I've been journeying through this desert for so long that I'm longing for an oasis; so desperate for reprieve that I'm starting to see things. The other day what I thought was my oasis was only a mirage. I jumped into it headlong only to find out that it was just more hot, dry sand. Needless to say I was devestated. My spirit felt so hopeless and I continued to cry out to God to help me find strength to continue on this journey. Then, my faithful and loving Father saw my distress, comforted me and gave me this word:
1 The desert and the parched land will be glad;
the wilderness will rejoice and blossom.
Like the crocus, 2 it will burst into bloom;
it will rejoice greatly and shout for joy.
The glory of Lebanon will be given to it,
the splendor of Carmel and Sharon;
they will see the glory of the LORD,
the splendor of our God.
3 Strengthen the feeble hands,
steady the knees that give way;
4 say to those with fearful hearts,
"Be strong, do not fear;
your God will come,
he will come with vengeance;
with divine retribution
he will come to save you."
5 Then will the eyes of the blind be opened
and the ears of the deaf unstopped.
6 Then will the lame leap like a deer,
and the mute tongue shout for joy.
Water will gush forth in the wilderness
and streams in the desert.
7 The burning sand will become a pool,
the thirsty ground bubbling springs.
In the haunts where jackals once lay,
grass and reeds and papyrus will grow.
8 And a highway will be there;
it will be called the Way of Holiness.
The unclean will not journey on it;
it will be for those who walk in that Way;
wicked fools will not go about on it. [a]
9 No lion will be there,
nor will any ferocious beast get up on it;
they will not be found there.
But only the redeemed will walk there,
10 and the ransomed of the LORD will return.
They will enter Zion with singing;
everlasting joy will crown their heads.
Gladness and joy will overtake them,
and sorrow and sighing will flee away.
-Isaiah 35-
Isn't He good? He saw that I needed a drink of water to continue on and He gave it to me. My hope has been restored and my strength regained. I'm dusting off my sandals and continuing on my journey.
Thank-you Lord that you always give me what I need to finish.
I recently finished Gary Haugen's "Good News About Injustice" audiobook.
He's the founder of the International Justice Mission and a friend of mine
and his wife spent a summer in Thailand helping bust criminals who abused
children. I wanted to remember several great points in his book:
- Churches should fight on behalf of individuals rather than for a specific
economic or political system--and thus case work goes directly to helping
people in need. I agree with this though of course governments and other
individuals can and should fight against communism and totalitarianism to
help people--this just shouldn't be the emphasis of the Christian church.
- Just over a hundred years ago, America was in very bad shape in terms of
human rights. Besides the obvious civil rights and racial and gender
inequality issues, there were actually brothels in the US were children were
enslaved and the local authorities didn't do anything about it (sounds like
many third world countries of today--and this can actually show that
progress can happen faster than you'd expect).
- He had a sobering quote from a theologian (someone named Wright I believe)
regarding the problem of evil: no supposed "solutions" regarding the
explanation for evil can be taken seriously unless they address issues like
the intentional burning of children.
I was singing and worshipping God today. There was a thankfulness welling up within me that I can't really explain, but I think it just came from a place of realizing that He's brought me so far. As I was singing, I was reminded of this promise:
Isaiah 51
3 The LORD will surely comfort Zion
and will look with compassion on all her ruins;
he will make her deserts like Eden,
her wastelands like the garden of the LORD.
Joy and gladness will be found in her,
thanksgiving and the sound of singing.
Isn't that amazing? He promises comfort, compassion and restoration. He promises to transform the area in my life that is desolate to be like "the garden of the Lord".
Lord, help me to hold firm to this promise. I know you're promises will never fail.
Joshua 23:
You know with all your heart and soul that not one of all the good promises the LORD your God gave you has failed. Every promise has been fulfilled; not one has failed.
It's one o'clock in the morning and I can't sleep. I'm thinking about this journey that I'm in - a journey of deep sadness that I'm hoping will come to an end. One where this emotional and psychological anguish has even at times manifested in physical pain. I've literallyhave felt my heart ache. I think I've cried a bathtub worth of tears. Sometimes I've felt like the tears just wouldn't stop flowing. They seem to have been emanating from the deepest part of my heart - a treasured place where I lock away all my dreams and hopes.
