I Press On

I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me —Philippians 3:12

The fiery furnaces are there by God’s direct permission. It is misleading to imagine that we are developed in spite of our circumstances; we are developed because of them. It is mastery in circumstances that is needed, not mastery over them. (Oswald Chambers, The Love of God—The Message of Invincible Consolation)

We have to live the surface, commonsense life in a commonsense way. Then when God gives us the deeper things, they are obviously separated from the shallow concerns. Never show the depth of your life to anyone but God. We are so nauseatingly serious, so desperately interested in our own character and reputation, we refuse to behave like Christians in the shallow concerns of life. (Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest)

“Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do. . . I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3:13-14).

Lies I Have Believed

God has bigger things to worry about than you.
God's idea of "good" is unsatisfying.
What God wants to give us is just ideas, not realities that we can touch and know and use.
You just aren't enough.
God will let you down.
Things never change.
God is not who you think he is.
Praying is a waste of time. You need to do something.
You are useless.
Love is weak, and hatred is strong.
God doesn't understand humans.
You are alone.

These are the deep fears that terrify and wrack the human heart. Don't think that because you see their ridiculousness in the light of day that you haven't believed them too.

In the heart's dark night, the Accuser draws near, and he whispers his lies into the empty spaces of your soul. Perhaps you've laughed at his suggestions before, but in the gloom and dim, they aren't just ideas; they become something more. Suddenly, the unthinkable finds resonance amongst the fears you'd hardly dare admit to: dark rustlings that come crawling, like cockroaches, about the weak places in the human heart.

Truth is the only thing that can overcome the dark power of a lie.

...Be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will. (Romans 12:1)


This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. (1John 3:16)

If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him! (Matthew 7:9)

...Everything in the world—the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does—comes not from the Father but from the world. The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever. (1John 2:16-17)

Here is a trustworthy saying: ...if we are faithless, he will remain faithful, for he cannot disown himself. (1Timothy 2:11,13)

The night is nearly over; the day is almost here. So let us put aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light. (Romans 13:12)

That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched—this we proclaim concerning the Word of life. (1John 1:1)


This then is how we know that we belong to the truth, and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence whenever our hearts condemn us. For God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything. (1John 3:19-20)

Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord...Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. (Romans 12:19,21)

This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. (1John 4:9-10)

This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us—whatever we ask—we know that we have what we asked of him. (1John 5:14-15)


...Now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. (1John 3:2)   For the foolishness of God is wiser than man’s wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man’s strength. (1Corinthians1:25)

There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. (1John 4:18)

To him who is able to keep you from falling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy— to the only God our Savior be glory, majesty, power and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and forevermore! (Jude 1:24-25)

Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. (Romans 12:12)

For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet was without sin. Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need. (Hebrews 4:15-16)

So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand. (Isaiah 41:10)

“Because he loves me,” says the Lord, “I will rescue him; I will protect him, for he acknowledges my name. He will call upon me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble, I will deliver him and honor him. (Psalm 91:14-15)

And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him. (1 John 4:16)

In Him Will I Trust

If I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast.
If I say, "Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me," even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you. 

(Psalm 139: 9-12)

Let him who walks in the dark, who has no light, trust in the name of the Lord and rely on his God.

(Isaiah 50:10)

He that dwells in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the Lord, he is my refuge and my fortress: my God; in him will I trust.

(Psalm 91: 1-2)

I can't remember when I have felt so little able to get perspective, to understand, to see. I've lost my bearings. Sometimes I feel just like a very small boat on a very large sea. 

But there is One who speaks to me out of the dark; One who holds my hand and draws me forward, despite my small-child fears and my tiredness. He is the One who gently says "No" to my alternate pleading and storming for answers, for perspective, for sight. I want to understand and feel secure and go forward in knowledge, but He bids me hold tight to him and go along without seeing, without knowing, without any governor but Him for my wind-swept emotions.

It is He, the merciful Jesus, to whom I go; before whom I bow; at whose feet I rest. Though I fear what awaits in the darkness; though I am often overwhelmed by the tension in my own heart, he is with me, and I am his, and he loves me.

Dear, gentle Jesus! When will the day come that I will know him as he knows me? When will I love him with a free heart? When will I be fully free of that misguided self-seeking that would deny him; that raises fists against him who loves me best?

