Home for a wandering sheep

The past day or two, God repeatedly keeps telling me “Where God is, is home.”  

I’ve also been reminded over the course of these days that I’m a sheep.  

The image comes to mind of a little lamb, wandering around through pastures. The hills around me are huge, and I’m so fragile. 

I keep longing for my home. I keep asking the shepherd to bring me home, to bring me to a place where I can rest. 

But then God reminds me that where my God is, is my home.  He gives me a picture of a tender shepherd picking up this lost sheep, and holding it close to his heart.

Home is not where we are or a destination we’re trying to get to. Home is my journey with my shepherd and rest is found, not in a place, but in his arms. Rest is found when my little legs stop moving and my ears listen to his heartbeat.

 God tells me that home is being carried by my shepherd.

John 1

“The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” 

John 1:29

Lately I’ve been having a hard time “walking by faith.” I know what God has promised, but I’m having a hard time believing that I will one day experience it! My soul wants to believe but my mind wants the proof.

A while earlier as I was reading in the 1^st chapter of the Book of John, I was blown away by the faith that I read about. From the first verse of that chapter, John was declaring that Jesus is the Messiah. John goes throughout Jerusalem telling everyone that “He who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me” and “I am the voice of one calling in the desert, ‘Make straight the way for the Lord.” And I mean, He told everyone.

He who comes. Do you realize how much faith it takes to declare that? Although John has not yet seen the Messiah (at least not that I can find in the scriptures) he is declaring, not that He will come or might come, but He comes!

As I read through this chapter, I was amazed at how persistent John was and how he put His own reputation on the line by declaring (or announcing officially) that Christ has come! If I was in John’s position, I’d like to believe I would act similarly, but I have a feeling my thoughts would be more like this: What if he doesn’t come? What if I tell all of these people He’s coming and He doesn’t show up?

Guess what happens next, though? He comes!

As John is baptizing people with water and assuring them that “One mightier than I” is coming, He sees Jesus walking toward Him.

Can you even imagine that? Seriously, imagine that while you are speaking of something you are absolutely sure will happen, it happens right before your eyes! This is faith coming to life.

I long for this kind of faith! A faith that is true to its definition… trusting with confidence without needing to see proof. I have already heard and read the promises. The people in the Bible had not yet seen, but still they believed.

After reading this, I can’t help but draw a parallel to John preaching about the coming of Christ, and our own responsibility to announce that Christ will come again. Do we announce His coming with a whisper? Perhaps we announce it with a maybe? Worse yet, we might not announce it at all.

 Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” John 20:29

God, help us to announce with confidence that Christ comes. At the end of this road, I pray that while we are in the midst of declaring and baptizing, we would be met with Christ walking towards us as we walk in obedience.

6-23

This morning I am thankful for new mercies and a fresh look at the Gospel. I always find myself overwhelmed by grace when, in the seemingly mundane, God takes the time to weave His story into my circumstances. 

Earlier as a rode my bike to work, I felt very physically spent. As I pedaled across campus, my attention was drawn to the weakness in my legs and the tiredness that was spread across my body. My thoughts kept bringing me to this idea of my legs having to carry the weight of the rest of my body. How could my own legs not support me?  In that moment, I felt very weak. Not the same weakness brought on by being physically tired, but a weakness brought on by being undone by the Gospel. 

In the light of the Gospel, I realized how incapable I was. I realized that my own strength could never be enough to save me. I know this sounds self-defeating, but it was quite the opposite. It was freeing. 

You see if I just realized I couldn’t fix this problem that would be bad news. But the goodness of it all is that Jesus “pedaled my bike” for me. While I was still a sinner, Jesus bore a load that I could not ever lift. As a result, my sin died with Jesus on that cross in exchange for His righteousness. 

I grew tired when traveling a little over a mile uphill with the help of a bicycle. My Savior traveled far more than that with the weight of a cross. And this is just the physical journey. While Jesus in human form made a journey far greater than my own body would allow, he also emotionally did something I could never handle.    

Not only a wooden cross, but the sins of all mankind, rested on His shoulders. 

Jesus was not only carrying his own weight, but the weight of a cross and the past, present, and future sins of an entire world. Think of your own sins that you’ve committed? I know that I have a pretty lengthy list of my own. Now imagine that times billions more. I can’t even imagine the emotional burden, but Jesus bore it all. 

So how do I respond to this? I walk into that freedom totally aware that it is a result of no effort of my own, and I give up everything to get to know the one who set me free.

How come dying people seem to have more life than living people?

Why do we wait until we die to live?

Why we would wait until it’s time to leave a party to start dancing?

Or until the moon comes out to find the sun?

We long for life but seek it in the strangest of places.

In a dream or a job or an adventure

We look for life in things that cannot give life in return.

But what if we looked for life in things that were alive?

What if we looked for life in a living God?

Why does it seem that dying people are the ones doing the living?

Because once we die to self, we are free to live!

Because the more we die, the more He lives!

From Screams to Songs of Hope

Tonight at work I almost missed a cool lesson that God was trying to teach me through the strangest of circumstances. So basically here’s how it all went down.

I clocked into work at 7 pm and cracked open my textbook. As I began to read the content, with an extreme amount of focus, I retained all of the information, during the quietest shift of my life and got a 100% on my exam. The End.

Jk.

In a perfect world, that’s how things would’ve gone but sometimes life is rough and I’m not perfect therefore God has a lot to teach me. So here’s what really went down.

I arrived at work at 6:55 pm.  I was so on time! But the computer was on the struggle bus so I sat there for about 20 minutes until I could clock in. All was well, it was quiet, too quiet… Then all of a sudden, a knock. I go to the door to let in a lone baseball camper. I sit back down at the desk when all of a sudden, “tap tap… tap tap tap.” I let in a handful of baseball campers. I sit back down when all of a sudden “Pow pow pow!” I let in a stampede of baseball campers.

