waiting

You Light a Lamp for Me: meet the One who produces quiet hearts in dark valleys

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I’ve made it one year knowing that there is a tumor growing in my body.

The Lord has sure given me grace for this year. And…I carry the awareness that it is there, hiding just beneath my skull, of uncertain nature and uncertain trajectory, surrounded by delicate structures, buried too deep to biopsy, and risky to treat. It has been challenging work to unload that awareness and focus on other things.

This month at my follow-up, one of the Mayo Clinic surgeons offered to operate, so I now have the opportunity to remove it while it’s still small, rather than treat it with radiation down the road. We got the surgery on the schedule and I have a little less than a month to walk through anticipating that. On December 6, the surgeon will begin his work. Mine begins now.

Doing the research and walking through this decision was a struggle. There’s a lot we don’t get answers on until the operation is over, and I’m the type of person that likes to know what to expect.

The fear living in my heart has a really hard time with not knowing the future. It looks at unknowns and says, “I bet this is heading somewhere where you don’t have what you need.” It stresses about what to gather and prepare, but never feels quite secure, even when I’ve prepared all I can. It aches for the things that seem to be going well in other people’s stories.

Fear sings in incessant rounds of “what if” and “if only.”

But peace says, “The most important things are not if’s.”

Oh, what mercy, that peace has broken into the conversation.

I am absolutely floored that, in the wise and careful hands of a God who cares deeply for me, a tumor is actually what dials up the volume so that I will notice a battle where I have been getting slaughtered, and get desperate enough to grab onto the strength I need win.

“You take what the enemy meant for evil and you turn it for good, you turn it for good.”

-Elevation Worship, “See A Victory”

I had some freeze, despair, pull my hair out moments working through both my initial diagnosis and this new round of options and information, but now I think this hard thing, in God’s capable hands, actually gets flipped into the training ground where I learn to take up the fight. Perhaps this is where I finally say,

“ENOUGH! I am done yielding my thoughts and heart to the anxious toil of problem-solving things I can’t control. I will take hold of the peace that is MINE and I will fight for all I’m worth to keep it.”

“You will keep in perfect peace
    all who trust in you,
    all whose thoughts are fixed on you!
Trust in the Lord always,
    for the Lord God is the eternal Rock.”

–Isaiah 26:3-4 NLT

“Peace I leave with you; My [perfect] peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Do not let your heart be troubled, nor let it be afraid. [Let My perfect peace calm you in every circumstance and give you courage and strength for every challenge.]”

–John 14:27 AMP

In his discussion of Ephesians 6, MacLaren’s Expositions says this:

“The quiet heart will be able to fling its whole strength into its work. And that is what troubled hearts can never do, for half their energy is taken up in steadying or quieting themselves, or is dissipated in going after a hundred other things.”

My heart is a lot of things: driven, busy, hopeful, productive, vigilant, and determined, but oh, how rarely it is quiet.

And yet that is what the Gospel does. Meeting Jesus, believing who He is, and taking hold of what He has done for you produces a quiet heart. At the beginning, and every time you sit at his feet after.

“Then Jesus said, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.”

–Matthew 11:28 NLT

“And let the peace that comes from Christ rule in your hearts…”

–Colossians 3:15 NLT

Oh Lord,

The load is too big for my shoulders. I cannot bear it. I am a mess – a tightly squeezed mess trying to look and feel like I have all of this managed. Cody’s migraines, Benaiah’s brain, my tumor. Too many. Too many problems to respond to and keep track of all at once. Too many emotions. Too many possibilities. So little control.  

And I’m exhausted.

Can you take over? Please flood my heart with your peace and Let. It. Rule.

You are my peace (Eph 2:14). No data or insight or prep will be sufficient. It has to be you. That’s where my security lies.

You don’t miss one detail. You have kept us from missing it when we needed to intervene on things. Help me trust that you’ve had us all along, and you still have us now. You are faithfully leading us step by step. I’m in the dark about what’s coming, but you are not.  You are over the disease that stalks in the darkness (Psalm 91:6, 9). This surgery scares me, but I feel warning about leaving the tumor.

And I trust your leading. I trust your timing. I trust what you allow.

It is okay that the things that are challenging for me are a struggle. I’m learning. Help me to humble my heart and respond to the things you bring to the surface when it’s frustrating and stressful. You love me and you’re working on these things in me. I will keep needing your grace to encourage my heart, your mercy for my failures, and your righteousness to stand on instead of my own.

