Puzzles and Good Things

Last weekend, the Lord allowed many of the thoughts that have been tumbling around in my head to spill out onto paper after a conversation with Josh Scilzo. (The Lord made a spontaneous trip to Michigan possible in order for a group of us to visit Josh and Chelsea who were in from Alaska for a brief visit.) Here they are:

Puzzles

This Christmas, I made an odd puzzle which seemingly had no clear picture. It was a room that appeared to be very cluttered and confusing, neglected, with neither rhyme nor reason to all the things piled into it. Many of the individual pieces were curiously formed and colored and lent to the mass of disorganization and unknowing, and because of these things, the making of the puzzle was excessively slow and painstaking, and often was as though it were an exercise in futility.
Today, I spoke with a friend who gratefully recounted to me the workings of God in the life of him and his wife. He spoke of the gracious wisdom of a Father who chooses always in love for His own, and the Father's ways are often veiled and mysterious to His. Veiled and mysterious--but good. Not easy, but good. This friend told me of the beauty and depth of the Church, the Bride of Christ, and of how God was teaching, applying, strengthening, changing, and growing them through this marvelous Body of Christ. He spoke of warfare in the workplace--the oppression that comes when one battles not with flesh and blood but with the rulers of the darkness of this world and with spiritual wickedness in high places. He spoke of prayer. He spoke of the vision of years--to serve God as a missionary in a foreign land. He spoke of the years of waiting and unknowing between the birth of the dream and the present time and the future time of fulfillment. And it was as if it were all a puzzle, and each of the pieces were hidden by the Master's perfect understanding, and each revealed with marvelous clarity and light in its full time. Yet still there remained a stewardship of seeking--to have eyes open to see each piece in its place. And sometimes the searching seemed long and tedious, and sometimes it seemed as though it were but in vain.
For weeks, I had pondered fragments--they seemed as if they might be pieces of the pieces of a puzzle. But vague and confusing and sometime hurtful--for some of the edges were hard and cutting as I held them in my hand. And if they were puzzle pieces, then the puzzle was a dreadful mix of an old picture that the Father had removed from before my eyes and a new and unfamiliar one that I had not yet learned to clearly see. They seemed to belong to a non-existent whole, for it was as though the Master had removed even the edge pieces from what I had perceived my puzzle to be. And to look at the bare puzzle table began to be overwhelming; for the God of wisdom and grace had made all things dark and barren, and discouragement swelled for my earth-bound expectations and foolish pride now made the trajectory of my life seem as but empty strivings and the making of the Master's puzzle as an impossible thing. And thus the darkness prevailed.
But the darkness was from the Master's hand, and it was good: the Father's lovingkindness displayed in ways veiled and mysterious, but good. Piled one on top of another, but good. Not easy, but good. All the "seemings" were opportunities to walk by faith and not by sight, for the conundrum of the darkness was that it led in paths of light. As the darkness was accepted as from the hand of the Lord, the light of His countenance and presence became more than sufficient to contend with barren tables and sharp pieces and endless clutter, for the countenance of the Master is more riveting than all these things, and His presence is Light, Life, Joy, Patience, Comfort, Strength, and Peace.
This is the beauty of darkness and imcomplete puzzles: to better see the Father's face and to more wholly trust the tracings of His sometimes unseen hand. My puzzle is desolate. My life is replete.
Because I have nothing, I most have the All.

From Spurgeon

Come!

“Come for repentance, if you cannot come repenting. Come for a broken heart, if you cannot come with a broken heart. Come to be melted, if you are not melted. Come to be wounded, if you are not wounded.”
- Charles Spurgeon, The Precious Blood of Christ

Ps. 23:6

"...surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the LORD forever."
I had never thought much about this verse until last week, but as I was praying through some things, the Lord reminded me of it, and caused me to think about it. The goodness and mercy of God will follow me...pursue me...dog my steps. It is not just that I will occasionally experience kindness from God. And it is not that when I am "right" with Him, He will manifest His grace and favor. No, the reality is that the goodness and mercy of God will literally haunt my life. I will be unable to escape the determination of God to shed His love abroad in my life.
How does this thought impact you?
For me it does two main things:
1. It comforts me--all my days will be hedged about with the gracious kindness of God, and in eternity I will live forever with Him.
2. It breaks me--who wants to fight against a God whose heart is like that towards you?
May you be comforted and broken by the character and love of God for you.
There is no one like Him.

Christ: The Believer's only Righteousness

“Believers obey Christ as the One by whom our obedience is accepted by God. Believers know all their duties are weak, imperfect and unable to abide in God’s presence. Therefore, they look to Christ as the One who bears the iniquity of their holy things, who adds incense to their prayers, gathers out all the weeds from their duties and makes them acceptable to God.”

