Blessed be the Lord, the God of our salvation! All glory to the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit!
Give thanks to the Lord for He is good, for his steadfast love endures forever.
Give thanks to the greatest of all gods, for his steadfast love endures forever.
Give thanks to the mightiest of all lords, for his steadfast love endures forever.
When I was in trouble, He saved me. Many times the water was over my head. I clawed the walls of the pit, in darkness with no way to go forward. His steadfast love endures forever.
He traveled in the the darkness with me, although I did not know it. He opened a way where there was no way. His steadfast love endures forever.
He surrounds me with goodness; he gave me a husband whose heart is gold, and children to love. His steadfast love endures forever.
I see our children, tall and lovely and grown, around us like thriving trees. I have lived to see their glory and God’s goodness. His steadfast love endures forever.
I walk in his presence in the land of the living. His steadfast love endures forever.
When I knew the misery of my children, he walked beside me; he made a way through the storm for them. His steadfast love endures forever.
I live now in his overwhelming love, trusting His goodness, and walking with him in peace. His steadfast love endures forever.
I know his goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life as I await the day he has prepared a banquet table for me. His steadfast love endures forever.
All glory to the risen Lamb of God; All honor to the risen Lamb of God; All power to the risen Lamb of God, for his steadfast love endures forever.
I know God forgives my sin. He’s merciful, patient, quick to forgive. Yet it’s easy to feel that while he can forgive me for sin, he’s not so full of love and acceptance when it comes to my day to day practices and productivity.
There are times I’m lazy, unmotivated, not particularly impressive. What about putting off my time with God? Is that sin? Is that something Jesus understands and has compassion on? Are there reasons that I may not even be aware of that I’m not getting on with the day’s work or longing to spend time with Jesus? I don’t think these moments are separating me from God. He’s always there. But I have the belief that there are things I must do to be a good person. One of them is that I must be productive. Don’t waste time. Don’t be lazy. Shame on you if you are. By default, you are less than a good person if you are not productive. If you are less than a good person, you’re probably making God mad. If you don’t do a certain amount each day, which you can look back on with pride or mark off a list your boss can see, you’re not okay. And if you’re not okay…then what are you?
I have chronic health problems which cause low energy. The day gets away from me and I can’t figure out where it went. I have some things to do and I do most of them. Or at least some of them–the things I need to do to keep life moving such as supervising the shopping, cooking, cleaning, laundry and family events and holidays. Then I hope I can write and get some time connecting with and encouraging people. I desire to be purposeful in my immediate family relationships. That takes time and willingness to look outward. I know I’m good at what I do and I want to love others with these gifts.
Usually, I don’t get through the daily work I had planned. I don’t know if it is poor time management or not “trying hard enough.” The problem is I don’t have the ability to determine what that means. There are no criteria that I can turn to in society or Christian culture to evaluate my performance, except perhaps the phrase “my utmost for his highest.”
But what on earth does that mean?
It means I will never know if I did enough. There is no end to the list.
Shame has the inevitable effect of separating you from God. This result is not what God wants. It’s not what he’s ever wanted. There is no benefit to living with shame because of your inferior daily output. I know that you’ve heard grace means there is nothing you can do to earn God’s favor. But look at your daily life with him.
I wanted my life to be good. I wanted to do well. I wanted to have power and respect. I wanted to make things turn out the most wonderfully that they could. I still want that. Who doesn’t?
So I set my heart and mind to work to that end. I heard the verses about God’s glory read in church, and the admonishment that if I committed my plans to him my paths would be made straight. But those were just words. I saw more practical and lovely things to pursue in the world around me, in the deeds to do, and the beautiful life to create.
What I did not know was that I wanted my own glory, not dreaming that my own glory would not only be insufficient, but withered and black before too many years went by. I wanted my own glory, having not one clue that what I actually needed was His glory.
In fact, the glory of God is the only glory that has the power to do what our hearts long for, that glory we want but don’t know how to get. Everything we actually want and need, everything we in fact long for with a longing that cannot be satisfied any other way, he has already given us. Did you not know that the glory of God is man fully alive? The creator of the universe, despite what you may have been told, is not holding out on you. He’s not stopping you from living your best life.
