Still Childish

A (very) humbling thought from John Owen's The Mortification of Sin:


Notwithstanding all our confidence of high attainments, all our notions of God are but childish in respect of his infinite perfections.  We, for the most part, but lisp and babble, and say we know not what, in our most accurate (as we think) conceptions and notions of God.  We may love, honor, believe and obey our Father; and therewith He accepts our childish thoughts, for they are but childish.  We see but His back parts; we know but little of Him.

We may suppose that we have attained here great knowledge, clear and high thoughts of God; but alas! when He shall bring us into His presence, we shall cry out, we never knew Him as He is; the thousandth part of His glory, and perfection, and blessedness, never entered into our hearts.

Obedience: Round Two

Just as day was breaking, Jesus stood on the shore; yet the disciples did not know that it was Jesus.  Jesus said to them, "Children, do you have any fish?"  They answered him, "No."  He said to them, "Cast the net on the right side of the boat, and you will find some."  So thy cast it, and now they were not able to haul it in, because of the quantity of fish.  That disciple whom Jesus loved therefore said to Peter, "It is the Lord!"  When Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he put on his outer garment, for he was stripped for work, and threw himself into the sea.
--John 21:4-8


I want to be like the Peter that is depicted here.  I already am like the Peter shown just a couple of chapters earlier--the Peter who denied Jesus.  I may not have used words to say, "I don't know Him," but I have denied that He is everything to me every time that I have sinned against him.  How quick I am to say that Jesus is my life.  And how dreadfully quick I am afterwards to act as though He is nothing to me.

How great is our Savior's forgiveness.  For we are not destroyed when we sin against him.  Instead, we are given another day, another chance to throw ourselves into the sea after Him.  Another opportunity to sacrifice.  Another situation where we can obey in a big way.

When you feel the pangs of failure, don't give up hope of future success.  Our God is faithful to let us do things for him, even great things, regardless of our past shortcomings.  The man who forsook Jesus when He was at death's door would later be the man to give his own life for the sake of his Savior.

Keep your eyes open for the second chance.

First Breath

Jesus' resurrection is a source of endless fascination to me.  My mind can't fully grasp it, but loves to feel out the idea and try to picture it.  I simply can't fathom the miracle of God that happened that day.


Try to picture the scene.  Picture the hands taking Jesus off the cross.  Picture the fearful pharisee secretly arranging with Pilate to take care of the body.  Picture those lifeless arms and legs being wrapped up in cloth like a mummy, with seventy-five pounds of expensive spices stuffed in.  The body that had been alive just hours before was laid to rest in a tomb and sealed off.  It was a customary burial, to honor the body and allow it to decompose in peace out of sight and smell of anyone who survived Him.


Now picture what it was like in that tomb.  Just imagine you could see inside.  For three days, absolute stillness.  Not a whisper of air, not a flicker of light, not a sound.  And then--motion.


The mouth takes in air.  Dead lungs fill with oxygen.  Blood once again flows through the veins.  The man sits up, takes off his face cloth and folds it off to the side. This is no longer a dead body; this is the living God.


Jesus' resurrection changed everything.  


When the first person saw Him alive, Jesus said to her, "Go to my brothers and say to them, "I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God."  Brothers.  Father.  Jesus welcomed us into His family by becoming a part of ours.  The last barrier between Him and us was broken when He became like us in death.  His Father is our Father!  Even more amazing, our God is His God.


Because He became like us in death, reconciling us to the Father, we who are in Christ now become like Him in a new kind of death.  A death like His death.  Temporary.


You will die someday.  The last gasp of air will escape your lips and will not be replaced by another.  Your heart will stop pumping blood.  Your body will be moved and handled and redressed and, probably, put in a coffin, as is the custom.  And the lid will be closed and a hole will be dug and dirt will be sprinkled over you.  Then shoveled and dumped and smoothed out over the top, and marked with a stone.  


But there will be no three days waiting for you, friend.  There will be no three days of dark stillness.  For your last breath will be followed by your first.  Heaven will surround you, fill you.  Your life will begin just as soon as it ends.  


And there, in heaven, we will see our Savior.  We will see the scars, the wounds, the lips that breathed the same oxygen we did.  We will behold our brother, our God.  And forever we will live with Him.

Bigger Than My Life

Your steadfast love, O Lord, extends to the heavens,
Your faithfulness to the clouds.
--Psalm 36:5


Here's a thought.  A little thought, but a comforting one.  God's love extends to the edge of the universe.  I extend to 5 feet and 6 inches off the ground.  Do you think there's enough room for me in there?

Sometimes the most important things in life are the ones you can't see.  I can't see God's love for me like I can see a storm or or a shadow or the inside of my eyelids--but it is far, far bigger than any of those things.

Sometimes Jesus' word literally is all I have to look to.  But that isn't so bad.  He says He loves me.  He says He loves me with a love that is bigger than all the world.  I am more than happy to just go by that.

The Real Cure

Have you ever prayed like this?

O Lord, make me know my end and what is the measure of my days; let me know how fleeting I am!
Behold, you have made my days a few handbreadths, and my lifetime is as nothing before you.
Surely all mankind stands as a mere breath!  Surely a man goes about as a shadow!
Surely for nothing they are in turmoil; man heaps up wealth and does not know who will gather.
--Psalm 39:4-6

Words like that don't often constitute my morning prayer.  "God, remind me of how short my life is.  Amen."  Why would someone pray for a reminder like that?

When he spoke these words, David was in a time of personal trial, physically and spiritually.  But in this particular trial, his prayer wasn't "comfort me, God," but "humble me."

God's prescription for David's trial was a humble perspective.

