Friday, December 25, 2015

God Waits

While I've waited, I’ve noticed something I believe is significant: God waits.

He's able to do things instantly. But He doesn't always. And whatever we believe about His outside-of-timeness, I also believe that He is here in time also, with us in our days. 

Not only that, but Jesus walked this time-bound earth, and didn't speed up the minutes of the long nights, or the months of his childhood waiting to start his public ministry. He didn't even speed up the seconds of labored dying.


So there is something sacred about waiting. In it, we participate in something so important, and so precious, that God Himself does it.

Sunday, December 13, 2015

Waiting by Kevin Henkes

Kevin Henkes wrote and illustrated "Waiting".  I highly recommend it: As a story.  As a lesson.  As a tribute.  As a comfort.  I've never found anything that so succinctly and so emotionally touched on the experience of waiting - especially shared waiting.


Wednesday, December 9, 2015

Unraveling

One of my friends says she likes the stories that, after deep darkness, are content to end with a glimmer of hope and a hint of redemption.  They dare us to hope when our circumstances are yet unresolved.  We look for such glimmers in our own lives, and anticipate the end of the story.  

Another friend doesn't find stories very hopeful unless they are eschatological - that is, unless they involve the end of the world and the setting of all things right.  For him, a story about a long-wait at last fulfilled, or a weary quest accomplished is insufficiently hopeful.  If there was a loss unanswered, a wickedness unjudged, the story is incomplete.  

I think the stories I like best are somewhere in between.  Stories with only a tiny bit of hope at the end are not enough to balance the meditation on suffering that comes before.  Stories all about the end leave me feeling less hopeful about the in-between hopes of my little life.  

But my brother says that we have to know about the grand finale of hope in order for the hopes along-the-way to be purposeful enough and strong enough to withstand unraveling.  If in the end Jesus isn't going to bring justice, defeat every last bad guy, and wipe away all the tears - then the good culminations of our wishes these days are all just cruel deceptions on the road of the long defeat.  

When we keep in mind the ultimate hope, the guaranteed victory of Jesus, all the other good things that we have trusted God for: our personal salvation - even the incarnation - are pointing us to the fullness of hope.  

Tuesday, November 10, 2015

Beginning and Breaking

Do you remember the end of Batman Begins, where his father's legacy, a strong-standing mansion, had just burned down around him because he chose to stand for hope and redemption instead of razing a rotting city and the people rotting it? Where Bruce Wayne and his faithful butler decide to rebuild, not exactly as before, but to improve the property - to line it up with the destiny that was theirs, but they never knew before? 

Don't you think it is true, that sometimes weak things ought to be broken, so they can be rebuilt stronger, and more to the purpose? And isn't it scary, knowing that you are breaking something that already is, something that is sort of functional - that you may not actually see the fulfillment of your vision for the new thing; it might not ever be accomplished even? The people of Gotham may choose anarchy, despair, deception anyway? But what if they don't?

Saturday, October 31, 2015

Atacama

There is a desert in the southern tip of South America: Atacama, Chile.  It is known as the driest place on earth.  One part of it holds the record for 173 months without rain.  Some friends of mine toured Chile last year, and found the desert one of their least favorite sights.  Every six years or so some pink and purple flowers bloom in this desert, but nothing like the way they are blooming this year.  This year, after rare high levels of rainfall, they are carpeting the desert floor.  Such blossoms haven’t appeared in 18 years.  Butterflies are visiting. 

Imagine waiting 18 years for this explosion of beauty. 

This information and more – with pictures! – is available at The Washington Post

Monday, October 12, 2015

In This Hope We Were Saved by Mitch Majeski at Summitview Community Church, Fort Collins

"Our lives will be determined by our hope: 
where we place our hope, 
the endurance of our hope.  
We have reason for hope, 
but we have a culture that hates hope, that is anti-patience, that wants things sure." 
~ Mitch Majeski (paraphrased) 
in the intro to his sermon on Romans 8:22-25, 
"In This Hope We Were Saved"


Tuesday, September 29, 2015

A Far-Off Hope

"Do you know what I think is intriguing?  
That a song called 'A Far Off Hope' 
doesn't have any words." 
~ my brother, Michael


Sunday, August 30, 2015

Lies

Some lies that make it harder to hope:

- It's all about what I can do.
So if I can’t fix the situation, or I mess up, it’s hopeless. 

- It's all about what another human can do.
So if they won’t change or can’t do something, it’s hopeless. 

- God can't.
If God can’t change people, if God can’t provide, if God can’t heal, if God can’t rescue – why hope? 

- God isn't good. 
So why should I expect good?  Why should I trust that whatever He does, even if He doesn’t grant my desires, is good?  Why not try to make my own way?  Why not disobey?  Why not quit waiting? 

- If it hasn't yet, it never will.
If Jesus hasn’t returned yet, He won’t.  If my friend’s brother hasn’t accepted Jesus as his Savior yet, he won’t.  If my friend hasn’t gotten pregnant yet, she won’t.  If my friend hasn’t been healed yet, she won’t.  If my friend doesn’t have a job yet, he won’t. 

