Looking to Easter

Easter is in two weeks. We enter the dark weeks. The time where we can wonder how will it turn out? What is going to happen...

We take for granted that we know the end of the story.

Faith accepts the story we've heard. Faith is just believing.
But faith is taking it home too. Faith doesn't just trust the resurrection but it also trusts the newness of life imputed to my account. Because He lives I can face tomorrow.

Rebuilding on the Wreckage

Sometimes life blows a giant hole in our faith. Like a bomb dropped on us. Sometimes one bomb after another.
Sometimes you look back and you see two years have gone by. With a path of destruction in their wake. Sometimes you still have to push aside rubble. There are still fires to put out. But time works wonders and makes the wonders of God clear. Sometimes things have to be destroyed to be rebuilt bigger, stronger, and better.

A quote from Incendiary by Chris Cleaves, "I am a woman build on the wreckage of myself."

God covers us with His hand, He protects us as His glory passes by. He loves us in the midst of that which we cannot understand. And when its over...we look and see His back. We see that He was there. That time of destruction did not take Him by surprise as it did us. That unexpected demolition of all that had been normal in our lives...He didn't miss it. As the dust settles and the fires die down, we turn and see His back.

He works through the sin that we have commited, the sins commited against us, and the sins of those around us. He breaks us down and reforms us. And He promises us restoration. Below is Joel 2:25-27. He will restore the years that the locust has eaten. We have no choice but to start building on the wreckage. With a sword in one hand and a trowel to build in the other. "Grace recreates what violence has destroyed." -(Pastor Justin Holcomb, Mars Hill Church).

He has good plans for us. Plans for hope and future and His people shall never be put to shame.

A whisper of Him.

"A man can no more diminish God's glory by refusing to worship Him than a lunatic can put out the sun by scribbling the word, 'darkness' on the walls of his cell." ~ C.S. Lewis

This morning, cup of steaming coffee in hand, I read this verse in Job:

"Indeed these are the mere edges of His ways and how small a whisper we hear of Him? But the thunder of His power who can understand?" Job 26:14

Job had just been recalling all the wonderous works of God. The heaven adorned by His Spirit. The earth hanging on nothing in space. The boundaries of light and darkness. The storms and the cycle of seasons and on and on we could go.

And yet its only a whisper of God.

We live in the borrowed moments, the borrowed breath He gives us. Acts 17:25&28, "...He gives to all life, breath, and all things...for in Him we lives and move and have our being."

Every created thing depends on BOTH other created things and God to continue existing. We are so feeble. So dependant. Which we completely take for granted.

I woke up this morning and the first thought that I had was:"..Man. I don't want to get up and do the same things today that I do every day..."

I came downstairs and began reading as I drank my coffee..."These are only the edges of His ways..."

We stand with our toes in the ocean of God. Life gets boring and miserable but so often its because we refuse to wade in deeper. When really every breath we have is His anyway. Why not know Him more?

"All things were created through Him and for Him and in Him all things consist." We are held together by Him and Him alone. He is held together by no one. By nothing. We need Him desperately and He needs nothing. He created us and yet no one created Him.

The 6th chapter of The Knowledge of The Holy by A.W.Tozer is about the Self-Sufficiency of God. He says in this chapter, "The blessed news is that the God who needs no one has in sovereign condescension stooped to work by and in and through His children." (pg 36)

He doesn't need us. If every person on earth decided not to believe in the God of the Bible He wouldn't throw a temper tantrum trying to get our attention. He wouldn't lose any of His power. He wouldn't slowly melt away. He wouldn't pop out of existance when the last believer denies Him. We add nothing to Him, and we can take nothing away. He is God, the same forever and to Him nothing is necessary.

He doesn't need us. But He does love us. He stoops down to us. There is no greater love.

He set His face towards Jerusalem

"Now Jesus, going up to Jerusalem, took the twelve disciples aside on the road and said to them, 'Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be betrayed to the chief priests and to the scribes; and they will condemn Him to death, and deliver Him to the Gentiles to mock and to scourge and to crucify. And the third day He will rise again.'" Matthew 20:17-19

He was not ignorant of what lay before Him.

And yet He set His face to go to the city and to the people who would drive in the nails. The people He would weep and pray over. The people who would mock Him, strike Him, gamble over His clothes, and condemn Him.

He knew and He warned His disciples. This would be their hardest moment. This would be the darkness where hope may die and the breath catch hard with bitter shock and disapointment.

You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.

Would they still speak with such confidence as they saw Him in chains?

We all know the end of this story...but what if we didn't? What if Easter unfolded for us like it unfolded for those disciples... Being warned, being told the outcome over and over again...and yet the horror, and the wonder...as they watched it unfold.

