Knowing Amidst the Tempest

            Since moving to Montana, I’ve committed myself to exploring my natural surroundings every available weekend (weather permitting!). Today I ventured up Drinking Horse Mountain, a quick 1 mile jaunt up a hillside. Parts of the trail are steep and laborious, but multiple viewpoints reward the hiker who pauses to enjoy the journey rather than simply beeline to the top. I stopped a couple times, secretly appreciating the respite for my lungs, and allowed my senses to absorb the sights and sounds.

The final stretch of the trail is the steepest. I paused for a moment to catch my breath. That moment turned into one of those random pictures that God gives us of our spiritual journey. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed the progress I’d made since my previous stop at one of the viewpoints. With my feet still pointing uphill, I looked over my shoulder to the path below. I thought to myself, “This must be why I love hiking: it’s an active metaphor for Christian living.” I stood with my feet planted in the direction I needed to move in order to obtain the final goal, but in my moment of catching my breath, I recalled the pauses along the path that had inspired me to continue my quest for the hilltop.

This past week has been tough. I especially miss my dad. We didn’t necessarily spend a lot of time together in Oregon, but he was ‘always there,’ and when we were together it was quality time. He’s a man I respect , and on whose wisdom I rely in many ways. I feel homesick, not for a place but for family. This leads to loneliness, and sometimes I slip into discouragement or frustration that God doesn’t change certain circumstances.  Then I end up battling guilt because God answered a prayer I’ve prayed for years (living in Montana), yet my desire for other areas to change means that leading me to Montana isn’t enough. Or condemnation sets in for not trusting God enough or being patient enough for the rest of my dreams or for His timing to be perfect.

Today I couldn’t escape the awareness that God had a significant piece of life’s puzzle that He wanted to put in its place. Since nobody else was on the hill at that moment, and my emotions were clouding my spiritual ears, I resigned myself to pacing like a crazy person, praying out loud, and singing until He accomplished what He wanted. Eventually I perched on a rock and turned my face toward heaven, closing my eyes. The Holy Spirit whispered a verse that I have always struggled with. Psalm 46:10, “Be still, and know that I am God….” I’ve never really been able to “be still,” so at first this verse frustrated me. (Can’t You speak any other verse, Holy Spirit?!) I kept my eyes closed and listened to the wind rush through the treetops around me. Picturing the words in my mind, I asked God to show me what He meant at that moment in that verse.

“Know.”

God instructs us to know that He is God. He doesn’t ask His followers to believe. He doesn’t suggest we try to have faith. He doesn’t say to feel assured. He says: “KNOW that I AM GOD.” How do we know anything? Unfortunately, as a product of a primarily postmodern education system, my mind works overtime trying to distinguish, ascertain, pinpoint, and dissect everything, often through questioning. I have been taught to doubt everything until it is proven. Separating this questioning of man’s philosophies from God’s Word is sometimes difficult for me.

But God has proven Himself. He provided us a written record of His acts, His character, and His will for mankind – both corporately and individually. He tells us Who He is. He reveals Who He is through what He has created, what He has done, and what He is doing. He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Our ability to recognize this Truth is provided by God’s grace in opening our spiritual eyes that we may see. We can know (recognize and understand) that He is God because “to [His children] it has been given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God…” (Mark 4:11).

I made the right decision to move to Montana, but it was also a step of faith, and I don’t think the enemy sits on his laurels when he sees us pressing deeper in the life of faith to which God has called us. I get the distinct impression that he reacts in precisely the opposite manner. God makes it abundantly clear that He is sovereign, and that we are to rely upon Him alone – for everything. Not that He doesn’t use people, but that people are merely a vehicle through which He disseminates grace and blessings.