Against the darkness; against my longing to know and understand; against the fear that sometimes wraps itself about me, I choose Jesus. I will trust in him. I will trust his love for me.

Whatever comes, Jesus will fill my life with the rich warmth of his light and his love. It is no longer the gifts he gives, but him that I seek. He goes with me. What other good will I look for?

Uprooting Bitterness

My heart has been full of hurt and resentment. I have struggled against it. I have asked God to change it. So it was with a bit of a sigh that I read Gwen's post about "no root of bitterness" .


"Strive for peace with everyone, and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord.  See to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God; that "no root of bitterness" springs up and causes trouble, and by it many become defiled..." Hebrews 12:14&15


I don't want my bitterness, but honestly, part of the problem is that I don't know how to let go of it. If someone hurts you, what exactly do you do? Do you ignore it? Pretend like it never happened? Do you turn your hatred to pity for their need to hurt others? Do you steel yourself so it won't hurt the next time? Do you distance your heart? Stop caring what people do and say to you? 


There is a real sense of powerlessness in being hurt, and it makes me desperate to get my sense of autonomy back. The hurt turns to resentment when I take back control, haul the rotten hurt-er up before the court of Me, and proclaim them guilty. The problem is, a guilty verdict means a sentence. So I lock them out of my
heart, since I can't lock them in. And then I'm the one left standing there, holding the key but unable or unwilling to let myself out and set myself free.

Oh, it's unfair from beginning to end. But what to do differently?

Again, with little faith but a grain of hope, I took my problem to the One who loves me best. I asked Him again to take over my heart and root out all the bitterness there; to un-try all those who have hurt me and change my hurt to His love. I didn't know what He would do, how He would do it. I was feeling rather hopeless about the whole mess anyway. I'd already tried, hadn't I?


Here's what God did: He drew my mind back and back over the words and actions that have hurt me most. Then he re-interpreted all of those things to mean something else. He let me see them, every one, from a different perspective, until I couldn't be sure the people who had said or done them were guilty after all. I mean, they could have been. Or not. It wasn't all that clear. Then I just had to give them up to the higher court of God's opinion and let him try them. It has been three days, and with every hurtful action or word, God has given me just enough doubt that I simply have to let Him judge. 


What a relief it is to not have to stand there inside the iron bars of my own heart, on guard against the next hurt! What peace to not really know; to hand over responsibility for my protection and my vindication to One who has the power and the wisdom to accomplish it!

Your Neighbour As Yourself

And be you kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake has forgiven you. (Ephesians 4:32)


...but you are a God ready to pardon, gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and forsook them not. (Nehemiah 9:17)


But there is forgiveness with you, that you may be feared. (Psalm 130:4)


And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him. (1John 4:6)

A Song in the Night

As good as you think God's way is going to be, it isn't. It's better. He will always surprise us. 

I don't know yet what He is doing with me, but it is as good as done. His plan for me is good. He will fill my life with His song. He will set me free. Let me praise him now, in the darkness. Even here, He is gracious. He is kind. He is good.

Taste and see that the LORD is good; blessed is the man who takes refuge in him. (Psalm 34:8)

Through the Darkness

Sometimes the way up is down. Sometimes what God says makes sense doesn't make any sense. When I was little I used to wake up in the middle of the night, thirsty. I would have to crawl out of bed and tiptoe into the hallway and down the stairs to the kitchen to get a drink. The stairs were always dark and the creaky steps scared me. I imagined werewolves and shadowy things behind me on the steps, and I hated walking forward into the darkness. Even as a child, though, I knew that in order to get to the moonlit kitchen I had to just put fear in my pocket, hold onto the rail, and go down. Sometimes the way to the light is through the dark.

Moving to another country has been, in many ways, far more challenging than I expected, and for totally different reasons than I expected. I thought the "hard" would centre around stuff I am good at - like being flexible, being able to appreciate other perspectives, eating weird foods, smiling when I don't feel like it. It hasn't. Instead, fears I never really knew I had have come crawling out of the dark.

I am discovering that one of the things I fear most is not knowing. Not the unknown, but just not understanding what is going on; not knowing what to do; not knowing why, not knowing what is coming next, not knowing how to react. I've always been a little antsy about information; I like lots of it, and I get frustrated when I feel like I have too little. But I really didn't imagine myself as fearful, and I never thought it would run this deep.