- I know how this ends.
Good is impossible.  God can’t do the impossible.  I know everything, including the future.  I have thought of every possible outcome, and know at least which ones are actually not possible (and they are all the good ones). 

- I can't continue.
This is too hard.  I’ve lasted as long as I can.  I’m going to literally explode if nothing has changed by tomorrow. 

- It isn't worth it.
This God-journey is not enough to compensate for the tension and disappointments of hoping.  Even if I get what I want, it isn’t worth the emotional investment in the mean time. 

- God didn't really say...
That He answers prayers, that Jesus is coming back, that I am a new creation, that Sarah would have a son, and other personal-specific things like that.

- I know everything that is going on.
God isn't working anywhere that I don't know about.  So whatever I see is it.  And if I don’t see what I want, God hasn’t even started yet.  Also, the thing I care about is all that God cares about.  He isn’t trying to do anything I haven’t thought of. 

- Prayer doesn't matter.
If it’s all I can do, I’m not contributing to a situation.  I shouldn’t bother with prayer.  I should find something useful to do.  Prayer isn’t accomplishing anything.  Prayer isn’t powerful.  

- Perseverance is foolish.
Insanity is doing the same thing expecting different results.  I should cut my losses.  Quit digging the hole I’m in. 

- Whatever will be, will be, so it doesn't matter what I do.
I might as well not think about it much.  Or feel about it much.  Or even try to do the right thing. 

- Pain is more relevant than love.
So I should protect myself.  God’s love doesn’t matter as much as my pain.  My love for others doesn’t matter as much as my pain (or the way that hope could cause *them* pain). 

- Jesus dying for me is insufficient to communicate His love to me.
He doesn’t really love me.  He hasn’t proven He loves me.  If He really loved me, He would do what I want and when I want. 

- Jesus' resurrection isn't relevant to my life today.
It doesn’t matter that God raises the dead.  It doesn’t matter that God does the unexpected.  It doesn’t matter that God keeps His promises.  It doesn’t matter that Jesus is alive and ready to help. 

- God is stingy.
He withholds good from me when I need it, or deserve it.  Giving me Jesus wasn’t enough.  After sending His most precious Son to suffer and die for me, He decided to keep back His lesser gifts. 

- People don't change.
Me included.  What you see is what you get.  I can’t get better.  I might as well accept who I am this side of eternity. 

- God will only do good for me if I deserve it.
So work harder.  Or give up, because let’s face it, I sin a lot.

- I am defined by my failure.
I will never change from the sin-enslaved person I’m used to.  I will always be clumsy in serving God.  That’s how people see me.  That’s how I see me.  That’s how God sees me.  He wouldn’t want to use me.  I’m a waste of time. 

- I have messed up too many times.
God has spent too much mercy on me.  He has to trust me to stop messing up, before He forgives me.  I don’t want any more of God’s charity; it’s embarrassing. 

- My old fleshly nature is stronger than Christ in me. 
I am doomed to keep on sinning until I die.  God understands that I’m flesh, and doesn’t have plans that involve me using the power of God indwelling me. 

- Evil will always prosper. 
God won’t judge. 

- God abandons His children. 
Hard times come.  I mess up.  Other people attack.  God backs off and leaves me when He’s busy or mad or I haven’t done the right things. 

- God lets me continue to make foolish choices unhindered and uncorrected. 
If I choose to reject Him, He’ll leave me alone and let me reap the consequences.  He’ll let me experience the kind of life I’d have if I’d never tried to follow Him.  It will be easier to sin than to try to be good.  I won’t feel guilty.  No one will confront me. 

- God doesn't have a plan to redeem my mistakes.
They’re there, just ugly blots and painful memories.  No purpose.  No beauty.  No opportunity to glorify God.  I won’t be the woman who is forgiven much, so loves much. 

- God doesn't have a plan to redeem the effects of others' sin on me.
The effects are only pain.  They don’t teach me.  They don’t show me how God has worked love and forgiveness in me.  They don’t point me in the direction God has good things planned for me.  These relationships with sinners who sinned against me are irreconcilable. 

- It's OK to give up on God.
It isn’t a big deal.  He meant something abstract when He said to trust Him, seek Him, wait on Him, walk by faith, believe His words.  He didn’t mean anything that should impact the way I actually think or feel or act. 

- God lies.
He makes promises, and doesn’t keep them.  So if it doesn’t look like He’s being faithful, why hold out? 

- It's going to take too long.
God won't give grace for waiting.

- It's going to hurt too much.
God won't be present in the suffering.

- All God does is hurt me (even if it is for my good).
He never gives me what I ask for.  He is a Father who gives His sons stones when they ask for bread, and snakes instead of fish.  He takes away, but He does not give. 

- It's selfish to hope to receive my desires.
Since the heart is deceitful and desperately wicked, it never wants good things anyway. 

- It is right to be scared of God's 'no'.
‘Yes’ is the only path to happiness.  God won’t give grace for the life He actually wants for me. 

- God only cares about "big" things.
My little sins, or my fears, or my needs for the day aren’t important enough for Him to intervene.  I’m on my own in those.  Especially if they’re just things I “want”.  He might have made and fulfilled promises for important people like Abraham and Noah and David and Jesus, but not me.  I’m not worth it to Him. 