I agree with you about me. What mercy and grace you choose to give to me, I will receive happily, for I sorely need it. And where you allow it to be challenging, I will agree with you that I am ready, because you have equipped me for it.

In the past 4 years, I’ve watched my husband and both of my little sons rolled away from me and into an OR. These years have held a heavy, unfolding story of brokenness with little reprieve before we duck back under for another round. I feel my weakness and my weariness often. And I long for relief and resolution. When I’m hit hard, I so quickly think of relief as the place I must reach, somehow, someway, if I’m going to survive this.

But pain is where I press into you and find you sufficient.

You are the steady, strong, unfailing supply no matter how long my time in the deep lasts.

You are the place I must reach for, and you are reachable, when relief is not.

It’s when the fight takes us past where we ever thought we’d be walking, past the last of our endurance, when we collapse and still it keeps hurting: that darkness is where we learn that we want relief, but we don’t need it. And that is a powerful secret to uncover.

When you learn that even though you’re uncomfortable, you do have what you need, right here in the dark, you become something to contend with. Because someone who has found their bearings in the deep places is much more difficult to mislead.

If you’re waiting in the dark, too, I want to encourage you with this. I think our Faithful Teacher is in the business of leading us through the valley of the shadow of death in order to build us into sure-footed followers. We are becoming people who don’t fear discomfort or lose their nerve when it gets confusing, because we are learning to trust our Shepherd.

He is shaping us into the kind of people who can face down dire-looking circumstances and trust that He knows the way to lead us to the other side, and that what our enemy intends to ruin us, He will use to build into us.

One more thought. For you, the one who is doing battle in the dark:

“Finally, be strengthened by the Lord and by His vast strength. Put on the full armor of God, so that you can stand against the schemes of the devil.”

–Ephesians 6:10-11 CSB

It has helped me to remember that we don’t take up armor so we can stand against our enemy’s strength. We’re not warned about his strength here; it is so inferior to our Almighty God, there’s no power contest happening. But what we are warned about is the devil’s schemes: his attempts to get us off-center and worried that this vast strength will fail us.

In whatever you are facing, let me be a voice reassuring you that it will not.

So be strengthened by it. When you’re discouraged and stressed and out of steam, be strengthened by the One who will never fail you, by the One who is all you need in the dark.

Because He is light itself.

—

—

“I will praise on the mountain, And I will praise you when the mountain is in my way.

You’re the summit where my feet are, So I will praise You in the valleys all the same.

No less God within the shadows. No less faithful when the night leads me astray.

‘Cause You’re the heaven where my heart is, in the highlands and the heartache all the same.”

–Benjamin William Hastings/Hillsong, “Highlands (Song of Ascent)”

—

Ready to Stay. Ready to Go.

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“Whenever the cloud lifted from over the sacred tent, the people of Israel would break camp and follow it. And wherever the cloud settled, the people of Israel would set up camp…Whether the cloud stayed above the Tabernacle for two days, a month, or a year, the people of Israel stayed in camp and did not move on. But as soon as it lifted, they broke camp and moved on. So they camped or traveled at the Lord’s command…”

–Numbers 9:17-23

—

As my eyes traveled over these words, I felt prompted to pause. I think it was the specific break-down of time. Two days. A month. A year.

Since returning from overseas ministry for medical care and facing hospitalization after hospitalization, and scan after scan for both myself and my son, I have lived my life in those increments. For over two years now, I have not known whether it would be two days, a month, a year, or more. And I have watched for the day we can break camp and move on. I have waited for the day we can leave all this behind us and start to rebuild our lives.

But I love what this passage points out. Even when the Israelites camped in the exact same spot for an entire year, they didn’t camp aimlessly. They camped at the Lord’s command.

The location changed all the time. Sometimes it changed after one day. Sometimes after a week. They found themselves in lots of different camping spots. But the location was not what was most important. What mattered most to the Lord, what He highlights here, is so simple I almost read past it.

It’s that moment when they stepped out of their tent, into the morning air, and they looked over at the tent of meeting to see what the cloud was doing.

If it lifted, they broke camp and followed it. If it stayed, so did they. But the look was what was most important. They acknowledged, with a glance, that the decision wasn’t up to them. It didn’t depend on whether they thought it was a good day to travel or whether they wanted to stay longer at the current campground or whether they were tired of it. Day after day after day, the decision was made based off of only one question. What is the cloud doing today? Where the cloud went, they followed. Where it stayed, they stayed. And they started each morning ready to stay and ready to go.