As we look to the cross this Easter season, don't take for granted that you know how the story ends. Remember the wonder, the ecstatic joy of that first Easter.

Look to the cross.

JOY ENCOUNTERs: Thanks be to God.

1.) Towels in sunlight.

2.) Encouragement on the other end of the phone. Speaking peace into my moment of grief.

3.)Those bellies great with child, and those that are not.
4.) Deer meat glop.

5.) Forsythias soon to explode.

6.) A nook to read and pray.

7.) Cousins playing spoons and trash and scrabble. Loud Love.

8.) God's financial provision...above and beyond what we could ask or think.

9.)Cleaning out and throwing away...always a sign of Spring.

10.) Accomplishing task lists.

Fat Tuesday and Skinny Wednesday

King cake, plastic beads, masks, and parades. Fat Tuesday or Mardi Gras was not on my radar at all before this year. This fall I went to New Orleans to visit a close friend at Loyola University. Mardi Gras is the center point of New Orleans tourism and you don't have to search far to find some beads and a mask and get in on the fun...even in November months prior to their actual carnival celebrations. In fact, I was handed some before I even got to baggage claim at the airport. And despite its risque associations there are some very interesting things to know about Mardi Gras and the day following, Ash Wednesday.

The week or weeks before Mardi Gras in primarily Catholic areas (best known: New Orleans and Rio de Jainaro) is a celebration known as Carnival. The root of the word carival is basically a "farewell to meat" since Mardi Gras is the day before the start of Lent. 40 days of fasting and some form of self deprivation...preparation for the sacrifice of Christ on Good Friday.

Preparation.

Fat Tuesday is also sometimes known as Shrove Tuesday which is about a day of confession. A day of saying goodbye to all the luxuries our world throws at us and the comforts of the flesh and a day of confession...a day about seeing the need for a sacrifice.

And like every celebration in our world the meaning is lost in glitter... or the day passes unnoticed at all.

We lack the preparation. We have missed some of the high holy days that our rich heritage of faith passes down. And yes, perhaps the meaning isn't what it used to be. But can't it be reclaimed?

40 days of seeing our sinfulness and remembering the Passover Lamb has made a way for us into the Holy of Holies. 40 days of forward thinking, that "He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him."

We are saved by grace through faith. Nothing we do should be about earning His love or His favour. But we can remember His love and His favour. His sacrifice.

Then sings my Soul...

I am so quick to bite with my words. To say things that I ache to take back. That was this morning. Conflict and Resolution...all before 9 in the morning. But despite the resolution I wish I could take back the cut in my voice. The daggers from my eyes. I live with her and she still doesn't know Him. She certainly doesn't see Him in me on mornings like this.

But I'm learning the paradox..."the repenting soul is the victorious soul...the valley is the place of vision."

Sometimes the apology is better than the mistake not made. Failure draws us closer to the One who is able to keep us from falling.

As I fume in the shower He reminds me of the lessons I am learning. They come to mind one after another..."As much as it depends on YOU live peaceably..." "Blessed are the meek...Blessed are the peacemakers...YOU are the salt of the earth."

Tension in my neck eases and the apology rises quick in my throat. First to Him. Then to her. Peace.

1.) Watching backyard puppy delight through kitchen windows.
2.)Soap running off dishes.
3.)Swinging in the darkness.
4.) His bandaid care for me.
5.)Knit socks and plaid pajamas.
6.)Singing in 4 languages "How Great is Our God."
7.) Breathing Easy, congestion gone and lungs clear.
8.) Holly Golightly, captivating.
9.)The knowing hand squeeze of a friend.
10.) Dancing the praise of the Lord. Brother and Sisters in Unity.

Rejoice in Hope.

Its been a sick week. A week of the slow nursing of self. Time focused on *me*... Where the gifts have been sleep late, ice cream cool on a sore throat, dogs walked by someone else...head heavy on a pillow.

But the hard part has been dealing with asthma. I take a steroid inhalor. Up until now I've been using only a rescue inhalor. In September my Dr decided 4 trips to the ER because of my asthma in one year was too much and so the prescription is Advair once in the morning and once before bed for the entirety of the cold...to prevent the asthma flare up in the first place.

Steroids. Wonderful Horrible things. I am so thankful that my chest isn't tight. I'm not coughing. I'm not out of breath.
But my blood pressure is up. I'm restless and anxious. Stir-crazy.

Mom assures me that over time my reactions to Advair will lessen. Rejoice in hope. This is just one of the many things in life that we look at as a bother rather than receiving as a blessing.

Breathe in promise. Breathe out hope. Asthma, part of my life's beauty. The kind my eye has to strain to see. But its teaching me: "Rejoice in hope. Be patient in tribulation." Romans 12:12