- God isn't listening.
Why ask? 

- I can't hear God when He speaks.
He isn’t answering this specific question, and I must have missed it even if He did, because I’ve been listening, and everything else I knew I heard must have been in my imagination. 

- I'm the only one trying.
No one else cares about serving God.  No one cares about waiting on Him.  No one is trying to pray diligently.  Everyone else is essentially saying that it isn’t worth it, that it isn’t possible, that I’m foolish. 

- My momentary feelings are representative of reality. 
If I don’t feel hopeful, there isn’t reason to hope.  I may have felt hopeful an hour ago, but maybe this is how I know that hope has run out.  My feelings won’t change.  At least, they won’t change anymore, again, this time. 

If you think about it, the answers to these lies are amazing truths:  

My life is not limited by what I can do or by what others can do.  My sin doesn't limit God.  With God nothing is impossible.  

God is good.  He does things I don't see coming.  He answers long-hopes.  He does sudden and unexpected good.  He loves me.  He gives good gifts.  

God is alive, and active in my life.  God is able to make Himself heard.  I am not alone.  

My feelings can change.  I can change.  

God is faithful to do what He says.  God hears prayers and uses them to do mighty things in His world.  God is an intimately personal God who sees sparrows fall, and there is no little thing in His hand.  He consistently uses things that seem little to us, in order to prove that it is Him working and He is gloriously powerful.  

God rewards those who diligently seek Him.  He commands us to seek Him, to wait on Him, to walk by faith and not by sight.  A hope fulfilled brings merriment.  

Love is greater.  God's grace and mercy produce love in us.  Love casts out fear.  Loving God and loving others are the greatest commandments.  It is more blessed to give than to receive.  

Trusting God is worth it.  Loving is worth it.  Love is never wasted.  

God puts some desires in our hearts, and it is not wrong for us to join Him in wanting good for ourselves and others.  God gives grace to continue trusting Him.  He gives grace to do good and not evil.  He disciplines those He loves, to produce the peaceable fruit of righteousness.  It is hard to kick against His goads.  Sin does not satisfy.  Satisfaction comes from God.  

God works all things together for good, even when I'm not getting what I want.  He has a plan for redemption of the bad in our lives.  God will put an end to wickedness.  The meek will inherit the earth.  The pure in heart are blessed.   




These are truths that I speak to others to encourage their hope and faith, to give them a chance to see their situations with our God included.  If you have a friend who is struggling with hope, try reminding them of the things on this list that are most important to you.  

For me, maintaining hope in God has forced me to focus on these and other truths about God.  Beginning to actively believe these things is transforming my life (how I pray and the choices I make), pushing the boundaries of the things included in my hope list.  

Wednesday, August 26, 2015

Hopeless

The people of God were running to the end of their chances.  Judgment had pronounced, but still God admonished them through Jeremiah: "Disaster is coming.  Turn from evil and do good."  (Jeremiah 18:11)

But the people chose to despair.  They cried, "This is hopeless!" (Jeremiah 18:12)  Whether they thought they wouldn't be able to turn aside God's anger, or if they doubted their ability to change, they chose to believe that God was commanding the impossible, taunting them.

Because of their hopelessness, they chose to continue on in their own plans, to live for the day according to their own evil hearts.

And these men received judgment.  Jeremiah, mourning on their behalf, lamented their fate.

I pray God's people take hope, without which obedience is impossible.

Wednesday, August 12, 2015

Perseids

We are standing in the street after midnight, faces tilted to the dark expanses above.  Constellations and airplanes flicker in the night.  A bank of clouds dissipates near one horizon.  It is August, during the early days of the Perseids Meteor Shower, but no one has spotted any.  My friend talks about impatience, that the meteors are reminding him of waiting on God to answer our questions.  We are all tempted to quit after a while of listening for Him, when He hasn’t spoken yet.  We tell Him, “We haven’t got time for this.” 

But what did God give us time for? 

I agree in my heart with my friend’s testimony.  I add my own difficulties with waiting: I start doubting.  Is it broken?  Are we doing something wrong?  Does God listen?  Should we pray differently? 

Just then I see my first one, and it is a tiny, less impressive meteor.  I don’t even comment.  But I continue the parallels.  This is also like God.  Just when I’m about to give up, thinking the problem is with me or it is pointless, that this whole communication with God thing is not even working, He gives me a glimpse.  It’s beautiful, quick, smaller than the big thing I’m hoping for.  Just enough to string me along, reassuring me that the process is not broken or misunderstood. 


I keep looking up, but there are no more until we go back out over an hour later.  Then we lie there, soaking in the heavens, and count the glories.  I think God is like this, too, that when He is ready, He will shower the spectacles we’ve waited for, and we’ll be in awe.  

Tuesday, July 28, 2015

The Land the Sunset Washes

by Emily Dickinson

THIS is the land the sunset washes,
These are the banks of the Yellow Sea;
Where it rose, or whither it rushes,
These are the western mystery!

Night after night her purple traffic
Strews the landing with opal bales;
Merchantmen poise upon horizons,
Dip, and vanish with fairy sails.



Well, is it about hope?  What is it saying?  