That heart posture was vastly more important to Jehovah than their physical surroundings, situation, and circumstances. Funny, how easily I can get that reversed.

That peek out of the tent to lay eyes on the cloud is one physical example of what it means to

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding, in all of your ways, acknowledge Him and He will direct your steps.”

-Proverbs 3:5-6

And as I sat with that truth, a deep rest sunk in and settled over my heart. God didn’t need me straining to see what the next day, week, or month held. He didn’t want me trying to predict and pack early or to give up and start construction on something permanent. He just wanted me to step out each morning and look at Him. And then respond to what I saw in that glance. To be ready to follow Him, whether that meant going somewhere or staying put.

And all this time, though my heart yearned to be moving, staying put WAS following Him. He had us here. And it was good to stay right here, where He had us, only because that was the instruction we had for the day, whether or not we understood why.

This month, I learned for the first time that I had developed a deficiency. It was a medical close call. Left unchecked, it leads to irreversible nerve damage, and sometimes a wheelchair. Almost three years after leaving Papua New Guinea, this is the first time it really hit me that as much as I wanted to help, I needed help. And God, in His firm love, held me here until I got all the help that I needed, even while I disagreed with Him. Even while I was willing to just deal with the symptoms and get back to our jobs.

I didn’t see the whole picture.

When He says “…My ways are higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” (Isaiah 55:9)

I mean…LITERALLY He is looking and thinking about everything from higher up than I am. And He sees pieces of the picture I have no idea are there. When He says to wait, I can bank on there being a good reason, however frustrating it is to me to keep staring at the same old campground.

He has this. And He has me. And just because He has me stay put, it doesn’t mean that what He has laid on my heart is going untended. He is often working on the very situation I’m so desperate to make a difference in, but in a better and higher way than I could, even if I could be there, hands-on, giving 100%.

Are you anxious? Are you frustrated? Are you tired of waiting? Are you straining to see what’s up ahead?

He has this. He has you.

So trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding.

For a moment, get quiet and stop trying to figure it all out. Set aside your goals for this situation and hone in on the posture of your heart.

Step out this morning and take a look at Him. And then respond to what you see.

“None of these things could have been foreseen twenty years ago. Our focus was and is on obeying God and responding to His voice…

We need to relax a bit, turn away from the noise…and listen to the voice of God because He has put everything together. He has prepared for us a place of service and ministry and will open the necessary doors, despite the obstacles and the confusion we may experience during the journey. I need to quiet my heart in order to hear God’s direction…

Every step of the way has been set by God, and one step leads to the next. Rarely do we see many steps ahead of us…But like God did for Israel, He prepares us for one step at a time…We never know what we will need, but God does and has made full provision. To reach that place requires a power not equal to but superior to the opposition.”

-A. W. Tozer, “A Cloud by Day, A Fire by Night”, excerpts from pages 17, 22, 28, 30

When You’re Facing a Boulder

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“Therefore we do not give up. Even thought our outer person is being destroyed, our inner person is being renewed day by day. For our momentary, light affliction is producing for us an absolutely incomparable eternal weight of glory. “

–2 Corinthians 4:16-17

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It’s been another crazy month of appointments, procedures, and questions. There were truck repairs and medical bills. My surgeon cancelled the tumor resection, my cardiologist is adding a new med and getting another MRI of my heart, Benaiah got ear tubes, and Cody’s getting some testing on his heart as well. It feels like a lot and I’m still absorbing the new information and wrestling with it.

I know a lot of you are probably facing pressures and stresses just like we are, and I wanted to encourage you with this thought: Nobody looks at a 500 lb boulder and thinks, “that’s light.” Boulders are heavy. But if you weigh that boulder next to a Mack truck – the boulder is light because the Mack truck outweighs it. 

It’s not that our troubles are no big deal – they are truly heavy and difficult. It’s just that when you put them on the scale across from the weight of the good that’s coming, they are light by comparison. No matter how heavy the situation you’re facing feels, it’s a boulder of burden opposite a giant Mac truck loaded down with so much good it would break the road scale. When all you can see is the boulder, remember that the truck is en route.

This is a really hard lesson to grasp, and my heart is learning it over and over again right now. We are trying to remember for all we’re worth that our God is faithful to us, that He’s not wasting the things that make us weary, and that He is building something so good, even on the days where it feels like nothing is coming together. 

He can surely use every struggle, every hardship, every weakness, and every delay. He can fill in our gaps, provide where we lack, and move in ways we cannot even imagine.