And the good news is that bringing his glory to his children is exactly what he’s in the business of. He shares his glory with us. He has the power to open our eyes to his glory, and through that unveiling, to set us free to be who we were originally meant to be.
“But when one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed. Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, with unveiled faces, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another.”
Mary’s choice is really good news for you, and here’s why.
The story of Mary and Martha has always been resonant to me because I always identified with Martha. If you haven’t read it, the whole thing is in the gospel of Luke chapter 10.
38 Now as they went on their way, Jesus entered a village. And a woman named Martha welcomed him into her house. 39 And she had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to his teaching. 40 But Martha was distracted with much serving. And she went up to him and said, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her then to help me.” 41 But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, 42 but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her.”
I love that this gripe session involving two sisters is in the Bible. It’s real, isn’t it? We’ve all been there. That God cares about these kind of interactions is so kind.
So, Jesus and his crew showed up, and Martha and Mary were excited to have them over for dinner. It was a big deal. Martha wanted it to be a really outstanding feed, plus there were probably a lot of Jesus’ followers there. Then Mary gets distracted and goes and sits in the living room and just listens to Jesus with her jaw dropping open.
I’m with Martha. This is incredibly irritating and insensitive. Talk about ingratitude! How can Mary leave Martha to do the work, all alone? If there’s one thing I hate, it’s people taking me for granted! So I’ve never understood why Jesus takes Mary’s side.
Ah, but that’s the thing I recently learned. When you look at the whole context of the passage and what we know about Jesus from the whole story we have, he’s not actually taking sides. He knows better than to get in the middle of two sisters who clearly have a history of irritating each other. And, when he talks to Martha, and note he doesn’t actually talk directly to Mary, he is not upset with her and he’s not judging her. His tone is kind; hear the gentleness in “Martha, Martha.” Learning this was extremely reassuring to me. Jesus gets it. But he also gets how much we need to be with him and sit with him and just be with him. He truly does not mind a bit that dinner is delayed an hour or two. The disciples can munch from the charcuterie board.
Sitting with Jesus, knowing he’s beside you and beyond that living within you, is what you really, truly need. You don’t need to do more Good Deeds to prove your love for him. I used to think that, but that’s a prison because it’s never enough. You don’t know that you’ve reached the point where you’ve really shown him. You may for a while, but enough time goes by, and you’re right back in the trap again, worried. Start with the heart of things. Start with the heart of Jesus for you.
Sitting with Jesus, knowing he loves you, and wants to be with you and talk with you and shower his love on you, above all else that he wants, is what you need.
I’ve just begun to learn to be with Jesus. I’ve just begun to learn to talk with him, not just to him, and to listen for his gentle, wise or funny reply. I’ve just begun to commune with him and experience his love for me.
Life is full of disappointments and difficulty, pain and suffering. As Westley observes in the film classic The Princess Bride, when Buttercup tells him he mocks her pain, “Life is pain, Highness. Anyone who says differently is selling something.” If you look around, you see this. There isn’t one among us who hasn’t suffered. And if there is one, that person just hasn’t suffered yet. So in this way, we are all men of sorrow. And this reality must be acknowledged. It can’t be ignored, platitudified, or painted over.
Yet. Are all things as bad as they could be? There are some immeasurable griefs, desperate fears, heavy suffering. There always are, somewhere. You have experienced it yourself. However, when there is cruel sadness, that is the proof there is much that is good. How could there not be? If there were no sadness at what is broken, there would be no comprehension of what evil, badness or brokenness is, nor would there then be an understanding of the good gifts God has given in the midst of the rest of it.
The order and the beauty that is ordinarily around you, even when you are in the midst of the struggle is a good gift. Even in the worst times, there is often still tasty food, an act of kindness you can do for another person, your purring cat, a hot shower, a sunset, a book worth reading, a word of love and encouragement from a person who loves you.
Every good gift has been given to you, because in the midst of the bad, God is generous and good. Could a world with good gifts have been abandoned entirely? Could you?
Psalm 34 says, “The righteous cry out, and the LORD hears them; he delivers them from all their troubles. The LORD is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit. The righteous person may have many troubles, but the LORD delivers him from them all; he protects all his bones, not one of them will be broken. Evil will slay the wicked; the foes of the righteous will be condemned. The LORD will rescue his servants; no one who takes refuge in him will be condemned.” King David wrote here that you will have troubles; we all will. But in the midst of those troubles, God hears.
