No, the irony is not lost on me. I am well aware that I am mostly unemployed, and yes, there are degrees of unemployment much like Miracle Max made a solid case for levels of being dead. When I say, "mostly unemployed," I don't have a consistent paycheck of any kind. Obviously the word "job" has been on my mind a lot lately, and it never actually occurred to me until today that I might be committing two types of fraud. First, I've hired myself out for a position that I'm not at all qualified for, and assumed the responsibilities thereof for which no amount of training could actually adequately prepare me. In addition to lack of training, I have no real-world experience, and anyone who has seen me attempt to operate in this capacity could testify that I'm an absolute failure. My resume is replete with empty spaces and I just can't seem to find anyone who was willing to be a reference. You see, the first sin I'm guilty of is trying to do the job that only GOD can do. He's the only One qualified, the only One who can handle all the AUTHORITY and POWER that is required to be my PROVIDER. He's capable because He has NEVER FAILED, and His STRENGTH is PERFECT. He has been SOVEREIGNLY PROVIDING since before the foundation of the world because He is ETERNAL. His job history is flawless and one need look no further than the BIBLE for a list of people who could vouch for His FAITHFULNESS. Not to mention that His FATHER would attest to His ability to get the job done. He began the work, and He is a MASTER at FINISHING what He starts. Yes, He has great follow-through. So, why do I, why do we, steal the job that belongs to Him who can do it better? I am incapabale, ignorant and lack resources. He has everything at His disposal. Secondly, because I am so busy doing the wrong job, I'm not able to do MY job well. In all my searching for jobs, I've neglected to accept that I already HAVE one. The Israelites were NOT responsible for providing for themselves; God made it clear that was His responsibility, but they were not without focus and purpose. Their job is found in Deuteronomy 13:4 and 30: 19-20, listed simply as walking after the Lord, fearing Him, keeping His commandments, obeying His voice, serving Him, and holding fast to Him. Yes! Those are what I need to be fully investing in, and learning to do well. He will train me as I stay focused on MY job, and let HIM do HIS. He is the best OWNER, MANAGER, TRAINER, EMPLOYER of all time. Oh God,help us do the jobs you have assigned us to do rather than the one we fight you for: that of being God. Forgive us for trying to do such an underhanded thing by stealing what is Yours. You're the only One who can provide for only You are sovereign. Help us trust you to do your job well, for you do all things well. And train us Lord, to hold fast to you as we follow Your leading. WE need YOU; YOU do not need US. Oh, thank you for reminding me of that.
0 Comments
If you've never had to be away from family and friends during the holiday season, know that it's probably more emotionally difficult than you imagine. My empathy for those who've gone through this has grown, now that I'm in the throes of such a time. So, you may find yourself apathetic toward this post, but for those who have endured, this one's for you. I've become more keenly aware of the pain of separation, experienced the loneliness, felt the agony of observing others connecting and laughing with family and friends while I remain on the outside. Longing for the familial, while still certain that God's good plans for me include me being exactly where I am leads to a conflicted state of being. It really makes me question whether I do love Him more than mother or brothers, and oh how I want to be found worthy of Him (Matthew 10:37)! I'm not saying it's a sin to miss them, but I must put them as second priority as hard as that is, ESPECIALLY at this time of year. It's often felt like more than enough combating the Christmas "isms" (materialism, consumerism and the like) but adding "separation anxiety" to it is like a Supreme Court level of a trial. And yet, in this weakened state, He pierces through the ever-growing obscurity with His light and life-giving truth that I can wear around my waist like the belt that it is. And here's the shiny solid beam: In Himself, God is complete. The Father has relationship with the Son, the Son with the Spirit, and all perfectly relate to each other. They are where the whole concept of family begins and never ends. The beautiful, tear-inducing truth is that as a part of His family, I now share in relating to Him as family. I now share the family inheritance (which is an absolutely POIGNANT truth to cling to when you're poor), I have constant access to my Father, and know what it is to be embraced by Him who lovingly wraps His arms around me. It means I am never alone, always protected by the One who is not ashamed to call me his brother (sister) (Hebrews 2:11). No one better mess with any of His kids, those who preciously belong to Him. So, let me encourage you, friend, Christ knows exactly how you feel. He knows because He was for a time separated from His family. He understands because He was removed from His earthly family, prioritizing the ministry of His Father. HE HAD SOMETHING MORE IMPORTANT TO BE DOING. That didn't mean it wasn't hard, but it meant He kept His focus, His eternal focus, and that separation from His family was merely a temporary state. He persevered by staying connected with His Heavenly Father, Who, remember, He had always been with up until He left His throne above to come to Earth. He is well-aware of your sadness, and here are His solutions:
I pray for you, my struggling friend, because I KNOW AND FEEL what you do, and so does HE. Let us, as brothers and sisters, earnestly lift each other up before our the One who is our FAMILY, because He can actually do something about the state of our heart. Let me know how I can pray for you.
