A Few Thoughts on SGM, Silence, & Sayable

I'm loathe to take a camp, step off the fence, call my cards, or slap a label on myself, but all it takes is one quick glance through Sayable, a brief perusal of the publications for which I write, and the local church I call home for others to safely land me in with the neo-reformed. I won't reject the title, but in normal fashion, I will not lay claim to it. However, there's been something rotten in the state of Denmark recently and all fingers are pointing back at, well, I'll say "us" for the sake of this post. If you have no idea what rotten piecemeal is being bandied about, I have no interest in educating you. Others have done so much more thoroughly than I, with much more anger than I, with many more bones in the game than I. I weigh in today because May was supposed to be my sabbatical month and instead I have been peppered with more questions than ever on why I haven't written on the SGM civil suit.

Here are the main reasons:

1. I am not affiliated in any way with SGM. Though I may be affiliated with those who are affiliated with them, we can play that game all day in every which way. Kevin Bacon anybody? These days everyone knows everyone somehow. It is a small world after all.

2. I am not a lawyer, but I think I am a fairly intelligent person, and even I had a bit of trouble getting my mind around the legal jargon of all the documents. And I've been in my share of courtrooms, with my share of lawyers spouting legal jargon—two can play that game. All I'm saying is, someone wants to win and so it's hard to trust a system where winning is the goal. Last shall be first and all that.

3. I'm one of those fools who trusts the men who keep watch over my soul. Maybe that play isn't for everybody, but I figure the Bible spent a lot of time talking about it, so nuff said.

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Just because I didn't say anything about it, though, doesn't mean I didn't feel complicit in the alleged ongoing silence by "us." I was a bit confused as to why men and women I respected within the Church at large weren't weighing in on the suit at all, save from a post by Tim Challies. It is good to be slow to speak, yes, but not speak at all? It didn't seem right. I knew I didn't have anything to add to the civil suit conversation, but surely something could be said to acknowledge the situation period?

(Adding my voice to the cacophony of the Christian blogosphere wouldn't assuage those out for an admission of guilt, though, if you're wondering why I didn't say anything. I'm under no illusions—I might be affiliated with those affiliated with SGM, but I'm no Kevin Bacon, if you get my drift.)

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In the light of more recent occurrences, though, and now that some of "us" have issued a public statement, I thought a few things might be said. Take them for what they're worth to you. Remember comments aren't open on Sayable ever so I'm not shutting you down and there's no need to respond. They're just my simple thoughts for those who might need them.

If you are a pastor:

Please protect your sheep. I meant what I said above about trusting those who keep watch over my soul. I mean that because the Bible says it and I trust the words of God. However, you, by nature of your position and your God-given authority, help illuminate those words for your sheep. You can use or abuse your authority and position, and you can, unknowingly, be the voice of the accuser to people—even in your silence. Always protect your sheep. If one of your talented, seemingly godly, charismatic sheep turns out to be a wolf, go after him. If one of your sheep leaves the fold, go find her. Pastor your people, don't just preach at them.

If you were abused:

This case feels like the nail in the coffin, trust me, I know. Even if it wasn't the same as your experience, you can easily relive your experience every time someone dismisses the concerns of the victims, every time someone seems complicit with their silence. Your heart means well here. The grace of God for you takes a horrific experience and gives you the tools to minister to these issues in a way those higher-up might never be able to do. That is not your blight or your stain, that is the precious work of grace to take the broken and make beautiful. Now is your time to speak in and with grace.

If you were an abuser:

You did wrong and you know this. You ought to make recompense for what is considered a crime in the eyes of God and the judicial system. But this does not mean forgiveness is withheld from you, or should be withheld until you "pay for what you did." Forgiveness doesn't work that way. I pray you know the fullness of the gospel covers your crimes, but does not blot them from history. Repent, accept the judicial punishment, and if you are His Child, look forward to a lifetime of His grace and an eternity in His presence.

If you want to leave the church because of this:

Part of me wants to say, please do, and trust me, there's no snark in that statement. I'm fully convinced that no matter how far you run, you cannot outrun the wild, ferocious, loving heart of our God. If leaving the Church for a while helps you clear yourself of the clutter of its underbelly, please do. You have the freedom to leave abusive situations, Christ sets us free to do that, and you should. But I will also say this, as a child who has seen her fair share of the underbelly, if you're His? You're grafted in. You're knit so tightly into His body and flesh, his scars and blood-bought redemption that you can't leave the Church because you are part of it. And it's beautiful. Really beautiful when you see it like that.

