You Need To Tear Back

 

It was the first thought I had this morning, before I'd opened my eyes.

"You need to tear back that sock."

My heart sank.

The sock is one I've had on the needles for months and months.

There is nothing wrong with the sock.

It was beautifully knitted, and I was nearly to the toe.

It is a second sock, which means the first one has been finished 

and waiting for its mate for some time.

 

The problem is this: I knitted the first with a good plan. 

These socks would have reinforced heels and toes.

These socks are for me.

The yarn is wonderful: I love it.

The first one was finished easily, and it is perfect.

 

I was eager to begin the second sock, so I could wear them.

I knitted away busily during piano lessons, 

which is a wonderful way to make efficient (and pleasurable) use of my time. 

I knitted so busily I neglected to put the reinforcement yarn into the heel, 

and I didn't notice until I was well on my way to the toe.

I held the two socks in my hands, and felt the heels, and thought, "NO!"

 

The heels were different.

One is nice and cushy (and far more durable), and the other is nice and thin.

I laid the sock aside.

 

Periodically I pulled it out and looked at it sadly.

I considered attempting duplicate stitch darning on it 

to simulate the same effect, 

but I knew in my heart it wasn't going to be a solution for me. 

So I ignored it.

"I'm not changing ANYTHING!" my heart said, stiffening its neck.

And we just didn't talk about it or think about it anymore.

Sometimes I missed knitting on it, 

and the hope of owning the socks I had been working on with such anticipation.

But why should I lose all that work? 

The work was flawless.

It was the other sock that had a problem with it.

 

And it was this sock I sensed the Lord telling me to rip back this morning, 

before I was even awake to defend it,

and weeks after I had even thought about it.

I opened my eyes knowing I had a task to accomplish today.

A painful task, but a necessary one. 

Something I didn't want to do.

I had actually wondered to myself if I had enough of this yarn on hand 

to knit two more, just to avoid doing what I knew I needed to do.

But I had an order.

 

So, while I sat in my daughter's piano lesson, 

I frogged my perfect knitting in order to conform it to its mate.

It took me the full half hour to do it, 

and to get it put neatly back on the needles, 

carefully checking each stitch for twists, and correcting them.

Hours of knitting lost as I pulled back each row of two thirds of my sock.

 

And my mind has been working on it all day:

On the necessity of our conformity to Christ, our True Mate.

On the pruning back of what does not fit Him.

There are many things in each one of us 

that do not conform to His heart, His attitude, or His actions, 

and He will not leave them alone in us.

He's not going to settle for a slapdash fix.

He will undo us to set us right.

And all those hours of perfecting ourselves 

will have to be undone in order to make us truly His handiwork.

Give Him free reign to do it.

The sooner you stop fighting Him, 

the sooner you'll be fit for His use again.

"For whom He foreknew, 

He also predestined 

to be conformed to the image of His Son, 

that He might be the firstborn among many brethren."

(Romans 8:29)

"For our citizenship is in heaven, 

from which we also eagerly wait for the Savior, 

the Lord Jesus Christ, 

who will transform our lowly body 

that it may be conformed to His glorious body, 

according to the working by which 

He is able even to subdue all things to Himself."

(Philippians 3:20,21) 

 

"Beloved, now we are children of God;

and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be,

but we know that when He is revealed,

we shall be like Him,

for we shall see Him as He is.

And everyone who has this hope in Him

purifies himself, just as He is pure."

(1 John 3:2,3) 

 

And so I ask you: 

is there anything He is asking you to rip back 

that it might be made to conform to His purpose?

Tearing Back

You Shall Rest

"Six days you shall work,
but on the seventh day you shall rest;
in plowing time and in harvest you shall rest."
~ Exodus 34:21

It is not only when the work is done,
or when there is nothing to do
that the Lord's people are to rest.
It is at the appointed time for rest.

In plowing time --
when we work because there is nothing to show yet,
and because our needs are great --
we must rest.

And in harvest time --
when our work is demanded because the time is short,
and delay could mean loss --
we must rest.

Rest is an act of faith.
It is a willful act of trust and hope.
Just as we must plow in hope,
we must rest in hope.

