Tuesday, February 23, 2016

How One Simple Gesture Can Combat Fear


So do not fear, for I am with you; 
Do not be dismayed, for I am your God. 
I will strengthen you and help you; 
I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.  
Isaiah 41:10


It’s the kind of sunny, crisp day that lures the entire family out to play before dinner.  My long-legged girl swings back and forth, pumping to make the swing go higher and higher.

“I’m swinging so high I can see heaven,” she yells.

Her brother, on the swing beside her, laughs and says, “Yeah! Me too!”

“No, really! I can see Jesus,” she insists, recognizing the faint shred of disbelief in his voice. “And He’s holding my hand!” she adds, raising her hand toward the sky.

“He’s holding your hand?” he asks. I’m thinking the exact same thing.

“Of course, silly,” she responds fearlessly. “Jesus is always holding my hand.”

My momma heart prays that she will remember this when life gets hard, troubling or unfair. I walk through most of my days forgetting that Jesus is holding my hand.  Sometimes, I completely ignore the fact that not only is He with me, but Jesus is for me.

Holding Jesus’ hand is the simplest way to combat fear.

When I was seven, I was caught in a terrifying thunderstorm in the middle of an amusement park.  I remember two things as vividly as if they happened yesterday:  first, the earsplitting sound of thunder and second, the sense of security I felt as I held my grandpa’s hand. All the way through the crowd of panicked people trying to make their way through the drenching rain, Pop squeezed my hand. Each time the black sky split open with lightning, his hand reminded me that he would keep me safe.

The power of this simple gesture isn’t reserved for childhood. I’ll never forget the day my friend held my hand and, through tears, begged God for a miracle. She knew I wanted a baby more than anything, and she also knew I was struggling to believe. Fear had invaded my heart and threatened to take over. Her touch told me that my burden had become hers. She was fighting in my corner, because fear had stolen my will to fight.

There’s security, affection, love and loyalty, but there’s also an intimacy that holding hands invokes. I love that my hand gets lost in my husband’s. After fourteen years of marriage, it communicates commitment. It reminds me that our relationship is based on a love that grows deeper with time. When all three of our babies were born, he was there beside me as I nearly crushed every bone in his hand with mine. Holding his hand made the pain bearable and the fear subside. It changed everything, holding his hand.

The beauty in this simple gesture is a joining together of weak with strong.


In relationship, strong and weak are often interchangeable. In each of these instances, I was weak –either emotionally, spiritually, or physically- but in time it was my turn to be strong for the very same people who had been strong for me.

In the last months of his life, I held Pop’s hand when his mind convinced him we were strangers. Years after my friend stood in the gap for me, I held her hand and begged God to move in her marriage. I held my husband’s hand when he lost someone he loved. 

Holding hands is an extension of the relationship. The gesture itself remains constant, but the role of those joined together can fluctuate. We alternate holding each other up. We take turns being strong, and we take turns being weak.

It is an entirely different experience when we hold hands with the One who remains constant.

In Isaiah 41:10 God uses the name Elohiym, which means “strong God.” He remains strong and constant and always present. He won’t reject us or ever let go. God will never grow tired of being for us. It’s just who He is. He doesn’t expect us to be anything but held.

When I extend my hand, I extend trust. I choose to be vulnerable. Admitting I need Someone stronger means admitting I’m not strong. It means accepting that I am weak. I’m realizing that my issue is not just that I don’t remember Jesus is here. It’s much more than forgetfulness. There’s a rebelliousness in me that refuses to grab hold. 

I want to take His hand after my prayers sound pretty and my faith feels deep and my questions are answered.  I don’t want to come honestly, vulnerably, messy and confused, because that means I have nothing to offer. I don’t want to be weak.

Fear tricks me into believing that I can’t come to Jesus as I am: broken and in need. But it’s often in my weakest moments, when I have no other options, that I move towards Him and take His hand. There in His grip, I remember that He chose me. 

Love leaves no room for fear. We could never earn His love, so we can never lose His love. Jesus makes this amazing promise in John 10:28 that’s bold enough to eliminate any fear: “No one can snatch them out of my hand.”