I believe Emily also wrote another quote I've posted on this blog, which you might compare for interpretation.  

h/t Sarah at Scribo:Girl

Thursday, June 25, 2015

In an Instant

"In an instant, 
beyond all human expectation, 
famine can be turned to feasting. 
Don’t give up. Keep praying. 
2 Kings 7"

~ John Piper

Sunday, June 14, 2015

Beyond Its Reach

"Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. 
The beauty of it smote his heart, 
as he looked up out of the forsaken land, 
& hope returned to him. 

For like a shaft, clear and cold, 
the thought pierced him 
that in the end 
the Shadow was only 
a small and passing thing: 

there was light 
and high beauty 
for ever beyond its reach."

~ J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King

Sunday, June 7, 2015

Not A Hopegoat

There's this idea in some stories.  It's in The Giver, that there will be one member of their society whose job it is to hold memories.  The Last Sin Eater dramatizes the idea of the scapegoat found in the Mosaic Covenant: the guilt of the people is placed on a victim - in the Bible it is a goat who bears their iniquities into exile as a method of atonement.  In both cases the idea is that the people are relieved of something, and this needful thing is accomplished by a segment of the group.

I worry* sometimes that my friends will think that hoping is just my thing.  (Hope is my thing; I'm rather passionate about it.  Only, it isn't patented.)  They might think that I can be the hopeful person, just like one of us is nerdy and one of us is silly and one of us is quiet.  They can let me hope for them, but they're going to stay cynical.  I might have a crazy hopeful perspective, and they'll tolerate me; they just aren't going to join me.

But it seems like God has led me not just to hope, but to share what I have learned, to teach and encourage other people to hope.  I rejoice when others dare to hope.

I don't believe hope is optional.  What we hope for varies, but hoping is part of faith and part of loving.



*This is only a worry.  I don't have any evidence that my friends actually think this, thank God!

Hope in a Real God

"Isn't that an awesome story?" my friend asked, but he continued, "I don't tell it too much, because I don't want to give people hope."

"I feel that way sometimes, but I usually overcome the temptation and help people to hope anyway," I answered.

"I don't want to give people false hope."

"No.  But I think it is good to testify of what God is really like.  And God really did that.  So, even if He isn't going to do the same thing for us, we are at least hoping in the kind of God who does - and He's a God we can trust with the decision not to rescue us."

" 'Even if He does not...' like Daniel's friends said."

To Get Hungry

God made us to get hungry.

C.S. Lewis famously pointed out that "A man’s physical hunger does not prove that man will get any bread; he may die of starvation on a raft in the Atlantic. But surely a man’s hunger does prove that he comes of a race which repairs its body by eating and inhabits a world where eatable substances exist."

God made hunger because there was food, and thirst because there was drink, and longing for Him because there is life.

But I think God could have made us to just eat regularly enough that we never feel hunger.  It seems like He didn't.  On purpose.  And more profoundly, He didn't make the world so that peace and justice and kindness persist without interruption.  He allows us to notice our need.

Then we cry out for Him.  Then we hope for the good thing we lack.  Then we wait.

He made the hunger because there is a satisfaction - and because the hunger points us to our dependence on Him.  I think God wants us to know Him as the giver of good gifts, the provider of our needs.

Is Love the Reason?

"We're all homesick 
Is love the reason?
My hunger led me to your hope
Until the end of this colder season
Keep us warm."


~ Alli Rogers, Eden

Track Record


Praise God!

Friday, June 5, 2015

Time Limit

I think sometimes that people are brave to hope.  Because hope is hard, and hope is foolish: probably the only thing worse is not hoping for the good thing you want or need.

But sometimes we are not being brave.  We are trying to be controlling, trying to get credit (even to ourselves) for doing the right thing, the sacrificial thing.  I think to myself, "Six months is all I can handle," or "If it's been a year, and nothing has changed, it never will..." They're lies.  As if things never happen slowly.  As if God doesn't wait His purposes for His due time.  As if God can't sustain me another six months or another year for as many of those as He wills.

Then God reminds me that I am not lord of my own times; my days are in His hands, and I don't get to decide how long before I give up on Him working.  He can release me from a hope.  He can change my heart.  But I cannot determine that I have done my time.  Love hopes all things, and love doesn't quit.

That This Thirst Will Not Last Long

"How the Lord takes by its corners this old world 
And shakes us forward and shakes us free 
To run wild with the hope 
To run wild with the hope

"The hope that this thirst will not last long 
That it will soon drown in the song 
Not sung in vain 
And I feel thunder in the sky 
I see the sky about to rain 
And I hear the prairies calling out Your name."

~ Calling Out Your Name 
by Rich Mullins


Tuesday, June 2, 2015

Hoping When There Are "If's"

A friend asked me this week, "How do we hope in God when we don't have a specific promise for our circumstance?"  We both know that there are specific promises in which we can hope, but that isn't all that hope should be.

One thing that I have clung to is this: If my desire is from God, He will accomplish it (so I can rest in that), and if it isn't from Him, ultimately I don't really want it (so I can surrender that).

Somehow this isn't resignation, but surrender.  The difference might be that resignation would expect the undesired end; but surrender to God expects a good end, and hasn't given up on the possibility that God will mightily work where things seem humanly impossible.