We rest because we are the Lord's people,
and He instructs us to rest
in plowing time
and in harvest.

"When no fruit is on the vine, I will trust in You."

God has blessed our rest.
It honors Him when we cease our striving --
and cease from driving others --
servants though they may be.
Our very animals are to be given rest.
Resting in faith is holy.

"Come to Me, all ye that labor
and are heavy laden,
and I will give you rest.
Take My yoke upon you,
and learn of Me;
for I am meek and lowly in heart:
and you shall find rest unto your souls.
For My yoke is easy,
and My burden is light."
~ Matthew 11:28-30

 

So Much Dirt

I was out in the garden weeding again,
counting tomatoes and cucumbers and peppers,
and looking with glee at the purple turnips swelling up.
Examining my yellow zucchinis.
And reaching into the tangle of tomato plants
to pull those weeds that want to take over out by the roots.

So much dirt.
You need the water to loosen the weeds,
but the water also makes the dirt so much dirtier.
I had flecks of it on my face, and ground into my knees.
I weed barefoot, so I'm sure you can imagine the state of my feet.
I wore gloves, to give me courage around the pincher bugs
and the spiders lurking in the leaves,
but the mud still got through.

It made me think about the importance
of washing with the Water of the Word myself
even as I try to help someone else pull their weeds.
Because that dirt just gets on everyone.

"My friends, if someone is caught in any kind of wrongdoing, 
those of you who are spiritual should set him right; 
but you must do it in a gentle way. 
And keep an eye on yourselves, so that you will not be tempted, too.
Help carry one another's burdens, 
and in this way you will obey the law of Christ."
Galatians 6:1,2 

Come Together Again

Every successful marriage
has had thousands of choices to come together again.
To be joined.
To come home to her every night,
and to say yes to his advances.
To try again, even if she gave you the cold shoulder.

It isn't the vows that bring the intimacy --
those only begin the marriage.
We speak words of love to one another,
but they must be said again.
And we must choose to yield ourselves to one another.

We long to commune, to lessen our loneliness, to be joined in community.
Paul advised that each man should have his own wife,
and each woman her own husband,
because of sexual immorality.
"Let the husband render to his wife the affection due her, 
and likewise also the wife to her husband."
This is apostolic marriage counseling.
That we would have a spouse, and give ourselves to them.

"Do not deprive one another 
except with consent for a time, 
that you may give yourselves to fasting and prayer; 
and come together again 
so that Satan does not tempt you because of your lack of self-control." 
So much about this passage is so practical.
Have sexual intercourse with your spouse.
This is one very specific way we can serve their spiritual needs.

The intercourse of marriage--
sexual, emotional, financial, spiritual--
is a mysterious display of Christ and the church.
That abiding in the vine that Jesus spoke of is a plant life display.
They are both about connection, unity, exchange--
intercourse resulting in fruit.
In human intercourse, it is a choice that presents itself again and again.
We Christians are presented again and again
with the option to interact with Him intimately, or to shut Him out.
If we want to bear His fruit,
if we want our union with Him to be successful,
we must yield.

Perhaps you have said 'no', and it has become a habit to say 'no'.
I'm too tired.
I have a headache.
We've grown too far apart.
I've washed my feet; how can I defile them again?
Seek Him again, because His heart is still for you.

Or perhaps it is worse than just not opening up when He came to you.
Maybe you called Him 'master', and lived in His house,
but never saw Him as your husband.
Maybe you have never been close,
and all your children have been someone else's.
And He is broken-hearted over your infidelity,
but you are hard-hearted.
Make a choice to be His for real.
He'll buy you back from the auction block of your whoring shame,
and call you His own,
and let you bear His children.

I will heal their backsliding, and love them freely,
 for My anger has turned away... 
I will be like the dew to Israel; 
He shall grow like the lily, and lengthen his roots like Lebanon...
Those who dwell under His shadow shall return; 
they shall be revived like grain, and grow like a vine. 
Their scent shall be like the wine of Lebanon.