If you are neo-reformed (or whatever it is called these days), but embarrassed by the silence or complicit responses:

Can I implore you to press in close to your leaders, your elders, your editors, and your pastors. Sometimes they know things about a situation that you don't know, isn't public knowledge, isn't on some legal document, and isn't widely known. Sometimes they're withholding comment because it could actually make it worse for the most helpless of the situation. You don't know. There's a lot of speculation, regardless of who you are and who you know and who you know who knows someone else. You aren't Kevin Bacon, you just saw one of his movies once or twice. Reserve judgement.

If you know someone who knows someone (who was abused, who went to an SGM church, or anyone at all):

One of the things I love about the Bible is there are all these portions where it's just one man or one woman and God (or the enemy). There are no eye-witnesses, it's just Moses and the burning bush, Daniel and the lions, David and the bears, Jesus and the enemy. We get this birds-eye view into the situation, but really, when it happened it was just them there.

So we have perceptions of how things looked or played out, but I'll bet you could poll any thirty of us and we'd all have a different setting in mind for Moses and his burning bush. There would be similarities, of course, but it would be different. This is how it is to hear any story second hand. We can know that some things are true, but some things are simply perceptions. Because of this, it is almost always better to reserve your own words about another person's experience. There may be truth to it (and in this case specifically, it seems like there is definitely much truth to it), but the retelling of it multiple times will never end well. Mourn with those who mourn, bring it to the authorities if need be, but keep silent about the specific matter unless you know you speak the canonized truth.

If you are a mere onlooker:

If you're just a casual reader, a blog reader, a curious atheist, a questioning agnostic, I am sorry. This entire situation, from twenty years ago until today is unfortunate and shameful. This is not becoming to the Church and I deeply regret it happened. However, let me say this, I am firmly convinced the Church tries to keep its wedding dress too squeaky clean, and this case is a perfect example of it. The reality is we're blemished and broken, spotted and wrinkled, and Christ is the only way we're getting presented cleansed. He's it. It's not through a denomination, a pastor, a friend, a court system, or a blog post that the resolution of all things comes, it's Him. Him alone. Be encouraged, there's room at the table and we don't mind if you're messed up. Really. We're messed up too.

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That's all. I know this is long, and I'm breaking sabbath to share it, but I couldn't sleep and I love to sleep.

Go in peace, brothers and sisters, pastors and sheep, abused and abusers, doubters and finders, He is faithful to complete His work. He seals it with His spirit.

I Know Jesus and I Might Have Heard of You Too

Did y'all know there are whole websites devoted to uncovering the supposed-salacious details of Christian bloggers and pastors? I didn't until today when my inbox received a google alert that my name, lo and behold, was attached to some very salacious details of its own. Who knew? I didn't read far—my constitution is affected enough by truths about my own soul to bother with what strangers make up about it. Suffice it to say the underbelly is alive and well, folks, alive and well.

All this has me thinking about the ever shrinking neutral ground and whether it exists at all, or ever has. It seems nothing is out from under the watchful eye of bloggers and critics these days. Mostly because everyone has a platform these days and if not, they build one from crates, soapboxes, and grudges til they get one. I'm a peace-making sort, but even I feel the pull to build a Babel—even to just protect my own name and sense of peace.

What most of these watchdog sites and bulldog bloggers are doing, though, is attempting to make their -ism (whatever -ism and -ian or -ist they are) seem more appealing than the others'. And if they can't do that, or have already failed to do so, they'll do their darnedest to pull all the -isms down with 'em.

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One of my favorite passages in the book of Acts is when those seven silly sons of Sceva tried to cast out demons in the names of Paul and Jesus without any faith of their own. The evil spirits replied, "I know Jesus and I've heard of Paul, but who are you?" and I-love-that.

I know Jesus and I've heard of Paul.

But who are you?

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So tonight, this small writer, writing from a dark bedroom in a small, dark house in Texas, my roommate asleep next to me, her mom asleep in her bed, a friend asleep on the couch, and the rest of my girls snug in bed, I think about how small our lives are. How very, very small they are.

Who are we?

