The Olive May Fail

 “Though the fig tree 

may not blossom,

Nor fruit be on the vines;

Though the labor 

of the olive may fail,

And the fields yield no food;

Though the flock 

may be cut off from the fold,

And there be no herd 

in the stalls--

Yet I will rejoice in the LORD,

I will joy 

in the God of my salvation.

The LORD God 

is my strength;

He will make my feet 

like deer’s feet,

And He will make me walk 

on my high hills.”

A number of years ago, at the beginning of a one year time period that was one of our worst years — a time of severe and long-lasting pain for me that held no end in sight — a physically miserable, emotionally devastating year filled with tests and imaging and surgery and a long recovery, I went to a pastors’ wives retreat. At the retreat, the Lord gave me a song. I had not yet walked through what was coming. And I knew I would be walking through something. 

“The joy of the Lord 

will be my strength

I will not falter, 

I will not faint

He is my Shepherd, 

I am not afraid

The joy of the Lord 

is my strength

The joy of the Lord

The joy of the Lord

The joy of the Lord 

is my strength

The joy of the Lord 

will be my strength

He will uphold me 

all of my days

I am surrounded 

by mercy and grace

And the joy of the Lord 

is my strength

The joy of the Lord

The joy of the Lord

The joy of the Lord 

is my strength

The joy of the Lord 

will be my strength

And I will not waiver, 

walking by faith

He will be strong 

to deliver me safe

And the joy of the Lord 

is my strength

The joy of the Lord

The joy of the Lord

The joy of the Lord 

is my strength”

You can be suffering pain, uncertainty, lack of resources, loss of relationships, and so many other miseries AND still be surrounded by His mercy and grace. I did not know if I would physically survive that year. And some days I turned my face to the wall and just laid there, heart open in wordless pain to the Lord. I fretted that my children would be motherless, and my husband widowed. And then I trusted them to Him who loves them better than me. I sat in a chair much of that year. 

And the Lord sustained me. He delivered me. He walked the valley with me, and brought me out again. 

You might think I don’t like hearing that song anymore. But you’d be wrong. 

When I hear it, and when I sing it, I remember how the Lord helped me endure when I couldn’t endure. How He gave me courage and taught me to trust Him when my prayers felt like they fell to the floor. How it isn’t abundant circumstances that give us abundant life. 

The joy of the Lord is my strength.

On Our Faces: Strength and Peace

I read Psalm 29 this morning.
It's a call to honor the Lord for His glory and strength.
It is full of the roaring of the sea,
and thunder,
and power,
and the splitting of cedars, and their shattering,
and mountains skipping and leaping,
and bolts of lightning,
and earthquake,
and twisting oak trees,
and forests stripped bare,
And floodwaters that the Lord rules over.
"The Lord reigns as king forever."

I like to visit the ocean during storm --
but I don't get too close.
I love thunder, but it scares me, too.
I remember a long few nights when that ice storm
knocked out the constant buzz of the power,
and the only sounds we heard
were the sounds of trees splitting in the woods and crashing
over and over again.
We'd look out the window in the dark
and hope the ones that fell
were not the ones that shadowed the house.
I've ridden out earthquakes,
and they leave my knees quaking.
One time my husband and I
were standing in our kitchen during a lightning storm,
and lightning struck our driveway,
about twenty feet from our kitchen window.
Instinct threw us both on our faces to the ground.
It isn't a power you stand up to.
As a child, I walked through a burned out forest during a tornado warning,
and its atmosphere imprinted in my mind.

This chaos shows me small and weak.
They all overpower me.
They make me catch my breath
and fall on my face,
and stand back at a safe distance,
and shelter under doorways.

But the last verse -- it really amazes me.
"The Lord gives His people strength. The Lord blesses them with peace."