-- John Owen, quoted by Jerry Bridges in The Discipline of Grace (Colorado Springs, Co.: NavPress), 42.

A bit of Amy Carmichael

Thou Lovest Me!
Amy Carmichael

Thou knewest me before I was;
I am all open unto Thee;
And yet Thou lovest me, because—
Thou, my Lord, lovest me.

No other reason can I find;
No other reason can there be;
No human love, were it not blind,
Could ever care for me.

But Thy pure eyes do read me through;
My soul is naked unto Thee;
And yet—oh wonder ever new—
Thou, my Lord, lovest me.

And Thou wilt love. If good of mine
Had caused Thy glorious love to be,
Then surely would Thy love decline
And weary, Lord, of me.

I may not fear, for to the end
Thou lovest. Who save only Thee,
The sinner’s Savior and his Friend,
Would set His love on me?

And on Thee now my heart is set;
Thy name is music unto me.
O help me never to forget
That I am loved by Thee.

To Glory in Knowing God

You say, "Glory in Me"
But here I stand:
Glorying in folly that I call "wisdom,"
poverty that I claim as "wealth,"
and impotence that I have termed "strength."
I foolishly deem my position to be secure.

But You will not leave me to my own devices.
You strip and crush my life until I am
undone,
broken,
desolate,
laid in the dust,
wounded,
disconsolate,
shattered,
poor and needy.
Hopeless, apart from You.

I begin to know seeking with the whole heart,
hungering and thirsting after righteousness.
Your Spirit teaches me.
You allow me to know Your love
shed abroad in my now-open heart.
You have taken away everything--
Everything that I had clutched and boasted in--
And You have jealously claimed me to be Yours alone.

And now You say, "Glory in Me."
But still I recoil.
I am too shallow to take You at Your Word.
I think that I must manufacture righteousness on my own...somehow...
I still fail to recognize that
You are who You say You are.
You are the God Who exercises
lovingkindness,
forgiveness,
mercy.
The God Who delights in steadfast love.
The God Who takes pleasure in manifesting Himself.

And so You take me still lower:
revealing pride,
touching fears,
uprooting self,
illuminating sin,
warring against everything that keeps me in bondage to myself,
You take my life to the cross.
You cause its shadow to fall across my entire being,
and I am left
silent,
humbled to the dust,
yielded,
resting in You alone,
slowly lifting my eyes to gaze at You,
weeping with a joy that crushes,
mourning with a burden that restores.

Then You say, "Glory in Me."
And I understand now.
I allow You to take my hand and draw me to my feet.
I stand before You whole--though I have never been so weak and empty.
I cannot take my eyes off of Your face.
I throw back my shoulders,
and begin to sing of You with a confidence that comes from knowing You.
But then, in the midst of my song, I realize what You have actually done for me:
You have let me know You.
And I do know You now.

My song of You is flowing from a heart that is
weeping uncontrollably at the sight of
Your Person and Your ways--Who You are and what You have done.
I am just starting to see Your perspective on all of this:
I am who I am. I am a finite, sinful, created being. I am nothing apart from You.
And that is OK. It is irrelevant.
Because You are Who You are. And You have determined to make me know You, and You are determined to bring Yourself glory.
You have spared nothing to accomplish Your purpose.
What You have done to and for me has brought You glory and pleasure,
and as I accept the riches and the righteousness that You lavish on me,
I can live to the praise of the glory of Your grace.
This is what it means to glory in You.
It is to not insult Your fullness by living in my own resources.
It is to experience continually my life being brought to the foot of the cross,
being marked by its shadow.
It is to be confident in that position,
knowing that You are Everything--literally Everything--to me.

So when You say, "Glory in Me,"
I can rightfully boast in the one thing that I have the least right to know: Knowing God.
I can lift up my head and sing...about my Savior.
Yes, I can glory...in knowing You
And You alone.

The Beauty of Surrender

These two quotes were emailed to me just now by a good friend:

"When He asks for and receives our all, He gives in return that which
is above price--His own presence. The price is not great when
compared with what He gives in return; it is our blindness and our
unwillingness to yield that make it seem great." Rosalind Goforth

"I had utterly abandoned myself to Him...Could any choice be as
wonderful as His will? Could any place be safer than the center of His
will? Did He not assure me by His very presence that His thoughts
toward us are good, and not evil? Death to my own plans and desires
was almost deliriously delightful. Everything was laid at His
nail-scarred feet, life or death, health or illness, appreciation by
others or misunderstanding, sucess or failure as measured by human
standards. Only He Himself mattered." V. Raymond Edman

What could possibly be sweeter than a walk with Christ?

A Thought

The Vine Dresser is never nearer to the vine than when He is pruning it.