Precious few of us are Pauls; most of us are probably Peters, running at the mouth and sinking after three steps. Or Thomas, that beautiful faithless skeptic. Maybe we're Mary, the whore with the hair at Jesus feet, giving much. Perhaps some of us are just shepherds on a cold night, to whom an angel appears with great news. Maybe we're Joseph, asked to do hard things. But at the end of all things, we are very small people living very small lives. I think that with every new twitter follower, every facebook like, every email that comes into my inbox, every new invitation to speak or write: who are you, Lore? Who the heck are you?

Because at the end of all things, the world won't care about my -ism or my name. They won't remember anything when faced with the all-encompassing God of the universe. They will Know Jesus. Every one of us will bow and confess Him alone as Lord.

And until that day, I want to simply do my best to preach the gospel in His name. That's all I am. And I hope, I hope that's all you are too.

Sucking on Stones

Sometimes we just need to stay hungry, she says to me through tears, and I remind her that Jesus said His food was to do the will of Him who sent Him. We are silent for a few minutes before thanking one another for being bread and fish.

Last fall I wanted to ask for something or someone and the Lord told me no or wait or yes or maybe but that He would sustain in the meantime. What I did not expect was the sustainment He gave. She lives on the west coast, in rainy Portland, she studies Hebrew and is a whole head taller than me. She's blond and beautiful and has a sleeve tattoo and we regularly cry through our conversations. I didn't ask for her—she was not what I asked for.

Sometimes, she told me once, we think we're asking for bread, but we're really asking for a stone, and when He gives us bread we don't recognize it because we're still looking for the stone.

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I read a quote from Kathy Keller in the book she co-wrote with her husband, the inimitable Tim Keller, "Sometimes a pig doesn't know the worth of a pearl, to him it's just a pebble." I underlined those words, scribbled beside them, and cannot stop thinking about them.

Sometimes I'm asking for a stone instead of bread and sometimes I feel like a pebble instead of a pearl.

I find it a bit strange that Jesus said He would built His Church on the rock, crooking his finger at Peter, petra, Rock. On the backs of men who would deny Christ three times before He could forgive His followers saying they know not what they do? On the backs of those who sink after three steps out on watery faith? On the backs of those zealots? Those fools?

It occurs to me that God is the only one who knows the worth of stones, pebbles, pearls, and rocks.

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If we don't ask for bread, we might feel satisfied for a long time sucking on the cold, hard emptiness of a stone—thinking it was all He had for us. Or perhaps we have ourselves convinced, like the old fable, that our stone soup is satiating and full.

And still, somehow, He's building His Church, accomplishing the will of the Father, on the backs of stone-sucking fools like us.

Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work." John 3:34

That God Doesn't Exist

Before I knew I would move a thousand miles from four seasons and local coffee shops, before I knew that my faith was going to fall apart on the threshold of spring and questions about tithing, membership, and provision, before all that. This all happened before that. I knew that God wasn't real and if He was real, He wasn't good, and if He was good, He wasn't good to me. What I couldn't wrap my mind around was why I'd been dragged through the whole charade in the first place. Why a decade of spirituality and suffering and questions and confidence? Why all that if He was just going to walk me into the desert, spin me around in circles, and tell me to sort it out from there?

One of the first sermons I heard preached after I moved down here was from a series about authority. In it my pastor, who was still in the middle of 18 months of chemotherapy for a brain cancer that kills most of its victims, said these words, "I believe that He did not cause my cancer, but He could have stopped it, and He chose not to."

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There are all sorts of mental gymnastics in faith, right? In that sentence above you could spend hours and weeks and months trying to sort out what each word means and how it plays itself out. You might decide you cannot serve a God who doesn't cause suffering, but could stop it and chooses not to. But in that one sentence, my mind stopped the questions and just believed.

Because here is the truth about what God promises and what He doesn't:

He promises He is good and He promises His word endures forever.

He promises eternity to His children and He promises justice to us all.

He promises His character is inscrutable and generations will speak of His faithfulness.

And those promises trump. They win. They win because they pile these light momentary afflictions of cancer and unbelief, suffering and fear, and they place them in the hands of a Creator, an Artist, an All Good God, and He blows away the chaff, the things that feel like wasted time and wasted energy and wasted you, and He makes all things new.

All things.

New.

Context Can Save Your Life

A friend told me a long time ago that it was the unanswered questions that scared him most. He is an answerer, his wealth of knowledge is vast and he gets paid to answer people's questions about faith and theology. "I fear being unable to answer a question for the lack of time or knowledge, or simply because the answer I give doesn't satisfy," he said. I thought about what he said for a long time, a few years, and I'm thinking about it still.