Sunday, May 31, 2015

"But for a Moment"

It's maybe not the most hopeful-sounding hope, but on dark hard days at the end of long hard months, it is one of the things that I hold onto.  It is one of the things that I think "hope" consistently refers to in the Bible.

This cannot last forever.  And the most I experience of all of this yucky temporary stuff is this lifetime.  The hard, the pain, the tears, the waiting, the not knowing how it will turn out - will be washed away and redeemed.  If not tomorrow, then at least at the end of our earth.  Jesus comes back, rules righteously, defeats the adversary, and re-creates the world with no death nor sorrow nor crying.

God has been able to sustain me and my hope these long months.  It is He who will sustain me each day as long as I must.  It is He who has promised that the End is good.  The End is more glorious than the sufferings are heavy.

"Therefore we 
do not 
lose heart. 
Even though our outward man is perishing, 
yet the inward man is being renewed day by day. 
For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, 
is working for us 
a far more exceeding 
and eternal 
weight of glory, 
while we do not look at the things which are seen, 
but at the things which are not seen. 
For the things which are seen are temporary, 
but the things which are not seen are 
eternal." 
~ 2 Corinthians 4:16-18

As a friend reminded me this week,

"For I consider that the sufferings of this present time 
are not worthy 
to be compared with the glory 
which shall be revealed in us. 
For the earnest expectation of the creation 
eagerly 
waits 
for the revealing of the sons of God." 
~ Romans 8:18-19

Wednesday, May 27, 2015

Joshua and Kid Goats

My friend Christa has a baby named Joshua, and I have a pair of goats.  Each will bring us to tears.  Each has been God's crystal-clear message of an agonizing truth: Sometimes God does say yes.  And even if He doesn't, we can still trust Him.  We must trust Him.  There's no other way to get good.

My friend Christa doesn't have a baby named Joshua.  He's someone else's baby, a baby who lived when odds said he should die.  A baby who lived when she thought she might have to walk the paths of grief with this mom, too.  A baby who keeps on living.  Whose name means "God saves".

The goats aren't mine, either.  They're Ann Voskamp's daughter's goats.  And I read their story first when I'd been parched for days, aching over the hope that I was scared to feel, doubting that God ever did anything good in a world with so much pain.  I read the story of the missing goat, of the child's faith, and when the sky cried, broken over the beautiful gift of God to the trust this family persisted in, I broke, too, dumping out emotion held back for weeks, and I knew it in a way I wouldn't forget.  I had to hope because there is a God who says yes, a God who does good.  Until that God says "no", I'll hope for what He has said, for what I need, for what I continue to desire.

My friend Christa and I have hope.  We have tears.  We have loss.  We have uncertainty.  But we have a God who does good.

Saturday, May 9, 2015

A Greater Story

"Hope is not the same as optimism, the pastor pointed out.
Optimism has its place,
but it is at its core the name given to a way of looking at things.
The glass is either half full or half empty–our opinion of it doesn’t change the amount of water in the cup.
Sure, it changes our disposition, and of course an optimistic one is the better of the two.
But Hope goes deeper.
Hope gives thanks that there is such a thing as water,
and remembers that whether the glass is empty or full,
there is a greater story being told.
If there is water in the glass, then somewhere beneath the earth,
in cathedral caverns where no eye has yet seen,
a clear river courses.
I may cry out in pain or sorrow (which seems to me anything but optimistic),
and yet have hope, though I cling to it feebly."


Thursday, May 7, 2015

When Obedience Brings Trouble

God, speaking out of a burning bush that isn't consumed, confirming His word to Moses by miraculous signs, says to go to Egypt, to deliver the people of Israel from Pharaoh.

Moses obeys.  He doesn't just obey in going; he obeys along the way.  When he gets there, God tells him what to say to Pharaoh, and that is what he says.

Only the oppressed people aren't delivered.  They come to Moses, complaining that because of him, Pharaoh had increased the burden on their slavery.  Moses' obedience brought suffering.

So Moses goes to God, which is the right thing to do in such a circumstance, but he's confused, and discouraged, too.  Didn't God say He would deliver?  Why is God's plan bringing trouble to His people instead?

But God persists, and Moses continues to obey, and by way of a long and not-very-pleasant process, God's people receive their hope of deliverance, plundering Egypt as they go.

God did some wondrous things in the Ten Plagues, and in parting the Red Sea.  He got glory.  The people learned about who He was.  We still know the stories, thousands of years later, and so we can know these things about God, too.

Seventh Submersion

Naaman was a man who had leprosy, a dreaded and incurable disease in his day.  Through his slave girl, he heard about the prophet of YHWH, so he inquired of the man whether God would heal him.

The prophet told him that he would be healed, that the means by which God would accomplish this miracle would be Naaman cleansing himself seven times in the River Jordan.  And the prophet didn't go with him, only his servants to exhort him to heed the word of God's prophet, to believe it, to receive his healing.

At first Naaman was angry, because he wanted God to heal him on his terms, or at least to negotiate.  But he relented, and went to the Jordan.

