A Picture of Trust*

I'm standing. I don't understand how I got here. I don't understand what's going on. I'm uncomfortable with the situation in more than one way. What's going on hurts me both physically and emotionally. Except that it doesn't, because I am looking in the eyes of my beautiful Master, who is standing right beside me. He understands what is going on, even though I don't. He has power over the situation, even though I don't. And above the intellectual comfort of that is a simple joy and assurance at His presence. This Master who I love so much, who holds my heart in His hands, who has been with me in every moment of pain and confusion and who never deserts me even when I doubt Him. And the joy and assurance that floods through makes the physical and emotional discomfort of the situation literally fade to nothing and seem irrelevant to me.
*from a dream

Trustworthy

"Trust in God," I'm told.
"It will all work out . . . "
"He has a plan . . . "
"He knows what He's doing . . . "
Unfortunately, as long as these phrases come to me in the songs or from the writings of someone who I perceive in certain ways, I don't listen, at all. I think, "Oh sure! Easy for you to say. Look where you are in your life! You know what you're doing! You already have everything I want! Where was that statement when you were struggling? Did you think that then too?"
A completely ungracious thought, I know. And I know that just because someone's circumstances look awesome to me that doesn't mean they don't still have struggles. And I know that these things are being said out of a desire to comfort with wisdom that comes from experience. Even knowing that, I still don't get the comfort that I should from that song (I am writing this mostly about my recent reactions to a particular song, which I am neither directly quoting nor crediting due to the ungracious nature of what I am saying combined with the fact that I actually really like and respect the artist).
Thankfully, comfort has come from another place. I'm reading through the Bible according to a plan that is supposed to be in chronological order, and at the moment I'm in 1 Samuel and Psalms, reading about David. And I never really thought much before about the correlation between David's Psalms and where he was in his life when he wrote them, but now I am.


"I believe that I shall look upon the goodness of the Lord
in the land of the living!
Wait for the Lord;
be strong, and let your heart take courage;
wait for the Lord!"
Psalm 27:13-14
"For you are my rock and my fortress;
and for Your name's sake You lead me and guide me"
"I will rejoice and be glad in Your steadfast love,
because You have seen my affliction;
You have known the distress of my soul"
"Oh, how abundant is Your goodness,
which You have stored up for those who fear You
and worked for those who take refuge in You,
in the sight of the children of mankind!"
"Be strong, and let your heart take courage,
all you who wait for the Lord!"
Psalm 31:3,7,19,24
"...I am like a green olive tree in the house of God.
I trust in the steadfast love of God forever and ever.
I will thank You forever,
because You have done it.
I will wait for Your name, for it is good,
in the presence of the godly."
Psalm 52:8,9
These things were not written while David was the crowned King and had defeated Saul and had all the Israelites on his side. They were written while he was on the run with his band of outcasts, while his life was being sought by those to whom he had done no harm. Which is exactly what I wanted to hear, because if David can write these things in those circumstances, then God is just as trustworthy in the seasons of life where you DON'T have things figured out and have what you want is He is in those where you DO. (Kinda the definition of trustworthy, anyway, I know.) In other words, if David can trust in those circumstances, then I certainly can in mine! I don't have to wait until things actually work out to be able to proclaim God's faithfulness!
So, thank You, God, for being truly trustworthy and faithful; and thank you, David, for waxing poetic about it while hiding in caves.

What I Do Have

Today is Human Trafficking Awareness Day. This is an issue I have become increasingly aware of in the past few months or so. That innocent and poor human beings, some very young, all vulnerable, are tricked, coerced, and held against their will, in order that someone else may make money out of the labor of their hands or the sexual sale of their bodies. 

Did not He who made me in the womb make him?

And did not One fashion us in the womb?