Whatever Things

I had a child tonight whose antics were irritating me immensely.
Again and again I went upstairs to correct and rebuke
and finally shut his door and turned off the lights
because he kept getting up and keeping his brother up.
Within five minutes I heard more action, and prayed for wisdom and gentleness.
Gentleness is not mine by nature.
And parenting makes me feel bankrupt of wisdom often.
Oh, how I need His help.

I climbed the stairs wearily at 11 pm, saw the lights back on, and the doors open.
I went into the sinner's room and said quietly,
"This is outright rebellion. You are in complete defiance of what I asked of you."
He began to cry.
I sat down on his bed.
He apologized for it, but excused it because he was scared.
I told him it was wrong to obey fear and disobey his mom.

I asked him what he was thinking about.
At first it was 'I don't know,' but after a few minutes
he admitted he was thinking about scary things -- monsters and stuff.

And I think the Lord gave me wisdom.
I opened his Bible and turned to Philippians chapter 4.
"Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, 
whatever things are honest, 
whatever things are just, 
whatever things are pure, 
whatever things are lovely, 
whatever things are of good report; 
if there is any virtue, 
and if there is any praise, 
think on these things. 
Those things, which ye have both learned, and received, and heard, and seen in me, do: 
and the God of peace will be with you."
And then I talked to him about practicing those thoughts.

We began with thinking of and saying out loud things that were good -- 'God bringing Seth into my life'.
Lovely? -- 'looking out the window of an airplane and seeing the clouds brush the wings'.
Then I taught him the ABC game.
Naming something about God's character for every letter of the alphabet.
It's just an exercise in taking your thoughts captive. It gives you a framework for meditation.
You might even argue that David did it if you are a reader of Hebrew.
The Psalms several times use alphabetical acrostics.

My son's eyes lit up as he racked his brain for each word. We took turns.
'D' stumped him. I offered him a suggestion: Daddy.
He looked puzzled. "He's our daddy?"
I nodded, smiling. "The Bible says that the Holy Spirit puts it into our hearts to call Him 'Abba, Father'.
'Abba' means 'Daddy.'"

We read more of Philippians 4 together, and it ministered to me, too.
I wish I always seized an opportunity, instead of getting mad.
Maybe that's what redeeming the time is --
grabbing back the cause of anger or irritation or anxiety, and turning it into the right path.
I came downstairs at 11:30 edified and reminded to put my mind on things above,
and the God of peace will be with me.

Light Walks With Me

'Be content with such things as you have.
For He Himself has said, 
"I will never leave you nor forsake you."
So we may boldly say,
"The Lord is my helper; I will not fear..."
Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.'
~Hebrews 13:5-8

With such things as I have?
Wow. So often those things are not things that leave me feeling content.
Have you just had distressing, devastating news?
Be content with that?
With pain? With depression?
With a diagnosis of death?
Or a future expectation of loss?

I was speaking with my children tonight
about living as children of light, here -- in the dark.
That passage gives a reason for our contentment.
We have His promise!
Here, in the dark, He will not leave me alone.
Here, in the night, the Dayspring from on high dwells with me.
The Lamp to my feet, and the Light to my path walks with me-- the Word made flesh.

"I will never leave you, nor forsake you," He said.
"I am your God and will take care of you 
until you are old and your hair is gray. 
I made you and will care for you; 
I will give you help..."
(Isaiah 46:4)

The Lord is my helper; I will not fear.
He has helped me.
He does help me.
He will help me.

For thou wilt light my lamp: 
Jehovah my God will lighten my darkness.
And He does not change.

Considering Lilies

My husband and I are waiting for a go-ahead.
Some arbitrary person somewhere has our present and our future in their hands,
and it's making me weary waiting for them.
I'm tired.
My husband is tired.
My children are tired.
We want to be a full time family again.
We hate saying goodbye to each other every week.
I hate being a single mother.
Two are better than one.
This morning, I was feeling morose as I prepared for one more goodbye.
I looked out the window, and my eyes fell on the explosion of lilies in bloom right now.
One hundred and eighty degrees of them from where I am sitting.

