I am filled with joy and my soul vibrates with exuberant hope, because of the Eternal my God; For He has dressed me with the garment of salvation, wrapped me with the robe of righteousness.
Isaiah 61:10a The Voice
Exuberant Hope
Tag: hope
Interruption
I was thinking about images for this word on the list for creative Lenten meditations when I ran into a prime example in front of my own apartment building. Two large construction projects a block on either side of our building mean the road is frequently closed, but not usually at the same time. Today they were. One building going up is for commercial purposes. The other is a dense housing development. That’s not going to improve traffic around here. Another even bigger development a block to the northeast is expected to start within the year. Oh boy. I may never be able to turn left on Springfield. I had a moment of panic when I thought about more cars and more people blocking the roads and beeping construction vehicles in reverse interrupting our peaceful life. (Well, relatively peaceful. Noise is a constant when you live on one of the three blocks between two major arteries.) Then I got to thinking.
We moved to this location because we were planning ahead for the day when neither of us may be able to drive. At the time we purchased our condo, we hadn’t heard of “the fifteen minute city” but essentially, that is what we were looking for – a neighbourhood where all our most commonly needed services were accessible on foot. I can’t really complain about more people moving into an area called “City Central” when we moved in ourselves only eighteen months ago.
I was talking to a friend who was part of a rapidly growing – explosively growing—church after God started doing amazing things in their midst. Parking became hard to find, the bathrooms were overworked, cleaning staff was exhausted, and tithe-paying members of the congregation couldn’t find a seat even when they arrived an hour early. She said they noticed that people on the volunteer ministry teams had reserved parking, and that’s how they got into ministry. Step up or miss out. They stepped up and have been blessed by opportunities for growth ever since. They are still active in ministry.
Sometimes interruptions mess with our plans. Sometimes our plans need to be messed with. Anger is often the result of something being demanded or taken from us without our consent. People interrupted Jesus when he was on his way to do something important. He stopped and healed them on the way. The story of the woman with the issue of blood and the story of blind Bartimaeus and the story of mothers upsetting the disciples’ agenda by bringing their children to Jesus for blessing are examples of this. We know because their stories were important enough to be included in a record of Jesus’ life and times.
What if the reasons for these interruptions in the neighbourhood are signs, not of the place going downhill, but of the place rising up? What if, like the crowds following Jesus, we stopped and made a time and place for other people like us who arrived only 75 weeks ago? What if my response to “road closed” and “detour” was to happily make room for more locals instead of complaining about delays in my plans? What if blessing these construction projects is a better, less selfish response to sharing love in a community that sees beyond my own priorities and makes room for others?
Lord, teach me to see the big picture. Teach me to love the way you love.
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The Opposite
It is in the dark that God is passing by. The bridge and our lives shake not because God has abandoned, but the exact opposite: God is passing by. God is in the tremors. Dark is in the holiest ground, the glory passing by. In the blackest, God is the closest, at work, forging his perfect and right will. Though it is black and we can’t see and our world seems to be free-falling and we feel utterly alone, Christ is most present to us.
Ann Voscamp
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Singing Anyhow
Though the cherry trees don’t blossom and the strawberries don’t ripen, though the apples are worm-eaten and the wheat fields stunted, though the sheep pens are sheepless and the cattle barns empty, I’m singing joyful praise to God.
(Habakkuk 3:18 The Message)
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Whatever It Takes
I’ve been thinking about gain and loss today. I’ve been reading about persecution around the world. It’s one thing to choose to follow Jesus in a culture where family, friends and colleagues are also believers, or there are, at least, no serious consequences. It is quite another thing when choosing to be a disciple of Christ means rejection by beloved parents, brothers, sisters and community. In places where not having a seat at the table is the result of shame dumped on a new Christian, choosing to walk a lonely path requires a courage few of us can raise on our own.
More than once I have spoken to sincere seekers who faced a hard choice.
“I want to leave my guilt and shame behind and believe in Jesus,” one young woman told me, “But I couldn’t hurt my father that way. It would disappoint him so much.”
“It would break my mother’s heart,” said another with tears in his eyes.
I don’t know what they decided.
A man I met in the U.K. in a class we both took told me, “My family said I brought dishonour upon them by my choice to become a Christian. They have tried to kill me more than once. My own mother fed me poison,” he said, his voice growing softer. “I know they will try to kill me again if I go back to my home country, but they need to know God loves them. Jesus died and overcame death to show them that he is not angry with them. I can’t turn back. Jesus loves me. I am his servant. Whatever it takes…”
What struck me was that none of these dear ones were rebellious by nature, nor were they angry with their families. In fact, they were the opposite. They cared deeply about loved ones. The issue they all wrestled with was the question of how to love God first, then others. Sometimes I feel like avoiding relatives who merely disapprove of my fashion choices and taste in music. Would I be willing to be misunderstood, to be disinherited, to lose everything and everyone dear to me to love them with the love of the Lord?