Last night I wanted to turn off my alarm so that I could skip church, go for a hike, and then spend my day indulging in reading. I figured I could justify this by the fact that I’m reading a bunch of spiritual books right now. I sensed that acquiescing to my emotions would be giving a foothold to the enemy, though, and that I needed to drag myself to church, if for no other reason than to not give the enemy room to work in my mind and heart. Once there, I sat miserably in a chair, ridiculously insecure and plotting my escape as soon as the sermon was over. I ran out for a drink of water between the music and sermon, fully intending to avoid the awkward “say hello to someone near you” interval, but to little avail. Even sitting in my chair with a cup of water and not making eye contact, several people shoved a hand in my personal space, smiled, and said, “Good morning.”

As is typical of these types of Sundays, God used the message to encourage me at a time when I needed it most. The guest speaker, a pastor from Romania, preached from Matthew 8:23-27. This passage relates the story of Jesus sleeping in the boat when a tempest causes the fishermen (disciples) to fear for their lives. Jesus chastises His disciples for lack of faith, and then rebukes the wind and waves.  While the sermon wasn’t a newsflash by any means, the message was timely. The pastor reminded us to view stormy seasons in our lives through the correct lens. Basically: storms will come, the Holy Spirit will remind us of God’s promises, God has a purpose in storms, and Jesus goes through storms with us. The pastor used a simple analogy to sum up his message. A mouthful of flour or oil alone is distasteful, but a cook can take ingredients that, on their own, are unpleasant, and combine them into something sumptuous. So also God takes the storms of our lives and puts them together into something beautiful.

Loneliness is a tempest tossing many upon her angry waves. She respects no person: married or single, rich or poor, alone or surrounded by a multitude. We can take comfort in the fact that loneliness is a common experience within mankind, and as an emotion therefore subject to God’s sovereignty; however, I often succumb to the lie that I can avert loneliness by sheer will. I clinch my jaw, throw my shoulders back, and refuse to cry because there’s no crying in faith.

How wrong I am!

A few weeks ago, I faced a bout of loneliness. We stood 10 paces from each other, revolvers strapped to our sides, hands ready for the draw. Thinking I outsmarted Loneliness, I blasted away with my resolve to guard my heart and mind. I would not miss my family – they’re doing what God has called them to, and I’m a big girl. I would not succumb to the desire to be married – God obviously has other plans for me, so why bother wanting what He withholds. I would not consider myself alone, and therefore would not consider myself lonely – after all, I have Jesus! And so I shored up my heart, and I smugly asked Loneliness what she thought of her abilities to mess with me now.

Just one small problem…

I. I. I. I I I I.

After a few prideful days, I was miserable. Pride opened the door to so many other lies: God does not love me, I am forgotten, He has no plan for my life…. As I turned to Scriptures, God drew me back to Phil. 4:5-7, among other passages, “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.” These 2 verses pack an amazing quantity of cud for gurgitation. Typically, I get so stuck on the 3^rd phrase (giving thanks in everything) that my mind stops absorbing the full message by the end.

This time around, the final phrase pounded my conscious: “…will guard your hearts and minds….” No doubt existed in my mind; no measure of pride remained. Clearly I had sinned at the inception of my battle with Loneliness. I had taken up my weapons in a defensive posture, and I had resolved to protect my heart and mind. But God’s Word says that God’s peace will guard my heart and mind through Christ. I had usurped God’s role, God’s responsibility, God’s position. My pride had elevated my significance in my perception of my spiritual battles.

The result of my pride, of my efforts to protect myself, became apparent. I did not guard my heart and my mind. I had hardened my heart and mind. I subconsciously shoved people away, believing that this would protect me. The impact went even deeper: I had allowed the enemy a platform from which he could batter my heart and mind with lies about God.

This week I struggled with loneliness once again. The initial ‘high’ from new surroundings dissipated. The physical separation from loved ones took its toll. The lack of a ‘pardner’ frustrated me. Yet this time around when I felt the darkness moving in, I prayed those words from Scripture: “God, please grant your peace to guard my heart and mind.” The sadness, the sense of loneliness, did not lift from my shoulders, but the burden’s weight slackened as our faithful Father responded to a heart and mind yielded to His ways.

