Oh, The Love Of My Lord

"The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. "The Lord is my portion," says my soul, "therefore I will hope in him." Lamentations 3:22-24

Oh what sweetness to know that my deepest joy will never be taken away. You are my portion. You are the sweetest taste on my tongue. The one most excellent is mine. The kindest being is my love. The one - the only one - worthy of adoration and praise is mine forever. That is the portion I possess. And you will never be taken from me.

You will never not want me or not want me enough. You will never find a replacement or one better, for I am as wretched as the next. How sweet is your love that you chose me. And after choosing me, you do not leave my side. You are here, helping me, catching my tears when I cry. Not one goes unnoticed, and not one goes unnecessary. For you do not afflict willingly from your heart or grieve me. No, every single drop is calculated to either humble me for my happiness, or simply bring me closer to you for the same. Yes, even this grief you cause is created in order to make me happy.

May I be more and more like your son, all satisfied and joyful in you.

I love you, Lord.

Exalted, but only when…

"...'for God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.' Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God, so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you." 1 Peter 5:5-7

I see my hands turned white with the grip of pride. Whether it's the daily things that have me grasping at straws, or the life-altering moments that send me reeling towards self-sabotage, self-promotion, or simply self-preservation: I must cast them off.

My God does not look down on me in silent carelessness or casual disinterest. He's paying special attention to my heart. There is a state in which I please him, and a state in which I don't, and may the God of my salvation help me in those moments where I'm in danger of becoming that which he must oppose.

My Lord, I want to be humble, and what other option do I truly have? I can choose to hold on for dear life to a fantasized idea of my own control over my circumstances, but in that moment I have lost my sanity and gained the opposition of the One I adore. May it never be. For your mighty hand is the power that determines and controls the destinies of all, and the care of your heart is both the intent and the action that ends in my good.

Lord, help me to trust in this timing and this will of yours that you have decreed proper. It is fixed; it is sure; it is defined and determined by your pleasure.

And yet, it still contains my exaltation.

When you ordered out the happenings of all mankind's history, my dignity, honor, and happiness were all considered and ensured. The timing was allotted, the road towards it paved: now all I have to do is wait.

And in it all, there is none of me, for you are the one who cares - the one who acts. To think that I could somehow act and succeed in bringing about my own glory! That task is all yours. You are the one who is gentle and tender, gathering and protective, desirous for my good. You're the one who restores. You’re the one who cares with action, efficacy, and force.

Oh my heart, why do you whisper? Why do you grapple with the Almighty? You verily slap him in the face! His care for you surpasses your knowledge, and will always surpass your ability to return praise. He has a plan to exalt you, so do not rush that which is already promised. For if there is a proper time for your placement to rise, then doesn’t it follow that if you tried to raise yourself too soon, it would not be rising at all? It would simply be a hollow attempt to get out from under that eternally weighted hand, sinking yourself deeper into the dust from which you came and that which you still are.

So cast your anxieties on him, for your cares are even more his than they are yours, for you just experience them - he is the one who looks after, acts in, and accomplishes his purposes in every single one.

Humble yourself, oh my soul!

Lord, help me to do so. I am called to do so little, and yet you will do so much.

To Never Pray For Again

"While he was still speaking..." Matthew 26:47

The time was then. The need was dire. The future was looming. Jesus begged his disciples to watch and pray with him as perhaps the most gruesome spiritual battle was fought on the ground of Gethsemane. As bloody sweat fell from Jesus’ body, the disciples could have fallen on their faces alongside him and prayerfully partook in a moment that all of salvific history hinged on. They had the opportunity to commune with God, for the God Man, on behalf of all men.

Instead, they fell asleep.

How many fathoms deep is your list of squandered moments in which you went prayerless? How many struggles and trials have passed you by in which you cast more words into the night than you have before your Father? That trial you’re in; that season you’re wrestling with; that seeming need yet to be met; there will come a time when those struggles are over and so will your opportunity be to live it with your Savior.