This week I'm thinking about it because I saw a quote from a theologian. The quote was taken out of context and not linked back to the original context, thus painting him (and his ministry) in a negative light. If I hadn't seen his name below the quote, well, I would've lost my faith in Jesus, humanity, and the Church if that's all I knew of it right there. It was that bad.

But I am also an answerer—though mostly for myself and not for others. I cut and paste the quote, found its original source and wept through the entirety of the sermon because it was so beautifully about God being God and on His throne and loving us as only God can love.

Context can save your life.

But this isn't what I told my friend the night he told me his fears. Instead I told him about the night I realized I didn't believe in Jesus. I told him it was because I had spent a year asking hard, hard questions and not getting answers. It was because I read everything I could get my hands on, listened to sermons, read blogs, prayed, fasted, and still.

Silence.

There isn't much context for silence.

A friend told me recently she sits by her window, sits long and quiet, waiting for God to say something to her. Anything.

But what if He doesn't? I ask her. And what if that's okay?

This morning I'm thinking about the phrase "out of context." It doesn't mean the words said were incorrectly quoted or never said. It simply means out of the context in which they were intended. Without the whole picture. Apart from the whole.

And I'm thinking about God who is so much more sovereign and good and holy and set apart and whole than I will ever be or see. I am a soul out of context, a body apart from the whole, a mind void of completion. I am only a part and I see only in part. I exist in unanswered questions for the whole of my days and, Oh God, I pray He gives me more vision, more sight, more view into the whole, but what if He doesn't?

At the end of my year of questions without answers, one night on my bedroom floor, I told God what I really believed about Him which was that I didn't believe Him. Not at all. I told him what I thought I knew to be true was not true. And He began to show me what I thought to be true of Him was taken out of context, apart from the whole. Then He spent the next year drawing me back, helping me to see the whole, and how fully beautiful the whole was, even if it was still only part.

Context matters. It matters to theologians and babies, mothers and sons, it matters to good writing and better thoughts. It ought to matter to us because it matters to God. He is less concerned with us getting answers than He is with us seeing in wholeness that He is the way, the truth, and the life. He is God and we are not. He is full of mercy and justice, goodness and fury, grace and insight. He is Whole and we are only part.

God, are you there?

I found the raspberry ale, the one I like because it costs more, some small round clementines, some ginger lemon tea, and I've been wearing my glasses all day and no makeup. An old tshirt.

You think you know what I'm talking about when I tell you this week was a beating, and you might know a fraction of why, but you don't know the whole of it. You don't know the tears started on Sunday and have fallen clear through the floor of my heart all week. You don't know the ache settled itself somewhere in my throat and caught itself there strangling me with my old friend Fear all week.

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In The Brothers K there's a page where the oldest brother, Everett, spouts prayers off at the dinner table in front of his devout Seventh Day Adventist mother. His prayer starts, "Oh, God, if you're there..." and proceeds onward. It's one of the most achingly poigniant pieces of prose I've read in a long time, the whole chapter, and what we find, sweet readers, is that Everett wrestles with the beautiful question we all ask. We all have to ask:

God, are you there?

We have to ask this question, we all do, because if we don't ever feel the full on, gawking, haunting lack of Him, we cannot feel the full on, grasping need of Him. And I want to say we ask the question once and done, and it's answered in pew-side confessionals, altar call moments, or gasping breaths on the floors of our bedrooms. I want to say the question is brought once to our lips and then in holy awe, He touches our mouth with a hot coal and we go, we go, we cannot help but go.

But even Jesus, there on the cross: "Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?"

My God, My God, why have You forsaken me?

Are you there?

The heaviness of my soul this week was not death fringed around my doorstep or martyrdom for the cause of the Gospel. It was being jilted of an invite, being misunderstood by a friend, an unexpected email, feeling like a pebble instead of a pearl, a glance shooting disapproval my direction, an inbox that didn't stop filling with reactive messages all week and still. It was not having enough time to read or pray or write or be. It was leaving work and someone noticing my tires needing air and saying so. It was me saying I need a husband because I can't do this. I can't be alone anymore. Not if it means putting air in my own tires for the rest of my life.

It was the cross He asked me to bear this week. And it was a down-pillow compared to His cross.

But somewhere along the way I asked the question: God, are you seeing this? Are you going to battle for me? Are you going to defend me? Are you going to be near me? Are you going to sustain?

I wish, reader, I didn't have to wrestle with this question as often as I do. I wish belief came as naturally to me as unbelief does. I wish I had natural born faith instead of fear.