But somehow, God has managed to wiggle his way in this little space that I've hidden and He's said, "Give me these dreams and hopes". He's asked me to hand them over and has promised me that He will multiply them. He says that he will give me a double portion. He says that He will turn it into a miracle and that in the end, not only will I be changed, but that he will be glorified. He promises that He will turn my mourning into gladness.
You see, there will be reward at the end of this journey but He says that there is a cost. I will have to pay with a loss of all control, patience and perseverence. I will have to surrender my expectations of how and when. I will have continually choose trust in the midst of confusion; hope in the midst of discouragment; faith in the midst of doubt; love when tempted by bitterness.
There is a cost to experience God's miracles in your life. The cost involves killing and rejecting your flesh and always choosing the side of the truth. It's not easy, but there will be a joyful outcome for me. Tonight, I choose truth. Tonight, I choose Him.
HEBREWS: 10
35So do not throw away your confidence; it will be richly rewarded. 36You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised.
.
I finished Homer's Odyssey a few nights ago--the excellent Robert Fagles
translation--and enjoyed the beautiful phrases that were repeated regularly
(e.g. "When young Dawn with her rose red fingers shone once more..." or
"wine-dark sea..."). I was also impressed by Odysseus's machismo but
surprised at how violent the ending was.
Yesterday we saw a very good movie: "Tell No One" which was an intelligent
thriller with a great story, action and many twists and turns.
*http://calnewport.com/blog/2009/06/22/on-the-value-of-hard-focus/*
"School work, like any work that requires demanding thinking, is
tiring. After a grace period of maybe 20 - 30 minutes, your mind starts to
disengage. In the red book, I compare the sensation to a weight descending
inside your skull. Your energy fades and you begin to experience a desperate
craving for novel stimulation. Nothing in the world seems more tempting than
to go seek such stimulation — to check your e-mail, or sift through your
Facebook feed like a hyper-extroverted gold prospector.
Hard Focus
To succeed as a student (or a novelist) you have to fight that feeling and
keep working. I call this ability hard focus.
Our student from above probably lacks hard focus muscles. She has no
training in keeping her concentration locked even after resistance builds.
And because of this, she’s collapsing well short of the finish line in the
mental marathons she needs to run as an upper-level student.
Fortunately, as Marukami explained, this deficiency can be remedied in the
same way that a runner builds his endurance: you have to try to push
yourself, each day, a little farther than is comfortable. Over time, your
threshold raises.
My Marathon Training
Consider my own example. I’m in the middle of a challenge that might scare
most students in my position: I’m writing a doctoral dissertation and a book
simultaneously. (Literally: my thesis and manuscript are due within a week
of each other.)
This requires, on average, 4 - 6 hours of hard focus (split about evenly
between the two projects) per day, five days per week.
I could not have pulled this off five years ago. But in the intervening half
decade, I’ve been pushing hard to expand my hard focus capacity. As my
graduate student experience progressed, I systematically increased the
amount of time I would force myself to work continuously without a break to
seek unrelated stimulation. This culminated in my current schedule in which
I write for 2 - 3 hours, take a break for lunch, e-mail, and exercise, and
then work on my thesis for 2 - 3 hours, before finishing for the day.
My life right now is not easy. And you’ll have to ask me in September if my
training was sufficient to get me all the way to the finish line. (I don’t
like to mention my challenges publicly because I’m superstitious and feel
like its taunting the Gods. I made a reluctant exception for this article
because I think the bigger point is so important.) But for now, it’s not
overwhelming. Like the well-trained marathoner at the 19th mile marker, I’ve
built up the required muscle mass to keep moving at a good pace.
Conclusion
These thoughts all lead to a simple conclusion. When assessing your progress
on producing things of real value (the best path to building
a rewarding and well-rewarded life), consider your own capacity for hard
focus. Most important accomplishments boil down to this single, often
overlooked ability."
