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.

Breathe and Worship to This

I'm satisfied by Your love so completely.
How can I thirst for the praises of men?
There's nothing I need that You haven't provided,
and no one can offer me peace like You can.

Jesus, You're more than enough,
sufficient for me:
all I have needed You've given for free.
Your love is enough,
don't need man's applause,
I know what I'm worth: I remember the cross.

I'm sustained, O Lord:
when Your Light surrounds me the world fades away.
I'm sustained, O Lord:
my heart knows Your love like it flows through my veins.
Such peace and contentment I've found in Your grace:
I can't think why I ever complained.
You love me: what more could I want?
I am sustained.

My husband was playing this song tonight,
and as it always does, it soothed my soul.
Unfortunately, a Google search didn't enlighten me on its authorship.
If you know who wrote it, please let me know.

You can listen to it here.

And Who Is My Neighbor?

Yesterday at church we sang a song that included this:
"Praise to the lamb that was slain
Praise to the Father who gave His son away
The proof of love, the price of grace
You traded all to take my place
And died for me so I can be a child of God"

And I pondered Him.
That when Jesus was asked what the greatest commandment was, He answered,
"Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, 
and with all thy soul, 
and with all thy mind. 
This is the great and first commandment. 
And a second is like it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. 
On these two commandments the whole law hangs, and the prophets."

And then of course, the question from our representative of mankind, "And who is my neighbor?"

Have you ever thought about how the Father saw His enemies?
That seeing our condition --
our blasphemous iniquity,
our adulterous fidelity,
and our religious hypocrisy --
that He gave His Son away in order that we might be saved.

The Father did not write the Law, so much as He is the Law.
The Law reveals His nature.
He gave His Son because He is the Law.
The Law demands justice, and the Law commands love.
And He is both.
He is the justice of God, and the love of God.

All His motivations in His dealings with men fulfill that which we cannot fulfill.
Love your enemies.
Do good to those who hate you.
Bless those who curse you.
Pray for those who despitefully use you.
Do unto others what you would have them do to you.
Give to those who ask of you.
If your enemy is hungry, feed him. If he's thirsty, give him a drink.

Jesus said, "If you have seen me, you've seen the Father."
And consider what we see when we look at Him --
a man who was reviled without reviling again;
a man praying for his persecutors;
a man feeding hungry people;
giving to those who asked of Him;
touching the untouchables;
who forgives not seven times, but seventy times seven;
whose obedience to the Father was unto death;
whose love for His brethren was until the end.

The Father gave His Son.
His Beloved Son, in Whom He is well-pleased.
Would I give my son for my enemy?
Not likely.
I would sacrifice my enemy for my son.

But not Him.
He loves His neighbor, and His neighbor is His enemy.
And He valued His enemy with the same value as Himself --
giving up His most precious possession to buy back haters.
And I was His enemy.

Through the Dark

Beautiful
Beautiful
Jesus is beautiful
And Jesus makes beautiful things of my life
Carefully 
Touching me
Causing my eyes to see
That Jesus makes beautiful things of my life

Fourteen years ago, this is the song our wedding party walked down the aisle to.

In fourteen years, there has been a lot of unbeautiful.
And we have seen the Lord's hand working with ugliness to make it beautiful.
Working in pain to bring joy.
Transforming sickness to healing.
Restoring brokenness into function.
Walking us through the dark in the light of His Son.

Our children are some of those things that were not --
called into being by His mercy and love.
Our two beings joined into four individuals --
each one me, each one him, and none of them alike.
How many different ways He makes the two become one.

So many memories now.
When we married, it was almost all hopes.
Hopes for children and home.
Hopes for experiences together.
And now, here they are... dreams made flesh.
Different than I imagined.

Finding their own joys, and sharing them with us.
Drawing their own pictures of their own hopes.
Walking through their own confusions,
fumbling out their own prayers.

He makes all things beautiful in His time.

Without a Sail

We used to sing:

Without You I am nothing
Without You I always fail
Without You I am drifting
Like a ship without a sail

We Must Wait

My husband and I grew up singing this song:

We must wait,
wait,
wait on the Lord
We must wait,
wait,
wait on the Lord
Learn our lessons well
And in His timing He will tell us
What to do
Where to go
What to say

Learning to wait on the Lord is uncomfortable. Other people press you to know what you're going to do. And you don't always know. But He does answer. And we are always better off waiting on Him than going on without Him. Because the Bible says He waits on high for those who will wait on Him.

To Meet Every

A song came to mind this morning as I listened to the birds while I read and prayed. The song is from Lamentations, and I learned it when I was small.

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases
His mercies never shall come to an end
They are new every morning
New every morning
Great is Thy faithfulness, O Lord --
Great is Thy faithfulness

I turned to Lamentations because I intended to just share that verse. I looked it up on eSword to pick a version to share. And my attention was arrested as I looked a little earlier in the passage. I did not intend to say anything on this subject, but it's in the text, and it astounds me. Look at this:

"And thou hast removed my soul far off from peace: I forgat prosperity.
And I said, My strength and my hope hath perished from the LORD:
Remembering my affliction and my misery, 
the wormwood and the gall.
My soul hath them still in remembrance, 
and is humbled in me.
This I recall to my mind, therefore have I hope.
It is of the LORD'S mercies that we are not consumed, 
because his compassions fail not.
They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness.
The LORD is my portion, saith my soul; 
therefore will I hope in him.
The LORD is good to them that wait for him, 
to the soul that seeketh him.
It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait 
for the salvation of the LORD."

He says he had no strength and no hope.
One of the versions I read said 'my hope in the Lord is gone'.
It seems almost blasphemous.
But this man could remember only his affliction, his misery,
wormwood and gall.
His lot was bitter and poisonous and painful.
It was so horrible he lost all hope.
And in that place, the Lord's mercy reached him.
Because His compassions fail not.
They are new every morning.
To meet every bitter expectation,
Every painful affliction,
Every miserable grief.
He is faithful.
If He is my portion, there is hope.
The Lord is good to those who wait for Him --
To the soul that seeks Him.

And I can't help but remember this:

"All these died in faith,
not having received the promises,
but having seen them afar off
were assured of them,
embraced them
and confessed that they were strangers 
and pilgrims on the earth.
For those who say such things
declare plainly that they seek a homeland."
~Hebrews 11:13

As You Really Are

Show me Thy ways
Teach me Thy paths
Free me from all of my fears.
Trusting in You is so easy to do
When I see You as You really are

As You really are ~ God and King
As You really are ~ Lord of everything
As You really are,
Help me to see You as You really are.

As You really are ~ risen and living
As You really are ~ just and yet forgiving
As You really are,
Help me to see You as You really are.

I love this song. I was reminded of it again this morning when I read the end of Andrew and Emma Murray by Leona Choy:

"Murray urges us to 'gaze and gaze again, worship and adore,
and the more we see Him as He is, the more like Him we must become...
by letting the heavenly likeness reflect itself
and shine out in our life among our fellow men.
This is what we have been redeemed for, and let this be what we live for.'"

Look at Jesus. Behold the Lamb. He takes away the sins of the world.

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.

The Wrongs Done to Us

We used to sing a song that had the line:

"Where the wrongs we have done

and the wrongs done to us

are nailed there with Him,

there on the cross."

The provision of the cross is enough for our sins, and also for the sins committed against us. It's ministered to me so many times to count the wrongs done against me as done to Christ. Exchanging my lot for His. He is a Man acquainted with grief, afflicted, and a Man of Sorrows. But He offers us joy. I need to let Him take my sorrows and let them die with Him there.

"If he has wronged you in any way, or owes you anything, charge it to My account."