Should this break your heart? Should we cherish those moments we get to weep with unsatisfied requests before our Father who listens? Perhaps we don’t value the unanswered breath that passes through the entrance into the throne room enough.

This may sound silly and overly nostalgic, and it may very well be. But it is a greater possibility that we do not treasure the unique phenomenon that God has given us this side of eternity - the chance to seek, knock, wait, watch, and ask.

In glory, what will we want that we won't already have? What will we desire that our fingertips cannot reach out and touch? Unmet longings will be held by the arms of the distant past, and we will never get to experience them again.

“But that is good!” you say. “That’s one of the best things about heaven!”

True, but isn't there something precious about not having something, be it a dream, hope, person, health, thing, experience, or desire of any kind, and going before your Father about it with empty hands? Those moments spent wishing, hoping, begging, knocking, all because he told us we could: there is something special amidst the pain.

For our Lord tastes different when we come to him wanting something else. Our Lord looks different in the light of comparison. Our Lord sounds different when the noise of desire and our own hearts battle for the stage. When we learn to go to him with our smallest requests and our deepest needs, we are proving that He is the deepest of them all. Don’t take for granted the privilege of talking to your Father about something that hasn’t happened yet, for the next moment is coming, and you don’t know what it holds. 

Oh Lord, may I never take for granted every moment of prayer at my disposal. May I cherish the joy it contains. May I love how special it is to pray to you about things that I will one day never pray about again.

How sweet that is. Change my heart and every taste bud to know that deeply and truly and forever.

In Jesus’ name

Amen

These Worthless Friends Of Mine

"You adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Or do you think that the Scripture speaks to no purpose: “He jealously desires the Spirit which He has made to dwell in us”? But He gives a greater grace. Therefore it says, “God is opposed to the proud, but gives grace to the humble.” Submit therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Be miserable and mourn and weep; let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves in the presence of the Lord, and He will exalt you."

In short, I have played the harlot.

Every moment I've traipsed into idolatry, I've slapped the face of God. These are no small things, these small gestures of disinterest, forgetfulness, and lukewarm laziness.

What are these friends I have made? They are not of God. They are worldly affairs, earthly goods and riches, advantages and pleasures. They are nothing, and yet slowly they became my everything. Though they are hollow and frail and fleeting, that did not stop me from desiring them, from being seduced away from an ever-present desire to make Christ the forefront of my affection.

How much worse than worthless are they? How much more sickening than casual acquiescence?

How much I hate these friends of mine.

The endless hours of destruction I let play inside my head. The scrolling and laughing and sharing reels with friends. How innocuous, you would think, how immune to sin. Oh no, my heart - for what do you do with a friend? A friend you share your time with, your heart with, your thoughts. You mesh your life with theirs and choose to be with them rather than not. So where I've spent my time, when not with or for my Lord, right there is where I've decided to be an enemy of God.

I could argue this is extreme. But how has it changed my life? How many moments and hours and days have I been placed upon this earth only to squander anything and everything I've been given, down to the very breath I breathe. Is there balance to be found? Certainly. But I don't want balance until I've exhausted every effort towards the upward call of God.

My Lord, my God, and yet you have not forsaken me. And yet you have not given me up. To think my Savior was tormented by wrath so that I could waste time unpunished. To think my Lord was punished so that my friendship with worthless things could be forgiven.

Oh my God, help me.

May I hate anything that draws me away from you. May you fix my affections on your face. I ask you for grace first and foremost, for I know I can have nothing without it. Oh Lord, make me humble, for you oppose the proud. I do not think my heart is prideful here and now, but search me and know me and lead me in the way everlasting.

How you have yearned for me, and how I have ignored you! If my joy was solely based on my performance, how wrecked I would be in this moment. But though I am tempted, I cling to your promises, though trembling, and force myself to believe.

I force myself to believe that as I draw near to you, you will willingly and joyfully draw near to me. You actually want me near, this harlot you have saved. You have been jealous for me and of worthless things as they've drawn my attention from you. You have actually given them a second thought, while I gave them a third, a fourth, and so on.