Jesus’ hand is just an extension of God’s irrevocable gift.

May we be reminded that we are chosen and dearly loved by a God willing and able to handle our hearts. May we move toward Jesus with empty hands and a broken spirit rather than arms full of excuses and pride. May we recognize that our only option is to be held by Jesus’ strong, nail-scarred hand. And may fear melt away in His grip.

Jesus love you,
Kelly



Tuesday, January 26, 2016

When Life Feels out of Control

As the end of 2015 approached, we all held onto our hopes and dreams and questions, and we sucked in real deep and held our breath. One phone call can change the entire landscape of a family. We waited with heads bowed. In a room full of twinkling lights and Christmas joy, we confessed that joy seemed far away, but we asked for it anyway. We begged God to move. In the middle of that family prayer, I began to recognize an intense desire to build. As I grappled with questions I couldn’t answer, dreams I couldn’t keep, and dread I couldn’t shake, I sensed God’s gentle invitation:

Stop building and start worshiping.

I found myself wanting to build case for God, as if He needed that from me. I wanted to make sense of what God was doing so that I would feel better, but attempting to manipulate and rationalize a mysterious, holy God is a disaster waiting to happen. It’s a tower that needs to fall.

We are all broken, and because of this, we all build. Building only gives the illusion of control. We build when we don't trust or when we don't like that God is telling us to wait. We build as a way to cope. Building busies us. That's why we like it. Satan likes it, too, because as long as we’re building, our eyes aren’t focused on God. 

Worship is the opposite of building; worship is surrender.



There’s a strange comradery I always sense as I read Genesis 11, the account of a people caught trying to build their way to heaven. God told the sons of Noah to scatter and multiply across the earth.  They didn't like God's plan too much, so they put their heads together and decided to try real hard to make a name for themselves. And they found it wasn’t that hard after all. 

They said to each other, “Come, let’s make bricks and bake them thoroughly.” They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar. Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves; otherwise we will be scattered over the face of the whole earth.” Genesis 11:3-4

They were building a tower God knew would fall, so in mercy, He rescued them. I’m sure it felt nothing like being rescued, though. I’m sure they felt the full weight of frustration and panic, but the confusion God allowed came from a deep well of never-ending love. 

But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower the people were building. The Lord said, “If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.” Genesis 11:5-7

Bricks symbolize a heavy burden God never intended for us to carry. We weren’t made to reign and rule; we were made to worship. God created us for relationship. He designed our hearts to love Him.

Worshiping God recalibrates our hearts to do what they were designed to do.

Left on our own, we’re confronted with the same reckless desire as the people who thought their tower of bricks and mortar could reach the heavens. There is something in our collective DNA that wants our name praised. If we’re honest, the thought of sitting on the throne thrills us. Bricks offer the fastest, easiest way to build what we believe we’re after: control. Humility that accompanies worship reminds us that God alone is on the throne. Bowing before a loving God who can’t lie and won’t change is much simpler than the burdensome pursuit of control. 

Worshiping God repositions us before the throne.

Worship realigns our posture, compelling us to drop our bricks and pick up something much lighter instead. Fast forward through time and space all the way to the opposite bookend, Revelation, where this beautiful exchange is played out.

After this I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands. And they cried out in a loud voice: “Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb.” Revelation 7:9-10

Every language spoken on earth is fused together through this one proclamation of praise. Hands that once held bricks now hold palm branches. Light, airy, and beautifully vibrant palm branches.

In the Old Testament, at the same time each year, temporary tents were constructed with palm branches. The people lived in these ‘booths’ for seven straight days. Rejoicing and feasting were had by all. God wanted His people to remember how He had rescued their ancestors out of Egypt. These temporary shelters reminded the people how God had provided for them in the wilderness. The palm branches reminded them that God’s presence was their shelter.

