Month: January 2020

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You Still Bare My Signature

“So love Me or hate Me,
I’m not going anywhere.
Leave Me or take Me,
You still bare My signature.
Know Me or not,
Seen or forgot,
I’m not walking out on you.”

Chris Renzema, How To Be Yours

I still act like an orphan, I guess. I do. I act like God isn’t worthy of trust, like He doesn’t want the best for me as His child. It is hard for me to fathom because it seems as if my life is out of control. Which begs the question, whose control is my life in? Am I grabbing it and holding on so tight that I’m stuck? The unknown is too frightening of a thing to think about.

Yet somehow, I’ve become comfortable with my uncomfortable life. How does that even make sense? I don’t have the 9-5. I don’t have the regular, set hours. In fact, I have the wildest day-to-day compared to everyone around me, who knows when they go to work and when they are off, 365 days a year, unlike me, who gets to know less than a week out. Still, I’ve become comfortable. I don’t want to take any new risks because that would mean jeopardizing what I already kind of have control over.

I don’t want to take a risk and fail. I’ve already been forced to take so many risks in life already. Is an ordinary, simple life too much to ask for? Is it not what I deserve after all I’ve been through?

What I deserve? What a ridiculous thing to say. What do I deserve?

I’m a sinner. I deserve death. I’ve chosen to place my trust in everything but God. Why would He do anything for me now that I’ve rejected Him and His ways? Why can’t I trust in His provision when it is so obvious and evident throughout history, especially my own life? His fingerprints are everywhere!

No wonder I’m stuck. No wonder winter won’t end.

My head is spinning. My thinking is askew. What I’m believing is so wrong. But even as God holds me as I cry on the floor, I struggle to know how to be His.

“Child, I’m not going anywhere. No matter how hurt or confused you might feel, you still bare my signature. I’m not walking out on you.”

Why have I doubted Your goodness? Why have I lost sight of all that He has already done? He didn’t give up on His people throughout time, even when they wanted nothing to do with Him. He didn’t give up on me, even when I walked out on Him. But I’m terrified.

Being exposed is scary. It feels like danger encroaches on every side. At the same time, risk brings potential for more. For more than familiarity, something grandiose and arresting. Something life-altering and wonderful. Imagine the places you could go when you get back up and step into daunting, uncharted territory.

He’s not done with you.

Nothing I can do will ever make me good enough to deserve anything. I doubt, cry, scream, question, or condemn myself to death.

“Child, it’s time to sing a new song, to allow me to tend the soil, to reach toward the light because death is gone with the winter.”

It’s time for the shift of my perceived source of life back to You. The truth is the death of Jesus is sufficient proof of the trustworthiness of the heart of God. I have no reason to doubt, fear or cower. No reason to hide because the Cross ultimately says it all: I am free and forgiven. I am adopted. I am loved.

No matter the things I’ve done, no matter the things that have happened to me, the future isn’t controlled or dictated by those things. It is dictated by the Creator of everything and whatever He wants, He will do.

“I’m not walking out on you.”

It’s time to stop singing the song of defeat. It’s time to come back to life. Awake my soul for death is dead and gone. What I have proclaimed dead, God has pulled out of the grave. It’s time to be renewed, to drink of fresh, living water.

Prodigal, come home.

Your God who is rich in mercy, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ. For it is by grace you have been saved.

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A New Thing

“Behold I am doing a new thing do you not perceive it springing forth? I am making away in the wilderness, rivers are bursting in the desert.” – Isaiah 43:19

The elders wept when the old became new in Ezra Ch. 3. Too often we think that the new looks glamorous. Yet somehow the old does too. I know I miss how things were. Everything was so simple then; my life was planned out and structured. It seems just as awfully complicated these days. Nothing in my life is set and I feel like I have no end goal. Everything I once knew has flipped upside down. It can seem overwhelming. But let’s be real, the old had its problems too. It was fallen, broken, just coasting through.

Sometimes the only way to get through the new, is to not be so stuck in what could’ve been that you miss out on the goodness of this season. It’s easy to stay in what’s comfortable, not wanting changing, accepting that where you are is where you’ll be forever. That’s how the Israelites ended up as exiles to begin with. They probably thought it would be safer to stay in their oppression because it was at least known.

If the story of the exiles tells us anything, is that God will do what he wants whether we agreed to it or not. He will make a way. In this case, He literally put His agenda on the heart of an ungodly man in a foreign kingdom and made a Way in what seemed like an identity wilderness. Not just any way, He provided the means, the method, and the provision for it.

Yeah, I’ve screwed up. I admit, I’ve lost sight of what really matters. I’ve gotten angry at the process and how long it seems to be taking. I’ve forgotten that He’s enough. I’ve come to Him with my agenda and my plan. Maybe the real reason I feel stuck because I won’t do it His way.

Maybe what I should be doing is going back to where I started and begin again. The beauty of the cry of the elders when the temple was rebuilt, is that they were transported back to where they started. Back when it was all about entering in and wanting nothing else but to simply be in His presence. To simply be. How am I supposed to understand the beauty of what He’s done already when I’ve lost sight of it? How am I supposed to draw others into His Presence if I’m on the outside looking in?

All that matters in the end is this: do I want Him? Do I truly want Him and nothing else? Or do I want what He can do for me? Do I want the one who taught the waves to dance? Who chose the color of my eyes? Who is separated night from day to mark out time for our blessing? Do I want the one who died so we could have a life together instead of being apart?

If I get stuck in the thoughts that roll in my head, the what could’ve been or what could be, that where I get truly lost. The lines between old and new get blurred so easily and the cycle repeats itself.

“Behold I am doing a new thing.”

I want nothing else more. Maybe the new thing springing forth is a greater desire to simply sit at His feet. To thank Him for His goodness and what He has done. To trust that He doesn’t need to keep proving Himself when He already did with the cross. To turn the cry of my heart from what I want to declaration of the truth.

For He is good, His faithful love endures forever.

Do I truly believe that? Do I?

May my weeping and crying out in praise be as indistinguishable as the cry of those will be held His presence anew on that day when the temple foundation was rebuilt.

For the old is now new.

It’s not easy being in winter. It’s bare, cold and lonely. But without winter, without a season of burial, a season of night, we wouldn’t rejoice as boldly. Oh how magnificent is the blossom when the bright, glorious, radiant sun rises. Our God loves taking our breath away. He is worthy even in the darkness. His banner over us is love and He is trustworthy to complete what He started.

Your season will come. It will. Just not when and how you think it will. In the meantime, breath the cold into your lungs, allow Him to strengthen you, and rest in the wonder.