For the next 3 hours this quiet night turned into a mixture of lost keys, a distribution of ping pong paddles, and listening to the “symphony” of screaming campers playing ping pong about 15 feet from me. What was happening!

At about 10 o’clock I sat there in utter confusion just thinking to myself how can these boys have so much energy? I wondered how can they possibly have the stamina or desire to continue playing ping pong for 3 hours straight? Then it hit me. God is extremely purposeful with every word he has placed in the Bible. I thought specifically of the phrase “child-like” faith.

“Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.” Mark 10:15

I’ve always thought of this as referring to having the innocence of a child in order to fully understand the Gospel. But what if that’s not all it was referring to? Yes children approach life with innocence, but they also approach life with an insane amount of energy. As I sat there watching these children play ping pong for 3 hours straight, and by the end, saw them acting like it was just as fun and exciting 3 hours later as when they first started all I could think was, “What if this was the way I approached following Christ?” What if 3 years after becoming a Christian I approached every word God spoke to me and every moment spent with Him like it was just as exciting as the moment I accepted Him into my life? What if 3 years later, I had the same exact energy as I did that day I emerged from Wescott fountain drenched and shaking from a declaration stating that “I have found hope and He is Jesus!” What if…

Tonight I am grateful that God is not only Father, Deliverer, Restorer, Creater, Protector… but that He is Teacher. I’m thankful that God loves me uniquely and personally, and that He would change my plans and meet me at a reception desk in Tallahassee through the screams of children. But above all, I am thankful for the screams that came from another child, in a manger, thousands of nights before this one. And I’m thankful that scream brought life, and from that life, hope. A hope to which I, and billions of others, now live!

It’s funny how sometimes we can be so aware, but in such the wrong ways. “Do you have eyes but fail to see, and ears but fail to hear?” (Mark 8:18)

 What seems to fleshly ears as inharmonious clanging is quite actually heaven screaming songs of hope. 

6/10/14

“GOD MEANT IT UNTO GOOD” (Gen. 50:20).

“God meant it unto good”—O blest assurance,
Falling like sunshine all across life’s way,
Touching with Heaven’s gold earth’s darkest storm clouds,
Bringing fresh peace and comfort day by day.

’Twas not by chance the hands of faithless brethren
Sold Joseph captive to a foreign land;
Nor was it chance which, after years of suffering,
Brought him before the monarch’s throne to stand.

One Eye all-seeing saw the need of thousands,
And planned to meet it through that one lone soul;
And through the weary days of prison bondage
Was working towards the great and glorious goal.

As yet the end was hidden from the captive,
The iron entered even to his soul;
His eye could scan the present path of sorrow,
Not yet his gaze might rest upon the whole.

Faith failed not through those long, dark days of waiting,
His trust in God was recompensed at last,
The moment came when God led forth his servant
To succour many, all his sufferings past.

“It was not you but God, that sent me hither,”
Witnessed triumphant faith in after days;
“God meant it unto good,” no “second causes”
Mingled their discord with his song of praise.

“God means it unto good” for thee, beloved,
The God of Joseph is the same today;
His love permits afflictions strange and bitter,
His hand is guiding through the unknown way.

Thy Lord, who sees the end from the beginning,
Hath purposes for thee of love untold.
Then place thy hand in His and follow fearless,
Till thou the riches of His grace behold.

There, when thou standest in the Home of Glory,
And all life’s path ties open to thy gaze,
Thine eyes shall see the hand which now thou trustest,
And magnify His love through endless days.
—Freda Hanbury Allen

     This devotion seems to be the cry of my heart these days. As I read this, I was reminded and promised of what is to come and the Glory my eyes will one day behold. With every sentence, the Lord whispered a new sweet promise to my heart. Each word a drop of fresh water to a weary soul. 

     The first promise I was reminded of was that God IS working. As the author so wonderfully put it, "All things "work’—they are working; not all things have worked, or shall work; but it is a present operation." I do not have to sit around and wait and hope that God will show up. He has shown up. He IS here and He IS at work regardless of what my faltering heart tells me.

     Second, our life has set sail on a Divine course once we decide to hope and trust in Jesus. That Divine course always sails towards glory and God is the one who provides the winds. No steering of our own can change it's direction and God has already mapped out every twist, turn, detour, and ultimately, our destination. My prayer upon realizing this second truth is that God would teach me how to follow. I pray that He would help me take my efforts off of trying to steer and map, and that i would simply sail. Lord, help me to be obedient because no amount of my own beating against this ship will cause me to change its course.

Lastly, His love permits. 

But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, “Why have you made me like this?” Romans 9:20

     We simply aren't looking at the same picture as our molder, therefore, we should stop deceiving ourselves into thinking we are. The Lord sees from beginning to end. Therefore, if the Lord permits, perhaps, just perhaps, it is because he has walked the same road, is looking at the road, and knows the road that we are to walk. 

     His love permits. This means that everything, joyful, sorrowful, and everything in between has been filtered through love. To be honest, I can't fully understand this but what I do know is that the afflictions we experience are not merely inconveniences, they are holy sorrows and divinely constructed in love. 

Lord, help us to grasp your hand and fearlessly follow, trusting that when we open our eyes we will behold a place that we have never seen before... A place that we have only heard about in Your Word. A place that although our bodies have never been, our soul knows we are home. Lord, I pray that we would be content with obedience on the journey and that we would sing all the way home, a song so sweet that others would learn the words and sing with us. Thank you for these promises that I know you will and are working for our good.