Jesus, the man of sorrows, is not far off. No, he’s close to the brokenhearted. He has the greatest compassion on those who don’t even have hope. And we are free, nope, invited to tell. Jesus. about. it. Cry out, because he cares for you. These griefs are not meant to be a permanent burden, because the Lord carries our burdens day after day.
Jesus knows that whatever the grief, the disappointment, the misery is, it’s wrong. He rebels with us against the darkness of those things, is closer to us than our breath, binds up the brokenhearted and comforts all who mourn and even better, is the one who redeems our losses.
Jesus came for the weak and the humble, not the proud. If you are a man of sorrows, beloved, know that he is too. And he is the one who is making all things new.
Guess what is wrong with being disappointed with life?
Nothing.
Not one thing.
Why is that? Disappointment is the normal, human reaction to the devastation we see in the world around us. It’s normal to be disappointed as well when you planned an event for some people you love, but then they couldn’t attend, or someone said something rude or hurtful during that time. It wasn’t what you wanted. I wasn’t what you internally knew it could be. We love what is good and beautiful and what brings joy, and when those are lost or never found, disappointment is great.
And it should be, if there is a place to use the word “should” which I generally avoid because it may lay on shame, which is never helpful.
You may be disappointed both with your circumstances and with God.
And the good news is, you’re not the only one. The Old Testament prophets and the book of Psalms are practically a manual for calling out to God with disappointment and grief. It’s all there. You can own it; you can feel it; you can tell God about it. You may feel as the man who wrote Psalm 22 did: “My God, why have you abandoned me? Why are you so far away when I groan for help? Every day I call to you, my God, but you do not answer.” Or Psalm 13: “How long must I struggle with anguish in my soul, with sorrow every day?…turn and answer me, O Lord my God.” It’s right here. You can tell God what your losses are and ask what is going on.
This is not to say that we aren’t strengthened and helped by telling God what we are thankful for, and by looking daily and hourly for truths and moments that are gifts he has given to us. We clearly aren’t called to spend all our energy complaining. But the path through these disappointments is not to pretend they don’t matter or that we shouldn’t feel them. That may be a message in a church you’ve attended, but it isn’t anywhere in the Bible. Both things are true at the same time: the great griefs of our lives, and the great glory and grace of God.
To take steps toward healing your heart, as John Eldredge says in his One Minute Pause App, “Without loving care, these disappointments erode our belief that God loves us, sees us, and cares for us…The pain of life slowly poisons our confidence that we are loved. God knows this; [Psalm 22] is the very passage Jesus cried out from the cross…showing us that we can, too.”*
As Eldredge says, there are forces of darkness in this world that want to use our heartaches to destroy our knowledge that God loves us. But before you ever got up today, God answered the question, does God see my struggles and does he care? Christ died for you before you took one step in his direction. “The cross removes all doubt [that he does].”*
We can tell God how things really are with us. This world is hard. But with Jesus on the cross, and in our lives, a humble man of sorrow who was in every way like us, we can decide, repeatedly if necessary as it likely will be when we are suffering cruelly, to stand on the “solid ground before the cross, the final proof that we are seen, we are loved, we are pursued, and we will never be forsaken.”*
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*quotes from evening meditation, day 13 of the 30 Days to Resilience Plan
If you grew up in a conservative or evangelical church you have probably heard about this idea from the pulpit. You might even have come across the not so many verses in the Bible where this analogy is drawn. But you may have been puzzled by the idea that this isn’t just an analogy; at some level, this is real. The body of Christ is also the bride of Christ. The church is Christ’s bride, waiting for him to return, and longing for the eternal bridegroom to come and get her. And when he does, they will dwell together eternally in such joy and intimacy that–well, we just cannot imagine.
That’s pretty heady stuff.
But it’s difficult to feel that it is true or to even begin to grasp what this really means. An earthly relationship between two people no matter how much they love each other is filled with failures and imperfections and losses and even betrayals.
And it is so human, so earthy, so physical and so broken.
