“On that very day the Lord brought the people of Israel out of the land of Egypt like an army.”

-Exodus 12:51

 

They had no military training. Until this day, they had been slaves. They did not know how to wage war; they knew how to make bricks. They had been oppressed, broken, despairing. Their infants were murdered, their slave-drivers were harsh, their leader disappeared to Midian for 40 years.

But this day, they swept out of Egypt like a force and left the most powerful nation in the world  plundered, trembling, and begging for their blessing. This day, they were warriors, and not a one of them had lifted a sword.

The world feared them.

Because to take on Israel was not a matter of overcoming 60,000 fighting men – it was to take on the living God who had devastated Egypt and crushed its deities.

This God who does not choose the strong, the bold, the best. This God who takes the weak and does mighty deeds; who takes the coward and brings down the fearsome; who lifts up the least and makes him ruler. This God took slaves and made an army that the world watched in terror.

This God calls me.

So I do not have to be the best, the bravest, the strongest. I can just be me and He will still work wonders.

 

 

 

photo credit: Marc Czerniec

“…the thunder and hail will stop, and you will know that the earth belongs to the Lord. But I know that you and your officials still do not fear the Lord…”

…So Moses left Pharaoh’s court and went out of the city. When he lifted his hands to the Lord, the thunder and hail stopped, and the downpour ceased. But when Pharaoh saw that the rain, hail, and thunder had stopped, he and his officials sinned again, and Pharaoh again became stubborn.”

-Exodus 9:20-30, 33-34

 

I tend to think it’s an Israelite trait to be stubborn and rebellious the moment I’m out of trouble; to require bailing out again and again. I tend to bemoan that I, too, am Israel: aware of You in my need, forgetful post-rescue.

But here I see that pattern in Pharaoh and his officials, and I see Moses calling them out on it before they even turned. This is what he noticed, even in the shining moment where they appealed to You for help:

their hearts did not fear You.

A heart that only sees You when it needs help but ignores You in the quiet and turns from You as soon as You answer, does not fear You. And it is not just an Israelite trait – it is a human trait. We’re willing to call on You when we’re in over our heads, but we don’t want to need You. We want to be able to handle it on our own. So as soon as we’re back on dry land, we turn. We humans are tragically alike in this: we do not fear You.

The other thing I noticed is that it is not only Pharaoh that Moses accuses. The officials also sinned. Pharaoh called the shots, but they were still responsible for their own hearts. While it was Pharaoh’s call, his officials did not get to hide blameless in his shadow. They, too, chose not to fear You. They, too, disregarded your words.

They, too, chose to turn as soon as the thunder stopped.

Lord-

Soften my heart toward You. Build in me a fear of You that outlasts the storm, that lives in the quiet, and that remembers how I need You even when things seem under control.

“Now you will see what I will do to Pharaoh. When he feels the force of my strong hand, he will let me people go…I am YAHWEH-the Lord. I appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as El Shaddai – God Almighty – but I did not reveal my name YAHWEH to them.”

-Exodus 6:1-3

YAHWEH (יְהֹוָה)

“The divine name was increasingly regarded as too sacred to be uttered, it was replaced vocally in synagogue by Adonai (Lord)…Many scholars believe that the most proper meaning may be “He Brings into Existence Whatever Exists” (Yahweh-Asher-Yahweh)” 

-Encyclopedia Britannica

I guess there’s a lot about this name that remains a mystery. But what caught my attention in Your answer to Moses’ cry was this: You had more to reveal about yourself than he had seen so far.

His ancestors called You ‘God Almighty,’ but Moses was about to see how strong your hand was. His ancestors had known You as ‘El Shaddai.’ Moses was only now introduced to YAHWEH.

I’m not sure what all is lost in translation across the years, cultures, languages. It’s 2017, I am snuggled up in my recliner in front of an electric fireplace with a fake flame, journaling as I prepare to travel a hundred miles to go to work flying in a helicopter.

I am worlds apart. But reading this, this morning, the name struck me.

Moses came to You, upset at the worsening situation, wondering why You didn’t act, and You answered with:

Your fathers knew me as Lord Almighty, but I am about to show Pharaoh who I am with force. And you shall call me

YAHWEH.