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I learned in one of my classes this week that we in the Church have been taught to believe belief leads to new birth, but the Bible teaches it the other way around: being reborn leads to belief.

And I nearly wept, right there, I didn't care who saw. I nearly wept because I can grab hold of this, because I know I'm reborn. I know it with every fiber of my being, I know Jesus is right and real and good, and His word is true and Holy and forever. And I know belief is born in the truth of my new birth and that's it. My birth, the new freshness and delight of my salvation, doesn't change because my belief is pushed on and what a comfort it is.

I felt the gawking, aching hole this week. I felt the lack of belief, but not the lack of birth, and I sit deep in this tonight. God is here, patient and parenting, battling and bearing on my behalf.

The Lord your God who goes before you will himself fight for you, just as he did for you in Egypt before your eyes.  Deuteronomy 1:30

Wait Up

We're all waiting for something. You're waiting for the raise and you, right there, you're waiting for a baby. You're waiting for that guy to notice you and you are waiting for a job you love. You're waiting for a better living situation or your due date, something to make sense and something to stop hurting. You don't have to dig much to find what you're waiting for. A friend told me last night he's waiting for joy. Another friend is waiting for healing. One more is waiting for her wedding day. And one more can't wait until she gets to go Home, her final resting place.

In all of history there have only been 33 years where what we waited for walked here on earth. A mere drop, dew on the morning grass. And here's the thing: they didn't know their wait would begin again after that short respite.

Late last night I talked with a friend about what we wait for and where our hope is in the meantime. It's hard to wait. Doubly hard when we see others receive what we're waiting for. But the deeper truth is no matter what comes our way in this lifetime, 80 years and a few more, a vapor, a breath, a moment—He is the sustainer and He is the culmination of every lesser gift.

We wait for you.

Ask, and Sometimes It's Not Given

We filled our glasses and pulled our chairs close to the fireplace. Only a few of us, but enough still to carry the conversation, none of us noticed when midnight rolled past, and so we asked more questions. I don't make resolutions because I know I can't keep them. Instead I just ask God to birth and build in me what I cannot do myself. Two years ago it was fearlessness. This past year it was to ask. I still don't know what 2013 will be, but I'm afraid it might be to just ask again.

This morning I read Psalm 1 and I tell myself I am the tree—planted by streams of water, but who only yields fruit in its season and this is not my season. This is the season to ask, but not receive. It doesn't make me less a tree because fruit doesn't fall from my laden branches.

It is winter and the trees are bare outside, cold wet cowlicks standing stark on flat brown Texas spreads. I stand outside this morning in the damp cold, the gray skies overhead, cupping my coffee and asking for what seems impossible.

The acorns and leaves carpet our backyard, fruit borne in its season, now lifeless on floor of the earth, making space and way for new fruit.

I turn my hand up and ask for fullness in the right time and not before.

"Titus, A True Child in Common Faith."

I say to a friend recently that it may be those who have suffered most who trust most.

I hope you don't take offense to that—it is okay if you do, though, because it probably means you haven't suffered and it is coming for you. I promise. I pray sooner rather than later.

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We come in the world with our fists clenched and go out with hands open and I think God did that on purpose—a visual picture of the wrest that our lives will be and the peace that comes when we enter final rest.

What I mean is that I've never met a Christian who has tasted death, whose home has been visited with deep suffering, pain, or loss, who does not know that He is found in the mourning and His mercies are new every morning.

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In the past few months I've encountered some new writers, so many lovely people who love Jesus and love His bride, but two stand out and I want to say a few words about them and then ask something of you.

He is a poet-lawyer. The old joke is that lawyers lie, but this man tells truth and tells it beautifully. His blog is one of my favorite places to visit.

His wife is the same. Not a lawyer, but a poet and a mother. Gentle. Honest. Beautiful. Sparkling with life and faith.

They have four sons and it is the youngest I want to tell you about. Titus. I don't know the full details of his sickness, but that is primarily because his own parents and doctors and specialists do not know the extent of his sickness. Here is what is known: Titus does not grow. His small body just doesn't grow. So while his older brothers grow up, and his parents grow on, Titus stays small, unable to fully process nutrients. I have experienced great loss, but I understand my loss. There is logic and sense to be made of my loss, but this?

This?

I don't understand this.