As it turns out, I find myself in the situation of not knowing pretty often. There is a big difference between not knowing exactly, and not knowing at all. Not knowing at all is like getting punched in the gut. It makes me feel dazed and surprised and hurt. Bafflingly, the One who loves me best is letting me hurt. He has overwhelmed my understanding and my ability to analyse. I am often fearful in ways I never really experienced before. Oh, I'm not such a newbie that I haven't experienced the raw fact that God's way is always good...not just generally good, but my good.  I know that He cannot give me any less than Good. I know that there is no good left for Him to withhold, now that He has given, for me, His own precious Son. I know that no evil can touch me that He does not allow, that is not the means to a greater good. I'm not afraid of the end.  I'm afraid of what I'll have to go through to get there. I'm afraid that I won't know how to respond. I'm afraid that I'll make mistakes. I'm afraid that I'll be embarrassed. I'm afraid I'll mess up something. I'm afraid I'll hate myself for being such a bumbler.


It's easy to get tricked by fear. The creaks in life's stairs have sent spectres scurrying behind me every step. Once secure in the knowledge that I was God's favourite child, (You'll forgive me if you, too, have known what it is to be his beloved...) lately I am full of melancholic doubts about my worth and blind to his encircling love, his care for me as a person. It looks foolish when I put it in print like that, but when I find myself gasping for breath in the icy grip of fear, any horror seems possible.


I have talked a lot in this blog about faith, mostly about what faith isn't. Faith isn't believing that God exists, or wishing and believing that I'm going to get my wish. Faith isn't just taking a wild leap. Faith is this: taking a step based on what I know, and then another step, and then another one. Faith is putting into practice the truth I am sure of. Faith is walking straight into my fear because I know the God who calls me will hold my hand, will make it right, will work despite my mistakes, will love me anyway. Faith is betting the farm (or my pride) on the fact that God loves me deeply and is right now giving me Good, no matter how bad it feels. Faith is being willing to go forward without understanding, trusting that the One who loves me will not let me go wrong.


So my Father and my Friend bids me come with Him through the darkness and into His light. I am tired and scared and it is a struggle to remind myself, again and again, that He goes with me; that my job is not to get it all right, but just to hold tight to His hand and be drawn along with Him. I keep losing perspective, distracted by this sense of going deeper into darkness. But this is the way I choose Him. And when I hurt, I remember that He hurt, too. He chose that hurt for me, and I will choose this hurt for Him. I will trust Him. I will let my love for Him cost. I will have His best. I will have Love, though it feels like hatred and humiliation and I feel like a weak fool. He will fight for me. He is just. He will make it right.


Trust in the Lord with all your heart
and lean not on your own understanding;
in all your ways acknowledge him,
and he will make your paths straight. (Proverbs 3:5,6)

He's not asking me to be right. He's not asking me to understand everything and respond with all the wisdom and maturity I wish I had. Instead, He asks me to go with Him, letting go of all the comfort of understanding. This is hard for me. It is hard to still my whirling thoughts, my struggling to comprehend and sort and plan. It is hard to accept the humiliation, even in my own eyes, of trying and failing, of doing badly what others do with confidence and grace. It is hard to keep reminding myself that this is not about what it appears to be about. It is hard to stop trying to find an easier way out. It is hard to keep from trying to fix things my way. It is hard to wait for His resolution.


The Lord longs to be gracious to you;
He rises to show you compassion.
For the Lord is a God of justice.
Blessed are all who wait for Him! (Isaiah 30:18)


"I would rather walk with God in the dark than go alone in the light." (Mary Gardiner Brainard)


Like the child-me, I am learning to walk forward into the darkness, not holding the stair-rail, but holding onto the Lord Jesus, trusting Him that this is the way to the light. This is the way to knowing Him.