Silence. Holy. That’s what the statement left resounding through my morning. You were about to unleash upon Egypt a display the whole world would recognize. You were about to reveal a side of you Moses didn’t know yet.

And then, thousands of years later, You did it again. You still had more to reveal about Yourself than Israel had seen so far.

“…and you shall call his name Jesus…”

–Matthew 1:21

Savior. Rescuer. King.

Gentle. Feisty. Healer.

Man of puzzles. Friend of scum. Opposer of the Pharisees.

The One who forgives sinners.

So here I am, recognizing that in all of my situations, I must come to You, not only hoping to remember all I have learned of You before, but expecting to be surprised by a side of You I didn’t know yet. Always expecting that You still have more to reveal about Yourself than what I’ve seen so far. 

So keep my heart intrigued with You, Lord. Leaning forward, not knowing what to expect, not sure what side of You I will see, but settled in this:

You are so, so good, and the deeper I go with You, the more I want to truly know You.

 

“Then Moses went back to the Lord and protested, “Why have you brought all this trouble on your own people, Lord? Why did you send me? Ever since I came to Pharaoh as your spokesman, he has been even  more brutal to your people. And you have done nothing to rescue them!”

–Exodus 5:22-23

On the other side of that statement lay plagues, sea crossings, and freedom. But at the time, Moses couldn’t see that. At the time, he wondered, Why did I even try? Why send me if I only make things worse!?

It’s the middle of the story. That frustrating place where all we can see is the destruction caused by things shifting without the reassurance of what they’re shifting toward. How easy, in the middle of the story, to get discouraged and assume You are not going to help us.

May I, like Moses, come to You to voice that frustration. May I be honest about what I’m feeling, but still direct my cry to You. And even better, may I learn to assume that it’s okay when things look like this. It is part of shifting, of growth, of change. Things gets ugly before what will be starts to take shape.

Transform my heart’s cry from, “You have done nothing! You’re not helping!” into  this:

“I don’t see it, but I know You’re working in this, I know You’re helping. It looks ugly and ruined right now, but I trust You to take this somewhere good.”

Help me to endure, hold on, and refuse to slam the book shut in the middle of the story.

The eye is the lamp of the body; so then if your eye is clear, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. 

And if the light you think you have is actually darkness, how deep that darkness is!

-Matthew 6:22-23

 

 

I don’t remember when I started to lose my vision.

Little by little, my eyes stretched. They grew long instead of round. The curvature became more and more irregular, and more of the details I used to be able to see became blurry.

At ten years old, I started getting headaches in school. When my dad realized I couldn’t read the titles on the bookshelf across his office, he knew it was time to get me glasses.

At thirteen, we switched to contacts, hoping that placing correction directly on my eyes would slow the progression of my vision loss.

At fourteen, the eye doctors started recommending surgery.

At twenty, they stopped using the vision chart during exams of the naked eye. I couldn’t tell where it was.

Last month, a dilation test confirmed that my eyes have stopped changing and my prescription has stabilized.

I am left with three inches.

Three inches away, details are clear. It’s a small world without my glasses. Past three inches, there is a collage of colored shapes with smeared edges and poor definition. I lose facial features and can’t reliably tell who someone is unless they’re talking, and then I can’t always tell what they mean because I can’t read their body language. In a familiar setting, I do a pretty reliable job guessing at what things are, but then again, I did grab a set of earbuds from the nightstand this morning because they looked like glasses to me.

When I could wear my contacts I didn’t notice it that much. Now that I can only wear glasses, it’s more obvious. That square of clarity makes a big difference, but above, below or to the sides, I’m back to three inches. I can’t see down and ahead at the same time, and I have the bruises to prove it!

I lost my glasses in a lake a few weeks ago and spent three hours with my three inches while I waited for Cody to bring me a back-up pair of glasses. It gave me some perspective.

I am not blind. But I rely heavily on being able to either put on a lens or bring something closer to my face. If I can’t do either, I don’t rely on what I see. I know I’ve lost my bearings and, especially outside of familiar surroundings, I feel helpless.

It’s a silly illustration, but what if one day I woke up and decided to live like that? What if decided that what I was seeing was normal and didn’t adjust for it? What if I forgot my glasses on the nightstand and just went about my day guessing about what wasn’t clear?

