When God is Impatient

Have you ever watched someone you love deeply suffer? Has your heart ever been shredded by the pain of those you care about? Have you reached that breaking point where you can’t take it anymore and you stop at nothing to bring relief to that person, no matter the cost to you (and then there are those agonizing times when there is absolutely nothing you can do to ease their suffering)? Did you know that’s how God feels about the suffering of His people? When you hurt, He hurts. It grieves Him to see you suffer. He feels that tortured, restless impatience that you’ve felt when your spouse or child or close friend was in pain (even if the pain/painful circumstance was partly their own fault). Take some time to think about this passage in Judges 10.

Judges is a dark book. A book where it seems that all God’s people do is forsake Him and all He does is bring judgment again and again. By the time you get to Judges 10, we are already several cycles into this idolatry-judgment-repentance-rescue paradigm. Once again, Israel has walked away from God and is worshipping idols. God uses the Philistines and Ammonites to “crush and oppress” the Israelites. They are “severely distressed,” and they recognize that their suffering has come because they “have forsaken our God.” They ask God for help, and He reminds them that they were the ones who discarded Him in favor of other gods. He tells them to go ask their new gods for help. The people respond to God by saying, “We have sinned; do whatever seems good to You. But please deliver us.”

Now think about it. This cycle has already happened multiple times. Israel has a track record: a track record that shows that as soon as they are not in distress, they abandon God again. Frankly, they are not really deserving of help/rescue. They have brought suffering on themselves. What is God’s response towards them at this point? The text says, “and He became impatient over the misery of Israel.” Another translation puts it, “His soul could no longer endure the misery of Israel.” Wow. God is moved by the pain of His people. He feels their hurt. It affects Him. Reader, God is easily moved to compassion by your misery. God sees what’s hurting you, and it sits heavily on Him too. His love moves Him to act on your behalf. He is not indifferent to your need for rescue and comfort.

This truth shows up in the prophets too. God will talk about “waiting a long time” to bring rescue to His people, “but now I will cry out…I will lay waste mountains…I will lead the blind…I will turn darkness to light…” He gets to this point where He will move heaven and earth to come to the aid of His people. The same way you do when you can’t stand the suffering of the people you care about. And the sweet thing is, although we are often helpless in the face of our loved ones’ pain, He never is. He is always able to act. So take heart. He sees and knows; He feels your grief with you, and He will act on your behalf.

Good Friday Poem

Good Friday

     George Herbert

O my chief Good,
How shall I measure out thy blood?
How shall I count what thee befell,
And each grief tell?

Shall I thy woes
Number according to thy foes?
Or, since one star show'd thy first breath,
Shall all thy death?

Or shall each leaf,
Which falls in Autumn, score a grief?
Or cannot leaves, but fruit be sign
Of the true vine?

Then let each hour
Of my whole life one grief devour:
That thy distress through all may run,
And be my sun.

Or rather let
My several sins their sorrows get;
That as each beast his cure doth know,
Each sin may so.

Since blood is fittest, Lord to write
Thy sorrows in, and bloody fight;
My heart hath store, write there, where in
One box doth lie both ink and sin:

That when sin spies so many foes,
Thy whips, thy nails, thy wounds, thy woes
All come to lodge there, sin may say,
'No room for me', and fly away.

Sin being gone, oh fill the place,
And keep possession with thy grace;
Lest sin take courage and return,
And all the writings blot or burn. 

A Love Story: Told in Two Parts

 Part One

Sappy post alert!

I know they say that no guy is perfect, but mine is. He is literally everything I dream about and long for. I’m trying to come up with a way to put into words how amazing he is. He’s this incredible balance of gentle and rugged – like, really make-your-heart-pound fierce and dissolve-your-insides understanding and intuitive. He’s a good listener and a good communicator. He knows how to say things to me in a way that shows that he “gets me” perfectly. It’s like he’s memorized me from the inside out and knows exactly how to connect with me, no matter what the situation is. 