That kind of love, that kind of faith, can only come as a gift of empowering grace from the One who sees the beginning from the end. How I admire those with the determination to hold tightly to the Saviour and find their true home in the family of God.
“And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or fields for my sake will receive a hundred times as much and will inherit eternal life.” (Matthew 19:29 NASB)
“Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we also have obtained our introduction by faith into this grace in which we stand; and we celebrate in hope of the glory of God.” (Romans 5:1,2 NASB)
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Feelings
I learned about a word I wasn’t familiar with — orthopathy.
“Orthodoxy” is thinking in alignment with God.
“Orthopraxy” is acting in alignment with God.
“Orthopathy” is feeling in alignment with God.
It comes from ortho – right, and pathos – emotion. For those accusing people experiencing personal encounters with God in places like Asbury University as mere “emotionalism,” may I remind you that Jesus himself wept with compassion, cried out in agony, and danced in ecstasy -in front of God the Father and everybody? I’d rather follow his example than a stoic heresy hunter’s.
After this long season of crisis, all of us, but children and youth especially, have been subject to a campaign of fear, disappointment, and negativity. The result is rampant depression and anxiety. I continue to pray with weeping for emotional healing and freedom for this generation. I sing for joy when I see it starting to happen.
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Think Again
Often at night I lie in bed and remember You,
meditating on Your greatness till morning smiles through my window.
You have been my constant helper;
therefore, I sing for joy under the protection of Your wings.
My soul clings to You;
Your right hand reaches down and holds me up.
-Psalm 63:6-8 The Voice
Sometimes relief from the exhaustion of wrestling with worry and anxiety is a matter of replacing intrusive thoughts that recycle disappointment and diminishing hope with better thoughts, like thoughts of God’s greatness, of dreams fulfilled, of joy in the morning. Sometimes when our hearts ache and start to slip down the slope of dismal forebodings, our Helper and Protector gently suggests it’s time to change the diet of despair we are feeding our souls.
Sometimes, it’s not the time to escape into denial and thoughtlessness. Sometimes it’s time to have another thought, a better thought, a Holy Spirit-breathed thought. Sometimes it’s time to think again.
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Radical
“Our spiritual life is a life in which we wait, actively present to the moment, expecting that new things will happen to us, new things that are far beyond our own imagination or prediction. This, indeed, is a very radical stance toward life in a world preoccupied with control.”
– Henri Nouwen
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By the Waters of Comfort
Relieve and comfort all the persecuted and afflicted;
speak peace to troubled consciences;
strengthen the weak;
confirm the strong;
instruct the ignorant;
deliver the oppressed from him that spoileth him;
and relieve the needy that hath no helper;
and being by us all, by the waters of comfort,
and in the ways of righteousness,
to the Kingdom of rest and glory,
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
-Jeremy Taylor
I sat in a waiting room this week. I knew before I got there the wait would be long. The day after Christmas and New Years holidays were over had a fun-is-done back-to-business feeling at the medical lab. It may have been business-like, but there were so many feelings swirling about in that room.
Legal measures taken to protect patient privacy are trumped by thin curtains between beds or loud conversations between patients and a masked receptionist behind a plexiglass wall. It reminds me of a scene from the old comedy show “Get Smart” when secret agents are covered by a “cone of silence” which required them to yell because they couldn’t hear each other. When the plexiglass wall of silence is in the middle of a crowded waiting room, all pretense of privacy is gone.
Some people are mortified at having to explain what is in the sample bottle they are dropping off and they avoid eye contact with other humans for the rest of the day. Others don’t seem to care. In fact, some people give their information freely (and repeatedly due to the impediments to communication). Then they take a number, sit down, and look for someone to tell their troubles to. There are a lot of troubles expressed in a crowded waiting room at the hospital lab in the week after the holidays.
I’m not good at blocking the sights and sounds out. I’ve been given advice on how to ignore sad stories whether they are told in winces and groans or given in long detailed descriptions, but I know what it is like to cry and not be heard. So I listen. It’s something I actually like about myself, so I’m not likely to take the advice to block people out. I can’t imagine a caring Jesus blocking out people out. Prioritizing getting away to a quiet place where he could hear his Father’s voice? Yes, but not by pretending he didn’t notice or treating people as if their stories were not important. He always brought encouragement.
It’s the getting away to be heard by our heavenly Father, and to listen to His peace and kindness that heals our own souls and allows us to walk in hope in the middle of hopelessness. The comfort he has given us is shareable. It’s called compassion.
Earlier, while waiting for my husband at his own appointment, I was able to stop by the lake on a cool cloudy January day. There, by the waters of comfort, I found peace in the presence of the Lover of my soul. I could continue a day of tests of various types knowing, no matter what, I am loved and therefore able to extend love. And when I’m running low, I’m learning there’s plenty more where that came from.
Charis: Subject to Change 