“Be still, and KNOW….”

            

           God grants us the knowledge that He is God. This isn’t a one time ‘knowing.’ It isn’t a, “Now you know, so go have fun with life.” This is life: to be still, and know. We do not guard our own heart and mind from hurt, hope, loneliness, frustration, doubt. We do not enlighten our soul through our own effort. Our futile attempts at controlling ‘my’ life rupture the communication between our soul and our Savior, inhibiting His work in our lives. And we crash and burn.

Today I sought God’s presence within the serenity of His beautiful creation. My soul cried out to Him, and He answered. Just as I looked over my shoulder at my progress up Drinking Horse Mountain, so also I surveyed my spiritual journey. We are not to dwell morosely on the past, but memory provides perspective on how far God has brought us – and encouragement that if He can bring us thus far, how much farther He will lead us yet!

A Gentle & Quiet Spirit Submitted to God

On October 3, 2012, my mother illustrated to her two unmarried daughters the example of a godly wife. For those of you who know my mom, you know that family means the world to her. You also know that she did not want to move to Brazil, and she especially did not want to leave her daughters. I say my mom illustrated a godly wife on October 3, but that’s just because my parents boarded an airplane that day. The reality is, my mom spent several months prior to their flights preparing for a move that her emotions felt no deep desire to make.

My mom is the most gifted homemaker I know. She can transform a rundown, ramshackle building into a beautifully designed and decorated living space. She can also cook. And clean. And iron (which I will never be able to do!). I watched her balance these home duties with being a farmer’s wife for years, and then a pastor’s wife.  She spent hours of her day to commuting her children to and from school, sometimes driving as much as 1 hour each direction, twice a day. She has lived a life devoted to blessing her husband, children, and grandchildren.

One of my favorite things that my mom taught me how to do is cooking. Mom invested in my life as a young person, allowing me to venture into the kitchen, and sometimes even giving me a choice between helping to move pipe in the corn fields or making dinner for the family. She taught me the best chocolate chip cookie recipe in the world, and she continues to provide tips, advice, and encouragement in the kitchen. I don’t remember ever being criticized for making a “bad” meal. If anything, I somehow baked myself into the role of Dessert Queen in the family!

Mom is not a perfect human being. Difficult as it is to admit, I’m fairly awful a lot of times. Mom and I are similar in areas like taking pleasure in homemaking, feeling compassion for the suffering, and the ability to enjoy any activity as long as we’re with someone we care about. We also differ starkly in other areas. Overall, I tend to have more of my dad’s personality. Sometimes I focus on the differences between me and others, and as a result I’ve been pretty hard on my mom over the years. But this year I’ve seen qualities in my mother that I wish I’d perceived much earlier. I’m thankful that, even if nobody else reads my blog, my mom will be that faithful reader who always supports and loves her daughter so much that I could type “flying frisbee frypan” and she’d consider it worth a Nobel Prize!

I read through several books of the Bible this summer, and I’ve spent the last couple months re-reading them. As a verse jumps out, I highlight it and spend time (days, weeks) meditating on it. Most of the time, I’ve sensed a fairly instant understanding of what God desired to speak into my heart as I read and prayed. One verse, though, has ruminated for much longer than the others.

I Peter 3:4, “…rather let it be the hidden person of the heart, with the incorruptible beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is very precious in the sight of God.”

I struggled with this verse for a few months. I understand that submission to one’s husband is biblical, and ultimately reflects my submission to Christ. I comprehend that a woman’s true beauty is internal, not merely external. (Phew! Because “pony tail” is about as high tech as I can get with my hair!) What I couldn’t connect, and what I believe that God has been teaching me over the last couple years, is that through submission He works freedom.

God has spent a couple years radically chiseling on my character. He’s shown me so many things. My life goal should consist of one thing, and one thing alone: to glorify the One who created and redeemed me. My circumstances do not affect God’s call: circumstances affect only the practical ‘daily doings’ of the call. Not that the capacity for glorifying Him is something I can come up with. Even for performing the only task that matters, I am completely reliant upon His provision and grace! God has healed hurts and insecurities, resentments and fears. He has comforted, chastised, and blessed. His Spirit has instructed and revolutionized my heart, mind, and soul.