Job 31:15

This is verse is from a really interesting chapter of Job (I recommend going and reading the whole thing), where he catalogues a very specific definition of righteousness. In the section of this particular verse, he is discussing the way he has treated the people who work under him, that he has not ignored their complaints or mistreated them--and this is his reason--do we not each have the same Creator?

Should we not all have this same level of respect for our fellow human beings? Should we not be--I was about to say outraged--and outrage is an appropriate response--but it is not my response. I don't get angry very much. But when I think of what little I know about this particular thing that goes wrong in the world, I am sad. And I want to do something. I want to take the helpless ones in my arms and offer them some comfort. I want to give them a chance to live the free life that is all I have known.

I don't really have money that is mine to give (not in a dependable regular way; I'm not saying I never give any) at this stage of my life, and I do not have the tongue or the boldness to go around telling people about these things, and I do not yet have a path clear to what my mission in life is or how I should be seeking it. But what I do have I give to God to use: I have my heart and prayers, I have my pen (or keyboard, more literally in this case), and I have my musicianship. I don't know how to incorporate these things into God's mission, and I don't know what jobs He may have for me, but I offer what I do have, for Him to use as He sees fit.

But Peter said, "I have no silver and gold, but what I do have I give to you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk!"

Acts 3:6

For if the readiness is there, it is acceptable according to what a person has, not according to what he does not have.

2 Corinthians 8:12

http://blog.compassion.com/today-is-the-day-to-do-something-about-human-trafficking/

http://www.ivpress.com/cgi-ivpress/book.pl/code=3806

My Friend

My own words are not equal to the task I am setting them. How can I say with what comfort I now am looking back on this past year? How can I say that none of the disappointments, frustrations, confusions and worries can outweigh the sense of assurance that overwhelmed me this morning?

I was sitting and thinking about the old year, and how badly I want the new one to be different, only somehow, what God spoke into my heart was not a promise about what will happen, but a reminder about what has happened.

I don't need to explain to Jesus what I am feeling now. I don't need to tell Him about the things that have happened, about the mind games that I play with myself, about the feelings that threaten to pull me into a spiral of nothing, away from the work and fellowship that help.

He was there every day, every hour, every minute of this past year. He shared each moment with me, in all its joys, all its hurts, in every up and down, in all the reverses and unexpected things which I hate so much for their very unexpectedness . . . He has walked with me. He knows my heart.

He will walk with me through this next year as He has with the past one.

But now thus says the Lord,

He who created you, O Jacob,

He who formed you, O Israel:

"Fear not, for I have redeemed you;

I have called you by name, you are Mine.

When you pass through the waters, I 

    will be with you;

and through the rivers, they shall

    not overwhelm you;

when you walk through fire you shall

    not be burned,

and the flame shall not consume you.

Isaiah 43:1-2

He was despised and rejected by men;

a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief;

and as one from whom men hide their faces

He was despised, and we esteemed Him not.

Surely He has borne our griefs

and carried our sorrows;

yet we esteemed Him stricken,

smitten by God, and afflicted.

Isaiah 53:3-4

O Lord, You have searched me and known me!

You know when I sit down and when I rise up;

You discern my thoughts from afar.

You search out my path and my lying down

and are acquainted with all my ways.

Even before a word is on my tongue,

behold, O Lord, You know it altogether.

You hem me in, behind and before,

and lay Your hand upon me;

it is high; I cannot attain it.

Psalm 139:1-6

2011

Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. 
Hebrews 13:8
Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.
James 1:17


Have I mentioned that I don't like change? (Oh, only every other time I write or so.)


This has been a year of change for me . . . of adjusting and re-adjusting, and changing my mind, and getting caught in weird cycles that don't seem to end, wondering who I'm supposed to be, what I'm supposed to do, and not coming anywhere near figuring it out, because I have a different idea every time I think I might know, or because half my ideas are unlikely and the other half unpleasant . . . or because I don't have any ideas that day.