And you will find yourself saying,
"What have I to do anymore with idols? 
I have heard and observed him. 
I am like a green cypress. 
Your fruit is found in me."

The Unfashioned Altar, Low to the Ground

An ancient, pagan temple -- Megiddo

"An altar of earth you shall make for Me, 
and you shall sacrifice on it your burnt offerings 
and your peace offerings, 
your sheep and your oxen. 
In every place where I record My name I will come to you, 
and I will bless you. 
And if you make me an altar of stone, 
you shall not build it of hewn stone; 
for if you use your tool on it, you have profaned it. 
Nor shall you go up by steps to My altar, 
that your nakedness may not be exposed on it."
~ Exodus 20:24-26

We have such a longing for our service to the Lord
to stand out as a work of art.
But He asks us to form His altar from dirt, or unfashioned stone.
It was a functional place of worship.
And its function was all about a bloody atonement.
About payment for sin, and peace at a cost.
It is not a place to be showing off our skills with a chisel.
This altar was a necessity because of a multitude of transgression.
Because our works are at enmity with His holiness,
and must be reconciled.
How wrong it would be to put our works into the altar.
But we would like them there -- distracting from the blood.
Drawing men's eyes away
from the reality of death making payment for our sins,
and toward the incredible artistry we possess --
the gifts God gave us.
We don't want earthen altars:
such dirty accommodations for worship.
Something more permanent --
a little flashier and more fashionable would please us better.
He'll allow stone, but not stone formed by us.
Just simple, earthy materials over which blood must run.
The sacrifice ought to be the central thing in our worship.
Our tools, our gifts, our expertise are a profanity to His altar.

He says He'll come and bless us
wherever He has caused His name to be remembered.
It's remembered at the altar of His sacrifice,
and not in the work of our hands.

And how we would like to build steps up to it.
Steps up to the blessings, steps to the atonement.
Stairs to climb to peace with God,
a way to ascend for the payment of sin.
Its height would hold the blood up high enough that others might not see it.
They might just see us standing a little higher than they are.
But the reality is that in climbing steps to the altar,
our nakedness is exposed.
We have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.
Jesus said, "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life.
No man comes to the Father but by Me."
He is the sacrifice, and we cannot climb up to Him.
In our service to the Lord,
we ought to keep the blood right there at eye-level.
Visible to the lowly.
Not formed by human hands.

A Mark of Healing

I caught myself staring at a scar the other day.
Something maybe you would look at and think how ugly it is.
But looking at it, I thought,
"That looks good. It's healthy. It has mended well."
My mind summoned up its beginning,
and I remembered the events leading up to its making.
How the unhealth that eventually ended in an open gaping wound
was so much worse than this healthy distortion of my skin.

And I thought about how we judge things, and how He judges things.
Because to an untrained person,
maybe that slight discolored swelling with unbroken skin
looks healthier than a draining incision.
But the incision has a future of life and healing,
and the swelling has nothing but death in its path.

And don't we sometimes look at each other and judge each other wrongly?
We see the surgeon's wound, and judge the patient dying.
Or we see the unbroken skin, and judge the patient well.
Or we see the scar, and we don't think,
"How beautiful! She's healthy and whole and functional!"
And the one with the unbroken skin, we pronounce unspotted,
though they are being eaten up by uncleanness.

The scars of healing are not unclean. 
"But if the bright spot stay in its place, and be not spread, 
it is the scar of the boil; 
and the priest shall pronounce him clean."
Leviticus 13:23

"Thou art all fair, my love; And there is no spot in thee." 
Song of Solomon 4:7

Together as Friends

I have always dreaded reading some of the letters
to the churches in Revelation.
I want so much to be a included in a letter to a good church,
and not one of the ones so fearfully rebuked.
But in my Bible reading this morning,
I read two letters -- the one to Philadelphia,
and the one to Laodicea.
I was surprised to find myself encouraged.
To Philadelphia, He said,
"I know the things you do, 
and I have opened a door for you that no one can close. 
You have little strength, 
yet you obeyed My word and did not deny Me."
Philadelphia is one of the good churches.
But here He mentions their weakness.
Could I be weak and still an obedient child He is pleased with?
Could I be too small to open doors for myself,
but He opens them for me anyway?
He goes on,
"Because you have obeyed My command to persevere,
I will protect you...
I am coming soon.
Hold on to what you have,
so that no one will take your crown."