How much I deserve to be left in the dust that I choose, the muck that I have craved. May I crave it no more! Put new taste buds in me, Oh lord. Make me want it not. These "friends" that I have made? I hate them. May I hate them as much in deed as in thought.

How can I thank you enough for loving me like this?

I do not understand you, but I am absolutely in love with you.

Make it more so.

I ask these things in Jesus' name.

Amen

The Beauty Of The Sanctified

If you look at sanctification with terror;

if you shake in trepidation of trials;

if you find yourself shrinking away from the prayer of growing in Christlikeness;

try looking at it's result in the countenance of another.

As you look at their face, try and understand the sweetness in the shadows of the devoted lines of their suffering.

There is a softness to their eyes that reflects the grace of heaven, and a tenderness to their smile that tells of past pain and promises future glory.

Their hands are loose and unused to resistance, for they have practiced so many times the art of letting go. In the bend of their shoulders and the posture of their slowly breaking body you can nearly feel the bygone struggle of self and the subsequent victory of Christ. So often found in the old but sometimes glimpsed in the young, there is nothing more captivating and nothing more beautiful in a human being than the picture of Christ having become more, and they having become less.

Watch the way your fellow saints turn to the Lord, and spot those who's countenances glow with special recognition. For though we are all saved, and are all being saved, there is that which, in God's providence, has progressed farther than another. Pay close attention, dear one, to how the Lord has worked in them a heart that sings not because life is good, but because their God is good, and learn how to do that hereafter. It may not be clear to you now, but the Lord will show you that the beauty you see in them, whether their face be glorious or not, is simply the subtle essence of surrender, hope, and joy, the enviable byproducts of suffering.

I have gazed upon such individuals, and I revel in such sights. For it reminds me that I am not there yet, and gives me something more - it makes me long for the trial.

For the surrender cannot be there if there has been no call to surrender. And lasting hope in something sure will not arise unless you have learned you cannot hope in anything else. And of course you will not have found the spring of everlasting joy unless you have been driven to find it by drought.

So let's wait expectantly, and dare I say eagerly, for the trials in the moments we have left, embracing them and even praying that the Lord would hasten the arrival of each day of sanctification. Pray for that day, beloved, when your countenance is the one shining with soft glory, knowing that you will get there only through the fire. For gold is best when it's purified, and you are a mess worth refining.

Don't be afraid - don't shiver in fear. For not only will the beauty of further completion make everything worth it in the end, your God will be with you through every moment, gently holding your right hand. He's not letting you go, dear follower of Christ. And he's certainly not going to let you stay as you are.

He wants you to be far more beautiful than that.

My Case

“Come now, and let us debate your case,” Says the Lord, “Though your sins are as scarlet, They shall become as white as snow; Though they are red like crimson, They shall be like wool. “If you are willing and obedient, You will eat the best of the land;” Isaiah 1:18‭-‬19

How permanent; how forever my sin should actually be. How irremovable. Like the insect staining all that it touches, attached till death and beyond, sin should have no answer. There should be no solution. I have no case.

And yet, my God offers something else.

My sins were like the insects that held on and never let go. My sins were the flesh that stained all they touched. My spirit was that decaying corpse that should have left its indelible mark that nothing and no one could erase.

But no. My sins then met my God.

What force it took, what power, to remove what could never be removed. Scarlett wool doesn't fade; it doesn't turn white. And yet all color faded at my Savior's touch. And yet what a cost! 

My crimson wool was washed with the most priceless substance imaginable since it was the only substance that could ever wash it clean. My crimson wreck of a soul was dipped into the very mud made by the pool of blood that fell hot at Jesus's feet. I should have been ruined, I should have been tossed; a garment useless because the only kind worth having was white. But instead of treating me like the stained refuse I know that I am, I was washed in the blood of the one who watched me choose the stains over him every single time. Oh, what good am I? What worm has been paid for at such a price?