What surprises would I bring home from the grocery store? What social cues would I misread? What if I decided to drive? Who knows where I’d end up and what damage I’d do on my way there?

I wonder if this is the concept Jesus was getting at when He described the deep darkness of someone who thinks they’re seeing light when they’re not. When you only have three inches, but you act like you can see miles ahead, you don’t recognize when you’re in deep trouble, much less see it coming in time to avoid it.

I would be in bad shape if I decided to ignore the fact that I have an eye condition that requires correction, so I don’t try to live without my lenses.

There is a Psalm that speaks of relying on God’s counsel that way:

“I have set the Lord always before me, because He is at my right hand, I will not be moved.”

–Psalm 16:8

Always before me. Like a pair of glasses through which I see life clearly.

Always before me. Because I am near-sighted in more than one way.

Always before me. Because it’s not enough to have eyes that work; they must focus on the right thing.

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding.”

–Proverbs 3:5

I don’t do anything I consider important without my glasses on. Why don’t I carry the same assumption toward my need for Him?

What if I didn’t start a single day without stopping to regard Him; to linger, to pause, to reflect, to remember that He is my confidence, that He is what I need for this day? How different would I be if I kept in mind that it is not something out there I must go after, that there is no higher pursuit than the God I kneel before in this moment? 

If I have not set my eyes on Him, I am walking out into the day without corrected vision, and my soul has an even higher prescription than my eyes.

 

Lord-

I don’t trust my eyes past three inches; teach me to regard my heart with the same suspicion. Unaided, it is an unreliable judge of what’s truly important. It is near-sighted, and the way it sees the world is as small and suffocating as those three inches I lived in when I lost my glasses.

Me, my wants, my worries, my ambitions, that is all I see until I stop to gaze on You.

I don’t see the big picture without the adjustment of worship and the lens of Your words. They are as necessary to my day as any pair of glasses, and more so. In the midst of all the things that call for my attention with the first tone of my alarm clock, that urge me to rush out and meet them without pause, I must remember this:

I need to wait until I can see what I’m doing.

Lord help me to remember.

As I look to tomorrow, the day I hope will bring me to where I open my eyes in the morning and I’m not guessing anymore; where I see clearly, without the smudges and scratches and borders of glasses; I also look to the day where it takes no extra steps to see and recognize how central You are. The day when my heart’s vision is permanently corrected.

When You are revealed,

and I shall be like You,

for I shall see You as You are.

(1 John 3:2)

What a difference good vision makes! Help me to remember, Lord, that LASIK does not solve my daily need to correct my view of You.

 

 

 

 

*Photo Credit: David Heckman

“Since he did not spare even his own son but gave him up for us all, won’t he also give us everything else? Who dares accuse whom God has chosen for his own? No one-for God himself has given us right standing with himself.”

–Romans 8:32-33

 

When Romans 8 transitions from the defeat of the previous chapter to “no condemnation,” it is not just a no condemnation because we’ve swept it under the rug and agreed to forget about it.

It is the type of no condemnation that carries no more shame toward the past, that stands tall and openly exclaims,

“I was defeated, but I am not defeated anymore! That is all paid in full now, and I am destined to become like the Son of God Himself, so bring it! Who dares accuse me?? I am his chosen and I have nothing to hide. Every sin you could find only points out all the more how beautiful he is. Every threat shrinks away from his power.

I am not afraid of you.

I am not ashamed of me.

I am not defined by who I was,

and no one dares accuse who I am now:

Daughter of the King. Just in his sight. Becoming like his Son. His own. His favored. His protected one.”

It is only when I allow myself to be distracted with what once was that I start to believe that is how things are now. And so, when I look at myself and start to feel defeated, I must remember that the question, “Who dares accuse whom God has chosen for his own?” goes for me, too.

“For if our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart and knows all things.”

–1 John 3:30

I must learn to tear my eyes from the accusations. From my own. From anyone else’s. They do not agree with him. And perfect was never the goal for right now. It’s just what I’m headed towards.