It doesn’t hurt that he’s attractive. Strong. Energetic. Smart. (Don’t even get me started on how smart he is! I admire his perspective and grasp on life, people, work, science, history, literature, politics, etc. He. Is. Smart.) Witty. Confident. I respect him more than anyone else I know; I absolutely adore him. He’s one of those people who could have had anyone they wanted, and he chose me. Sometimes I feel like I am living a fairy tale life: I got the prince. He is the epitome of everything good and desirable in a lover. My needs – all of them – are completely met. (Like, think through your life and everything that you wish your significant other would be/do/know for/about you, and then hear me when I tell you that he is there in all of those ways for me.) I love his hands…and his voice. (I told you this was a sappy post!) He tells me/makes me feel like I’m enough for him and that I bring him pleasure too (though I know that, hands down, I’m the lucky one in this relationship). I can’t tell you what it’s like to lay down with him at night and wake up beside him every morning. It’s heaven. 

I never imagined it could be this good. 

Part Two

Everything that I told you about him is true. It’s all true and more, way more, than I could tell. But our story is more complicated than that. At this point, I need to tell you that I’m an addict, a user. So even though I literally have it all with him, I have this relentless, destructive habit of cheating on him. 

He knows it too. He’s caught me making out on the park bench with a coworker. He’s come home in the middle of the day and found me in bed with a friend from church (I know; the irony isn’t lost on me). He knows that I got a hotel room with a college buddy when I was up north for my grandma’s funeral. And like I said, he knows me inside out, so he can tell when we’re at the restaurant, and I start scoping out the room. Or when we’re hanging out together, but I’m actually replaying memories of other men in my brain or slipping into the restroom to text. Or when we’re in the middle of a really meaningful conversation and I start planning my outfit for when I sneak out later. Sometimes he makes love to me and even though I know that if I responded to his advances he could make me deliriously happy, I just ignore him because I’m on Facebook or whatever, and the thought of being with him doesn’t appeal to me enough to make me put down my phone. 

I’m kinda saying this all really casually. It’s not that I don’t feel any shame. I do. But the reality is that this has all happened so many times that it’s almost old hat. I used to freak out whenever I acted out on my cravings for other lovers, but I’ve come to realize that it’s who I am. I wish I was a better wife to him (he deserves so much better!), but I’m just not the person I thought I was back when we got married. I’m a user. That’s the way it is. The plain old hat reality.

Here’s what’s not old hat, though, and here’s the reason I’m telling you our story: he takes me back. Every. Time. He takes me back. Do you know that nothing that I’ve done has changed who he is and his faithfulness to me? He knows everything about me, and he still takes me back. Still welcomes me into his arms. Still speaks the words he knows I need to hear. He truly loves me with his whole heart, and I see a hauntingly infinite grief in his eyes every time I walk away from him yet that hasn’t stopped me from walking away. But as he takes me back, time after time, something is starting to happen. It’s starting to sink in that he’s always known that I am this horrible person. He knew it when he chose me and married me. 

I was the oblivious one. I was so blind and deceived. I used to think that he was awesome, and I was almost as awesome. But it’s not that way at all. He’s so much more than I ever imagined back when we first met, and I first responded to his love, and I’m far worse than I ever knew in my moments of greatest clarity and honesty. I’ve begun to see that, and I’m beginning to be able to talk about it now. 

I’m realizing that I have nothing to lose: I don’t have to be proud and try to patch up my image. I don’t have to be in denial. I don’t have to hide or lie: to him, to myself, to anyone. I am who I am. And he is who he is. He’s faithful. He’s forgiving. He’s unchanging. He’s committed to me no matter what because he already knew me when he married me, and he determined to endure the worst of my betrayal and darkness and spite himself. So he takes me back. Every time. He loves me. 