“Then they will go out and look at the corpses of the people Who have rebelled against Me. For their worm will not die And their fire will not be extinguished; And they will be an abhorrence to all mankind.” Isaiah 66:24

I should be such as them! I should be looked at and despised for the creeping, crawling thing that I am, wholly undesirable and that which no price should be paid for.

That, my Lord, is my case. That is the evidence.

I stand before the judgment seat, crimson and scarlet, oozing from every orifice and staining every surface with festering, permanent color. I wait to see you avert your eyes in disgust. I tremble for the words that should cast me out of your presence for being irretrievable.

Instead, I see you smile, and you say, "I have made you white as snow."

I look down, and suddenly, I am! I am as white as snow. Better still, I am so white, I'm as pure and glowing as you.

"Come, my daughter," you say to my awestruck ears, "for those who are white as wool may sit and eat the best of the land."

"How can this be?" I cry, for how, exactly, can this be?

All you do is motion your head, and I see the cause and result of this miracle. Standing before me is the Son, the Ancient Of Days, and I see where my stain has gone. The seeping blood and putrid red that clung to me now clings to him, and I wail.

He cries out to you, "Why have you forsaken me?" and you just turn your head. He dies there, my filth resting on him, and you turn your gaze upon me and look at me with all the love you ever used to look at your Son.

And then my joy is complete because your risen Son steps to my side, shining in glory, takes me by the hand, and we enter your rest together forever.

Oh the sweetness that you are. Oh the goodness. May my worthlessness in the face of your mercy bring you praise upon praise. I hope the angels are singing. I hope the saints are praising. Because every moment of all time forevermore should only ever echo your name.

In my Jesus's name, amen

One Day

One day.

The days are coming when there will be no more trials to be joyful in. There will be days when the gold needs no more refining. He will give and give and give and never take away again. There will be no more tears to catch, and the jar that holds them will be but a memorial of his faithfulness. He will be my shelter, but it will not be from the storm. He will be done disciplining, for he will have made me perfect. The day he wiped my tears away for good will be a distant memory.

The days are coming when all my hope and faith will be realized. The day is coming when my faith shall be sight.

The day will come when I'm finally with my beloved.

Oh, come Lord Jesus.

A Sorry Excuse For A Temple

"Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him. For God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple." 1 Corinthians 3:16‭-‬17

Breathe in the wonder of this thought. Stand in awe of this truth that is more colorful than any sunset filled sky. Do you understand this fact that is too deep for words? Said so simply, so briefly - just quick answers on a page - these words hold doctrine that should change your life forever.

My God, your temple? How can I even grasp that? How am I supposed to understand how the omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, all-loving, good, and perfect God is dwelling within this crust of a shell? This dust? This wreck of a creature that, in human terms devoid of providence, should never even have been created?

The spirit of God dwelling in this?

But my Lord, I am falling apart. My body is so frail. I'm in pain so often, my body unable to understand it shouldn't attack itself. I need sleep to survive, and food, and water, and give me a single day without any and I am nearly useless to anybody. My flesh is constantly plagued with sinful desires, battling against the new me and so often winning. My hair is thinning. My skin is begging to age. My person, Lord, myself - it's not much better than the dust it came from and the dust it's going straight to. 

How can this be holy, set apart, special? How can this be the temple of the Most High God, who sits on his throne in majesty and controls all things through all time?

This is your chosen temple?

This is the temple you wanted?

Oh my Lord, it is too much to bear within this human heart - it bursts at the thought of your kind of love. The kind of love that chooses a being it created for its own, even when that being hates him back. The kind of love that sees an evil, sin-stained being and chooses to die for it. The kind of love that reigns in glory and also reigns within me. The kind of love that trades throne rooms for crosses. The kind of love that is more satisfied with me as a temple than with a temple inlaid with gold.

The kind of love that loves me because you love me.

The kind of love that loves me.

Lord, my heart's desire, I don't even have to ask you to make me your temple. You're already here. By force and by right, by desire and love, I'm your temple and will be ‘till my last breath.

And so I sit here at your feet, humbled and silenced by what all of that means, and I thank you. I can’t do anything but thank you.

Thank you for my love for you.