Gathered Jewels: Oswald Chambers on The Peril Within

"Jesus did not commit Himself unto them for He knew what was in man.” (John 2:24-25)

"To be undeceived by disillusionment may leave us cynical and unkindly severe in our judgment of others, but the disillusionment which comes from God brings us to the place where we see men and women as they really are, and yet there is no cynicism, we have no stinging, bitter things to say. Many of the cruel things in life spring from the fact that we suffer from illusions. We are not true to one another as facts; we are true only to our ideas of one another. Everything is either delightful and fine, or mean and dastardly, according to our idea.
The refusal to be disillusioned is the cause of much of the suffering in human life. It works in this way - if we love a human being and do not love God, we demand of him every perfection and every rectitude, and when we do not get it we become cruel and vindictive; we are demanding of a human being that which he or she cannot give. There is only one Being Who can satisfy the last aching abyss of the human heart, and that is the Lord Jesus Christ. Why Our Lord is apparently so severe regarding every human relationship is because He knows that every relationship not based on loyalty to Himself will end in disaster. Our Lord trusted no man, yet He was never suspicious, never bitter. Our Lord's confidence in God and in what His grace could do for any man, was so perfect that He despaired of no one. If our trust is placed in human beings, we shall end in despairing of everyone." (Oswald Chambers)

"Love suffers long, and is kind..." (1Corinthians 13:4)

"For Christ's love compels us..." (2Corinthians 5:14)

"The great peril is the peril within, which people never think of as a peril. My right to myself, self- pity, self - conceit, consideration for my progress , my ways of looking at things, those things are satanic perils which will keep us in perfect sympathy with Satan."  (Oswald Chambers)

The Lamb Shall Lead Them

"For the Lamb who is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters: and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes." (Revelation 7:17)

The sacrificed Lamb is the Good Shepherd. He knows well what it is like to be a weak and weary human, and this gives him the final right to lead.

And God shall wipe away all tears. I am waiting for his hand on my cheek, finally ridding me of tears forever. These days, no matter how much I hurt, the tears just don't come. Can you run out of tears? I feel like I have just used up all the stores. When God wipes away my tears, it won't be like that. He will show me the purpose of all my pain, and he will put his own strength into my heart. The joy of being with Jesus and like Jesus will drive away all bitterness and all crying. He will heal all the hurt that eats at me.

I long for that day, when I meet the one who is my Shepherd and my Lamb. He will show his wounds in hands and feet, and I will show my own heart-scars. The continuing bitterness - the tears - will disappear forever, but we will carry forever the scars, He and I. They will be no longer marks of our shame, but marks of our love. We will wear them gladly, proudly.

O Shepherd! Teach me to bend before you. Remind me that you are the slain Lamb. Remind me how precious is the hurt I receive in loving you. Let me not run from my wounding. Let me hold your hand with a tighter grasp and love you more steadfastly.

Walk Beside Me

So then, those who suffer according to God's will should commit themselves to their faithful Creator and continue to do good. (1Peter 4:19)

I want to! Really, I do, but sometimes it is so hard to know what is good. We talk a lot about "following" God. As if he's up ahead, and we can just put our feet in his steps and go along. But he means for us to put our hand in his and walk along beside...knowing where and how to go because we share his Spirit. This is a lot easier than following. It's easier because he gives us his understanding and his strength. But it's harder, too...because it means making room in our minds, hearts, lives, for his thoughts and his way and him. It means knowing him, not just his words. Sometimes it is simpler to mechanically place our feet in his steps.

There are so many things these days that I can't understand...and so many times I just wish it was clear what I should do and how I should go. I feel like I can't even trust my own thinking. And maybe part of the problem is that God doesn't mean for me to have a simple way of figuring out what is the right thing and then doing it. Maybe he wants me to just go along with him, step by step, not even knowing what the steps are, but trusting, and learning, and eventually understanding on a deeper level what is his way.

Faithful Creator. Father. Friend. Here I am, hurt hurt hurt. And confused. And so awfully, shamefully weak. I need your help. I have reached the limit of my understanding. I don't know anything anymore. Except you. You are Good. You are beautiful. You know me and love me, weakness and weirdness and all. You always forgive me.

I am sorry for being satisfied with just following when you have called me to walk with you. Hold my hand tight and draw me along with you. Let me go beside you, even though I don't know the way. Shine your light into my heart, and deal with my selfishness and my weakness. Fill in all my holes with your love. Make me more than I am.

“If you agree with God’s purpose, He will bring not only your conscious life, but all the deeper regions of your life which you cannot get at, into harmony.”

- Oswald Chambers

There are so many places in my own heart I can't get at...can't nudge, can't shift, can't tweak, can't change. Can't even see what's right and what's wrong. Father, I agree with your purpose. I will go along with you. Bring me into harmony with you.