockroaches.  

And we gathered around autumn squash soup and pear cobbler with real whipped cream and of course there were a few loaves of bread to rip up and dip in olive oil and answered wonderful Sophie-questions and Joella is a hermit crab scuttling from slightly too big beautiful shells to slightly too big shell and growing into them and is all dressed up in a professional suit as a bone-fide accountant, except now she is not dressing up, this is real grown-up now and Jackson is a Peregrine hawk.  And Sophie read a bit on community and listening, and Alan talked about community at Wakefield as they face closure and gardens drying up and empty soccer fields and Jackson has a community of men who sit up late at night and talk through big questions.  And what is the efficacy of prayer and how does prayer affect others and how does it affect the person praying?  And maybe we don’t exactly understand it all, but the LORD God of the Universe does understand and He has commanded us to prayer.  And there was certainly something powerful in Jackson’s blessing for the women gathered and in the quiet rest after Alan’s close.  And the warmth and the candles and the fire and the lights swaying in the breeze overhead and the lines have fallen in pleasant places.  

But fallen is sort of a passive word.  And there is nothing passive about life and redemption and digging up caliche and teaching Spanish to middle school students and studying late at night with a little too much coffee and wondering what is going to happen and Alan and Jackson are out there chopping wood even though he has final exams and to meet with the wedding cake lady and sometimes and actually a lot of the time I wrestle long nights learning what Not my will but Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven really looks like.  

And as Nicole and I arrived a little bit late to the airport and packed Jack and MaryAnne’s multiple and very heavy book-packed bags from Colombia into the trunk and as I bent down and picked up glass shards and Wendy’s hamburger foil and crumpled real estate flyers from along Country Club on my way home because I am my father’s daughter, I am very aware indeed of my goodly heritage.  And yes there is much pain and brokenness and sin at so many levels.  But He is in the business of redeeming His creation and especially His beloved image-bearers and He does it well and good.  And may I too be about my Father’s business.