My Story Part 1: Active Waiting

"You can get so confused
that you'll start in to race
down long wiggled roads at a break-necking pace
and grind on for miles across weirdish wild space,
headed, I fear, toward a most useless place.
The Waiting Place...

...for people just waiting.
Waiting for a train to go
or a bus to come, or a plane to go
or the mail to come, or the rain to go
or the phone to ring, or the snow to snow
or waiting around for a Yes or a No
or waiting for their hair to grow.
Everyone is just waiting.

Waiting for the fish to bite
or waiting for wind to fly a kite
or waiting around for Friday night
or waiting, perhaps, for their Uncle Jake
or a pot to boil, or a Better Break
or a string of pearls, or a pair of pants
or a wig with curls, or Another Chance.
Everyone is just waiting.

NO!
That's not for you!"


from: Oh the Places You Will Go
by: Dr. Seuss


For many years I have been in the Waiting Place. It is truly a hard place to be. I am 28 and single. Therefore, 28 and waiting. This waiting has taken on many forms over the last years. 


There has been a longing inside of me to be a wife and mother, a longing that runs deep and that causes great pain. The pain comes in a hope deferred, which has made my heart sick. 


In the waiting place there have been times of great hope relying on the Lord that he would bring me a man of God, that he would fulfill my desires. There were also times of desperation and hopelessness thinking it would never happen. I remember conversations with other godly women stating emphatically that I was just deciding to be single and not hold out hope, so that I could live singlely without constantly looking and waiting. 


The Lord has been working on my heart through this waiting place. He asked me to actively wait. This meant I needed to take a few steps: I joined an online dating site. I emailed all the pastors that have been influential in my life asking them to pray for a mate and if they knew anyone to introduce me. I prayed, intensely and specifically for God to bring me a man. I asked others to pray. I actively waited. 


For many months I saw no results, but I did see God change my heart. So I find that the Waiting Place is not actually the most useless place. 

my story of recent months

So the last few months have been an amazing whirlwind of life changes. Amazing, good, beautiful, life changes. I am going over the next several entries attempt to tell this amazing journey the Lord has put me on. It will be in installments and hopefully fully reveal God's amazing work in me and the beautiful tapestry he is weaving in my life and heart.

To God be the glory.......


Stay tuned

To Christ the Lord Let Every Tongue

1. To Christ the Lord let every tongue
Its noblest tribute bring
When He’s the subject of the song
Who can refuse to sing?
Survey the beauties of His face
And on His glories dwell
Think of the wonder of His grace
And all His triumphs tell

2. Majestic sweetness sits enthroned
Upon His awful brow
His head with radiant glories crowned
His lips with grace overflow
No mortal can with Him compare
Among the sons of men
Fairer He is than all the fair
That fill the Heavenly train

3. He saw me plunged in deep distress
He fled to my relief
For me He bore the shameful cross
And carried all my grief
His hand a thousand blessings pours
Upon my guilty head
His presence gilds my darkest hours
And guards my sleeping bed

4. To Him I owe my life and breath
And all the joys I have
He makes me triumph over death
And saves me from the grave
To Heaven the place of His abode
He brings my weary feet
Shows me the glories of my God
And makes my joy complete

5. Since from His bounty I receive
Such proofs of love divine
Had I a thousand hearts to give
Lord, they should all be Thine
A thousand men could not compose
A worthy song to bring
Yet Your love is a melody
Our hearts can’t help but sing!

Psalm 34: His role, my role

I was reading Psalm 34 this morning. It was probably the 98th time I have read over these words. God has used this psalm so many times in the past. He seems to so often part the sky with his heavenly highlighter allowing me to see one phrase in a different way. Today was no exception. I realized that this passage delineates His role and my role. I found today that what He does for me, in response to what I do for Him, is so unequal, completely swayed to one side. Let me share with you what I found.

In short, my job is to:
seek Him, loot to Him, call to Him when I am in trouble, take refuge in Him, listen to Him, and fear Him.
All of these speak of relationship. The passage also outlines what it means to fear Him since that is called for three or four times in the passage. To fear the Lord is to keep tongue from evil, to seek peace and pursue it. Those are the only to do's given. Essentially God just wants me to look to Him.