Lord,

You are ABLE both to lift me up when it’s fitting – to remove what I am persevering under; AND to give me the power to endure the entire time that it is difficult, long-lasting, unclear, and painful. You know I’m longing for the first thing, but perhaps the second thing is even more impressive. Not just that you can bring me out of this, but that you can enable me to wait without losing hope.

A poem by Amy Carmichael – scribbled down in my journal

The Water Receded: who to call on when there’s nowhere to go

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“…I have planned this in order to display my glory.”

…so the Israelites camped there as they were told.

…As Pharaoh approached, the people of Israel looked up and panicked when they saw the Egyptians overtaking them. They cried out to the Lord, and they said to Moses, “Why did you bring us out here to die in the wilderness? Weren’t there enough graves in Egypt? What have you done to us?”

…But Moses told the people, “Don’t be afraid. Just stand still and watch the Lord rescue you today. The Egyptians you see today will never be seen again. The Lord himself will fight for you. Just stay calm.”

…The cloud settled between the Egyptian and Israelite camps. As darkness fell, the cloud turned to fire, lighting up the night. But the Egyptians and Israelites did not approach each other all night. Then Moses raised his hand over the sea, and the Lord opened up a path through the water with a strong east wind. So the people of Israel walked through the middle of the sea on dry ground, with walls of water on each side!”

–Exodus 14, excerpts

It took me a couple weeks to find the words.

Benaiah’s brain MRI in December showed so much improvement. NONE of the doctors are recommending surgery anymore. The fluid collected around his brain and his arachnoid cysts are almost totally resolved. He has healthy brain developing forward into the spaces where fluid had accumulated. He’s babbling, crawling, standing up, meeting or even exceeding his milestones, and we’re weaning him off his medication.

Lord, I don’t know what to say.

I didn’t dare hope for this, but you have done it. Chief of Medicine, you have stepped in and treated my baby’s brain with delicate healing in your hands.

I was helpless. There was nothing I could do but ask you to have mercy on him. I cried out in terror and unbelief and you stepped in with power and compassion for my little son and his brokenness. You didn’t have to, but you were able, and you leveraged that power for our small story. In all the world and all its damage and hurt, you saw ours and you said ‘yes.’

Lord, may I never get over it. When Benaiah is getting into trouble and constantly moving and bonking his head and wrecking his bike and arguing with me over his homework and driving me nuts, I will praise you and praise you and praise you because I didn’t know if he would ever be able to. Every breath, every roll-over, every grubby smile is an announcement of your mercy to us because he might not have been able to do any of it.

It was his brain – the physical organ that houses who he is – and it was swelling and seeping and bleeding and sustaining damage and he was sleeping constantly and refusing to eat and losing weight. Lord, he was so tiny and fragile and he could have slipped away. Maybe his body would have survived it, but the control center was flooding and the doctor told us to cancel our plans and prepare ourselves because she didn’t know how much help Benaiah was going to need.

But,

“Our help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth.” (Psalm 121:2)

“…The Lord is my helper, I will not fear…” (Hebrews 13:6)

All the help Benaiah needed – you were able to give it. You were able to restore where doctors could only labor to install and maintain a drain. You are able to meet needs that I cannot. May I remember. It is okay when my kids need something I cannot give, though I have offered all I have. Because you have offered all you have.

“Since He did not spare even his own son, but gave him up for us all, won’t He also give us everything else?” (Romans 8:32)

I was trying so hard to prepare myself for a ‘no,’ because I know sometimes you say ‘no,’ and you’re allowed to, and I may never get to understand it.

“…His rule is everlasting and His kingdom is eternal. All the people of the earth are nothing compared to him. He does as he pleases among the angels of heaven and among the people of the earth. No one can stop him or say to him, ‘What do you mean by doing these things?’…All his acts are just and true, and he is able to humble the proud.” (Daniel 4:34-35, 37)

I fell short of Abraham. I did not freely offer you my son. I did not even come close to unwavering certainty that you would restore him to me somehow if I gave him up. I had no promise for his future, and I was stared down by the harsh fact that parents everywhere beg for their sick children and walk through the unthinkable. I almost lost sight of all the times parents in your Word begged you for their kids and you said, ‘yes.’

I had nothing to offer or bargain with or to convince you – only a bleak, pleading prayer and a body of people who held on hoping and praying and fasting and coming before you for Benaiah’s sake.

I withered in despair: “So many people have healthy babies. Did I ask for too much? How could God allow this to happen to Benaiah? He has broken my heart!”

