"trust is the bridge from yesterday to tomorrow, built with thanks. gratitude lays out the planks of trust. i can walk the planks- from known to unknown- and know: He holds."
"the power of sin and death and fear-sent-from-the-enemy are forever ended because we can trust in the bridge even if it's caving,
in God even when it's black,
in manna-nourishment even when we don't know what it is."
[but again, i refuse to walk the bridge into tomorrow's unknowns. i shame the Bridge-Builder with my worries, my demand to just let me stay here, or go back, but no, not to go on. and again He comes to carry me flailing and anxious]
I am so in love with God and all He is teaching me through the book "One Thousand Gifts." The quotes above are just a glimpse of my notes from class with the Most High.
I found myself singing one of my favorite songs in the car the other day, Faithful God by Gateway Worship.
It starts out a little slow but the chorus is what makes it one of my favorites! As I was belting it out I was singing the part that says, "Faithful God, You hold my life secure and all my days are sure..." I sang that part over and over, thinking about how my future is completely in God's sovereign hands. I felt better knowing that 'all my days are sure.' Then I stopped. All my days are sure?
Here is what the word 'sure' means- 'confident, certain beyond question, reliable, stable.' I didn't remember that ever being a promise of God. No where in the Bible does it say that my future is promised to be stable, or that I can even be certain I will have a future. In fact, it says the opposite. James 4:13-15 says in the Message: "And now I have a word for you who brashly announce, “Today—at the latest, tomorrow—we’re off to such and such a city for the year. We’re going to start a business and make a lot of money.” You don’t know the first thing about tomorrow. You’re nothing but a wisp of fog, catching a brief bit of sun before disappearing. Instead, make it a habit to say, “If the Master wills it and we’re still alive, we’ll do this or that.”
So I started the song over and realized that I had been singing it allllll wrong. Though I was only one word off, it made a world of difference. The correct words say,"Faithful God, You hold my life secure and all my days are YOURS." Wow. What a difference between my future being sure and my future being God's. If all my days were sure that would probably mean finding security by the world's standards: in a nice house, a fancy car, and a pretty baby to stay home with.
But what I've learned in my adventures with God is that most times, I don't even know what tomorrow will bring. He's an upside down, backwards, counter-cultural, sovereign God. He likes to do things in a way so only He can get the glory. Very few things in life are sure with God because He's the only sure thing. He is my Confidant. One thing that I can be certain of beyond question. He is reliable and He is stable.
I'm glad I learned the correct words to that song. I'd trade a glamorous house, expensive car, and even a Gerber baby with an unsure future any day if that meant waking up sure of my God.
I stood among hundreds of middle schoolers & high schoolers today and sang a familiar song. A song that proclaims the powerful nature of God, declaring Him to be "holy, holy, holy." This "Revelation Song" is deeply moving and I found myself excited as the praise band began to play. But halfway through the chorus something hit me. Like a freight train. "with all creation I sing, praise to the King of Kings..." There we stood. In uniforms, almost unmoving. Worried about what we're having for lunch and thinking of ways to keep ourselves awake. Our minds wherever we want them to be. Yet claiming to be on the same team as CREATION when it comes to praising God. Have you noticed "creation" lately?!?!?! Like the full moon tonight over Virginia. Or the blooming cherry blossoms down your street. The rich green grass and the budding trees. I hope hope hope that you have seen yellow daffodils and orange tulips that have stopped. you. in. your. tracks. I mean, most of this stuff is unreal. Breath-taking. Obviouslyyy making us stop to wonder about the Creator. Giving us small glimpses of how beautiful He really must be. Lynchburg people, think of all the sunset pictures you've seen on Instagram. I know some of you have posted them yourself! I know I have. They're marvelous. And usually we can find a good Bible verse to put as the caption or at least allude to the fact that God is fascinating because of given sunset. Friends, do you understand that just like creation, people should see us and literally stop to marvel at our Creator? We should be stunning and breath-taking. Spitting images of the Original. Shew, we sure do have a lot to live up to...