We are all intimately familiar with this list, particularly this time of year. And I am certainly not disparaging the account, with a couple obvious exceptions (come on, did Radical by David Platt teach us nothing about number 7?). I am genuinely grateful for these things, so please do not misunderstand. Indeed, God has abundantly blessed us in so very MANY ways. Hallelujah! I just find myself wanting a better, more accurate list. And while I could count one thousand gifts from bubbles in the sink to icicles that look like daggers, I reckon thanksgiving is not about quantity. We've fallen into the trap of making it all about numbers because our old nature sure loves formulas! Is it possible that we even are greedy in having the longest list of things to be thankful about? Sadly, that's not all. We also tend to make thanksgiving rather selfish. Aren't we first and foremost most thankful for our GIVER, not "merely" the tangible things He brings into our lives. Why do I feel like this time of year I hear less than any other time: "Thank you for YOUR HOLINESS because it means there is no one else like YOU. Thank you for YOUR SOVEREIGNTY because it means Someone is in control, someone who chose to love unconditionally, dying for me even though You didn't ever NEED me. Thank you for YOUR JUSTICE because it means you will literally TAKE OUT our enemies for Your Name's sake. Thank you for YOUR LOVINGKINDNESS and MERCY and GRACE in making a way for us to spend eternity together and not separated from each other. And Lord, thank you for YOUR GENEROSITY in sharing the Holy Spirit, YOUR CONSTANCY and STEADFAST RELIABILITY, and YOUR INFINITUDE for there is no end to what can be learned about you by finite minds. Thank you, O God, for being absolutely AWESOME and WORTHY of all my THANKSGIVING." Can I hear that around the dinner table? Please? So, my challenge is two-sided: Find ONE attribute of God and DIG as much to the bottom of it until the American holiday (I officially think this is what I will now call the fourth Thursday of November) arrives, and share THAT at the table. Come back and let me know how it goes. Secondly, like Anna the prophetess who instantly gave thanks to the LORD (the word is anthomologeomai, meaning acknowledging and professing IN THE PRESENCE OF) find quiet time to offer up to the God of heaven and earth, the OMNIPRESENT one, a sacrifice of praise, the fruit of lips that praise His name! Have a QUALITY Thanksgiving, friends. From as far back as I can remember, I have been excited by little things. When I love a product, I rave about it. When I'm happy, it's not hard to figure out. When I'm upset, yeah, watch out. If someone would say something hurtful about me or something I love, I didn't exactly process it very well, My poor mother would have to deal with it, cleaning my pouty, moody mess of a self off the floor, with her tender words: "Brittany, stop being so sensitive." She knew just what I needed to hear, or so I grasped later in life. (At the time, I rewarded her sage counsel with more pathetic tears or angry retorts. Sorry about that, Mom.) Around people I was upbeat but in retrospect, I do think I spent more time exercising those frowing muscles than the smiling ones. I don't know who is to blame but somehow I began to perceive that my exaggerated behavior was not acceptable. Coupled with my genetic predisposition toward theatrics were many physical location changes as we moved to different parts of the country due to my Dad receiving various promotions within his company. This only served to stir my emotional pot. Thankfully, the Lord had given me grace through faith early on in life, or I may have struggled more with how to cope in the face of what often felt like my world was being decimated. He enrolled me at Emotions University, and has been schooling me on sentiments, ever training me to trust Him by yielding up my bubbling, broken, disappointed, despairing, ecstatic, fervent heart to Him. Despite years of honing my built-in "skill", I continue to discover new facets to being dramatic. In fact, recently in dawned on me that God can totally use what I had begun to see as a weakness as the exact opposite. He created me this way. Huh. That must mean He knows things about myself that I don't. How often we are wrong about ourselves! How much we need to seek Him for His definition of who we are as we keep our eyes fixed on the Master Artist! How delightfully whimsical He is to continue to surprise us even as He humbly corrects our wrong thoughts of Him! His process lately in my life has been unexpected. The thing is, He knows I actually LIKE it when things are unpredictable and spontaneous. One of my favorite things about God is that He creates new things, and if I want my life to be evidence of His Person, then I want Him to have permission to do what He wants in my life. You see, this move to California, this particular transition, there have been lessons I so wanted to learn, character traits I had set out ready for Him to develop. I thought I would be learning humility, contentment, gratefulness and generosity. But the person He is revealing that He is developing is actually going to be more patient, one who endures, even someone with integrity. It's not that those other things aren't happening, but adjusting my expectations to what He is actually doing is SO refreshing. He is surprising me by what He is actually capable of doing in me so that He can do things through me. So, to make being dramatic