Empty Hangers

This morning's car ride starts with a question.  Before I can begin to gather my answer together, fold it neatly into a tidy playful paper airplane and send it zipping behind me to the backseat, another shoots forward, and another, and another, like I am suddenly under attack.

Coming face to face with my own inability to adequately answer each one, I call for silence and politely announce, “No more questions,” to my two curious co-pilots. 

In the quiet, I remember my own questions.  The ones that seem silly, the wonder-questions, the what-ifs, and the questions that I cannot even utter. 

Questions are like hangers.  They are meant to be dressed with answers.

Some hangers are made of wire and covered with t-shirts; others are more sophisticated with their sports coats and suits.  Small plastic painted hangers display teeny tiny newborn onesies while padded, elegant hangers hold up long, flowing wedding gowns.

  

Hangers are meant to be covered. 

Questions are meant to be answered.

No one dreams of a closet with rows and rows of empty hangers.  The joy is in the outfit, the possibility, the wonder of selecting and pairing and starting over if it doesn’t work out the first time.  An empty hanger is bare, naked. I do not like empty hangers, and I am terrified of the question that hangs without answer. 

Solutions are safe.  The possibility that there may not be one is risky, even dangerous.  A neatly packaged explanation is comforting; walking away without an answer is so incredibly uncomfortable. 

So what do we do with our empty hangers?
 

I want so badly to drape clothing that covers here. 

I seek beautiful, coordinating layers that balance and complement one another.

I long for accessories that polish the look and seem as if they were made for this. 

I crave a sense of tidiness, put-togetherness, and completion.

I want a solution.

Answers are filled with hope.  But could an empty hanger bring hope as well? 

Jesus hanging on a cross, bloody and bruised, was God’s solution.  The wooden hanger that held God's Solution to the fall of man was spoken of for centuries before the Answer was hung.  God was faithful then.  He is faithful now. 

 
Every question’s answer is Jesus.  He is the Answer the world waited for, not attractive or neat or tidy, but every bit perfect and complete.  God’s solution gave us Life.  God’s answer rescued us from darkness.  God explained Himself to us through Jesus, and He granted us peace through Jesus’ blood.  There was no other answer- only this perfect solution. 

If this was God’s most profound answer, might we find Hope here?  Instead of fearing the empty hanger, might we trust God, the Answer-Giver?   

Listen to the words of the prophet Isaiah... 

I will greatly rejoice in the Lord,
My soul shall be joyful in my God;
For He has clothed me with the garments of salvation,
He has covered me with the robe of righteousness,
As a bridegroom decks himself with ornaments,
And as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.

Isaiah 61:10

 
The empty hanger is necessary.  Jesus is God’s solution who hung there.  He is the Answer, the One who holds all things together.  No matter what the question may be, Jesus is enough.  The question may linger for years, for days, or mere seconds.   

God can handle the questions that hang unanswered- your curious questions as well as the questions that knot together in the deepest parts of your soul.  Hand them over to the Answer-Giver who came up with the perfect solution.  Then inhale Peace and grab onto Hope and be filled with Joy, knowing that Jesus covers you completely and perfectly.  The hanger may be empty, but you are dressed in Life, in Freedom, and in Beauty.

Dust Buster

He humbles those who dwell on high, he lays the lofty city low; he levels it to the ground and casts it down to the dust.  Isaiah 26:5

Lately, I’ve felt as though I am wrestling with God- trying to wrap my mind around this certain thing, seeking clear insight which I know can only come from Him.  And, quite honestly, it’s exhausting.  I’m tired.  I’m done- ready to quit.  I want to walk away- not from God, but from my own lack of understanding.

That’s when I remembered a man who might know how I feel.  A man I never met, but a man I feel as if I know very well.  A man who wrestled with God.  A man named Jacob.  Reading this story in Genesis 32, I am slowly beginning to see that Jacob had a lot of struggles. 

He struggled with the truth, and wound up deceiving others to get his way.
He struggled with pride, and had a bad habit of putting himself first. 
He struggled with fear, and though he could see angels all around him, Jacob did not trust God.

I have read this story dozens of times.  My grandfather’s name was Jacob, and my son carries that name as well.  I’ve scoured the pages of my bible, eager to learn more about this man blessed by God.  But today, God made some things pretty clear.  It was a lesson that changed my thinking and pierced my heart.