“…I press on to possess that perfection for which Christ Jesus first possessed me. No…I have not achieved it, but I focus on this one thing: forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, I press on…”

–Philippians 3:12-14

 

Lord-

Let this be my one focus as well:

Ahead. Ahead. Ahead.

Onward. Forward. Into the fray. Up the mountain. Onto the water. Through the storm. This is a new moment, and my past does not come with me into it unless I drag it there.

Shameless, I can lean into the sea-spray with clear eyes and great expectations of how the God who favors me against all odds will meet me there.

Ahead. Ahead. Ahead.

Free of fear that He will not help me. Free of the doubt over whether I have what it takes. He is making me like his Son, and I will press hard after it, grinning and unburdened by the cares and failures of yesterday.

You have so much waiting for me, Lord, so help me stay my gaze

Ahead. Ahead. Ahead.

 

 

 

 

 

“So letting your sinful nature control your mind leads to death. But letting the Spirit control your mind leads to life and peace. For the sinful nature is always hostile to God. It never did obey God’s laws and it never will…you have not received a spirit that makes you fearful slaves. Instead, you received God’s spirit when he adopted you as his own children. Now we call him, ‘Abba, Father.’ “

–Romans 8:6-7, 15

“For God did not give us a spirit of timidity or cowardice or fear, but [He has give us a spirit] of power and of love and sound judgment and personal discipline [abilities that result in a calm, well-balanced mind and self-control].”

–2 Timothy 1:7

 

Fear is not gentle.

Cowardice does not equal Self-Control.

Power does not need to threaten.

True strength is not fueled by anger.

With urgency, dark emotions cry for action, scream for justice, demand that I give in to them. But they are hostile toward you, Lord. They do not please you and they do not produce good, no matter what good reasons they claim.

Two mindsets. Two spirits. Choice after choice, minute after minute. I let one or the other take my mind.

If I am worried, fearful, angry and self-preserving, I know that my mind is not led by the Spirit who makes heroes, by the God who speaks truth softly in mountain caves after wind and firestorms and earthquakes. (1 Kings 19:11-13)

But it can be.

It is always mine to choose who I will follow, what will be the atmosphere of my heart. I do not have to continue thinking about what agitates or scares me, no matter how pressing it seems, no matter how persistently my inner hostility screams for it. I do not have to settle for impostors of gentleness, of courage, of strength.

The spirit I have been given does not make me a fearful slave. He leads to calm reckoning, sound judgment, stillness in storms.

And I can choose this day to follow Him instead.

“They don’t know where to find peace. They have no fear of God at all.”

–Romans 3:17-18

This is the conclusion to the passage that begins with “No one is righteous-not even one…all have turned away.” (v 10-12)

When we turn from You, it is not just You we leave behind, but all that You provide for those who follow, those who trust: wisdom, direction, unreserved joy, unshakeable peace.

And when we leave You behind, we do not know where to find it again. Take away the fear of You and all sorts of other fears rush in.

Peace is not to be found.

But if I choose to still those other fears and make You the highest, to regard You more than any other factor that seeks to direct my life, a great calm settles over all the frantic questions, all the persistent worries, all the silent dread.

Thoreau said this: “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation, and go to their graves with the song…”

I think it’s because we don’t know where to find peace. I forget all the time. I grasp for it in all the wrong places.

Is it at the end of this to do list?

Is it past all the errands?

Is it waiting behind my next goal, my next step, my next project?

Is it just beyond my reach because something terrifying stands between us?

It is strangely elusive, especially when I am consumed with worry and most desperate for it.

But it is found in fearing You, in returning to this sacred place, these quiet halls, where I shut out the other noise and seek to hear one still, small voice. Where I shut out the other demands and remember that one thing is needed. Where I turn my eyes from all that threatens, all that warns I am sure to fail, and choose instead to see who You are and what You have done.

When I allow You to become bigger in my thinking than all the things that gnaw away at me inside, the ache and the racing thoughts and the torment of my heart stops and I am here. And so is peace. So is the calm.

I could not find my way to it by digging and analyzing and wrestling for answers to settle my problems. Peace is not found at the end of problems, but in the midst of them.