an actual art form, we must first appreciate that He Himself is dramatic, making grand gestures of love on our behalf, wooing us to a deeper relationship with Him. Secondly, we must be reeducated, paying attention as He teaches us who He is revealing Himself to be through us. As that happens, we also start to see what kind of character He is developing us to be. I want to be a character in His story who has character not merely one playing a role. Don't you? Thank you Lord, for loving us with such flair. You love us in such big ways. I confess that sometimes I look at you through my flawed understanding of man and my warped view of you gets in the way of seeing you as the awesome, holy, amazing One who is worthy to be both feared and adored. Grant us a deeper appreciation of your creativity, and help us be patient as you show us who you have made us to be (the ways You are reflecting Your glory in us). It felt like a good night to write about something victorious. Probably because I'm not necessarily feeling all that triumphant. So, logically, it seems the perfect time to work on surrendering my emotions to my will (that kind of thing makes us more like Christ,I think). I don't know about you, but I could use all the practice I can get in that department. Here it goes. This past weekend I climbed a mountain. It was just the right amount of "difficult" as evidenced by my onerous breathing all the way up; and I had the privilege of experiencing the "good sweat" of typical gym rats, even though I'm confident that a proper lady would have described it as "divine glisten." People passed me and I passed people, heading up the mountain like the little ants we were, dodging crazy downhill runners who were selfishly and dangerously put us all in jeopardy. And for what? To behold some breathtaking vista that we could all enjoy from the comfort and safety of our own homes via a simple Google search? Peh. Certainly I was starting to doubt whether it was worth my own oxygen sacrifice. But I tell you, all I could do was plod on. What could I do? Turn around and say I only climbed half of a mountain? I might as well have climbed a mole hill. And MAN, that trail was quite the labyrinth of turns! I confess that I thought on more than one occasion, "Why am I not at the top yet? I can't even see the top. This must be the old site of the Tower of Babel because I'm pretty sure I'm going to walk right up to heaven. This is way harder than Google said it was going to be. Google lies. Google lies a lot. Can't I just get there already?" When I did finally summit (I'm a hiker now, we use that word), I realized that only forty five minutes had passed, that the view WAS in fact better in person than the pictures I had looked at online, and that everyone else was voicing some of my same reactions. I heard the following: "We made it!", "Hallelujah, hallelujah!", "Wait till those guys get up here, it's totally gonna be worth it." I sat there,nearly 1,600 feet above sea level, and marveled. "Is this what it's gonna be like, Lord, when my faith finally becomes sight? When I'm in heaven with You? Will it all be so very worth it because of what my eyes will behold? I know there's gonna be celebrating, but will the exultations be sweeter because of the arduous path it takes to get there? Does it all have to be so very hard? Maybe the art of climbing a mountain is really about fixing my eyes on You, Author and Finisher of my faith (Hebrews 12:2), and gazing on You and Your beauty. Seeing with the eyes of faith now what I will behold then. Man, I get so fixed on the present, the seen, and the transient that I blind myself to You, to what You're doing, to WHO YOU ARE. You are my STRENGTH, enough to help me persevere until that awesome day. How am I not thanking You all the time for being my HOPE, for being Someone I can cling to? I'm sorry. Forgive me." It was a beautiful moment we shared, and I felt like I understood my job right now is to plod on, with eyes fixed on him. The journey will be worth it because with every act of obedience, dependence and trust, I'm getting closer to Him and to that day when I will see Him. Just as I started to head down, I heard this woman say to this other woman who was still climbing, "You're almost there, it's just like right around the corner." The woman responded, "Man, this is like the neverending story." I had to smile at the irony. She was almost right except for one thing. It's not the journey that's neverending, it's the destination. PRAISE THE LORD! It would seem that we do everything in our power to avoid being lonely. We seek out relationships constantly--whether they are healthy or not--we pursue interaction. Obviously the media, (cough, SOCIAL media, cough) bolsters our desire for it every way it can, practically yelling the message that to be lonely is to be sad. Well, either sadness or that prideful, "I-am-human-hear-me-roar-and-I-don't-need-anyone-to-make-me-happy" cover we create aids our coping. Not only to we chase social satisfaction, but we shovel activity into the mouths of our clocks so every moment is engorged with busyness. How can we be lonely if we don't have time for it, right? Fear keeps us from drinking that perceived "toxin" of solitude, for doing so might yield vulnerability, quiet, and possibly reflection. Yes, the extrovert has their gregarious tendencies, but they are not the only ones who dread a life of seclusion. Since we know that God has created us ALL for relationship and community, this