Jacob did not wrestle with God.  God wrestled with Jacob. 

The word wrestle means “to grapple or get dusty.”  This was a face-to-face, close encounter with Jesus.  And Jacob got dusty.  I have this sneaky suspicion that Jacob did not want to get down in the dirt, but God brought him low.  I bet Jacob thought with all of his pride and all of his strength and all of his conniving schemes that he just might win. 

The more and more I thought about it, I realized that this was not just a wrestling match.  This was God sculpting Jacob.  And though God was victorious, He was merciful as well.  Genesis 2 speaks of another close, face-to-face encounter between man and God:

Then the LORD God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.    Genesis 2:7

God, in His great love, knew that there were huge pieces of stone that had to be removed.  So, the great Artist, holding a chisel in His hand, set to work on the very man He created from the dust. Little by little, the unwanted stone is removed, and then the Artist bends down and blows the dust away, leaving something valuable and beautiful in its place… new life.

It is a remarkable process to watch a sculptor at work, but I can only imagine a very different perspective from the stone the Artist has seized.  Jacob had surrendered all he owned, yet he had not surrendered the very thing God was after- his heart.  He sent his family and all of his possessions on ahead of him as he waited to see what his fate would be when his brother Esau met him in the morning.  God knew Jacob needed to be alone so that He could chisel away his pride, his selfish motives, and his unbelief. And in that wrestling match of God trying to get Jacob to let go, he found himself holding on to God- only God- and in that moment he surrendered himself completely.  After that encounter, God changed Jacob’s name to Israel which means, “God rules.”  Psalm 103 explains why it is such a beautiful thing to let God rule over our lives.

As a father has compassion on his children, so the LORD has compassion on those who fear him; for he knows how we are formed, he remembers that we are dust.    Psalm 103:13-14

God knew that for Jacob to become Israel, sculpting had to happen.  Getting dusty reminds us of our position and establishes God in His right position- above us.  But God, in His love and compassion, did not leave Jacob dusty, He came face-to-face with him and blew all the dust away.  Jacob’s words after his night of wrestling with God reveal God’s deeper work.

So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, “It is because I saw God face to face, and yet my life was spared.”   Genesis 32:30

No one could see God and live, and Jacob knew he had seen the face of God.  Some translations read “yet my life was preserved,” or “delivered,” suggesting that God rescued Jacob from his fate.  And God most certainly did rescue Jacob.  But a closer look reveals a deeper truth.  This word in the Hebrew language means “to take away or strip off something.”  Jacob needed a new name, because God removed the parts of the old man that kept him from being who God created him to be.  Without those pieces of stone, Jacob was free to walk in God’s purpose for his life, a new and changed man.  And the name God chose was a reminder to Jacob who ruled his life. 

I am beginning to see that this wrestling is not really wrestling at all.  It’s holding, . . . chiseling, . . . stripping.  It’s face-to-face personal.  And as any artist knows, sculpting takes time. 

Though there were many areas of his life that God had to remove, Jacob did this one thing really, really well.  He prayed.  He was afraid, and he struggled to trust God, but he prayed.  Not only did he pray when his fear overwhelmed him, he prayed God’s word.  He remembered the promise God made to him many years before, and when it got personal and he got dusty, he clung to the Promise-maker, understanding that sculpting was part of God’s plan in bringing that promise to fruition. 

“I am the LORD, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac.  I will give you and your descendants the land on which you are lying.  Your descendants will be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out to the west and to the east, to the north and to the south.  All peoples on earth will be blessed through you and your offspring.  I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land.  I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.”  Genesis 28:13-15

Pun-kin Pickin'

 

When the Wind Blows

Therefore I remind you to stir up the gift of God which is in you...  
2 Timothy 1:6

I have been spending time in 2 Timothy, Paul’s last and final letter.  His words carry so much weight.  Timothy, young and timid, needed to be reminded of who He was in Christ.  Oh, how I can relate to Timothy!  Paul makes this statement to Timothy and I can hear God whispering the same, very thing to me:  I remind you, Kelly, to stir up the gift of God which is in you…

Other translations read “fan into flame” or “rekindle,” and this got me thinking:  When a fire is dying, a strong wind has the ability to put it out completely. But blowing gently on the embers will do the opposite.  This type of wind can revive a fading and flickering flame. Those embers, once rekindled, can produce a great, big fire.  When there is a steady fire, that same strong wind has the ability to spread those flames... like wildfire.