How can this practical day-to-day “please take out the trash honey” possibly represent the infinitely powerful love of Christ for his people? much less fully embody that love?
I have listened to the rare references to all believers as Christ’s bride and his beloved since I was a part of a conservative denomination where the sermons worked through different books of the Bible over time, explaining what it all meant. Maybe there was that sense of something deeply personal when we sang this song when I was a child, “He calls me to his banqueting table, his banner over me is love.” That’s from the Song of Solomon 2:4. Again, this is spoken by the bride of Solomon, but, if the full meaning of the book holds true, this love poem reveals just how Jesus is crazy about us and how passionately he longs to be united with us.
So it’s not that I was unaware of this motif in the Bible. But if you’re like me, it generally made you somewhat confused, and if discussed at church, possibly uncomfortable. Or at the best, you were fine with it, but just didn’t get it. This idea just wasn’t real to me, despite living in a good marriage characterized by respect, care and mutuality.
No marriage can fully embody that eternal truth because it is by definition mortal and flawed and because by definition, spiritually speaking, we haven’t had the immortal wedding yet and we don’t yet know what it is to be truly eternally married to the Prince of Peace.
But one thing I do know. I’ve been married for almost 34 years now. For most of that time, the idea that Christ is pursuing his bride just didn’t speak to me. Yet recently, over the past several years, as my marriage has continued to season, and my husband and I continue to practice really loving each other, our companionship has strengthened and deepened in ways that are frankly completely impossible to fully explain. We rely on each other completely. We trust each other fully. There is no joy like the joy of the return to each other at the end of the working day. Our total emotional and physical companionship cannot be explained by mere words. But I can assure you it is more amazing than any other experience I have ever had.
We’re still here, in the not-yet, but I now believe we can trust in the truth that the union God’s people have with him is like the marriage of the most faithful, long-loving couple we know, but multiplied. Exponentially. Infinitely. Supernaturally. Gloriously. Perfectly. Eternally.
And then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky with power and great glory.
Today, I will give an endorsement, which is something I haven’t yet done in my blog. I don’t get any monetary benefits from promoting this item, though. The benefits to me are many, but they aren’t monetary. I share the details because I really am grateful for it, and it’s one of those things that once you experience it, you want other people to experience what it provides as well.
It’s a simple little app. It’s not cluttered, and it’s easy to use, aside from the occasional glitches that have come up. There isn’t any tech support, so that’s a bit annoying. But because the app is free and beyond that, because it is not a hardship but a joy to use almost all the time, even when I have had to reset my account (happened twice, once because of an update), I wholeheartedly promote the One Minute Pause app. Did I mention it’s free?
It’s a meditation app. I have never previously had any luck with meditation. I know it’s recommended. I know it’s supposed to be fantastic for your mental health, lowering your blood pressure, and finding inner peace, but I never did find it. My mind just wouldn’t empty!
What I like about the One Minute Pause is that it does not demand that I first empty my mind to become completely quiet inside so that I can start to benefit from the meditation and the peacefulness it is supposed to induce. No, the app provides refreshing background music that truly is peaceful, and photos of amazing landscapes, and something to think about! I’m meditating, but it’s not forced. I listen to what the speaker is saying and basically follow along with it in my heart and head.
I believe the pattern that the pauses follow is based in psychology and common sense, but I couldn’t say, as I have not read the book that is promoted on the app (I don’t find the promotion obnoxious, it’s just a box that says “based on the book by John Eldredge”). What I do know is a couple things.
First, the guided meditations align with what I learned from my therapist about how to give things to God and not take them back. The teaching of the meditations is also spot on theologically sound. The content is really, really good. There’s things to think about here that you may not have heard before, or just may not have realized how important that truth really is for living peacefully.
The other thing is, these meditations or pauses really work. I’ve gone online and seen reviews for the app from other people, and what they say agrees with what I have experienced. Just stopping to sit with God, for one minute, or 3, 5 or 10, or doing the new “30 Days to Resilient” program, which is 10 minutes twice a day (and you can redo any of the pauses that you want–take your time), really increase your peacefulness. When I forget to do one of the meditations with the 30 Days program and so get off kilter with morning versus evening, I just redo the previous one to get back in the daily pattern. Why? Because it’s literally fun. It’s refreshing. It’s healing. I WANT to use this app!