And can you imagine how it would be, to dip once, twice, three times - with no effect?  To already think it is a fool's hope, and a silly, humiliating display to be washing in a river, hoping it will rinse away the disease?  Seven times, God said; seven times Naaman persisted in obedient hope, and seven times it took.  And then God's miracle was accomplished.

Peace Will Reign

I know some people who want to be martyred.  Not me.  Torture?  Rather not.  Suffering is not something I ask for.  I've told God that I don't want to ask for it, so if it's something I'm supposed to ask for, He'll have to bring me to that place of willingness.  But I won't avoid suffering by doing something I don't believe in.

So sometimes I imagine what the people being imprisoned, kidnapped, murdered, martyred go through; and when I pray for them, I don't always pray for physical deliverance.  But I hope, somehow, that God's comforting presence will shield them from the pain, the emotion, the mental torment; that peace will reign, and the joy set before them. 


And it's my philosophy, that God is able to do that, in the midst of hard times: to overwhelm us with His love.  I count on it for my own trials, light as they may be by comparison.  I feel hopeful that God's love will envelope me, and enable me to bear with grace the hard things that come.  And, of course, I hope that God's love will enable me to dance with grace, rejoicing in good things that come.  

Because Jesus is Something Special

"We’ve given our all, all night long 
and it hasn’t been enough
We’re tired, and we don’t want to try again. Not even one more time
But because you seem to be something special
we will."

~ Brooke McGlothin
a study in hope from Luke 5

Sunday, May 3, 2015

Teach Her to Pray with Open Hands

Baby wouldn’t eat the other day.  
She woke up early in the morning and screamed and screamed, 
but wouldn’t eat, and nothing would console her until she finally just cried herself back to sleep.  
I woke her in the morning to try to feed her, but she wouldn’t eat.  
Again an hour later, and an hour later, and again.  
Finally at 12 o’clock, nearly 12 hours since she ate last, 
I sat with her in my lap 
and I told her about that verse in Isaiah…

My friend spoke quiet, this strange new combination of my old friend and a mommy: skirt, t-shirt, bare feet, curled up on a couch, but face alive with a story of God, and love, and hope.  I kept myself in anticipation of the verse she would describe.  What did she tell her baby? 

“Sometimes God wants us to be sick for some purpose, 
and maybe He wants to teach us something, 
but this verse says that Jesus came to take our sicknesses, 
so let’s ask Him, baby, to make you better.” 

So we prayed, 
and an hour later she ate just like normal, 
she ate very well, and she hasn’t had any trouble since.

I don’t know how to do it, but I want to teach her to pray with open hands. 

This friend, more than any other, makes me cry.  Something about God’s work in her goes deep into my heart and makes me ache with the goodness of it.  He has taught her to pray, to dare to ask, to dare to hope, to surrender it all in the same prayer she asks with. 


I hear some of her prayers for her daughter.  I know that God has given some of the prayers, and I trust He will answer them.  There is a fire in her, and her husband with her, to raise their daughter in what God is teaching them: faith that is humble, determined, kind, hopeful, surrendered.  I hope I get to know this little girl as she grows up, because I want to be friends with her: a girl who has known these truths about God from such a young age, who will, by God’s grace, be a rare young woman.  

Monday, April 20, 2015

Imagine

"If [children] cannot imagine
they cannot hope
and without hope they are story-less creatures, 
trapped in a prosaic world in which the pages 
are torn away one-by-one 
and 
thrown into the fire 
and 
no one looks ahead 
with a joy of discovery 
and 
no one ever peeks 
at the last page of the book 
to rest in the assurance of a happy ending 
- but no, not a happy ending, a happy beginning 
- for that is our hope."

~ Jennifer Trafton, Tales of the New Creation

Monday, April 6, 2015

Learn the Art

"And I think of life... 
How hope turns into foolishness, 
and hearts break 
that they might learn the art of hope…"
~ Michael, my brother

Total Triumph, Relentless Courage

"God has called us to live our lives as a bold act of hope. 
To hope 
is not merely to wish for small improvements 
of personal circumstances. 
Hope expects all things, large or little, 
to be overwhelmed 
and filled 
with the immense glory of Christ. 
Thus, true hope pursues 
global glory and total triumph over evil. 
Lives of hope can face great evil 
with relentless courage, 
since there is no telling 
how soon 
God 
will break through with ultimate victory."
~ Perspectives on the World Christian Movement

Sunday, April 5, 2015

Risen

"He is not here; for He is risen
as He said
Come, see the place where the Lord lay." 
~ Matthew 28:6

Thursday, April 2, 2015

Non-Tunnel Vision

"Wherever I am it is easy to get 
tunnel vision. 
It is even easier to expect 
the same outcomes 
and hard to believe for 
something different."

~ Faith, a friend

Hope, and faith, are the opposite of tunnel vision.  We don't get so stuck in what we see before us that we forget God brings change, God does the impossible.  

Tuesday, March 24, 2015

Naive

Sometimes hope is naive.  And sometimes it is more what my dear friend calls "cynical".

Take my experience with Isaiah 40:31, for example.  The Bible verse says this: "But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint."  My AWANA book made me learn it, several times.  I think I also had to know it for a Bible study around when I was 18.

