Amazing Love

On By Charis PsalloIn Flowers, Photography, Uncategorized9 Comments

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We’ve often heard the buyer-beware expression, “If it looks too good to be true, it’s probably not true.”

That expression is not always true.

Darkness is all around us in this world. We read about it every day, and for those of us who have known loss and deep depression it feels like darkness has saturated every cell of our being. It wraps itself around our thoughts and imprisons our dreams. Sometimes it’s been so long we stop looking for the light. Sometimes we chase something that appears to be light, something that soothes our pain for a while, but it only leads to a path of even deeper darkness – if that’s possible. We come to distrust flickers of light as cruel illusions.

There is no greater depth of darkness than loss of hope.

I know. I was there – for far too long.

But I had friends who were relentless. They had light and love in their lives and I resented them for it. That light didn’t go out when their circumstances were bad. They had a weird kind of joy even in tears and brokenness. I dared to raise my eyes to the source of light that shone in them.

Charles Wesley wrote these words:

Long my imprisoned spirit lay,
Fast bound in sin and nature’s night;
Thine eye diffused a quickening ray—
I woke, the dungeon flamed with light;
My chains fell off, my heart was free,
I rose, went forth, and followed Thee.

My chains fell off! My heart was free!
I rose, went forth, and followed Thee.

He understood the risk of trusting something that seemed to be too good to be true. What? How can it be?

And can it be that I should gain
An interest in the Savior’s blood?
Died He for me, who caused His pain—
For me, who Him to death pursued?
Amazing love! How can it be,
That Thou, my God, shouldst die for me?

Oh, my God! You did that for me? Can it be?

You matter. He knows your name and every detail of your life down to the number of hairs on your head. You are not an accident. Darkness cannot put out the light. In the battle between light and dark, light always wins. There is no such thing as a flashdark – only a flashlight.

Jesus is the light of the world. This is amazing love!

Silence

On By Charis PsalloIn Mountains, Photography, WaterLeave a comment

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How can you expect God to speak in that gentle and inward voice which melts the soul, when you are making so much noise with your rapid reflections? Be silent and God will speak again.
– Francois Fenelon

But He Did Say

On By Charis PsalloIn Fields, Mountains, SkyLeave a comment

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He did not say: You will not be assailed,
you will not be belabored,
you will not be disquieted,
but he did said:
You will not be overcome.

-Julian of Norwich

For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith. Who is it that overcomes the world except the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?

(1 John 5:4,5 ESV)

Presence

On By Charis PsalloIn Photography, WaterLeave a comment

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In the past few years I have heard many worship songs about longing to be in God’s presence. Some of them have become favourites. Early this morning, as I was in that half-in half-out state of sleep, it dawned on me that so much of what God has gone to great effort to communicate is that he longs to be in our presence, with us fully alive and focused on who he is.

Listening to the Light

On By Charis PsalloIn Art, Mountains, Photography, Sky, UncategorizedLeave a comment

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The God of gods, the mighty Lord himself, has spoken!
He shouts out over all the people of the earth,
In every brilliant sunrise and every beautiful sunset, saying,
“Listen to me!”

(Psalm 50 The Passion)

But Do You Love Me?

On By Charis PsalloIn Flowers, Photography6 Comments

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I’m not a fan of a lot of the popular talent shows on TV. I downright hate programs where people are booted off the island or out of the house or eliminated from the list of contenders for the prize. It’s not the striving for excellence part that bothers me; it’s how easily people are rejected.

Sometimes fine folk are jettisoned, not because they lack talent, but because they don’t understand how the game is played. I had a student who tried out for a very popular talent show for singers. She had all the right stuff. Beauty, voice, flexibility, brains, charisma – that illusive “It” factor. This girl had her act together! She prepared a stunning audition piece, but she never even made the first cut. She was devastated, even after the judge told her the reason she was not accepted.

“You’re too good,” he confided. “This is a game show. This is entertainment. We are looking for people we can take credit for transforming from raw potential into a star. But thanks for playing. Next!”

She lost her faith in the contest system that day.

Can I admit that for years I harboured a secret fear of being rejected by God because I didn’t understand how the game was played? For a while I lost faith in his goodness. I had trouble believing he loved me. What if I reached the great day of judgment and faced elimination because I missed a clue as to what it takes to please him? Everything in my experience taught me that non-winners lose – and sometimes I lost because I didn’t understand the rules.

I still blow it. I charge right through warnings not to get involved in controversies without any insight but my own. I seek comfort in people, places, and things other than God’s provision. I give up on folks who are hard to love. Like the contest producers, I am also one who likes to collect friends who will make me look good.

When the Lord kindly points out areas in my life that are not working the old question pops up. “I’ve failed again, Lord. I know I don’t deserve it, but do you love me? Are you going to say, ‘Thanks for playing. Next!?’ Do I still have a place in your heart?”

This week I came across a verse in 2 Timothy 2 that I hadn’t noticed before. I did remember the verse before it that said if we deny God he will deny us. (The ability to love necessitates being given the ability to choose not to love and he honours our choice to reject him). But I hadn’t noticed this one before:

If we are unfaithful,
    he remains faithful,
    for he cannot deny who he is.