To me, perseverance is great strength.
Pressing on through pain, and adversity.
But He has already mentioned their small strength.
Can you see it?
This is one of the weak things through which He displays His strength.
One of the things which are not.
This church is a conqueror that is not strong.
Isn't He wonderful?

And then I came to Laodicea.
This was a church that felt it had arrived.
They knew how to live.
They were spiritually rich, they thought.
Stockpiled larders: no needs.
Self-sufficient and self-righteous.
Clothed in their own righteousness,
their perfect coverings and medicinal applications.
Somehow they saw themselves as something they weren't.
In reality, they were wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked.
(Just to set the scene I remind you of this background.)
But this morning I noticed the promises.

"Buy gold from Me," He says to them.
"Then you will be rich."
"Also buy white garments from Me 
so you will not be ashamed by your nakedness,
and ointment for your eyes so you will be able to see."

It's funny (or maybe tragic) how we revel in us.
Our righteous accomplishments,
our righteous coverings,
and our righteous contrivances for spiritual health.
But compared with His real righteousness,
we stand there naked and blind and unhealthy.
Completely exposed because our coverings don't change us.
They only look good to other blind men.
Anyone with His healing in their eyes can see the holes.
But He offers Himself -- the Lord our Righteousness --
the Light of the world, come into the darkness.
The Treasury of Heaven there for our plundering.
"If you hear My voice and open the door, 
I will come in, and we will share a meal together as friends."
Open ears and open doors, and fellowship with Him.

It Will Change Your Life

"If you will change this one thing about how you operate,
it will change your life:
throw garbage in the garbage can."

That is what I said as I sorted and sifted more miniscule bits of tin foil,
broken plastic toys,
used-up glow sticks,
old band-aids,
ripped paper,
bent needles,
pencil sharpenings,
and other debris from the things he actually loves,
and the dirty clothes stuffed in containers.

"Do you see how much work it would have saved
to simply throw trash away once you knew it was trash?"
And it strikes me: this is a good plan for my life.

A General Confidence

"We must serve God in a holy freedom;
we must do our business faithfully, without trouble or disquiet,
recalling our mind to God mildly, and with tranquility,
as often as we find it wandering from Him."

"Do not always scrupulously confine yourself to certain rules,
or particular forms of devotion,
but act with a general confidence in God,
with love and humility."

~Brother Lawrence, The Practice of the Presence of God

Nothing From Outside

I'm going to write about something that may offend churched sensibilities. I might even lose my standing as a Christian mom. Consider yourself warned.

Tonight my son confided something that had been puzzling him for some time. He said that about a  year ago he had been trying to tell two friends at church about the movie Napoleon Dynamite, which he is very amused by. One of the boys asked him, "Does he say s-h-i-t?"
Isaiah said, "No. What is shit?"
At this point in his story, I asked him, "Do you know what that means? Have you ever heard that word before?"
"No." He looked confused.
"The reason you haven't heard that word is because it's a word that we don't use. Most people consider it to be a bad word, and it means 'poop'. So what did they say when you asked that?"
"They didn't tell me what it meant, but one of them went to the teacher and told her, 'Isaiah said "shit".'"
"So what did the teacher do? Did you get in trouble?"
"She said, 'Don't say that!' But I said, 'I don't know what it is.'"
"Isaiah, that is a perfect case of man looking on the outward appearance, and God looking on the heart. Obviously your heart has to be dirty for a dirty word to mean anything, huh?"
He nodded and said, "It made me kind of mad that they told me that word, and I didn't even know that word, and then they..."
"They set a trap for you, didn't they?"
"Yes. And tried to get me in trouble. And I was afraid to ask you what it meant, because I thought you would get mad that someone told me that."
"Who do you think had the dirty heart: the one who tried to get you to say the word, or you for saying the word when you didn't know it?"
"They did. They wanted to talk about it."
"Son, in this world, there will be all kinds of people who try to introduce you to dirty things you don't know anything about. It's gross, and it's wrong, but it's a fact here. You have to learn to tell the difference between those things, and to know what things you should have nothing to do with. And you didn't sin because someone told you that word."