Thank God, I will never be finished learning and growing in Christ, either. The more God reveals to me about Himself, the more I become aware that I lack knowledge and understanding. God’s faithfulness to disclose His attributes and His desires for my life, though, generates a thirst in my soul to run ever deeper into my relationship with Him.

This verse in I Peter deserves much more extensive attention than I’m going to give it right now. If I get around to actually writing the whole book, I’ll expound upon the depths of these 29 words. They are amazing and inspiring, and I know that God is going to continue working these words into my heart over the years. I hope that He can use me to inspire other young women as well, in His time.

Our society has drifted far beyond the message that a woman does not have to submit to her husband. Society is violently bent upon demanding that women arise and take charge of the home, work place, and country. Bras have been burned, corsets shredded, and bonnets buried. Now the pitchforks are out, and women are hunting down anything male that implies “submission of the feminine.” We have largely emasculated men, beating them into a subservient role that seeks constantly to elevate the value of womanhood.

The reality is that according to the Word of God, women are valuable. Read Proverbs 31. Read about Sarah, Hannah, Ruth, Abigail, Esther, Deborah, Rahab, Mary, Lydia, or any other female among the host of godly women. These women were valuable to and valued by God. They also share another bond: they submitted to their husbands as a reflection of their submission to God, and through this divinely ordained submission He used the women to accomplish great things for His kingdom and for His people..

At creation, God imbued the feminine with incomparable value. He gave to woman a task that He gave not to man. He entrusted the wife with a calling designed to complement the mission of her husband. The question is not whether women have value if they submit to a man, but rather, what character does God value in His daughters? What good works does He desire to accomplish in my life, and what attitude do those works require?

The last few months, I’ve watched my mom exemplify a godly woman. I can think of no greater example than the massive garage sale, during which our family sold at least 30,000 of the 50,000 items my dad estimated we had accumulated. (Yuck. Less is more…more space, more sanity, more time, more mobility.) But among those items were treasures. Maybe not to me, maybe not to my dad, maybe not to anyone else…except to my mom. I watched her sort through her belongings, often making a painful decision to part with something she genuinely loved because she knew that she could only store so many things, and she could take even fewer to Brazil.

Now, this is an area where I differ a bit from my mom. I’m not overly sentimental about most things, and I really don’t like knick knacks. I enjoy ‘feminine’ hobbies, like cross stitching and baking. I simply prefer a sparser dwelling place than my mom (and most women). As I proceeded through my relocation, I threw away or burned more things than I could count. By the time I’d worked on the move for a couple weeks, I was so fried that I seriously contemplated just driving away, having staked a “please steal my junk” sign in the yard. I found things I’d saved from when I was a teenager, and I was mad at myself every time I had to unpack some stupid box of “collections.” Increasingly, I became determined to never accumulate that much stuff. Yet somehow, even when I got to Montana, I discovered more things to throw away.

This difference in our personalities is what opened my eyes to how amazing of a woman my mom has been these last few months. She takes great pleasure in finding the perfect decorative item to place on a cute shelf or side table. She rearranges things multiple times until she finds the perfect setting that displays the beauty of each item. She knows the perfect colors and perfect throw pillows and perfect everything to make a house her & my dad’s home. She packed things for Brazil that I couldn’t imagine taking, and yet it was the perfect decision for her because she needs that expression of who she is inside.

My mom made difficult, painful decisions of what to keep and what to get rid of. Right up until the last day, she was sorting, packing, rearranging, and weighing tubs and suitcases. It was a bit insane. All the while, I knew that on the inside my mom struggled with a significant lack of joy and desire to move. She was moving to another country for one reason, primarily: because in 1976, she took a vow in the eyes of God to love and submit to her husband, and this year her husband said they were called by God to move to Brazil.