In response, He will:
answer me, deliver me from all trouble and all fear, make me radiant, take away my shame, save me, encamp around me, bless me. He will provide for my every need as I taste and see His goodness. He will make sure I lack for nothing. He will teach me and give me many good days. He will see me, his ear will be attentive to my cry. He will be close to me, redeem me and not condemn me.

I would say there is a great disparity in what He expects of me and what He will do for me. I serve a God who only wants me to be in relationship with Him, and when I make the choice to turn my face toward Him, He will go above and beyond my imagination. He will be my all. Not because I made Him my all (for I often turn away) but because He is sufficient to meet every need I could ever have. "Lions may grow weak and hungry, but those who seek the Lord lack no good thing."

Imitators

In church this morning I heard a message from Ephesians 5:21 "submit to one another  out of reverence for Christ." I mulled over this the whole day. Submission is hard. As I listened to the sermon, I thought of ways, particularly at work, where I have not been submissive. Conviction is painful. I love how God points things out to me though as I read his word. See this verse is in a greater context. Ephesians 5 begins with the challenge to be imitators of God, and to love sacrificially like Christ loved us. The passage gives things that this doesn't look like: sexual immorality, impurity, drunkenness. But I love how God in his word makes things really practical. I can look at a list of don'ts and easily feel good about myself for I don't smoke, I don't drink, I don't... and you could name a lot of things in there. But not doing something is not imitation. Doing something is imitation. So what is it that God does that we are to imitate. So he boils it down to three primary relationships all summarized in the short verse " submit to one another." See God respects people like wives should respect their husbands. God loves people like husbands should love their wives. God does not exasperate, but makes obedience possible. God obeys authority (even his own). God behaves in such a way that he cannot be spoken against by his boss. God treats people fairly. How do we imitate God? We submit to each other. We love each other. This is a hard teaching. But it is possible or he would not have commanded it. 

The Fig Tree

The fig tree, the withered fig tree, has me puzzled. I asked about it on facebook. One of my college professors, Mark Wenger, responded as I had a feeling he would.
What he said:
1. Fig trees leaf in season, not before it. Like the magnolia doesn't tell us that summer is coming. It tells us that summer is indeed here.
2. The context of the story is that at the temple, Jesus was rejected by the religious leaders and accepted by the poor.
3. Unripe figs were for the poor to partake of. In fact Bethpage means "house of unripe figs."
4. The next context is that the disciples afterward ask for signs of the end of the age. They asked when the end would come.

Put it all together:
The fig tree is telling us that it is the end of the age. It is not coming but is here. The tree is symbolic of lack of fruit for the needy. Our job then is to produce fruit for the poor or be cursed.

As I pondered this, I still could not reconcile this explanation with Jesus' application in Mark 11. He says if we have even a small amount of faith, we can tell the mountain to be thrown into the sea and it will be. He then says that we should forgive our brother so that God will forgive us. God spoke to me through this meditation process. Could it be that faith and forgiveness aren't as much the fruit we should produce, but the soil in which fruit grows. They are the precursors to fruit.

Christians are like leafy fig trees. Where there is leaf there should be fruit, even if it is unripened. Lack of faith and unforgiveness will hinder that fruit from growing. Like the religious leaders in Jesus' time. They couldn't believe that Jesus was who He said He was, and they couldn't forgive the attention He stole from them. They were like fig trees with no figs. Many Christians today also have no fruit, not even unripened fruit, because of their lack of faith and lack of forgiveness. Lord please help me believe and help me forgive.

The Speech Every Boy Needs to Hear about Being a Man

"Sometimes the things that may or may not be true are the things that a man needs to believe in the most.
That people are basically good. That honor, courage, and virtue mean everything. That power and money, money and power mean nothing. That good always triumphs over evil. I want you to remember this, that love, true love never dies. You remember that boy...It doesn't matter if it is true or not. You see a man should believe in those things because those are the things worth believing in." That's just a piece of the speech, just a piece.

Second Hand Lions is one of my favorite movies. It weaves a fantastic story. But this little speech, hit home today. These things are worth believing. I have to add the spiritual element in there, too though. God is good. He is not safe, but He is good. He has a plan for me. His plan is good. Honor, courage, and virtue mean everything because those are the characteristics of my good and unsafe God. His love will never die. Those things are worth believing.

Today, my heart needs to believe in this God who is bigger than I am. Today this is worth believing in.