Even if you are not into Christianity, or not particularly excited about using an app that specifically talks about God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit all the time, you may want to try this one anyway. Yes, it is about your connection with God, and yes, that is emphasized in each pause. I don’t like heavy-handed presentations myself, and I never have. I feel like this one isn’t. In the last module there is a direct invitation to faith; however, it is within the context of developing resilience. It’s as if the prayers and thoughts are just offered…and you are welcome to think them through, or pray them if you want to.
For me, the results have been solid. This app has literally changed what I do when I start to get worried about something. It has helped me to give those cares and concerns back to God. Really. And it has made my day-to-day thought life more peaceful. Staying in the present is a lot easier than it used to be. And me? peaceful?? I never thought that would happen. Others have tended to perceive me as a peaceful person but nothing could have been further from the truth. I worry about everything and I always have. But using this app has very much been part of my recent journey that has turned that around.
I hope you’re sold on trying this app. You won’t regret trying it. And it may change your life.
I always thought that judgment in the Bible, a really difficult and unpleasant topic that nobody wants to address and for good reason, was difficult because it presents a harsh, judgmental God. Nobody wants to hear about a harsh, judgmental God, and that’s understandable. I have always felt that judgment seems incompatible with the truth that God is love. It doesn’t seem to match up. How can he be like this, when we also hear he’s not like this?
Then I heard this passage this morning. It’s not one I remember ever hearing before, and maybe gets overlooked because of the verse just after which is often quoted in sermons about people’s sin nature.
“Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength, whose heart turns away from the Lord. He is like a shrub in the desert, and shall not see any good come. He shall dwell in the parched places of the wilderness, in an uninhabited salt land.
Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose trust is the Lord. He is like a tree planted by water, that sends out its roots by the stream, and does not fear when heat comes, for its leaves remain green, and is not anxious in the year of drought, for it does not cease to bear fruit.” Jeremiah 17:5-8
What’s different about this contrast of curses and blessings from how I always saw God’s judgment? It reads as thought the situation described by Jeremiah is a statement of fact. It is present, current fact, lived reality. Have you not experienced life as a parched place? hasn’t it been an uninhabited salt land for you at some times? have you not seen people around you whose lives shrivel like this? When I choose to focus on myself, when I believe that I my plan is best, when I work hard to make my circumstances what I want, I find that life is like this. Over and over, when I set myself up as the center, this parching is exactly what happens to me.
But what good news follows! The one who trusts in the Lord, whose trust is the Lord, is a whole person. He is a resilient, whole person, resting entirely in the sufficient grace of Christ, and in his incredible, mighty power. The water of life rolls over and through this person. Not only that but he still bears fruit. Without anxiety, even in the dry seasons, through no apparent power of her own, the one who trusts the Lord pours blessing on others, sometimes without even trying. She just does the work in front of her that she has been given the ability to do–and fruit happens.
Consider the truth of these verses in your life and the lives of others. If this vision of what happens to people based on their focus, their direction, and their trust is true, these verses aren’t written from the will and heart of a God whose primary goal is judging you. What if God isn’t a God whose primary purpose is to blast people for their wrongdoing?
What if he made us to live with him and to be whole and full and new in him?
What if when we live without him, we are blasting ourselves?
This is the overall message of the Bible, I believe. True, God hates evil and wants no part of it–he can’t be false to his nature and say that evil is good. He is unable to ultimately stand in the same room as evil because that is not who he is. So in that sense, God does discern. He does judge.
But although God hates evil, He takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked, as Ezekiel 33:11 says. Ezekiel asks the people who rely on their own ways, “Why will you die?” God sent messengers and Wisdom herself throughout history to turn people toward him and away from dryness and death. God speaks reassurance to his children: “If my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.” 2 Chronicles 7:14 shows a God whose heart is healing and restoration.
The old Testament prophets returned repeatedly to the theme of God’s love and his longing to bless, not curse. Micah 7:18 says, “Who is a God like you, pardoning iniquity and passing over transgression for the remnant of his inheritance? He does not retain his anger forever, because he delights in steadfast love.”