I find it more than a bit ironic that many of the Jewish slaves were given the arduous task of making bricks by their Egyptian taskmasters. Bricks represent bondage.  Palm branches represent victory. God invites us all to experience the freedom that comes when we exchange bricks for branches, and we don’t have to wait until we get to heaven to make the trade. Jesus, as He hung bruised and bloody on the cross, satisfied the wrath of God towards sin. As He walked out of the grave three days later, Jesus defeated sin and death and darkness permanently.  Victory belongs to Jesus, and when He takes up residence within us, victory becomes our inheritance.

Worshiping God renews our minds so we understand what is ours in Jesus.

It doesn’t mean that we’re exempt from pain, but God offers something that has the power to change the way we walk through every struggle we face. Control isn’t really even what we crave; it’s Hope. Jesus is our Hope.

As 2016 begins, we will all be confronted again with the desire to build. Losses, disappointments, and hardships will cause us to examine whether we’re holding bricks that weigh down our hearts or branches that proclaim God is good and all He does is good. Worship always brings us back to Jesus, the One who has already overcome every struggle we’re yet to face.

May we kneel, right where we are and just as we are, to worship. May we drop heavy, stone-cold bricks and stretch out our arms to wave palm branches instead. May God recalibrate our hearts, realign our posture, and renew our minds as we worship together in one voice the One who holds all things together.

Jesus Loves You,
Kelly





Monday, January 11, 2016

One Word for 2016


Every January, rather than jotting down a list of resolutions I’ll fail to keep, I ask God to give me one word for the upcoming year. It’s a simple way to focus on what He’s already teaching me.  My word for 2016 is adore. This one word captures all my heart was designed to do here on earth and for all eternity.


Adore. (verb)
1.     To regard with the utmost esteem, love, and respect; honor; worship
2.     To love intensely or deeply
3.     To honor and admire profoundly and respectfully; implies love and stresses the notion of an individual and personal attachment
  
To adore God means I’m enthralled in what God thinks of me rather than what others think of me. It means everything I do, speak, and think attempts to honor His name. It changes the way I spend my time and the way I spend my money. It sinks down deep into the cracks below the surface. It involves far more than singing a few songs one morning a week.

Adoring God is a lifestyle hinged on Love.

I discovered in my twenties that something was missing from my life. I grew up loving Jesus, reading my Bible, going to church. For years I believed the huge empty hole was children. I was wrong.  What was missing was a passionate love affair with Jesus. Back then I loved Jesus, but I’d never fallen head-over-heels in love with Him. 

Much of this discovery came when I struggled with a God who claimed to love me yet did not seem to answer my prayers for a baby. He seemed to be answering everyone else’s but mine. It was the struggle that drew me to His Word, but somewhere within those tissue paper pages, He began to do an amazing work. I began to want Jesus more than I wanted my prayers answered.  I still longed to hold a baby in my arms, but something was happening in the secret crevices of my heart. Love was taking over. Love was changing me.

In my thirties, I realize that not only do I need Jesus, but my heart desperately wants Him. This year, I want to give more and more of myself over to the One who loves me perfectly and passionately.  I want to love the one who loved me first.

It isn’t a box to be checked off some list. It’s way more personal than that.  I don’t know about you, but I want to experience the full effect of a heart that adores Him. I want that more than anything. We can’t accomplish it on our own, but we can ask the Holy Spirit to teach our hearts how to adore God with every aspect of our being. As a desire for God intensifies on the inside, a dramatic change occurs on the outside.

The more we love God, the more we love what God loves.

As we give more and more of ourselves over to Perfect Love, our hearts begin to look more like His. Deep burdens that never existed before all of a sudden begin to burn with holy passion. Compassion that has been foreign to us our entire lives becomes our new motivation. And most of all, we start to see everything through a whole new set of eyes- eyes that can no longer look away. Our hearts will beg God to keep opening them wider and wider even though it means our hearts will break deeper and deeper. Love never leaves us as we were.

Love takes us where we never knew we always wanted to go.

O come, let us adore Him...
… and let Love light a flame within our hearts this year.

What is your one word for 2016? I'd love to hear from you!

Jesus Loves You,
Kelly