Cody’s response was this: “He’s broken your heart? He has saved our son!”

I saw the peril. He saw the rescue. Oh God, thank you for that rescue. I am undone even now every time I consider it – what was at stake, what you have done. Only three times in his career now, Benaiah’s neurologist has seen hydrocephalus stabilize on its own. I couldn’t find a single study that supported a long-term Diamox regimen for this; in children it’s never enough to just give them medicine; it’s a stop-gap to get kids to surgery.

But you.

You reached down and cancelled it.

Twice, your people came up against the water. They held out a staff or stepped into a river, you worked, and the water receded. Now, as I stare at image after image of Benaiah’s brain scans, I see the water receding, pulling back, making a path for steps forward.

From: There’s nowhere to go! Water on one side and an army on the other. Darkness. Panic. Uneasy waiting.

From: There’s nowhere for it to go! Water building, stretching, seeping out of his ventricles, across into his brain tissue, swelling and compressing, and he’s not reabsorbing it fast enough. Darkness. Panic. Uneasy waiting.

To: Suddenly, there is a way that wasn’t there before. From nowhere to go, to receding waters. From terror to relief.

And it wasn’t just Moses, who reminded everyone that God would fight the battle and held out the staff, that got to walk through the water tunnel to safety. All the panicking, freaked out people who demanded to know why they had been brought there to die got to go through, too. Lord, I am so thankful we have accounts of you rescuing scared people. Where would I be if you only answered the bold and the unwavering?

I’m praying that through all of this, you’re building in me that sort of confidence. I think you’re in the business of growing panicky people into grounded disciples who lean in and trust you and look for your rescue even when they don’t understand, because they’ve seen your character on display over and over. But I’m learning to be patient with that process. These are the beginnings, and it’s okay to sound scared when I call for help. What matters most is that I dial the right number.

“We were crushed and overwhelmed beyond our ability to endure, and we thought we would never live through it. In fact, we expected to die. But as a result, we stopped relying on ourselves and learned to rely only on God, who raises the dead. And He did rescue us from mortal danger, and He will rescue us again. We have placed our confidence in Him, and He will continue to rescue us.”

–2 Corinthians 1:8-10

Dwell in the “I Don’t Know”: how to tolerate unknowns with patience and great hope

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“There is so much more I want to tell you, but you can’t bear it now. When the Spirit of truth comes, He will guide you into all truth…”

–John 16:12-13

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I got a letter and a care package from a close friend about a month ago. You’ll laugh at me for this, but sometimes, when I get a really good letter, I highlight it and tape it to my wall. I actually wish I could do this in conversations, too, because every once in a while someone says something, and I know I’m going to need to sit with it. 

Here’s what I highlighted this time:

“I’ve always been the one to skip ahead a few chapters so I could resolve my internal tension. And yet God invites us to stay on the current page with all of its unresolved questions and tension.”

The same week, going through Jen Wilkin’s Bible Study on the book of Hebrews, I wrote down these points from her teaching as she encouraged her readers to take their time with the challenging portions of the text:

– Dwell in the “I don’t know.”
– Feel the difference between what you know and what you hope to know. 
– Slow down. Don’t rush the application. Confusion is part of the learning process.

I started sensing a theme.

In small group at church, the author of our study challenged us to “make big, giant, hairy plans”  because God is able to do more than we can even imagine. A year ago, I would have been right with him. I’ve seen the Lord provide above and beyond and carry us over obstacles in ways I couldn’t possibly imagine. He is so worthy of our unwavering confidence and I want everyone I know to just GO for it, trusting Him with all their might, because nothing is too hard for Him.

But this year has been confusing for me! The pregnancy, the sickness, the exit, the baby’s brain, the delay, the camper crash, the transition…there are a lot of questions there that can put me in knots if I let them. Maybe you have some, too. I know our God is absolutely able to give us strength to carry out big plans. But I also know big plans can come crashing down and it turns out God was doing something else, at least for a time. It leaves me a little at a loss for how to prepare for what’s next.

If God’s going to accomplish whatever it is anyway, is there a way to plan responsibly, but skip the roller coaster of trying to guess what it is?

How do we work with all our hearts toward what He has in store for us – how do we invite it and invest in it and cooperate with it and expect it – without the whiplash and the heartbreak of getting yanked around the next unexpected corner?

We have to stop guessing what’s next and just do right now. We have to stay on the current page. We have to get comfortable in the tension. Because the relief that comes from filling in the answers early is a false peace, and it will keep letting us down.