There is a difference between knowing who God is and choosing to dis-own him, and struggling with faith in his faithfulness – especially faith that he loves us and doesn’t play games. His love is not conditional on finding a use for us in a show that makes him look good. He desires relationship with “losers.”  He is willing to have his reputation tarnished by fragile people who do not have their act together.

Does God rely on your faith? No. He relies on his faithfulness and his inability to be anything other than what he is. He is faithfulness. He is love. Faith and love are gifts he gives you so that you have something to give back to him.

Faith and love originate with him. We don’t need (or have the ability) to conjure them up. We have a great high priest in Jesus Christ, who understands our weaknesses. In our earthly bodies we are more like delicate flowers than titanium blocks, but he chooses to contain his light in our fragility. He is not disappointed. He had no illusions about us in the first place. He loves because he loves.

His promise: He who began a good work in you will be faithful to complete it.

He remains faithful because he is faithful – and he cannot deny who he is.

 

 

 

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Keep Your Head to the Sky

On By Charis PsalloIn Photography, Sky8 Comments

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Sometimes God’s voice shows up in the strangest places. I expect to hear him speak through the Bible and through people who spend a lot of time in his presence. God also speaks to me through nature and through innocent children. Both can be remarkably profound. I’ve learned to pay attention to dreams that stand out and to listen to hymns and worship songs that play in the night and on repeat during the day. But movies and pop songs always surprise me.

Today God spoke through a chance encounter with a Mariah Carey song from the last decade. But first some background…

Beautiful friends prayed for me last night. I was glad I sat at the back of the auditorium because I cried through most of the service that ended a conference where I feasted on solid food. The speaker talked about Jesus setting a pattern of descending in humiliation and ascending in exaltation. (I will probably write more on this as I process the image of Jesus as our great high priest.)

Part of Jesus’ descent involved taking on human form with all its frailties. Satan attacked his identity when he was in a weakened state in the wilderness after a forty day fast. Christ’s exaltation involved ascending to heaven in his glorified body where he sits on the right hand of God as one who identifies, intercedes, and intervenes on our behalf. He made a way for us into the holy of holies with his own perfect blood sacrifice.

One of my life verses has been “That I might know him,” but I can’t ignore that the scripture combines knowing him with “and the fellowship of his sufferings.”

Life on this road is full of ups and downs – ascents and descents, mountain tops and valleys. I have known the elation of seeing God perform miracles before my own eyes. In the past year or so I have also known what it is like to be misunderstood, misrepresented, rejected and even had false accusations levelled at me. I have not always handled these well. Mostly I have not handled them at all (other than to ruminate and drive my husband to distraction with rehearsed re-enactments). I’ve been  withdrawing and becoming emotionally and spiritually numb. (Sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference between shunning negativity and outright denial.)

Last night I began to realize that Christ was allowing me to share his experience in a tiny homeopathic-size dose. He knows what it is like to be misunderstood, misrepresented, rejected, hated, and lied about. I wanted to experience the ascension to a new spiritual height after a wilderness experience, like others talked about, but all I felt was pain. The pain of not fitting in anywhere. My pain. His pain.

I wept.
And I thanked him.

Afterward a kind man and two women who love the Lord and understand this journey prayed for me. They told me what the Lord was showing them. Amongst other things (precious and private) they mentioned they saw me as one who was meant to live at altitude, like a bird living above earth-bound entanglements in the presence of my Creator, but that striving will not get me there. I thought of the scripture, “Humble yourself in the sight of the Lord and He will lift you up.”

Prophetic words are usually a confirmation of what the Lord has been saying to our hearts all along, but words we have forgotten or ignored or dismissed as something meant for someone better than ourselves.

I didn’t tell them about having dreams of being a song bird that flew to the top of trees where the growling predators couldn’t reach, or of the very dramatic vision of a bird with bright red feet. When I asked what that was about I was told it was a “red-footed booby.” I had to look it up. It’s a sea bird that spends years at a time in the sky, riding on thermals, living on fish and touching land only to  raise its young. I remembered encountering these things when I was trying to understand my identity in Christ and asking God how he saw me.

Today I came across the lyrics of Mariah Carey’s “Fly like a Bird.” I heard the Holy Spirit repeat the message in some of the phrases:

Weeping may endure for a night
But joy comes in the morning
Trust Him

Somehow I know that
There’s a place up above
With no more hurt and struggling
Free of all atrocities and suffering
Because I feel the unconditional love
From one who cares enough for me
To erase all my burdens
And let me be free to
Fly like a bird
Take to the sky

I need you now Lord
Carry me high
Don’t let the world break me tonight
I need the strength of you by my side
Sometimes this life can be so cold
I pray you’ll come and carry me home…

Keep your head to the sky
With God’s love you’ll survive…

Carry me higher, higher, higher
Carry me higher, higher, higher
Carry me home
Higher Jesus
Carry me higher Lord

I don’t know how long the descending bit of the road is, but I know Joy comes in the morning. I trust him.

I also know I am not the only one in this place. If this is also you, keep your head to the sky…