Hurricane Ike was my first hurricane. I remember being terrified just by the sound of the wind.  I laid in bed awake that night wondering if the force of those screeching winds would pluck the roof right off our house. I will never forget that storm- not because our roof was damaged- it wasn’t. It will forever stand out in my journey with Jesus because very soon a storm would strike in my own life that would last more than a day and threaten to steal more than the roof above my head.

During that storm, my world was dark.  I wondered if the waiting would ever end.  Painful loss ripped my heart in two.  It felt as if the wind that was blowing could most certainly swoop down and steal my faith. But my faith was not extinguished; it was strengthened through that storm.  The unpredictable raging winds exposed many holes in my faith that desperately needed to be repaired and lies I had accepted that needed to be replaced with truth.  Though those winds were necessary for the work God was doing in my heart, it was a much gentler wind that met me in my drenched state.  This wind did not howl; it did not shriek or threathen.  It soothed my soul and refreshed my heart.  It sounded a lot like this:

I haven’t forgotten you.

You are not alone.

I will never leave you.

I have a plan.

You are mine.

In 2 Timothy 3:16, Paul tells Timothy that “all Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.”  God’s word is His very breath.  It is His love letter to us, and it has a beautiful sound.  It meets us right where we are with all of our questions, all of our fears, and right in the middle of our messes.

My fire was still flickering, but it was in a state of crisis.  I needed Jesus to breathe life into me and resurrect my faith. And He did just that, through His word.  I found hope in the pages and discovered a direct line of communication with my loving Father.  I wondered how I had lived so many years thinking my bible was just a history book, a tidy collection of stories about some people that lived a really, really long time ago in a place really, really far from here.  But you know what?  I happen to have a whole lot in common with those people. Listen to the words Jesus speaks as He reunites with His closest followers after rising from the grave.

On the evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples were together, with the doors locked for fear of the Jewish leaders, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!” After he said this, he showed them his hands and side. The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord.  Again Jesus said, “Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.”  And with that he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.”

John 20:19-22

The disciples were afraid.  They had questions.  Certain men in that very room had made monumental messes.  They did not understand that Jesus had to rise from the dead, so their faith had been put to the ultimate test.  They desperately needed Jesus to breath life into them; to blow on the embers of their hearts and rekindle their faith.  They were scared and uncertain and most definitely did not have power so Jesus gave them this gift- the Holy Spirit- that would spark a fire so great that it would eventually spread like wildfire.

When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them.  All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.

Acts 2:1-4

God literally used a hurricane force wind to blow through this house and ignite a fire that would spread the gospel through the power of the Holy Spirit using a bunch of fearful followers.  And thousands believed- three thousand, to be exact!  The stormy winds in our own lives have the potential to spread the love of Jesus like wildfire, too.  Paul's letter to Timothy shows us how. 

Paul knew that Timothy’s fire was weak, but he knew that the power of the Holy Spirit could revive Timothy’s faith and make it even stronger in the face of persecution and suffering.  Paul tells Timothy (and he tells us) in 2 Timothy 4:2, “Share the word; be prepared in season and out of season;” when it’s convenient and when it’s not; during the storm and during good weather. Oh, how simple it is to speak of God's love when I feel it shining all around me!  It's another thing entirely to believe that He is good when life is not.  Fierce winds that rush in unexpectedly often leave questions hanging with no answers.  But God's love stretches farther than any storm or hurricane, and His gentle breath is more powerful than any wind that blows our way. 
 
In the Bible, God used the wind to provide:  He used it to hold back the water of the Red Sea so the people could cross on dry land; He used it to bring quail into the wilderness for the people to eat.  Sometimes, we get to look back and see how God used the strong winds in our lives; and sometimes we don't.  Even if we don't ever know the why, we can find peace in knowing the Who.  God created the wind, He commands the wind, and He can use the wind in any way He chooses.  As Elijah learned, sometimes we have to look past the wind and past the storm, and strain our ears to hear that gentle whisper.  God's word- His very breath- is enough to sustain us, revive us, and renew us.  Let Jesus breathe fresh wind into your life today.


He who forms the mountains, who creates the wind, and who reveals his thoughts to mankind, who turns dawn to darkness, and treads on the heights of the earth- the Lord God Almighty is his name. 

Amos 4:13