“…Today’s trouble is enough for today.“
–Matthew 6:34

“Better to be patient than powerful, better to have self-control than to conquer a city.”
–Proverbs 16:32

Patient people don’t rush to resolve things. They’re not in a hurry when they’re working through something with other people, when they’re teaching, or when they’re learning.

“…We are perplexed, but not driven to despair.”
–2 Corinthians 4:8

Patient people can tolerate confusion without losing hope.

Oh Lord,

This is not an easy thing to learn. I would rather teach Bible Studies and do missions work and mentor young people and make presentations and sing worship songs than let it all rest and learn what you have to teach me here. But my impatience will stain all that I do. It will hurt people. It will limit how far I can take people. It will limit how long I can last. In marriage, in parenting, in healthcare, language learning, potty training, grocery shopping, housework…you name it, I am in a rush. 

But when I abide in you, you produce the fruit of patience. 

“I have told you all this so you may have peace in me.”
–John 16:33

“I am leaving you with a gift – peace of mind and heart. And the peace I give is a gift the world cannot give. So don’t be troubled or afraid.”
–John 14:27

The why’s and the what’s next…If you haven’t given me the answers – they are not what would have given me peace. I don’t need them and other people don’t need them either. Humble my heart to say “I don’t know and I’m content with that.” You have not chosen to reveal it yet. And you are withholding nothing good. (Psalm 84:11)

“For whoever has entered God’s rest has also rested from his works…”
–Hebrews 4:10

My work does not yet come out of rest. My heart is not yet quieted by your peace. I sit with the tension and I ache day in and day out as I move through my tasks, confronted over and over again with “I don’t know yet. I don’t get it. I’m frustrated. I see my impatience: glaring me in the face, springing to the surface, pleading for resolution.”

But the tension and the confusion serve a purpose. They are part of the learning process. They show up in the areas where God is about to produce growth. They are the highlighter that marks out where I am still striving.

“…Letting the Spirit control your mind leads to life and peace.” 
–Romans 8:6

Yielding, not striving, produces peace and life. The flesh demands answers, explanations, and an itinerary. The Spirit says “trust me.” And trust breeds patience.

“For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing.”
–James 1:3-4

Lord, reassure me that when difficulty tests my trust, it’s training, not punishment; and I am building valuable endurance. Teach me to sit patiently in what I do not yet know, because you have given me a sufficient guide who WILL lead me into all truth. Remind me not to rush the application, but to step back and appreciate the gaps in my understanding as places where you can enter in.

“In Him lie hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.”
–Colossians 2:3

So show me where I have a gap. Quiet my heart with your peace when I’m tempted to panic over what I do not know. Build in me a maturity and humility that tolerates the unknowns with patience and great hope. May I feel the tension and be able to wait, because I know you are producing growth. May I learn and learn and learn from you, my humble and gentle teacher.

The Finisher: who is our hope when the race stretches long?

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“…looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith…”
–Hebrews 12:2

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Who is the finisher? Is it me?

No.

As I run this race and seek to endure, am I called to look inward to find what I need to finish? 

No.

Should I worry that I will somehow miss the calling and steps He has marked for me?

No.

The work before me has been prepared from long ago (Eph 2:10), and even when it is brutal and difficult, the One on whom this depends does not yield until it is finished.

He will finish what He has started concerning me.

The race stretches out before me, and it holds difficulty, darkness, precarious footing, an unrelenting incline, obstacles, and constant distractions.

But the Finisher lights a lamp for me in my darkness, enables me to stand on mountain heights, strengthens me to endure, helps me to scale every wall, makes my way perfect, and spreads the path wide before my feet.

He shows me how to run for the joy set before me, clinging to the certain hope that we will not fall short of the finish.

Psalm 18

27 You rescue the humble,
    but you humiliate the proud.
28 You light a lamp for me.
    The Lord, my God, lights up my darkness.
29 In your strength I can crush an army;
    with my God I can scale any wall.

30 God’s way is perfect.
    All the Lord’s promises prove true.
    He is a shield for all who look to him for protection.
31 For who is God except the Lord?
    Who but our God is a solid rock?
32 God arms me with strength,
    and he makes my way perfect.
33 He makes me as surefooted as a deer,
    enabling me to stand on mountain heights.
34 He trains my hands for battle;
    he strengthens my arm to draw a bronze bow.
35 You have given me your shield of victory.
    Your right hand supports me;
    your help has made me great.
36 You have made a wide path for my feet
    to keep them from slipping.