I feel like I'm not good enough at what I want to be good enough at, or that I don't even know what I want to be good at, or that I will never be good enough at anything. I feel like everything I really want is something I can't have, or something that I am afraid would actually make me miserable--and I can't decide if I'd be more miserable with it or without it--


I feel like my dreams got taken away and haven't been replaced yet.


I feel like I must be a terrible, ungrateful, jealous person or I would not feel all these things.


And yet somehow, I know that God is good and that He loves me. And that even amidst all this change within and around me, He has remained constant.


I don't normally care for the practice of posting big chunks of song lyrics divorced from the music, but I want to end on this note. I wrote this song in late October of this year:


To You I bring
my longing heart
To You I bring
my desire


To You I bring
my aching heart
The questions I
cannot answer


You see me whole
in all my secrets
You hold my world
inside Your hands


And yet You love
me through it all
I trust in You
to be steadfast


You know what I
cannot yet know
Please guide me through
This confusion


You see me whole
in all my secrets
You hold my world
inside Your hands

Too Good to be True

As they were talking about these things, Jesus Himself stood among them, and said to them, "Peace to you!" But they were startled and frightened and thought they saw a spirit. And He said to them, "Why are you troubled, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Touch Me, and see. For a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have." And when He had said this, He showed them His hands and His feet. And while they still disbelieved for joy and were marveling, He said to them, "Have you anything here to eat?" They gave Him a piece of broiled fish, and He took it and ate before them.

Luke 24:36-43

I am often tempted to take a rather dark view of the world. I am often inclined to take my sorrows more seriously than my joys, as if the one were the real thing, the tangible reality, and the other were ephemeral and incorporeal.

But does sorrow actually have more real substance than joy? 

In this scene following the resurrection of Jesus, the disciples were incredulous. Was Jesus really standing before them? Was He a spirit? Should they be worried instead of rejoicing? And His response was: Touch Me. I am flesh and bone. I am real.

I read all the stories of His betrayal and suffering and crucifixion in each Gospel one after the other, and appreciated them for the real Sorrow and the real Pain that they show, because it is a comfort to me to see these parts of what it is to be human acknowledged by God and shared by Christ. Which is a good and right comfort. But then I read all the stories of His resurrection, and I was convicted about my tendency to focus on those parts of life and forget the others--forget how much I have to be thankful for.

Mind you, I am not saying that sorrow is not also real and tangible, only that Joy is quite as real. That, in a sense, there's no such thing as too good to be true. Because of the Good that is True and gives Joy. Because God.

Plans

Come now, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit"--yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, "If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that." As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil.

James 4:13-16

I like making plans. I prefer to have a plan whenever possible, and I prefer things to go according to that plan. Obviously, it doesn't always work out that way.

I am currently approaching a big shift in my life, a major lifestyle change, the end of an era and the beginning of a new one. It's not actually happening for six months, but I'm thinking about it a lot and trying to figure out what exactly it is that I'm going to do next. At first, I was really terrified, because I was drifting without ideas. Now, I'm still nervous about the change, and I still have a lot of thinking to do, but I have some ideas, at least, which is nice. Interestingly enough, the having of the ideas was chronologically preceded by being more at peace with not being sure yet, with not knowing, with not having a plan.

During all this thinking and planning, I had a birthday that sounded like a significant number to me. It sounded so grown up, and I'm pretty sure that I used to think that by the time I reached the age I am now I would have things a lot more figured out than I actually do yet. That made it even harder to be OK with being confused and planless, but I've started being OK with it.

See, I used to think that by the age I am now I would need to be "set" on some particular path that I would then just Follow For the Rest of My Life. Well, I'm not set. And that's making me think that I actually have more time to figure things out than I thought I did, or that maybe I'm not ever going to figure it all out, that it's always going to be a journey, an experiment, an adventure.

It's OK if I don't know what the Big Plan is. I just need to find the next step, and keep asking God to show me where His will is for me right now. Not ten years from now or two years from now, but right now.