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Seriously, I am such a baby when I don’t feel good. I really just want my mommy, if I am honest.
But, it affords me the opportunity to sit - snuggled in my very soft blankie with a fire in the fireplace and read and write. So, in that - there is beauty. Great beauty, actually. This is one of my favorite things to do... and the weather is perfect for it! Again I am so thankful for my job - and the grace I am given to be able to be home when I need rest.
I am struck today by the vastness of God’s understanding. His ways are so far beyond my own. I believe that He crafted each on of us - and therefore He knows us full well. He sees every good thought - and every wicked one. He sees every act of kindness, and every selfish one. Nothing in all of creation is hidden from His sight. That stirs in me two different emotions. Fear - because I don’t even know my own heart half the time, and peace, because He saw me just as I am - and He chose me anyway.
Misty Edwards sings it in a song like this, as if God were singing over you: “I knew what I was getting into when I chose you. I knew what I was getting into when I said your name, and I said it just the same... I knew what I was getting into when I chose you - and I am not shocked by your weakness, I am not shocked even by your sin... I am not shocked by your brokenness...”
I love the truth of those words. Nothing I do or say or think catches Him off guard. Nothing is beyond His ability to heal and redeem. Nothing is out of His capable hands. Nothing. It is staggering for me to think that He is not limited - because I have so many limitations. I recognize now, more than ever the weakness of my flesh. I see the pull constantly to take my life in my own hands. I am just thankful that - He - even though He sees it too, still calls me His beloved. His beauty, His delight.
Truly, He fulfills the deepest longings in my heart. He wants to fill your heart too. He wants to prove Himself to you. He is fully capable. I think of that every day as I look at some things going on in my life. He is absolutely able - and limited by nothing. He created me with passion and dreams and He didn’t do that to torture me. He did that because He wants to watch me unwrap them in His timing. It is the same for you. Geez, His timing is strange to me. But, He knows everything. He knows how one thing will affect another all the way down through time. He sees it all - and He knows if what you are asking is good for you or not. He knows if your heart is ready for the responsibility of that thing you desire. Psalm 84:11 says this, “For the LORD God is a sun and shield; the LORD bestows favor and honor. No good thing does he withhold from those who walk uprightly.”
He is not holding out on you as you think He is. That is a lie from the very pit of Hell. He just fully knows what is good - and what is not. I have found myself asking Him for a lot of things lately. But, quickly following it up with - “Lord help me to want what is best - not only what I think is best.” I trust Him. More now than at any other time in my life. I have no concern that He will turn His back on me - even in the most desperate of times. He is trustworthy and true.
I look at the suffering in the world - and though I am not surprised - He told us of the days that are coming... I am saddened at how far His church is from being the instrument of healing He intended it to be. He says the world should know us by our love one for another, and yet, I think if we are honest, we could say that the world knows us by our judgments and our pitiful display of self righteousness. He says that the outside of the cup looks great - but the inside, well, it is another story entirely. It is filthy. We constantly stand with the accuser and we condemn those who already know they should be condemned and we wound those that have the deepest wounds already. Why is it so hard to love? Why is it so difficult to remember what Jesus came to do? He came to set the captives free. To bind up our broken hearts. He came to bring abundant life. We have settled for so much less than this - and even in the name of righteousness. When did I become such a Pharisee? When did I forget that it isn’t about the law - but about the blood of Christ which brings freedom? I am asking the Lord to give me words of healing and life. I am asking God to move His Spirit within me in ways that I can’t explain apart from Him. I am asking Him to renew with passion the love I have for Him as the keeper of my heart. I want to laugh more, and love better. I want to become all that He ever intended. I want that for you too. I want you to embrace whatever it is that He has called you to - and I want you to run forward as if He is the only thing you have. When it all unravels, He stands firmly in place to be all that you need for this hour, and for each one to come.
Grace and Peace to you this blustery winter day.