Lilies.
I cannot tell you how many times I have been comforted
because of the beautiful, practical, poetic ways the Lord has communicated to us in His word.
Consider the lilies of the field.
They don't labor.
They don't spin.
And the Lord clothes them more beautifully than the richest king who ever lived.
Consider the birds of the air.
They do not build barns to store their food supply.
But Your Father feeds them.
You are of more value to Him than these.
Trust Me.

Coming and Going

The LORD will preserve thy going out and thy coming in
from this time forth, and even for ever.
~Psalm 121:8  

It's a comfort.

Quieted

"Then Haggai, the Lord's messenger,
spoke the Lord's message to the people,
saying, 'I am with you, says the Lord.'"
~Haggai 1:14

For many years, I have been reminded of the Lord's love and presence through what might seem like silly things to some. The last few days, a mourning dove has been hanging around this house. Whenever I see a dove remaining near where I am, I feel quieted.

I am with you. 
Be at peace.

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.

Be Still

This is an old hymn based on Psalm 46. It is attributed to Jean Sibelius and Katharina Von Schlegel (translated by Jane Borthwick). Mary Barrett sang this on one of her cds, and often in person at conferences. 

There are times when my heart races and terrifies me. This song so poignantly addresses my fears and griefs. I play it over and over again, and let its words soothe me.

Be still, my soul: the Lord is on thy side;
Bear patiently the cross of grief or pain;
Leave to thy God to order and provide;
In every change He faithful will remain.
Be still, my soul: thy best, thy heavenly Friend
Thro' thorny ways leads to a joyful end.

Be still, my soul: thy God doth undertake
To guide the future as He has the past.
Thy hope, thy confidence let nothing shake;
All now mysterious shall be bright at last.
Be still, my soul: the waves and winds still know
His voice who ruled them while He dwelt below.

Be still, my soul: the hour is hastening on
When we shall be forever with the Lord,
When disappointment, grief, and fear are gone,
Sorrow forgot, loves purest joys restored.
Be still, my soul: when change and tears are past,
All safe and blessed we shall meet at last.

Meditations on Peace

I am not into the peace symbol, mainly because of its association with pot smoking and protests. But I was given a necklace that has 'peace' repeated across its pendant and stamped once on the back. I like the look of the necklace. I've been wearing it the last couple of days, and have found myself lost in meditations on peace. The first one that looped through my mind was just the phrase 'peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ'.

"Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ:
By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand,
and rejoice in hope of the glory of God."
Romans 5:1

Peace with God?! It overwhelms me. In Christ, the constant state of war with God into which I was born has been made PEACE. God accepts me as a friend because of the position I hold in Christ.

Have you read Ephesians 2 lately? It thrills my soul and brings me to tears.

"For He Himself is our peace, who has made both one,
and has broken down the middle wall of separation,
having abolished in His flesh the enmity... thus making peace,
and that He might reconcile them both to God in one body through the cross,
thereby putting to death the enmity.
He came and preached peace to you who were afar off and to those who were near.
For through Him we both have access by one Spirit to the Father."
From Ephesians 2

"Therefore, He had to become like His brothers and sisters so that He could be merciful.
He became like them so that He could serve as a faithful chief priest in God's presence
and make peace with God for their sins."
Heb 2:17

He became like us that He might know our weaknesses, which He has mercy on.

"Peace I leave to you. My peace I give to you; not as the world gives I give to you.
Stop letting your heart be troubled, and stop letting it be afraid."
John 14:27

The peace the world gives is always strained. It is enemies held at bay by mutually assured destruction, or by threats of exposure, or by the conventions of society. The peace Jesus gives us with the Father makes us friends of God. I don't fear hostility from friends who love me. They love me. God loves me. He's at peace with me.

"Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing,
that ye may abound in hope, through the power of the Holy Ghost."
Rom 15:13