"And calling near all the crowd, He said to them, 
'Listen to Me, every one of you, and understand.
There is nothing from outside a man which entering into him can defile him. 
But the things which come out of him, those are the ones that defile the man.'"
Mark 7:14,15

Coming in Unarmed

"Incline your ear and hear the words of the wise,
and apply your heart to my knowledge...
So that your trust may be in the Lord;
I have instructed you today, even you."
~Proverbs 22:17-19

"But the wisdom that is from above is first pure,
then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be entreated,
full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality,
and without hypocrisy.
And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace
by them that make peace."
~James 3:18

Proverbs is so full of instruction in wisdom. It's full of relational advice, and moral advice, and financial advice. But these few verses stood out to me because they indicate that the whole point of listening to wisdom and hearing the wise, and applying your heart to knowledge is so that your trust may be in the Lord. Not in your wisdom.

I included the James verse because it is such a contrast to wordly wisdom. Wisdom from the Lord is pure. It's innocent. It's clean, first. But then it is peaceable. Not provoking. Inclined toward peace. It's gentle.

Wisdom from the Lord makes it past the security forces of the resistant because it comes in 'unarmed'. His kindness leads us to repentance. Does it speak the truth? Yes. But I think about how Nathan approached David in his sinful state. He came and told him a story about a lamb. David was tender-hearted about sheep. So Nathan got to his heart through sheep. And David was broken.

I was reading a news story the other day about the increased numbers of 'no-knock warrants' that have been issued lately. There was this sad story about the police breaking into a man's home in the middle of the night, guns drawn. The man, no doubt feeling himself the victim of a home invasion, came into the hall with a golf club, which the hyped-up law enforcement officers thought was a sword, so they shot him dead. I don't know what the offense was they wanted to arrest him for, but the approach to the arrest resulted in his execution without a trial. If they had knocked and spoken to him through the door, it's quite probable he would have come to the door and been arrested. But instead they busted the door down, came upon him in his sleep, and in his reasonable attempt to defend himself, they killed him. I think wisdom would have considered what the aim of the warrant was. If the aim is to apprehend the man, and not to kill him, a softer touch would have accomplished that.

Wisdom does not bust down the door with gun drawn, hyped up on adrenaline, likely to kill in misjudgment.

And that last line in James would seem to indicate that the kind of seed-spreading that results in righteous fruit is planted by peacemakers in peaceable ways.

His Work

"Honest weights and scales are the Lord's;
all the weights in the bag are His work."
~Proverbs 16:11

It is the work of God to trade honestly and fairly. He concerns Himself with our measuring tapes, our scales, our contract negotiations. I love that. I love that He loves fair dealing. He considers our deals to be His deals.

What tool have I got in my bag? Is it the Lord's tool? When I use the Lord's tools, I do the Lord's business. On the other hand, if the tools I work with are dishonest implements, all my work is dishonest work.

And Doesn't Regret

I was having a conversation today about housekeeping and saving money with some ladies. Tricks and tips to spend less money or less time on certain tasks. It brought out the guilt we all feel over certain housekeeping tasks. You know: not recycling enough; not reusing enough; using paper products instead of cloth, not making your own bread, buying canned goods instead of canning them yourself. (Add your personal housekeeping splurge to that list.)

I admire women who seem instinctively to know how to spend the least amount of money on life. I hate wasting money. But when one lady confessed to years of feeling guilty over buying paper napkins, I started thinking again about my feelings towards some of the 'good stewardship' teaching I have heard over the years. Please don't misunderstand. I like saving money and I happen to use cloth napkins. I think 'being wise' is ideal.

But can I just say this pithy little saying? (Certainly not to condemn frugality, but just to point out that it is not necessarily godliness.)

Here it is: God is not a skinflint.

He is generous,
lavish in His gifts,
gives cheerfully,
willingly,
heaping blessings and benefits on undeserving people.
And doesn't regret what He paid for it afterward.