applies to all of us. And once again, we see the enemy's distortion of God's image in us. We have forgotten that He created us for relationships because of the even greater truth that HE WANTS TO BE IN COMMUNITY WITH US. All of the contact we yearn for can only be truly and completely satisfied in Him. He's either everything to us or He's nothing. Certainly He desires us to be in community with others for countless reasons, but far too often we try and fill the loneliness void with everything except for Him. In so doing, we miss out on the way that He has REDEEMED loneliness. He redeemed loneliness with the most amazing, beautiful, matchless gift of HIS NEARNESS. "The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit." (Psalm 34:18). I firmly believe that He allows loneliness to grant us a level of His nearness that draws us into deeper intimacy with Him, the kind of closeness that overflows into the exclamation that "as for me it is good to be near God" (Psalm 73:28) The rest of that verse gives us another clue to the art of loneliness. "I have made the LORD God my refuge, that I may tell of all your works." He's all about promoting His Name and getting us to a position that we can proclaim His marvelous deeds. So, I encourage you the next time you are lonely, make the Sovereign God your refuge, and discover the riches of His presence. Sovereign Lord, We praise you for never ever leaving us alone, even though sometimes we feel lonely. Thank you for the ways you teach us how to work through our loneliness so that you get the glory. We would do anything so that you get the glory. May Your Holy Spirit help us understand more facets of Your nearness, for You are infinite, and there is still so much to learn about Your most lovely closeness. Thank you for allowing us to feel lonely, and thank you Jesus for experiencing loneliness here on earth so You can comfort us more effectively by Your Holy Spirit. Thank You for being our remedy for loneliness. Oh, how we love you Lord. Amen. When was the last time you thought that loneliness was a good thing? Whoa. The last time I launched my thoughts in such an exposed format was Xanga. Unless, of course, you count Facebook statuses, which I do not. For this will be likely more revealing and hopefully downright humbling. Even if no one reads it. Yeah, I know. I'm late in the game to the whole blogging thing. That fact nearly caused me to reconsider adding this little tab to my website at all. I mean, once you've read one blog or one person's thoughts, haven't you read them all? What HASN'T been done? Each one straining to offer something completely original. The right side of our brains began to be stretched even further with the birth of Pinterest as we "oohed and aahed" over clever solutions to problems and were amazed by the resourcefulness of others. It seems that now the "race to the top" is not simply about getting there first, but about having something "never been seen before." Yes, it is the Time of the Artist and Age of the Innovator. As someone who falls into those categories, I say, FINALLY. But HOW do we possibly stand out in the Ingenious Sea where so many are exceptional visionaries? In nearly all creative fields, the adage "It's all about who you know" is certainly the driving force for propelling someone forward. And of course, social media and our increased access and availability to people all over the world makes marketing one's personal portfolio practically child's play. (Apparently failure can only come from sheer ignorance or laziness.) But even with all these outlets, I think it has less to do with OUR efforts and OUR promotion and more to do with God's OMNIPOTENCE, SOVEREIGNTY and CHOREOGRAPHY. If it had MORE to do with us, wouldn't that mean somehow we were greater than Him? If He must increase and I must decrease (John 3:30), then that should even be the motivating factor in my getting noticed. More and more of HIM should be somehow displayed. I mean, even JESUS promoted His Father first. "'Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise. '" (John 5:19) And maybe deeper still, WHY is it so important that people know me? To make getting noticed a true art form, it boils down to MOTIVE. In my current situation, it would be so easy to say I'm putting myself out there so I can get a job and pay my bills so I can have the safety and security that a good ol' independent American needs. It's a good thing that's NOT my goal. I'd be miserably failing. But if my goal is "doing everything to the glory of God" (Col. 3:17), and for HIS NAME'S SAKE, then God sees a humble heart, and we know that's just the kind of heart He can work with (Psalm 18:27). And then I don't have to worry about whether all my promotional efforts come to anything because now His interests and mine are ALIGNED (i.e. for HIS glory), and so He does the work to bring the fruit: the job that will best keep me humble so that His Name can continue to be advertised. O Lord, please keep us ever humble that it may never be about us and ever, only all about You. For there is none like you O Lord who is worthy to be praised and honored and magnified. We praise you for all the ways you have made Yourself known in our own lives; Your power is infinitely mighty and strong. Thank you for being such a magnificent Jehovah Jireh, providing for one need after another. What do YOU think is pivotal to getting noticed? |
Brittany Van RynWorking out thoughts with HIM. Archives
October 2014
Categories
All
|