So naturally when I was a senior in high school and my youth pastor instructed us each to write our favorite Bible verse on a brick that would become some sort of altar/wailing wall/prayer decor thing in our youth room, I picked that one.  (That and Psalm 37:4.)  At the time, I felt like I was waiting.  Which is to say, I felt impatient.  Looking back, I'd have to guess a lot of high school seniors feel that way.  But I took hope in God's very considerate reward program for wait-ers.  Waiting might not be what I wanted to do, but it was what God wanted, as long as He deemed necessary, and He made it worth it.

I didn't really want feathery wings, and I'm not much of a runner.  But I was sure there was inspiring poetic depth to the verse.  The whole chapter is pretty inspiring.  Turns out it is much more about God than about me.

It also turns out the promise is true.  Only, it isn't a reward.  It's a means to the waiting.  A God-Himself-is-worth-it, never-mind-rewards message.  On the days when I wanted to throw a tantrum and tell God that I didn't have what it took to keep waiting (like I'd miraculously been able to wait the past bazillion months of my short life), I had that nagging verse memorized to silence my lies.  I did have what it took: I had God, the God who bears His faithful (what a word) up on wings, who strengthens those who come to the end of their own abilities (however vigorous at the outset).

Without the encouragement from such verses, I might have quit.  I might have gone after what I thought were good things, my own way.  I might have chased bad things.  Over the years, I've grieved to see many people I once knew make that choice, to please themselves.  They decided they'd tried waiting for long enough.  (The nature of waiting on God is that we have to keep on waiting until He does something.  He's the boss, not me.  I don't get to give Him an ultimatum about how much longer I'm willing to give Him a chance to come through.)  I think it sort of wastes the waiting they did attempt, but maybe not.  Maybe God can redeem that time if they turn back to Him.  All I know is that if I were to quit now, I'd have to be convinced that God can't or doesn't want to do good.  If I ever quit hoping, I'm telling you right now, pray hard and come yell at me and watch me closely; my whole world will be crumbling.  By God's grace, that will never happen.

It is grace, I think, that Isaiah was writing about.  It is a certain subset of grace that I am gaining through the long-waiting.  I have experienced seasons where I stumbled, weary, and cried out to God with a pitiful whimper.  I found myself with an incredible peace.  I had so much peace I had to do deep self-examination to see if I still desired things, still felt an eagerness and even impatience for things.  In those moments I have most tasted the love of God, felt His delight in me.

It's been beautiful, in that raw, real way that 18 year old's don't talk about and don't really like to face.  I've been learning faith.  Learning that God loves me in this way.  He doesn't love everyone this way, but it is good, and I choose not to be ashamed of it.  I choose to remember that I want God and His gifts, and if He isn't giving, I don't want the present.  I am learning (slowly still... why does time always seem to come into it?) to be excited because whatever happens tomorrow, God will be active in it.  God.  The everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, who - unlike me - does not grow weary.  That God will be busy in my life.

But it is hard.  Waiting is hard.  I have been waiting and hoping for a long time.  And I still can't quite grasp why God uses time.  He is the God of "let there be light" (and there was light), so I know He can do it.  But He chooses - and this is a hint that it is something significant, that He wants to do it this way - to form things, like He formed Adam of the dust of the ground.

So.  I wouldn't quite call it cynical, what I said to my 9 year old friend this morning.  Sobering?  She held up a plaque with Isaiah 40:31 printed on it, and said she liked it.  I told her to be careful.  If your favorite verse is about waiting, God might teach you about waiting.  Just a friendly little warning.  She looked a little confused, my young friend, and then said something about liking the picture of the eagle flying above the mountain.  Oh...  Um.  Well.  Eagles are cool.  (I actually really love eagles.)

If you delight in promises about God's faithfulness to those who hope in Him, you might get a chance to demonstrate it.  And it will be good.  But not easy.  Be ready.

Tuesday, March 10, 2015

Sweet Remembrances

‘And he let his head sink upon his hands, while two large tears rolled down his cheeks.

‘ "You are young," replied Athos; "and your bitter recollections have time to change themselves into sweet remembrances.” ’


~ Alexander Dumas, The Three Musketeers

Sunday, March 8, 2015

For Others

I've noticed that hoping for good in others can be misunderstood.  In the time before fulfillment, it can be observed as persistent judgment.  It can be an annoying interest in things not yet complete or redeemed.

For example, I may hope that God will bring babies to my married friends, but the grief of long-waiting should sometimes not be complicated by the consciousness of disappointing others also.  Or I might hope that a friend will have the faith to do a hard but good thing, like keeping silent about a concern or moving to a third world country to do ministry or continuing a friendship with someone who has hurt them.

Also it is useful for me to remember that even though I hope someone may live up to a certain potential, that does not mean that in reality they are likely to be up for it.

Hope must be guided by love.  When is it loving to reveal our ongoing hope to others?  When is it loving to hold up a high expectation, and when is it more loving to set the bar at a more typical level?

Allegorical Painting

Hope by George Frederic Watts
For commentary on this painting, please read G.K. Chesterton's "Watts' Allegorical Paintings" from the collection "On Lying in Bed and Other Essays".

Nonsense

Buttercup: We'll never survive!

Westley: Nonsense.  You're only saying that because no one ever has.