Working for the Witch

I have been reading The Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum with my children. I was struck yesterday by a passage in it from chapter 12: The Search for the Wicked Witch. Bear with me -- I have a point.

'The Wicked Witch was both surprised and worried when she saw the mark on Dorothy's forehead, for she knew well that neither the Winged Monkeys nor she, herself, dare hurt the girl in any way. She looked down at Dorothy's feet, and seeing the Silver Shoes, began to tremble with fear, for she knew what a powerful charm belonged to them. At first the Witch was tempted to run away from Dorothy; but she happened to look into the child's eyes and saw how simple the soul behind them was, and that the little girl did not know of the wonderful power the Silver Shoes gave her. So the Wicked Witch laughed to herself, and thought, "I can still make her my slave, for she does not know how to use her power." Then she said to Dorothy, harshly and severely,
"Come with me; and see that you mind everything I tell you, for if you do not I will make an end of you, as I did of the Tin Woodman and the Scarecrow."
...The Witch bade her clean the pots and kettles and sweep the floor and keep the fire fed with wood.
Dorothy went to work meekly, with her mind made up to work as hard as she could; for she was glad the Wicked Witch had decided not to kill her.'

There she was, kept safe by the mark of the kiss on her forehead, walking around in power she didn't know she had, and working for the Witch. Do you find yourself there? Do you know you have been set apart by the love of Christ? Have you been made a slave because you don't know the power you're clothed in?

"God's divine power has given us everything we need for life and for godliness.
This power was given to us through knowledge of the One
who called us by His own glory and integrity.
Through His glory and integrity He has given us His promises that are of the highest value.
Through these promises you will share in the divine nature
because you have escaped the corruption that sinful desires cause in the world.
Because of this, make every effort to add integrity to your faith;
and to integrity add knowledge; to knowledge add self-control;
to self-control add endurance; to endurance add godliness;
to godliness add Christian affection; and to Christian affection add love.
If you have these qualities and they are increasing,
it demonstrates that your knowledge about our Lord Jesus Christ is living and productive.
If these qualities aren't present in your life, you're shortsighted
and have forgotten that you were cleansed from your past sins.
Therefore, brothers and sisters, use more effort to make God's calling and choosing of you secure.
If you keep doing this, you will never fall away."
(2 Peter 1:3-10)

Serving sin is no place for a free person clothed in power.

About Holy In Christ, by Andrew Murray

Wow. Reading this book was like being on Daddy's lap. I hated to finish it. A few excerpts:
"There is no holiness but what He has, or rather what He is, and gives. Holiness is not something we do or attain: it is the communication of the Divine life, the inbreathing of the Divine nature, the power of the Divine Presence resting on us... When God calls us to holiness, He calls us to Himself."

"Where God is, there is holiness; it is the presence of God makes holy."

"Holiness is not something we bring to God or do for Him. Holiness is what there is of God in us. God has made us his own in redemption, that He might make Himself our own in sanctification."

"Seek not holiness in the first place in what you are or do; seek it in God. Seek it not even as a gift from God, seek it in God Himself, in His indwelling Presence."

"As we enter in and abide in the holiness of Jesus, it will enter in and abide in us."

"The more I see and have apprehended of the holiness of Jesus, the less shall I see or seek of holiness in myself. He will make me holy: my tempers and dispositions will be renewed; my heart and mind cleansed and sanctified; holiness will be a new nature; and yet there will be all along the consciousness, humbling and yet full of joy: it is not I; Christ liveth in me."
(Andrew Murray)

The older I get in the Lord, the more I appreciate the simplicity that is in Christ. I am not smart enough to remember all the steps to make myself good enough for a real Christian. And they have no charms for me. But I can remember Jesus, who gave Himself for me, and lives to make intercession for me, and invites me --ME-- to abide in Him, and He in me. And He wins me over every time I think on Him. His kindness towards me; His patience with me; His work on my behalf sweep my soul off its feet. His love for me is a mystery I do not understand. But I want it, and I am so thankful for it. This book highlights it.