Love Suffers Long and is [Still] Kind

When they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly. (1 Peter 2:23)

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

 It takes something different than what we've got to remain kind after long suffering, to make no threats against those who hurt us. I am ambitious for this kind of power.

Though He Were a Son

Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered. (Hebrews 5:8)

Emmanuel, God with us. God suffering and learning hurt and the cost of obedience. How I am thankful for Jesus.

An Unexpected Grace

I say to myself, ‘The Lord is my portion; therefore I will wait for Him.’ The Lord is good to those whose hope is in Him, to the one who seeks Him; it is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord. (Lamentations 3:24-26)

The window is open, and outside somewhere, someone is playing a cello. It's a mystery in this neighborhood of neon signs and massage parlors and the grace of it mingles with the smell of car exhaust and of stale frying oil from the take-out downstairs and the distant, wobbly sound of someone singing off-key in the karaoke rooms on the next street. And strangely, wound in and around my tired, tangled thoughts, there is the sudden sweetness of gratitude. Here in my struggling heart is thankfulness for a gift I couldn't imagine and didn't wish for, and the music brings me an understanding that words and my internal remonstrations have failed to work up: the sense, and not just the cold knowledge, that God is good.

I have been discouraged. With everything, and, more humiliatingly, with nothing at all. I have told myself to be strong, and reminded myself that God has a purpose in everything that He chooses for me, but I have failed to overcome. I am full of stumbling and confusion and frustration. I am all running and flapping, and no rising up on wings as an eagle. I am ashamed of my weakness and and worst of all, disappointed in God for not rescuing me from myself. The enemy is always there to point out my blasphemy, and then it's a smooth twist from there to the dark suggestion that God doesn't really care about how I feel - a thought I know to be foolish, but it resonates and lodges in the dim corners of my heart just the same.

I say to God my Rock,
“Why have you forgotten me?
Why must I go about mourning,
oppressed by the enemy?”
My bones suffer mortal agony
as my foes taunt me,
saying to me all day long,
“Where is your God?”
(Psalm 42: 9-10)

But others before me have so failed. Elijah sat under a juniper tree and begged God to kill him. John the Baptist sent messengers to ask Jesus if he was really the one. The answers they got are the same ones that God gives me: silence, scripture, and sleep. Maybe my job is not to overcome the discouragement, but to be willing to endure it. Then the enemy will see that my merciful God uses broken things.

A bruised reed shall he not break, and smoking flax shall he not quench, till he sends forth justice unto victory. (Matthew 12:20)

When I am tired and discouraged and cannot feel that God is kind, I will hold tight to His kindness anyway. I will believe that He loves. I will wait for Him to restore and to make sense of this waste. And for tonight, there is the sound of the bow drawn across the strings. It goes on and on, and this night the unexpected grace of the music, and the sense of gratitude that comes winding with it, is enough.

And I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten, the crawling locust, and the consuming locust, and the cutting locust, my great army which I sent among you. (Joel 2:25)

Until I can see, I will wait. 

Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ. (2 Corinthians 10:5)

Be Strong...and Wait

Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord. (Psalm 27:14)

And this is what takes real strength and real heart: waiting. Waiting to understand. Waiting to be made like Jesus.

God spoke to me today; spoke right into my noisy head, in the middle of things happening and people talking. He asked me if I could trust Him with my life. And the obvious answer is yes, of course. He's God, after all, and most days I'm not even sure who I am. But it's not so simple. Sometimes I want to trust Him, but I can't quite make it into actually resting my heart and letting Him do His work without me whining and crying and pounding the door down with wondering if He's sure this is the right way and how long He's going to take. I know the truth: that I don't even know what I want, let alone what's right, and God knows both, and He cares about both. But a lot of the time, the truth feels cold and very far away, and I am filled with fears and tired tears and caught in that sharp place in between reality and feeling. But for today, He has given me enough faith to trust Him. It's good to have it, and I will spend it waiting. 

Make no mistake: this is the hard work of following Jesus; harder than all the things we think we need to do to earn Him praise.

Someday, I will give him all that is in my heart because I see and understand, but that day won't come without today's waiting in the dim cold of my not-knowing. Beautiful, inscrutable God, I wait for You. Accept this, my sometimes-empty heart.

Falling

The woman came and knelt before Him. "Lord, help me!" she said. (Matthew 15:25)

Father, I have humbled myself under Your hand. I have waited for You.

I have neither strength enough to overcome myself nor grace enough to rise above my circumstances nor love enough to order my heart nor faith enough to see things as You do. Have mercy on my stumbling, then, and use my failure for some good. Falling, I fall into Your hands.

Faith is Willingness to Wait

O Lord, the value of Your truth and Your way is that it's more than just pretty words. Right now, I feel like I'm hanging on to words and ideas that I can't connect to my reality with any power. 

Shall I rage against You or against those who carry out Your will for me? Let me lean in to You. Control me, Father, when my heart throws temper tantrums. When I am sighing, groaning, crying, screaming inside - give me the strength to overcome my own feelings. Give me grace - great, wide, sweeping grace to sit still - still, while I am dying to get up and run and hit and yell.

Teach me how to respond to my restless self, and to those who try my patience sore. Teach me Your good way when I can't imagine one, and give me rich grace to wait.

Faith is willingness to wait. (Ann Voskamp, A Holy Experience)

I confess my lack. Help me, Jesus!

Where Can I Flee?