I sat at church tonight face to face with a scary realization. I don't know if God is enough for me. It's easy to say that He is. If anybody would ask me if I thought He was enough I would give a big hearty 'yes' without any hesitation. Of course He's enough, He's GOD. I know that I'm not sure He's enough for me because of the way I've been living. I've graduated from college. I'm living at home. And I'm a substitute teacher every once in awhile. I'm in this transition season of life and I don't like it. I don't like it one bit. On days I substitute, I love it. I love LCA, mainly because I love the kids. And of course my PE friends. But on the days I don't go there, I'm depressed. I stay in my room, leaving only to make coffee and eat a banana. I read; I sleep. And I'm not happy. I want to teach PE. I want to teach anything. I want to inspire kids and laugh with them through high school. I want to coach. I want to talk to kids about Lance Armstrong and teach them the thousands of morals that come from his story about sports and winning and lying and cheating. I want a job that requires me to wake up early and come home tired. But I don't have any of that. So I'm sad. Why? Because God is not enough for me. And that breaks my heart. He's opening my eyes to see that even though I don't have any of those things what I do have is unlimited time to sit alone with Him. I can see now that the Lord, in His goodness, has prepared these days for me. I need to understand that He truly is enough. Because to know that Jesus is enough is to know Jesus. I've previously testified to and declared it because I've known it to be true. But now it's time for me to know it on a deeper level. So even though I have no job, no independence, no man pursuing me, no credit, no five year plan...I have Jesus. & the hope that He could be enough.
Tragedy seems to be a part of every day life now. We not only hear stories on the news of bad things happening but we actually know these people to whom bad things are happening. I know children with cancer and adults who have had to deal with the deaths of their (supposed-to-be lifelong) spouses. A family I know had their house robbed while they were away for the holidays. Still yet there are global issues such as hunger and sex slavery and war. It's overwhelming. And it's tempting to ask where God is in all of it. Many people, including those who have a relationship with God, beg to know why it's all happening. Can't He just stop it all? Doesn't He care? Why doesn't He step in and do something? Is He not good? Is He not loving?
I discovered this song this morning. As I was looking for the lyrics I came upon the artist's blog and an explanation of the song. Below is the song and an excerpt from his blog.
"In the Scriptures, even when pressed by Job, God never gives a philosophically satisfactory answer to the ‘problem of evil;’ He does not wrap up the issue in an understandable and graspable package. Instead, and many years later through Christ, God offers the only response I’ve ever found to be satisfying on any level; the sacrificial action of the Cross. Certainly, there are philosophical implications to the Cross of Christ but they are peripheral to the act itself. It seems to me me that the pain in you is not so much a matter of philosophical crisis as it is a call to to suffer with those who suffer and to do so redemptively. I believe the philosophical crisis is real, but I believe the latter is more vital. Both offer a path of suffering: you will either suffer internally because you cannot make sense of the world and it’s Creator, or you will suffer in a way that brings healing."
These people suffering are His children. And because of this, He provided a way to bring hope. He sent His only Son to die so that we could be saved from this deep despair. If you believe this, and you know the One who is life, then you must offer this to the hurting people around you. We can suffer because He too suffered. And even better, we can rejoice in victory because He rejoices in victory that evil and death have already been conquered. Cry and hurt and grieve knowing that it can all be redeemed at the foot of the cross.
Sometimes I wonder why I didn't get a degree in something that would land me a job that paid the big bucks. I loved numbers, algebra, and problem-solving growing up. Why didn't I go into business or engineering? I love people. I could have been a physical therapist or a nurse. Why did I spend four years passionate about a profession that 8 out of 10 people think is a joke? I feel as though I'll spend half of my career defending health & physical education and the other half actually teaching kids about it. But I read a tweet from Lecrae the other day and I remembered exactly why I wanted to be a teacher in the first place... "Fight for depth in life, not just breadth. What good is it to be a million miles wide but only an inch deep?" I realized that while professional athletes make more money in a year than I'll probably make in my entire life...they're busy getting wide. They reach hundreds of thousands of people, yes. The majority of whom they will never meet. Strangers have their names written on jerseys and pictures and Facebook cover photos. Engineers create buildings and ideas that will reach and accommodate thousands of people as well. Businessmen deal with numbers and clients on a shallow basis. Dentists and doctors put up with you when they have to, but usually they have 10 other people to see in the next hour. "...a million miles wide..." On the other hand, teachers go deep. They care and mentor and encourage and love more than you can ever imagine. Sometimes they're so busy being moms and dads for students they hardly have time to be a parent for their own children. They believe in students who don't even know what it's like to have someone cheer them on in this tough thing called life. When I started teaching I was prepared to explain to my students how to throw and catch. I could handle teaching kids how to skip and gallop and juggle. When I started teaching high schoolers I was even prepared to teach them how to play flag football and what BEEF stands for when shooting a basketball. What I wasn't prepared for was how to console a student whose mom died after a 13 year battle with cancer. I didn't know how to treat 16 year old girls who had been beaten and abandoned. And I certainly couldn't help girls so lost in self-esteem issues when I have struggled so much with that myself. Yes, college prepared me to teach health and physical education. But it wasn't so great at preparing me to teach students. So as I lay in my bed at 9pm on a Friday night, so exhausted from a week of teaching, I am realizing that teaching is so much than that. It's about caring and loving and praying, really praying, for you students. It's about going deep.
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