Some people might think my mom is crazy for following her husband. Some people might say she drew the short straw in who she married. I say my mom is a living example to her daughters that a life of true freedom – spiritually, emotionally, and psychologically – is a life marked by a gentle and quiet spirit submitted to God. Because her perspective is eternity-minded, elevating the ministry to which God has called her (being a helpmate to my dad...and goodness knows he needs it!) above her own earthly concerns (her daughters, her sentimental mementos, her comforts), she is able to see the wondrous things that God continuously works in and around her.

Today, I am an unmarried woman. I do not have a husband to whom I offer my life as a helpmate. I’m quite aware that my extended habitation in “singlehood” has morphed me into an independent, intelligent woman capable of paying someone to repair things I can’t fix with duct tape. I’ve spent the last couple years afraid of marriage. “Marriage equates ‘losing autonomy.’ Marriage means making myself vulnerable to another human being. Marriage results in me relinquishing authority to a fallible human being, and trusting that man to lead me in love and wisdom toward God’s glorification in and through our marriage.”

A godly marriage will involve me submitting to my husband (ahem…with a good attitude), and this may require me to follow him down a path about which I do not feel certain. No guarantees about how many shoes I can own, whether or not I’ll get my 2 story farmhouse with a wrap-around porch, how many times I’ll have to move, or if I’ll ever own a horse. This submission is not enslavement, though. It is not “losing autonomy” in the negative connotation. Rather, submission in God’s design is a route to freedom wherein I can express my love for my Creator through fulfilling His calling upon my life as a wife: to be a helpmate to my husband. I will be free to watch God work in my life, and the life of my husband, and our life together, in ways that I never imagined He could.

Does this mean that I sit on my laurels until God puts a dude in my life? Quite the contrary! A gentle and quiet spirit is not required only of a wife. While I believe that God most likely will lead me into marriage one of these days, He clearly intends that I offer my life to Him – my heart & mind, dreams & plans – to His leading, and to do so relying on His faithfulness and provision, regardless of marital status. A gentle and quiet spirit signifies a heart submitted to God, ready and willing to do His bidding without being held back by fears, doubts, or anxieties. He daily grants me the opportunity to participate in His purpose by relinquishing the concerns of the world and embracing an eternal perspective. In the stillness of my soul, sitting at the feet of my Savior, I glorify my King.

Beyond the Frame: Saying “No” to the Preconceived No’s

        Hope. Such an interesting word. Lately, the seemingly paradoxical relationship between hope and contentment has consumed my mind. The two concepts appear, at first, to be exclusionary. To hope (the verb tense…the action of hoping) means: “to cherish a desire with anticipation; trust (archaic); to desire with expectation of obtainment; to expect with confidence.” Simply stated, hope is the anticipation of a desire transitioning from ‘wish’ status to ‘granted’ status. Hope directs our gaze beyond current circumstances. Hope focuses on an as of yet un-obtained desire (a “conscious impulse toward something that promises enjoyment or satisfaction in its attainment”). [m-w.com]

        What does contentment denote? Ironically, Merriam Webster’s online dictionary offered no definition of this word aside from utilizing some form of “content.” I turned to the thesaurus and found this: “feeling that one's needs or desires have been met.” Contentment, then, is hope’s fulfillment. Do you see my point about paradox?

        The Bible instructs us to be content. Consider Hebrews 13:5. “Let your conduct be without covetousness; be content with such things as you have. For He Himself has said, ‘I will never leave you nor forsake you.’” This is only one example. Time and again the Scriptures remind us that God is our ultimate fulfillment. That earthly endeavors are not eternal. That we are to store up our treasures in heaven. For a specific example: Paul penned an infamous statement determining that singleness is ‘better’ than marriage. We’re to be ‘heavenly minded’ as opposed to ‘earthly focused.’