And that is why I often don’t know where to find it. Because it seems like a thing I can only have once THIS is out of the way. So I don’t look. I see peace as a hard-earned treasure I reach only at the end, not as the warrior who guards my heart all along the way.

“…Tell God what you need, and thank Him for all He has done. Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Jesus Christ.”

–Philippians 4:6-7

Peace is not something I have once I settle my heart, my mind. It is Your gift for hearts and minds that are unsure, unsettled, with unsolved problems and unresolved fears.

Peace is what You give when I say, “I’m deeply bothered and I don’t have answers for this, but I trust You , so please help me!”

We don’t know where to find peace because it’s not something we work our way to or fashion for ourselves; it is a gift that only comes from one source, and only when we have stopped trying to solve our own problems and come to Him for help.

“So when the natives saw the creature hanging from his hand, they said to one another: ‘No doubt this man is a murderer, whom, though he has escaped the sea, yet justice does not allow him to live.’ But he shook off the creature into the fire and suffered no harm.”

–Acts 28:4-5

 

How quickly I assume I can attach meaning to the events that unfold around me. How easily I decide ‘I know what this means.’ How strongly I believe I can piece together their purpose, their significance, if I only think about it long enough and hard enough. How important it seems to make sense of things.

But the natives of Malta were wrong.

Being bit by a snake apparently does not always mean you are a murderer. And often, as satisfied as I feel when I think I have nailed down the meaning of things…I am wrong, too.

It makes me wonder as I think back through the years to all the meaning and significance I found learning to be independent and single. I grew deeper in my relationship with you, Lord, and that was good! But what other conclusions did I come away with?

When we are dumped or bitten by a snake, we feel we have to know why. But many of the why’s I came up with were wrong.

I don’t need anyone.

I’m better off undistracted.

I’m not marriage material.

Anyone else I get close to will just decide they don’t want me either.

Men can’t be trusted.

Better to invest in “safe” relationships.

I have a purpose I  must fulfill alone.

One after the other, they roll off my pen: assumptions. Some I’ve never even thought to challenge. Until I teasingly (but semi-seriously) asked another pilot wife the other day how she felt about her “role or lack thereof.”

She glowed. She told me how important she thought her husband’s training was; how proud she was of him; how proud she was to be able to help.  She said her struggle was finding too much of her identity in her husband and his calling, not feeling like she didn’t fit into it.

And so I started trying to understand why this has been harder for me. I, too, once felt that desire to be part of man’s life, wherever he went, whatever he did; just desperate to be with him.

But the snakebite stung and I tried to figure out why, and slowly, I decided it had been stupid to feel that way.

I reasoned that it had been short-sighted to limit my goals and my purpose to joining a man and having a family. I sorted out that my pain must have been my own fault, because I had let myself need him so badly; and I determined that I would never put myself in that position again. I would forge my own calling. I could not have a husband and a family, so I would just have to figure something else out that was equally as meaningful; something that being dumped couldn’t take away.

Damage was done when my heart was dangled and dropped off a cliff that day. But more damage was done when I obsessed with understanding why.

Paul could have heard the native’s concerns and become paranoid that he was going to die and gone into all sorts of ruin, just when he had become such a voice of hope to the crew. But he shook the snake off into the fire and no harm came to him. He did not worry, and he did not need to.

Sometimes, you get bit just because there’s a snake there, not because the universe is dealing out justice. But you do harm when you interpret things that way, especially to your own heart.

I am a native of Malta, and I have tried to make sense of things when it would have been better to just trust you; to decide I didn’t have to establish a reason, I could just ask for help getting through it.

“The Lord directs our steps, so why try to understand everything along the way?”

–Proverbs 20:24

“How unsearchable His judgments and His paths beyond tracing out. Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been His counselor?”

–Romans 11:33-34

“I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.”

–John 16:12

So here I am, seven years later, recognizing that part of my ongoing struggle is that, in learning to be part of someone else’s calling, I was feeling that I had lost mine. But if I could go back seven years, to the girl that was desperate to fall in love, to marry, to belong to someone, to follow him anywhere, to be loved and cherished and wanted, and begged for someone who would see her that way…I might realize I have not lost my calling.

I do not have to scrape out my own niche or defend that I have some separate, equally important purpose. Together, you have led us. Together we are here, and this calling belongs to us both.