Isaiah too is famous for revealing the merciful character of God: “Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool.” Isaiah 1:18 He also urges, “Let the wicked man forsake his own way and the unrighteous man his own thoughts; let him return to the LORD, that He may have compassion, and to our God, for He will freely pardon.” Isaiah 55:7
And consider Jeremiah, often called the weeping prophet for his grief over the stubbornness of the Hebrews to whom he preached, who offers this truth about God in the book of Lamentations, “For he does not willingly bring affliction or grief to anyone.”
The New Testament probably needs less explanation as a source of good news, since Jesus said that’s what he came to share, and he focused his most powerful teaching on the subject of love. Few could argue that Jesus came to show mercy and grace. In fact, he even claimed to be the water of life, the source who could keep them from drying up. In Matthew 23:37, Jesus called out to the people of Jerusalem, telling them he longed to love and care for them, like a mother hen gathers her chicks. His grief? The people wouldn’t let him.
The apostle John had this to say in chapter 3, verse 17: “For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.” Even Paul’s teaching in 1 Timothy 2:4 acknowledges God as a Father who “wants everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.” Second Peter 3:9 says this: “[The Lord] is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.”
When I make my own flesh my strength, the natural result is my desiccation. When I turn away from God’s love and the good life he offers, I get nothing. I get worse than nothing! But also naturally, when I turn to God and seek my life in the one who made me, knows me and loves me, I get life and life more abundantly. I don’t mean that living in the life of God means I don’t face suffering; far from it. Just, even in the suffering, my roots don’t dry up.
Seen from this view, the curses and blessings given in Deuteronomy 30:15-20 look much different. It is not God’s pleasure to see you dry up and blow away. No, his pleasure is to see you fully alive.
15 See, I set before you today life and prosperity, death and destruction. 16 For I command you today to love the Lord your God, to walk in obedience to him, and to keep his commands, decrees and laws; then you will live and increase, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land you are entering to possess.
17 But if your heart turns away and you are not obedient, and if you are drawn away to bow down to other gods and worship them, 18 I declare to you this day that you will certainly be destroyed. You will not live long in the land you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess.
19 This day I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live 20 and that you may love the Lord your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the Lord is your life, and he will give you many years in the land he swore to give to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
I want to thank John Eldredge for his One Minute Pause App, https://www.pauseapp.com/, for the introduction to the verses in Jeremiah 17:5-8 and for his insights about living life in Christ and how we are meant to have resilience. I recommend this app for overcoming fear, anxiety and depression.
This week has been hard. All the special occasions I was a part of caught up with me Saturday morning, and I have been tired, jaded and grumpy ever since. At first, I thought I just needed a better night’s sleep, but even though I got that, and three more, I don’t feel rested.
I spent some time going in circles trying to figure out what was so bad about the circumstances that led to this energy crash. What was different? Why was it worse? I didn’t get anywhere except more frustrated with my circumstances and my body’s response to them.
My thoughts and my attempts at self-care did not solve my problem. You’ve probably had times like that too. You work, and you work, and all you experience is frustration. You think you have a problem solved, that you’re on top of it, and that your to-do list is down an item. You think you are in control of your life and your circumstances.
But you’re not. You’re weak and tired and frustrated.
How to move forward? How to live fully in the now?
We know the future is certain. I can live today–its frustration, its grief, its disasters, its suffering–trusting that all will yet be well. I don’t have to fix all my problems today–or ever. I’m not the one in charge. I’m not the one who’s won the battle, who is making all things new. But I trust that one who has and who is.
The ancient Biblical prophets had something along these lines to say. They spoke of the present, the later, and the much later, as Philip Yancey says in his book The Bible Jesus Read. In this life, I have a tendency to want the entire script, but that’s not how it works.
Yancey writes, “When a baby was born, the universe shuddered. When seventy-two disciples went on a short-term mission assignment (Luke 10), Satan fell like lightning from heaven. What happens here on earth affects the future of the cosmos. From God’s point of view, the future has already been determined, and the prophets spell out that future state in glowing detail: swords beaten into plowshares, a lamb recumbent beside a lion, a banquet feast. That is what God wants for this earth and that is what God will accomplish on this earth. The end is settled. What remains is whether we will live believing it.”
The future is certain. Will I live in the present like this is true?
Joy in the Journey 