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But here is what I know: his parents love the Lord, they love the Church, they love the Gospel, they cling to the goodness of God in the land of the living, and trust that He is good in the land of confusion.

So would you pray? Would you pray for wholeness for Titus? Would you pray that Seth and Amber would suffer well in this process, that their pain would not be without meaning and purpose? Would you pray that there would be clarity, but even more, that there would be healing? I believe that God can heal and He may, but I also believe He may not heal, but that either way He is good. And Seth and Amber, they believe that too.

Pray that their faith makes well.

I wrote this post on Sunday, planning to post it sometime this week. Today Amber updated us with news on Titus and Seth made me cry with a song he wrote about the Goodness of God. 

A Trustworthy Saying

Suppose there is someone in your life you trust implicitly. Suppose on every issue you gladly turn to this person for wisdom, counsel, support, encouragement. Suppose this person loves you, has your best interest and God's glory in mind. Suppose in every direction, whichever way you look at it, this person takes the proverbial cake. Except in one area. Say it's that they cannot bake a good cookie. This person repeatedly disappoints you, continually confuses you, and surprises you every time with how lousy their chocolate chip cookies turn out. No matter how you look at it you cannot make sense of this one small area.

Now, suppose that God asks you to trust Him beyond how you trust this person, and in spite of their continual failings in this area. Suppose that God says, "I know this person cannot be counted upon to make a perfect chocolate chip cookie, they continually forget necessary ingredients, and almost always burn the cookies, but that's okay, trust Me, because my faithfulness supersedes theirs and always will. Trust Me."

Now you have a choice: do you trust God (even though you've never actually seen God make a half decent cookie of His own) or do you keep your eyes on this person who, despite this one little thing, has never failed you yet?

That is the question, isn't it?

Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the Lord our God. Psalm 20:7

When He Feels Far Off

"He is near."

I say that a lot these days. In the hallway. In class. In this space. At my kitchen table last night while a candle flickers, light playing off our faces. I say it to convince others but I say it to convince myself too.

He is near.

He is near because his word says he is near. Because he is Emmanuel, God with us. Because He came to earth as a baby and wrapped in rags and humility. He is near because he was a suffering servant, drinking a cup that wasn't taken from him, even when He asked. He is near because he walked through the valley, in the shadow of his own death. Near because he is God, encompassing, creating, drawing, loving, shepherding. He is near not because we feel His nearness, but because He says He is near.

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Three comforts if you feel He is not near:

1. His nearness is not a feeling, it is a truth.  The eyes of the Lord are toward the righteous and his ears toward their cry. Psalm 34.15

We may be in the same room with one another, not touching, but there is usually the feeling of presence. But what about those times when you don't feel that closeness? In my office my chair back is to the door so it is the office joke to startle me. Sometimes I don't know someone is standing there for a long time. I can't feel their presence, but it doesn't change the truth that they are standing there, feet behind me.

When we feel far from God it is important to note that our feelings cannot be trusted. Primarily because being apart from God is not a place where we will be sitting in truth. But also because our feelings are simply untrue in this case. God cannot be far off, He omniscient (having infinite knowledge), omnipotent (holding unlimited power), omnipresent (present everywhere). That is the truth. Our feelings are important, but they are important mainly to God and that is the most important thing when we feel far from Him.

2. We know it's true because His word can be trusted. For the word of the Lord is true, and all his work is done in faithfulness. Psalm 33.4

When we doubt our feelings, when it seems He is not coming through, not answering us, or has turned a cold shoulder to us, it is time for us to first confess those emotions to Him. He is not surprised by our doubt. He is not scrambling for a plan B. He is not trying to sweep up the pieces of our lives. He is God and we know that because His word says He is God and words, right there, in that beautiful book, breathed by the Spirit and recorded for us can be trusted. Dreams, emotions, prophetic words, others, feelings—these fail. His word does not fail.

3. We can trust His word because His word does not return void. So shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it. Isaiah 55.11

God can not be mocked. No, even more, He will not be mocked. He won't stand for it. So neither will His Word. That may seem jeering and standoffish to us, but if we come a bit closer I think we will see what a warm blanket that promise is. That promise means that He is for us, His children, His interest. That promise means that He is deeply involved in our cares and our feelings as they concern Him. Why? Because He won't be mocked. He won't be standing there on that final day wondering what went wrong. That means we're safe, we may feel unsafe, but if you're His child, you're safe. He's got this.

Why?

Because He is near.

