Waiting for Resurrection

Our life with God is in the process of growing: there is a tension between the now and the “not yet.” While the plan for who He meant us to be was in the mind and heart of God before we were conceived, the living out of that destiny takes place, here on earth, through a process of time and trust.

 On this day, Holy Saturday as the liturgical church calls it, Jesus is in a place of utter waiting and trust on God to resurrect Him. As a man He did not have the power to resurrect Himself, He had to wait for His Father. So likewise, we cannot bring life to ourselves but must surrender to God, knowing that His love for us will not forget us, will not abandon us, will not hurt us, but will bring us to a higher life than we have known. This is not a hopeful truism, but a living truth!

 Jesus understands waiting in trust for God to bring life and resurrection. He understands the vulnerability of waiting in hope, and trusting in faith. Today we can all say that there is something within us that is giving place, perhaps in fits and starts, to who we are yet to become. The sons and daughters of God are being revealed. The life of God is welling up within us ready to bud forth new things that will glorify and reflect God’s nature in us.

 Ponder happily that this day signifies that we are moving from the valley of the shadow of death to our rightful place beneath the shadow of His wings! So let us surrender ourselves into the hands of our Father. Though we be in an “in-between” place, a place of almost there but not yet, we know that “He who has begun a good work in us will continue to carry it through to completion in Christ Jesus” (Phil 1:6) Look to your Father and to your Saviour!

Resurrection awaits!

 

Stepping it Up a Notch at 60

 “So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom. Return, O Lord, how long? and let it repent thee concerning thy servants. O satisfy us early with thy mercy; that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.” (Psalm 90:12-14) 

While we are eternal beings in an ultimately real sense, we are also mortals while on this earth. The Psalmist tells us to “number our days” that we might gain perspective of how short earthly life is compared to eternity, and how imperative it is that our earthly sojourn count much for the eternal kingdom of God.

 A couple of us at Women of the Word are turning 60 this year! With that comes a soberness of heart that causes us to turn to the Lord, and implore Him to use us as He wills. There can be nothing held back from Him in this hour. As our bodies age, our spirit can burn every more brightly because we identify with our Lord and understand His purposes and ways in an even greater way. The desire and pursuits of earlier decades give way to increasingly wholehearted and unreserved abandon to our God and His passionate work to win all peoples to Himself.

 There are some things that can not be completely done when we are young because we do not yet have the experience. Maturity in God happens over the course of decades-- line upon line of faithful walking with God, day in and day out, through the many storms of life. While youth has energy, the seasoned have come to know that of themselves, they can do nothing and their self-trust has given way to trust in God alone, or at least a deeper understanding of that. There are no shortcuts to some things. Knowing where you end, and where God begins is a great wisdom.

 Paul writes, “Moreover [let us also be full of joy now!] let us exult and triumph in our troubles and rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that pressure and affliction and hardship produce patient and unswerving endurance. 4 And endurance develops maturity of character (approved faith and tried integrity). And character produces joyful and confident hope of eternal salvation. Such hope never disappoints or deludes or shames us, for God’s love has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit Who has been given to us. While we were yet in weakness [powerless to help ourselves], at the fitting time Christ died for us in our ungodly condition Romans 5:3-6 Amplified).

By the time we turn 60, our character is soberingly starting to show itself for what it is. Now is our wake-up call to be awake, and surrendered, and fit for the Master’s use. For if not now, when? If we have not taken the claims of Jesus upon our life seriously, we had best get down on our knees. And if we have, there are always deeper, more wonderful depths to plumb.

I feel that I am only getting to the starting line and I have endeavored to run the race with sobriety for these many decades! God views our life from the finish point. He stands at our finish line and beckons us to run well, run with abandon, run with character, run with grace. So let us do that, with all our mind, heart, soul and strength. There is no time to lose, and no time like the present to press into God.

Truth in Another Direction

Day to day, week to week, month to month or even year to year, our beliefs can remain fixed in a certain ways.  We "believe" things because that is what we were raised with, what we feel life has taught us, or that is what our family or church has taught us.  We form our lives around those beliefs but I can guarantee you that they are incomplete, and being incomplete, they distort and limit.

I hate to tell  you this, but your beliefs about God are currently constrained by what you think you know. What you know may be true, but it is incomplete or your experience of it is incomplete. Paul writes, "we see through a glass darkly" 1 Cor 13:12.  When Jesus spoke with and taught people you will notice that He was always telling parables that would interrupt old patterns of thinking so that His Truth could find a way in. He knew that He had to overcome the layers, and to be so bold, the lies, of what people had been taught about God.  Let me tell you a secret: Jesus is still doing that with you right now!

For all the truth that you have, there is truth to be found in the opposite direction.  If you dwell in the truth, the good and beautiful truth that God is love, then one day God will take you into the fields were He hates (Proverbs 16:6-9) and makes war (Ex 15:3) (Matthew 21:12-17) all with good reason.  There are untold facets of God that we will miss if we live in the shallows.  We tend to settle into those places, into those beliefs, into those verses, that we are comfortable with: but God loves us enough to hate that!  He wants to show us that He is the I AM. That He is beyond our categories and our current thoughts  about Him.  In the Chronicles of Narnia, CS Lewis writes this:

“Aslan is a lion- the Lion, the great Lion." "Ooh" said Susan. "I'd thought he was a man. Is he-quite safe? I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion"..."Safe?" said Mr Beaver ..."Who said anything about safe? 'Course he isn't safe. But he's good. He's the King, I tell you.”  

Do feel both alarmed and comforted when one day, perhaps  this day,  you hear roaring coming from the back of your wardrobe. It is God coming to take you into truth in a seemingly opposite direction.  It is God coming to show you the fullness of who He is.  He is not safe, but He is good.  Prepare for take-off.>