And it’s this incredible heartbroken, unchanging love of his that’s starting to do something to do me. It’s starting to free me. To free me from using. From using life and everything in it to try to fill me up. I’m starting to realize that I can’t fill myself or fix myself or anything. I’m starting to realize how much I need him. I’m learning to see and to embrace that he decided to sacrifice himself for my good, my humbling, my cleansing, my healing, and my transformation, and that if I accept that – accept him – I can be satisfied. I can live out the satisfaction in him that he means for me to experience, but it won’t be all about my satisfaction and my needs being met; it will be all about him. He will be everything. 

It’s kinda like the sappy post that I started off with, except that was about what I got from him (and it’s true, I do get all that from him), but I’m learning now: it’s not about getting. It’s about all of me responding to all that he is – that’s what shows how magnificent he really is. When he can take someone like me and over time, by the sheer weight of his relentless love, transform her into an adoring, faithful wife who sees both herself and him as we both really are, that really displays his greatness. So, this is our love story. It’s actually the story of his love for me, and do know you? We will live happily ever after.

(Written by Kaycee Rider; shared with permission.)

Thoughts from a Shepherd-Heart

One of my friends wrote these thoughts several years ago. It seems to me to be a beautiful portrait of a shepherd's heart, and I found that it well expressed my heart for the people God has given me to care for.

"Every now and then, when I reach out to one of my people, I get a surprised response, as though that one believed he or she had been forgotten. 

Such would not be possible, for my heart lives among my people. In the empty spaces of my life, my mind flies to one...or another...or another. And the full spaces of my life are ever filled by them. 

I revel in their triumphs. 

I ache for their setbacks. 

I strategize for their benefit. 

In the early morning, in the dead of night, and continuously in between, my energies, my resources, my talents, my thoughts, my plans, my dreams, and all my love is toward them."  - K. C. Giroux

Saying "Yes" to God

The following quotation is directed specifically to missionary work, but I would argue that the reality expressed actually applies to the Christian life/following God as a whole. Plainly stated, Christians are those who say "yes" to God.

"I believe the one thing that keeps young people from the mission field today is this reality of sacrifice. It seems harder and harder for young men and women to commit to being missionaries now unless they grow up in a family or a church where they are taught the importance of missions from an early age. Perhaps there needs to be more emphasis on the concept of sacrifice, not to scare people away, but to instill in our youth the importance of doing without the comforts of America in order to minister to those in need of Christ. A successful missionary need not live in the most uncomfortable of situations. What is most important is that the missionary makes the decision, before ever reaching the field, that he or she will never say no to God, no matter what He asks."
 - One Candle to Burn, Kay Washer, pg. 151

Everyday Beauties

Snapshot: The sun climbs steadily; its rays filter through the trees to reach the grassy field. The fingers of light touch unassuming dewdrops, who glow with a shy, pleased radiance. Oversized blackbirds strut through the scene drinking dew and daring bugs and worms to surface, while smaller songbird-spectators chirp encouragement from the sidelines. It's  a new morning in New Washington Heights. 

Drink Deeply

The most jubilant exultations in and exaltations of the mercies of God flow from extended contemplation of His majestic, inexorable holiness. I am convinced that is it impossible to rightly value God's grace, forgiveness, love, generosity, etc. without first seeing and fearing His wrath, jealousy, zeal, truth, judgment, etc.

Who delights in mercy when there was nothing to fear? Does gratitude spring from a smug heart? Can forgiveness and acceptance seem so sweet to one unaware of and complacent in his own idolatry and adultery toward the Most High God? No, it is the gaze of the soul on the holiness and burning right-ness of God that causes the heart to melt in wonder that we are not consumed. This is why we embrace with reverence and awe the Consuming Fire who is also compassionate Savior, faithful Spirit, and Father of mercies.

The soul with little exposure the blazing fire of holiness will only casually sip the waters of compassion, but the soul that knows the scorching, burning heat of righteousness will drink deep draughts of grace. The justice, wrath, and purity of God lead the Spirit-illumined soul to bathe in the mercies of God.

(originally posted 7/9/2012)

What do you treasure?

"Whatever we treasure in our hearts sets the cadence in our lives." - Drew Conley