~ The Princess Bride

Magical Place

"Once upon a time there was a magical place where it never rained.  --  The end." 



Near the end of the movie:

The Time Before

"It will rain.  
Yes, it will.  
Sometime.  
It's just the time 
before it rains that is hard.  
It always is." 
~ Skylark (1993 film)

Wednesday, March 4, 2015

Passion of Patience

I wonder what this means?

"Fool! All lies in a passion of patience: my Lord's rule." 
~ Taliessin through Logres by Charles Williams

The quote is used in a discussion in CS Lewis' That Hideous Strength about waiting for orders, while it seems the circumstances are desperate and the good guys are doing nothing while evil advances.  But I'm curious what it means in the context of the original poem, Mount Badon.

Sunday, March 1, 2015

Traveled A Long Way

"Some people try to turn back their odometers,
not me,
I want people to know why I look this way.
I've traveled a long way, and some of the roads
weren't paved."


One time a friend told me that waiting a long time to get married would all be forgotten once I actually get married: like the time will be erased; it will seem like a blink of an eye.  But I hope that isn't true.  The time spent has been on purpose - God's purpose.  In this time I have learned things that I didn't know: the road of hope was unpaved; with God over these years I have pioneered some new areas of my life, and maybe even among my friends.

What's more, the long-waiting does somewhat sweeten, and deepen, the potential fulfillment.  I understand differently what it is that I want, and why I want it.

I'm not afraid of scars, wrinkles, smiles, light in my eyes that testify to what God has brought me through.  

Friday, February 27, 2015

Resisting

Sometimes I resist hoping, not because I don't want the good thing to happen, but because I don't want to be emotionally invested there.  I don't know whether this is right or wrong.  I do believe God is growing my capacity to hope in more situations.

Wednesday, February 18, 2015

Granted

God says He gives desires of our hearts when we delight in Him and that we have whatever we ask, because He hears us and desires us to bear fruit.  

Hope and waiting are part of His world but only because fulfillment also is.  

Sunday, January 25, 2015

Butterfly

When you hope for something, even for a long time, there are mornings when you wake up thinking, “This might be the day!”  With that, you capture a butterfly of hope. 

As the hours go by, you feel it fluttering sometimes to leave the bounds of your open fist.  Other times you gaze at it: wondrous and beautiful. 

The twilight slips past; you know you have to let go.  The hope has not been fulfilled this day.  Your fingers slowly uncurl from the beautiful thing you’ve been holding all day, enjoying and sort of trembling for.  You watch as it lifts off and flies away.  And you grieve. 

On harder evenings, you throw your fist open and toss the hope from you with bitterness.  You grieve. 

Every night of hoping is a grieving, a letting go and acknowledging a sort of irrecoverable loss.  Most of the time it is not too heavy a weight, this mourning, but it is there, costly, daily. 

There will be another butterfly tomorrow, and the choice to take hold of it or not.

"Listen to my voice in the morning, LORD. 
Each morning I bring my requests to you 
and wait expectantly." 
~ Psalm 5:3

(I found this art after I wrote this, and it seems to fit so perfectly.)

Friday, January 9, 2015

Beyond the Blue

So lift your voice just one more time
If there’s any hope may it be a sign
That everything was made to shine
Despite what you can see.
~ Josh Garrels, "Beyond the Blue"

Tuesday, January 6, 2015

Hopes All Things

“Love hopes all things.” 

What if this love doesn’t hope to get all things from the loved,
but what if it hopes for the loved:
for them to receive God’s love
just as we, the lovers,
have felt God’s love.

We hope in this love
from God, upon us. 
And it is love,
to feel no difference between ourselves
and the ones we’re loving,
to be quickened at the thought of another’s good,
and grieved at the sight of their suffering, making it our own,
to have as much expectation that God’s love will keep on working

in others as in us.  

A Breath of a Prayer

"This prayer is rooted in reality.  
'Give us bread for today,' it asks.  
But in the same breath, 
it takes us to the extremes of 'Your kingdom come.'  
In doing so, Jesus brings together 
the nearness of present need and the distant hope of God breaking fully into the present, 
because the truth is that they are only separated 
by a momentary breath."
~ Michael Card, "Luke: The Gospel of Amazement"  

Saturday, January 3, 2015

Dance in the Darkness

Now that I have learned how much I need him, 
I have learned to watch for him.

Friday, January 2, 2015

Look to God

I don't really hope for God.  I have God.  He's right here with me in my waiting and expectation.  I know Him, His character and love for me.  That is the source of my hope.

A lot of the things I hope for, and encourage my friends to hope for, are things that seem unlikely.  Either they've been long-awaited and the hope grows weary.  Or the circumstances just appear so impossible, so against the hope.

In moments like that it is so tempting to give up hope.  Just quit the emotional exhaustion.  Agree with the way life is and resign yourself to it.

But the way I've found to renew hope is to look not at what I so yearningly desire to change, but to look to God.  I remember what He has done for me, how He has led me.  I remember Jesus dying on the cross, showing love in an undeniable way.  I remember His resurrection, defeating death.  I remember His promises.

And then, even if I can't put my heart into hope for a while, I can rest in the God who gives hope and fulfills hope, and that's enough.