He is asking me this over and over: “Am I enough for you?” I stumble and hesitate to respond, because if I say yes, does that mean He won’t grant my heart's desires? Does that mean that He’ll take away everything that I hold dear in my heart?
But then I realize, maybe He isn’t enough for me if I am still clinging onto these things that I think will provide me with ultimate fulfillment. That question scares me because it forces me to stare into the depth of my soul. Are there idols in my heart that still need to be broken and disposed of? I shutter to think of what I may find.
This question haunts me. But then suddenly a ray of light and revelation appears. I realize that He must be enough for me. If I look to anything else that I think could ever provide me with all I need then I commit myself to a life of madness. Am I looking to material things or faulty sinful human beings to provide me with purpose, importance, meaning, love, satisfaction and value? How crazy is that? How could anyone and anything in this world ever be able to fill this vacuous hole in my heart? It’s impossible.
God is asking me this over and over because he wants me to see that only He can give me true joy, true fulfillment, true satisfaction. It’s Him that is only able to heal my broken heart; love me like no other; know me in the way that I want to be known; elevate me and tell me that I’m important and that I matter. It’s in Him where all the answers lie to all my questions. It’s in Him that will set me free and loose all my chains so that I can be who I was meant to be. Yes, indeed – He is most definitely enough. My heart can stop searching because I’ve found what I’m looking for.
Thank-you Father, that you are all I need for this life.
26 My flesh and my heart may fail, Psalm 73
25 Whom have I in heaven but you?
And earth has nothing I desire besides you.
but God is the strength of my heart
and my portion forever.
I realize that in this lifetime there are many roles that I will play and roles that I am required to fulfill. Right now I am a wife, a daughter, a sister and a friend. I am a social worker, a co-worker and an aunt to two beautiful, rambunctious nephews. And one day, I know that I will be a mother; then perhaps down-the-road, a grand-mother. I love being all of these things and cherish many of these roles that I have been privy to fulfill. Becoming a mother is one role that I am anxiously waiting to step into. Many of you, who know me well, know this about me; becoming a mother is a dream and desire that I am still waiting upon.
Regardless of this, what I realize today is that before I was any one of these things and before I become anyone else, what lies underneath all of these external roles is the internal role of me simply being a child – a child of the most high God. Before I can be any of these things and become a person of influence in every role that God has bestowed upon me, I must first and foremost learn how to be a child. One who is fully and completely obedient to Him. I realize today that I must be this before I can even think about being that. I will never step into the fullness of any of these roles if I am not first and foremost a child. I will never be able impact influence in any of these roles and the future roles that God has in store for me if I am not a daughter of God first. A child who is completely satisfied with being one; a kid who rests all her significance and identity in knowing that the supreme God of the universe is her parent; a child who doesn’t place pressure or try to extract a sense of significance from any of these other roles because she already has everything she needs in being this one thing. All other roles must flow out of this one role - this one, all important, foundational role that I am now, have always been and will always be for eternity.
Thank-you Lord that all you expect from me is to be a trusting, obedient child who trusts in her Father always and forever because she loves Him with all her soul, mind and spirit.
Matthew 18
2He called a little child and had him stand among them. 3And he said: "I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. 4Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven
Deuteronomy 10:
12 And now, O Israel, what does the LORD your God ask of you but to fear the LORD your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, 13 and to observe the LORD's commands and decrees that I am giving you today for your own good?
1 John 3:
1How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!
Finally saw this movie last night & it was excellent. Agi had read the book
and she said the movie was probably just as good. I loved the father
character and how he stood up to the Russian soldiers. He also had a very
interesting perspective that all morality was based on theft: don't steal
another life or tell a lie to another as that steals his ability to tell the
truth (kind of sounds like an article in Fortune or what an Ayn-Randian
disciple would say). But the idea has merit.
I'm also nearly finished with Homer's Odyssey. Nearly every evening I've
been chipping away at it. It's surprisingly exciting and violent and but
certainly beautiful too.