        The Scriptures equally emphasize hope. I’ll extrapolate examples of hope from the lives of men and women in the Bible to further my thesis: Adam and Eve hoped for redemption, Israel (so many times) hoped for deliverance from enemies, Esther hoped to be chosen by the Persian king, Hannah hoped for a son, Jonathan hoped David’s life would be spared, Rahab hoped her family would be saved, Joshua hoped Jericho’s walls would fall down, Ruth hoped she could provide for Naomi (who hoped Boaz would be the kinsman redeemer), Job hoped he would not blaspheme God’s name, different apostles hoped to be released from their chains and (or) reunited with fellow believers, Joshua and Caleb hoped their fellow Israelites would believe their witness of the Promised Land, Abraham hoped he wouldn’t need to kill his son….

        Let’s return to the adjective “paradoxical” in the first paragraph. How are we, as believers in Christ, to simultaneously “[feel] that [our] needs or desires have been met” while “cherish[ing] a desire with anticipation…with expectation of obtainment…with confidence”?

        At this point in a discourse, a reader would naturally assume a clearly defined answer would follow. Not gonna happen. This was my answer as I pondered the question:

        Think about a time when you have beheld a painting. Within the frame, the painting portrays a scene – a moment encapsulated in time. The painting captures a vivid yet immutable image. The image represents a finite moment that once existed in the future, was experienced in the present, and then became part of the past. The viewer gazes at the story on the canvas, but the viewer’s perception is limited by the confines of the frame. The viewer cannot see beyond the horizon, nor around the objects in the forefront. The viewer cannot see the extension of the scene to the left or right, nor above or below. The viewer’s comprehension of the scene is naturally restricted to the visible elements in the painting.

        The viewer can assume a few things. First, the painting was colored by an artist with a more complete understanding of the scene’s surroundings based on observing the entirety of the subject’s existence, from beginning to end. That understanding resulted in a perception of the moment in time. The artist then translated the perception into a story on the canvas. The colors and techniques utilized represent the artist’s sense of meaning, design, deliberateness of purpose, engagement with the object.

        This answer to my pondering provides a pictorial analogy to Psalm 139:15-16. “My frame was not hidden from You when I was being formed in secret [and] intricately and curiously wrought [as if embroidered with various colors] in the depths of the earth [a region of darkness and mystery]. Your eyes saw my unformed substance, and in Your book all the days [of my life] were written before ever they took shape, when as yet there was none of them.” I love the Amplified translation of these verses! This Psalm had popped into my mind as I was considering the visual representation of the painting and the author, but in the NKJV. I felt like I should read it in the Amplified as I mentally prepared my thoughts for the blog. When I came across verse 15, specifically the parenthetical “as if embroidered with various colors,” I understood the connection between the Psalm and the pictorial answer much more deeply.

        God is the Artist of my life. At this moment, my gaze allows me to see my current circumstances, but my humanity limits my ability to see beyond the horizon. I can’t see beyond the frame of this scene. I perceive many elements, and I appreciate much of the deliberateness and design. Yet I cannot comprehend the significance of each element, of each colored thread embroidering my life, because the horizon and borders inhibit my sight. Undoubtedly, the next painting will illuminate the previous, and many things presently questioned will be answered.

        While I cannot enunciate a logical method of successful coexistence between hope and contentment, I can say that God challenged me this week. I have been living in a mentality of “preconceived no’s” for a few years now. I found myself rejecting hope on the basis that God will never change this circumstance or that obstacle or fulfill an earthly desire, and my duty is work daily at choosing an ascetic version of contentment. I verbalized this rejection of hope a few times to a friend…followed immediately by a deeply sensed chastisement from my Artist. Who am I, Jody, to paint my future for God? Yes, God wants me to be content, but He also wants me to hope in Him. “No” may be the answer I’ve heard for years in certain areas, but that doesn’t mean that my future is filled with an inevitable, predetermined, eternal NO. Perhaps the successful or paradoxical relationship between hope and contentment resides not in how much one tries to ‘get it right,’ but in whose “No” is being spoken.