An old calling I stuffed away has resurfaced and it can hold all the passion and purpose I thought I had finally reclaimed in singlehood, if I let it.

If I will decide it is not bad to need. It is not bad to trust. It is not bad to risk.

It is not even bad to hurt. It is evidence of life, of growth, of stepping out.

Hurt is part of passion;  but so is thrill, so is hope. I can’t have the high points without risking pain. But you have made it so that pain does not end us. It only shapes us; and it can shape us for the better if we put it in your hands and find meaning in you-instead of trying to translate all the details of an impossibly complicated universe, and chasing a desperation that says I must understand them all to be okay.

Lord-

I don’t understand all the “why’s.” But I can trust you. I can trust that in your hands, what I have gone through is not for nothing.

I can shake off the snake, blink through the smart of the snake bite, refuse to worry about why, and walk forward. Following, watching you, deciding I don’t have to conduct a side investigation where I figure out everything on my own; that it is okay not to have the answers sometimes.

Content with some mystery, because whatever you’re doing,

it’s good.

 

This change of plans greatly upset Jonah, and he became very angry. So he complained to the Lord about it: ‘Didn’t I say before I left home that You would do this, Lord? That’s why I ran away to Tarshish! I knew that You are a merciful and compassionate God, slow to get angry and filled with unfailing love. You are eager to turn back from destroying people. Just kill me now, Lord, I’d rather be dead than alive if what I predicted will not happen.’ The Lord replied, ‘Is it right for you to be angry about this?’ “

–Jonah 4:1-4

Jonah didn’t answer. Instead, he built a shelter so he could watch and see if maybe You would still destroy the city. Livid that what he predicted might not come to pass; sore that Your mercy might damage his reputation; determined to be proven right.

Jonah didn’t answer You. So You sent a plant, then a worm, then You asked him again:

“Is it right for you to be angry?”

And you pointed out how crooked Jonah had allowed his heart to become: angry over the death of a plant, but looking forward to the deaths of 120,000 people.

“Is it right for you to be angry?”

More of my time should be spent on this question, not on, “Is it right for them to treat me this way? Is it right for me to have to go through this?” Those questions only frustrate me further. You have allowed me to go through this. Rather, I should give my hurt and my anger to You, ask You to help me with this ruffled heart of mine, and teach me to trust You through it.

But I am Jonah.

You love them and they need You, I get it.

But I do not feel structurally sound enough to be around someone who constantly makes me feel inferior and humiliated.

It makes me want to run.

I am Jonah.

You  have said to go to Nineveh, to speak to Nineveh, and I am DONE with Nineveh before I even start. I do not like Nineveh. I do not care what happens to Nineveh. I haven’t booked a cruise to the opposite side of the sea yet, but I’m definitely in a sit-on-the-cliff-above-them-and-watch-them-burn mood.

And I would probably have it out with You if you let my shade plant die in the process.

Lord…soften my heart.

I am Jonah.

And Jonah was wrong.

Help me to love Nineveh instead of counting up all their offenses to feed my anger.

You are broken for Nineveh, and I just want them out of my life, out of my way. You are broken for Nineveh, and I am angry and offended at them. Your heart is to rescue Nineveh; mine is to avoid them at all costs.

And You must change my heart before You change theirs, because Your heart is also to use me.

 

Lord-

I am sorry I give so little mercy before I grow angry. I am so focused on myself, I see very little of what might drive the hurtful words that come from Nineveh. Hurt drives hurtful words, but I don’t see their hurt; I see mine.

I don’t see 120 hours of chances to care for them and point them to a God whose heart is set on their rescue, not their judgment. I see a massive amount of time I have to survive with them before I can be around someone I like.

Change my heart, Lord. It is seething.

So livid at whatever stands in the way of its own happiness, it does not even see that I have started to worship my own comfort and shut out the heart of the God who rescued me.

 

/So I shall call her Nineveh, and I won’t run away.

Though it takes all I have, Lord, I am here to stay./

 

For to this you were called, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that you should follow His steps…who, when He was reviled, did not revile in return; when He suffered, He did not threaten, but committed Himself to Him who judges righteously.

–1 Peter 2:21, 23