When You Don't Know What to Do

There is a paralyzing fear that grips the temples of its captive and pounds in every step in every direction. It is a paralyzing fear built of doubt. It creeps in slowly at first, comes with indecision and an inability to make a firm and stayed plan. It strangles slowly, giving credence to two good options or the lesser of two evils. It tightens its grip, bringing with it death that sounds like, "What if I'm messing up my life [or someone's life] by making this decision?"

This fear is verbalized as a doubt in oneself: am I making the right decision? Am I doing the right thing? Am I changing the course of my life with this choice?

But we know that whatever doesn't proceed from faith is sin and where should our faith be borne but God?

This paralyzing fear is nothing more than idolatry on stilts.

It is the course of our life (a mere vapor, dew on the morning grass; vanity of vanities, the preacher said) set high on faulty holds. It is the person we'll marry perched atop a totem. It is the person for whom we'll vote sitting on the tip of a flagpole. It is this school or that school, this church or that church, this place or that place wrapped into a head and set upon a body. It is the idol of self and it is passing away.

If God is Creator and we are the created, then we trust Him to be creative with our lives—even in unexpected and surprising ways. Even in ways that cannot be figured on graph paper or whiteboards. If God is God and we are mere mortals, flesh, dew on the morning grass, than the only master plan that matters is His. He has no plan B.

And your Plans A, B, and C will fail anyway, trust me, and I'll pray it's sooner rather than later. You're welcome.

So here is what we do:

We eat, we drink, we go into this city, we leave this place, we make His name great right where we are, we make His name great in the place He calls us to next, we delight, we find joy, we breathe.

We make decisions born of faith in Him, not in us.

We commit to life because of Him, not because of our convenience.

We marry to reflect His nature, not because we don't want to be lonely.

We commit to our church because she is His bride, not because she is always beautiful.

We covenant in life because we know the end of the story and, for Christ, it is already finished, and so for His children it is too.

Go make a hard decision today. Go and do it in peace.

He is not only with you, He is for you.

Selah.

Common Stones

Remember last week when I told you about asking for a fish and getting a stone? A friend told me afterward that sometimes we think we've asked for a fish and still receive a stone, and when that happens it's because we cannot fathom the unending blessing and goodness of God—what we're really asking for is a stone and what He is giving is a fish.

Protection, she called it, from what would ruin us, because He knows best what is best.

I hear that and receive it, but I don't like it. I don't like it because I like fish and I like a particular kind of fish and I see other people getting the fish they asked for and I can't figure out why He won't give me the particular fish for which I crafted a beautiful ask.

Instead he plops a stone down into my lap—it's hard, uncomfortable, and it's covered in dirt.

Well, what am I going to do with this stone, I'm asking Him.

And He's not answering. But it's not because He's not good—I know it's because He is good and sometimes answers come slowly, like rocks eroding in a river instead of fast like fish swimming downstream.

So I'm turning this rock over in my hands and trying to see the beauty in it. And if beauty cannot be found in it, I'm trying to see hope in it. And if hope cannot be found in it, I am trying to see His goodness in it. And the truth is that His goodness can be seen in every common and broken thing on earth.

THE BIGGEST CATCH

She's a little like Jesus in that she always teaches me in allegories. Gardens and graveyards and apple picking—there's always some lesson lurking beneath her well timed speeches, and there's certain to be a prayer at the end of it all: go and do likewise. Tonight she's talking to me about fish.

She can stand at her kitchen sink and overlook the Grasse River. The thing about this particular juncture in the Grasse River is that it is the last dam from that river flowing down the Adirondacks and into the Saint Lawrence Seaway. The house used to be an old mill and that dam was once crucial to the life of the home and, in some ways, it still is.

It is at that dam that the salmon who make their way against the current from the Saint Lawrence end their journey. They jump and twist and spin and no matter how hard they try, they cannot make it over the dam.

It is a lazy fisherman's sweet spot. A bastion of swirling thirty inch salmon meeting their demise through hook or weariness.

But this is not the allegory she spins for me tonight.

We are talking about prayer and she is talking to me about asking big prayers, specific ones, naming things, not so that I can claim the things themselves, but so that I can hold a quivering hand to God full of childish requests and I can praise Him when He answers so specifically back to me.

I am not a big asker.

I stopped asking God for anything three years ago when I determined that He was not good and did not intend good for me. I let the anger build and boil inside of me until two years ago when I stopped asking God for anything for a different reason: I finally understood the gospel was the fullness of God for me, and what more could I possibly want? This girl was done asking because her cup runneth over.