O God, I long to run away, far away. But it's You I'd be running from, and there's no use. Where can I flee from Your presence? Hide me! Make a way through my Red Sea, because You are the same God that led Moses into an impossible spot, and then took responsibility for him and for your people. Remember, I am Yours - graven onto Jesus' hands.

Let Me Love Jesus

...the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb. Each one had a harp and they were holding golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of God’s people. And they sang a new song, saying:

“You are worthy to take the scroll
and to open its seals,
because you were slain,
and with your blood you purchased for God
persons from every tribe and language and people and nation.
You have made them to be a kingdom and priests to serve our God,
and they will reign on the earth.”
Then I looked and heard the voice of many angels, numbering thousands upon thousands, and ten thousand times ten thousand. They encircled the throne and the living creatures and the elders. In a loud voice they were saying:

“Worthy is the Lamb, who was slain,
to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength
and honor and glory and praise!”
Then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all that is in them, saying:

“To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb
be praise and honor and glory and power,
for ever and ever!”
The four living creatures said, “Amen,” and the elders fell down and worshiped.

(Revelation 5:8-14)

This is the beginning, and we are the firstfruits, the promise and the harbinger of that great day when all the universe and all of heaven will bow in unified worship to the God of Love. Lord, let me do it now, while it hurts, and I am tired, and my flesh kicks against me and hates to bow. Let me not rob You of this beginning - small, but precious in Your eyes. 

The awful truth is, I have a heart that loves me more than it loves the Christ. That is what makes it so hard to love others. Oh, I can love my own, because that serves me. But to love those who don't belong to me, who don't love me back the way I want them to...it's just harder than I ever dreamed.

Our world dresses love up in pretty clothes; they would have us believe it's something warm and bright that you can fall right into and live happily ever after. Real love is hard and gritty, and it stomps all over you with its hob-nail boots. It shakes you out and turns you upside down and makes you want to run home crying, and it takes everything in you to desire it anyway.

The way up is down. The way to the light is through the dark. And the only way to really live is to lay yourself down and die...today, and tomorrow, and all over again the next day...

Then they spit in his face and struck him with their fists. Others slapped him and said, “Prophesy to us, Messiah. Who hit you?” (Matthew 26:67-68)

When they came to the place called the Skull, they crucified him there, along with the criminals—one on his right, the other on his left. Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” And they divided up his clothes by casting lots. (Luke 23:33-34)

Father, I can't always feel that what You say is true, and I can't always see the beauty in Your way, but Jesus who sits at Your right hand was spat upon, and I have tasted that You are Good, and I will hold tight to You. Jesus was spat upon - ! How can I not trust such a God? 

I will remember that dark is light to You, and first is last. I will believe that it is light that blinds me, not darkness. I will believe, when I feel most alone, that You are near. I will believe, not just in tomorrow's provision - but that today's emptiness is a fullness of a better kind. My view is too small. There are many things I cannot see, but You know them all, and I will hold on to You. The worst that You can give must be better than the best I would work out for myself.

I don't know what I want. I only feel. Overcome my feeling, and give me faith worthy of You - enough faith to wait for Your goodness. I bow before You with my tired, hurt heart. You are the One with whom I have to do. Let me have the strength to love people the way You ask. Let me love Jesus more than myself. Let my dying birth praise...praise for the slain Lamb, that One who alone is Faithful and True - Jesus, in whose face they spat. He is worthy.

Sit Still

Sit still, my daughter, until you know how the matter will fall. (Ruth 3:18) 

 I am learning how to let go, how to walk straight into the dark and let the fear crawl icy over me and lean into my Father, how to feel the pain and know there's more out there, and yet choose to go; and Jesus comes with me, and He is kind. I am still a worn-out child, alternately trusting and crying, but He never wavers and He is here in the dark with His wounds, and His hand is in mine. Ultimately, I believe that Jesus, the Wounded God, is trustworthy. I believe that this stripping and emptying will enrich, deepen, colour my life; that this lowness and smallness will give me enlarged borders. I believe, and He is every day proving Himself faithful. Father, it is good to learn You.

When we know Christ, we always know how things are going to go — always for our good and always for His glory... God only allows pain if He’s allowing something new to be born. (Ann Voskamp, A Holy Experience)

And when my heart screams and my blood races, I am learning, a little, to lean hard on Him: to wait for Him and hear His voice and to look for His goodness in the hurt. He is Good.

"Even Satan knew that none but God could touch Job, and when Satan was permitted to afflict him, Job was quite right in recognizing the Lord Himself as the doer of these things which He permitted to be done. Come joy or come sorrow, we may always take it from the hand of God." (Hudson Taylor)

There are no second causes, and God is always good.. I must learn how to accept all - all! - from my Father's careful hand. He is teaching me, little by little, how to trust His choice, and how to lean into Him and allow Him to control my reactions.

Do Not Weep!

Then one of the elders said to me, “Do not weep! See, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has triumphed. He is able to open the scroll and its seven seals.”
Then I saw a Lamb, looking as if it had been slain, standing at the center of the throne... (Revelation 5:5-6)

Do not weep-! I've been doing a lot of that lately. But John says, "See." The triumphant lion is a slain lamb. The way up is down. Victory lies in defeat. Joy is cradled in the darkness. Death is swallowed up. Love wins by laying everything down.

I have not come the wrong way after all. The Lion of the tribe of Judah is a slain Lamb.