So often when we face disappointment, our prayer is that we get what we want.  We identify the sadness we feel as being caused by something we wanted that we didn't get, so we identify the cure as getting that thing back, or gaining it for the first time.  But our diagnosis, like all earthly thinking, is only skin deep.  David saw past this.  He saw that all of his "getting" was ultimately futile.  His possessions wouldn't last long, and were easily lost--and so was the happiness they provided.  So instead of trying to remedy his disappointment with more getting, he decided to remedy his attitude that thought getting was the answer.

Oh that we would be quicker to come to this point!  How many trials, how many disappointments does it take for us to realize that getting what we want will not make us happy?  The very frequency of these disappointments ought to remind us that more are coming.  We will never be free from loss--not on this side of heaven.  So all we can do is pray, as David, that we will be freed from a mindset in which gain is god and loss is devastation.

David was disappointed, and he refused to hope in an earthly remedy.  That hope, he knew, was pointless.  So at the point of emptiness, he prayed this:

"And now, O Lord, for what do I wait?"
Not to get back what I lost.

"My hope is in You.
Deliver me from all my transgressions."
They, not the loss, are my real trial.

"Do not make me the scorn of the fool!
I am mute; I do not open my mouth,
for it is You who have done it."
I won't instruct You to do what I think will make me happy.
--Psalm 39:7-9


I want to respond to pain the way that David did here.  That earthly blessing didn't, doesn't, wouldn't make me happy.  God did, does, and will.  Remind me, Father, of my transience and how short-lived all earthly blessings are.  And be the one thing I truly hope in.

Joy in the Morning

I will extol You, Oh Lord, for You have drawn me up

and have not let my foes rejoice over me.

O Lord my God, I cried to You for help,

and You have healed me.

O Lord, You have brought up my soul from Sheol;

you restored me to life from among those who go down to the pit.

Sing praises to the Lord, O you His saints,

and give thanks to His holy name.

For His anger is but for a moment,

and His favor is for a lifetime.

Weeping may tarry for the night,

but joy comes in the morning.

--Psalm 30:1-5

We believe in a God who brings joy in the morning.  A God who hears us when we cry out to Him from a place of brokenness.  A God who does not let us stay incapacitated, but who draws us up from the mire.  Our enemies--sin, death, the devil--will not be allowed to rejoice over us, as they surely would if we stayed dejected forever.  Instead, God heals us, and equips us to again wage war against the adversaries we face.

So praise Him!  If you believe in Him, and You have witnessed His healing firsthand, as I have, then give thanks to His holy name.  He does not stay angry with us, but lavishes His favor and forgiveness.  And though we may weep for a night, there is always a joyful morning beyond the horizon.

Plans

Planning is a part of human nature.  Much of this tendency comes from God.  He created us in His image, and gave the first two people a hopeful plan for accomplishing much with their lives.  Many of our plans involve creative and exciting ways to carry out His mandate.

But there is a darker side of our tendency to plan.  Because of the fall, human planning cannot be perfect.  In fact, it is profoundly imperfect--as far from perfect as the post-sin earth is.  For one thing, now that sin is our nature, sin is in our plans.  We contrive darkly creative schemes to carry out our wrong desires.  But even if our plans themselves are not sinful, living in an imperfect world means we are sure to be disappointed.  This is something that we can count on every day.  You won't get everything that you want.  No matter how much time, energy, and hope we invest in these plans, our future is ultimately not in our hands.

The penniless and the powerful have this in common:

The Lord brings the counsel of the nations to nothing;

He frustrates the plans of the peoples. 

This is the truth, no matter how much we curse the fall and rage against it.  Many of our plans will come to nothing.  How sad.

But there is good news.  For while all our greatest desires have been affected by the fall, there is One who remained unchanged.

The counsel of the Lord stands forever, 

the plans of His heart to all generations.

And this is emphatically good news for a frustrated, disappointed people.

Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord, 

the people whom He has chosen as His heritage.

God has chosen us as His heritage.  And I'll tell you one reason He didn't.  God didn't look at me or anyone else and think, "Wow, I could really use someone with that kind of vision.  Carly's ability to think ahead will really be an asset in my continued world-leadership."  What a joke would that be!  When God chose me to be His heritage, you want to know what I had to offer Him?  A heart in love with sin.  Plans to sin more.  Plans to try and sin without being caught by people, with no thought to the God who would see it all.  Plans to promote myself at any cost.  Plans to indulge in every pleasure possible.

And God saved me, and gave me the awesome hope that I am His heritage, His child, forever.  And He gave me a new set of plans--to honor Him.  To bring Him glory by any means.  He gave me creative plans to spend my life on Him in a thousand little ways.  And I've never, from the beginning, carried out a single one of those plans perfectly.  But His choosing of me never depended on that anyways.  It was His plan all along, quite independent of mine.

And what about those other plans and desires (unsinful) that I want, and don't get?  There is no easy way to convince someone (yourself included) that not getting what you want is a good thing.  Yet there is some comfort to be found in this:

The Lord looks down from heaven;

He sees all the children of man;

from where He sits enthroned He looks out

on all the inhabitants of the earth,

He who fashions the heart of them all

and observes all their deeds.

God sees.  God knows.  He knows when our hearts are broken.  He knows when our plans come to nothing and we get so disappointed we can hardly speak.  And He intimately knows exactly what it is that we desire--because He fashioned our hearts.  It feels good when you have pain just to remember that God knows.

Behold, the eye of the LORD is on those who fear Him

on those who hope in His steadfast love.

When your plans come to nothing, you can count on this:  God's eye is on those who fear Him, and those who hope in His love.  So let your new plans revolve around that love.  The one constant in an unpredictable world is God's character.  And His love is steadfast.  So whatever your plans are today, just remember--they can fall apart, but God's love will always hold you together.

Psalm 33:10-15, 18