But at a table the other night a friend talks about specific things she asked for and challenges my personal "Don't ask, don't tell" policy. And I had answers for her, I always do, but I can't get that conversation out of my head. I'm not the girl who asks.

_______________

Tonight my Jesus-friend is talking about how badly she wanted one of those fisherman to haul thirty inches of pink salmon up to her back-porch, how the taste of fresh fish would be so delightful and generous. So she asked. Well, she sent one of the many adoptees who frequent our house (of whom I am one) down to the riverside to ask. He brought back as fine a specimen of salmon as can be expected from one who's made the twenty mile journey down the seaway to the dam.

But here's the thing, she said, it was awful tasting, tough and old. She tossed it in the garbage and I can't be sure, but knowing her, she whipped up a finer feast from leftovers than you've ever tasted in your life and called it dinner.

_______________

The allegory here is that big asks do not always result in exactly what we thought we were getting, regardless of how fine it looks on the outside.

Who of you, I thought and she said, if your son asks for fish, will you give him a stone?

But sometimes He gives me stones, I said.

Yup, that's right, sometimes he gives you stones, she said. But does that means you shouldn't have asked for what you thought was best in the first place?

I don't know the answers to these questions. Even after she ends our phone call with a prayer and deep assurances of her love for me (she's a little over the top sometimes), I still don't have the answers. Flannery O'Connor said she wrote because she didn't know what she thought about something until she wrote about it, and I feel the same way. It's why I've written this.

Once I stood in the bed of that river, feet from the open dam, water spilling over it. I stood there in my bare feet and the fish swirled and swam around me. I don't think you can be that close to nature, that close to nature doing what it was meant to do—swim against the current, dive and jump and try and try again to get past that obstruction—and not feel the hopelessness that comes in life sometimes. Those fish are asking big asks and in the end the answer is no.

But I wonder what kind of life that thirty inch salmon lived before it was caught and brought to the table in the old mill house on the river. I wonder if he swam through nooks and crannies and over rocks and through storms to his end.

And if it was a good end indeed.

These photos are what I talk about when I talk about home. 

WHAT did HE MEAN?

These days it seems authorial intent is an aside, an afterthought. What really matters is how the piece of music or poetry or prose made us feel and feelings are something we westerners are never short on. And so praise God for twitter and facebook, and someone thank Him for LinkedIn too, because without these outlets of immediacy, how would we ever know how anyone felt about anything? This morning a short twitter exchange:

Him: Sometimes I need to be reminded of what I sometimes believe. Me: Almost all the time I need to be reminded of what I almost never believe.

So this has me thinking about doubt this morning.

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In my Old Testament class we began our study of Deuteronomy today. It is, in short, the paraphrase of the previous four books of the Bible and, in long, an instructive to remember and rejoice, remember and rejoice.

Forget authorial intent and even my innermost feelings, remembering and rejoicing slip my mind more than anything else.

Remember: what God intends, who He intends it for, and why. Rejoice: that God has not forgotten me or His promises, or most of all, His faithfulness to His character and word.

The other night a friend challenged me deeply. I sat on my bed Indian style, while her words came across the phone, and eloquence aside, she finished with, "So get up off your ass and do something about this situation..." Lest you think she's of the coarse, unfeeling sort, she sent me an epistle of love the next day filled with all sorts of right thinking and gospel truth.

Why?

Because I forget. I forget what God has done. I forget what He has promised. I forget what He does intend and not just how it all makes me feel.

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This morning reading through the first few chapters of Deuteronomy with the rest of my class I'm reminded that there is cancer in that room and death, loneliness and confusion, joblessness and despair. In that room of 38 people who love Jesus deeply, who serve Him radically, who have been tapped on the shoulder by leadership at my church to come out and lead well, in that room of 38 people things do not always go well.

There are some of us asking: will we ever get to see the promised land? Has our sin been too great? Has His anger been too deep? Has our doubt been too strong?

And it's not because we don't know the gospel or the grand intent of God's hand: it is because we do not remember the gospel and sometimes forget the grand intent of God's hand.

So Deuteronomy is a sweet comfort to me today. Because it is a book about remembering and rejoicing—even if we never see what we think is promised to us. It is a book of history, of Ebenezers set at which to point and say, "Look what God has done thus far." It is a book about God's intentions, even when our feelings run rampant over truth.

Remember.

And Rejoice.