The First Step to Take Toward Justice

Posted on June 19, 2020 by Elizabeth

Justice.

There are so many different voices crying out for justice right now.

There are so many different ways in which people are responding to those cries.

How should we, as Jesus followers, think Christianly about justice? How should we respond to individual as well as systemic injustice?

One thing is certain: We serve a God who concerns himself with justice.

God tells Israel through the prophet Isaiah to Learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; bring justice to the fatherless, and plead the widow’s cause, and through the prophet Micah, He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?

In the New Testament, Jesus heals the leper, cares for the woman caught in adultery, and laments that the religious leaders tithe mint and rue and every herb, and neglect justice and the love of God. These you ought to have done, without neglecting the others.

We, then, as followers of this God of justice and mercy, must also concern ourselves with justice.

However.

It does not necessarily follow that we should submit to the path of the loudest and most popular voices.

There are many loud voices right now proclaiming the right way to think, to act, to pursue justice in our country.

Maybe they are right. Maybe this is the way God wants his followers to seek justice for the oppressed.

Maybe. Although it is rare that the path the world urges us to follow is the right path.

It also does not necessarily follow that every disciple of Jesus should walk the same path of fighting for the same justice for the same group of people.

We are the body of Christ. We are his hands and his feet and his eyes and his arms and his legs and…

We have different abilities and gifts. We have different passions and loves.

There are so many different kinds of people in need of justice in our world, in our country, in our town. People of color. People who are enslaved. People who are abused. People who are homeless, starving, mentally ill, without hope.

So how do we know? How can we find the right way? How in the world, how in this broken, grieving, noisy world can I know how God wants me to pursue justice?

We stop.

We wait.

We must wait for God to fill us up with Himself so that it is His love and His compassion that flow out of us, rather than our own ideas about what ought to be done.

Springing into action is not our first step.

It is when we simply are still, keeping our gaze fixed on Christ through such habits as silence and solitude and lectio divina, that the Holy Spirit changes us and stirs us to His work.

Andrew Murray writes, It is when the soul becomes utterly passive, looking and resting on what Christ is to do, that its energies are stirred to their highest activity, and that we work most effectually because we know that He works in us.

As the Spirit of God dwells in us, we are more and more able to be led by the Spirit to do the work He has for us.

We cannot charge ahead and try to take the lead, but rather must wait on the Spirit to change us, to instruct us, to show us the way in which we should go. It is the Spirit’s role within the trinity to produce fruit, to bring every work to completion.

We see this in a beautiful way through the early Church.

As you read the book of Acts, the Holy Spirit leads the Church in her various missions, sending people out as they are waiting on Him in prayer. He gives direction and the words to say, He produces the fruit that results, and the only thing the people do is to follow. The Spirit is the One who gives joy and spreads the Word.

The Holy Spirit does His work as He moves us to do our work. As we are still before God, we learn to understand how the apart from me you can do nothing is only the beginning of the I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.

The Church is not a way to escape from this world. We follow the way of Christ, and he gave himself wholly for the life of the world.

God cares deeply about justice, and we should care deeply about what breaks the heart of God.

How do we know how best to pursue justice in our land?

Not by listening to the loud, clamoring voices of the world, but by first listening to the still, small voice of God.

Only then can we work and fight for God’s kingdom rule to be done here on earth as it is in heaven.

I end with a quote from Father Alexander Schmemann. He is speaking of the Eucharist as communion with God –

It is the very communion with the Holy Spirit that enables us to love the world with the love of Christ. The Eucharist is the sacrament of unity and the moment of truth: here we see the world in Christ, as it really is, and not from our particular and therefore limited and partial points of view.

Intercession begins here, in the glory of the messianic banquet, and this is the only true beginning for the Church’s mission. It is when we ‘lay aside all earthly cares,’ when we seem to have left this world, that we, in fact, recover it in all its reality.

God has made us competent to be his witnesses, to fulfill what he has done and is ever doing. This is the meaning of the Eucharist; this is why the mission of the Church begins in the liturgy of ascension, for it alone makes possible the liturgy of mission.

Don’t flail blindly at the foe. Go and be still before God. Wait for him to send you out on his mission.

Our world needs you.

To hear my blog post read aloud, just click the play button. If you’re reading this in an email, you may have to click here to hear the post on my site.

What I Learn When We Are Apart

Posted on June 12, 2020 by Elizabeth

There is an old heresy that has circled around again and again since the beginning of Christianity.

It is the lie that creation, the physical world, is bad or, at best, unimportant. The spiritual alone is what truly matters.

I have seen this creeping into the Church in recent years (The Western Church, that is. I will not presume to speak about the global Church).

What we do with our bodies during worship is not important.

Being physically together is nice, but it doesn’t matter in the larger scope of things.

Watching church online is just as good as being in a building.

I confess that as an introvert, I find the draw of church online to be alluring. It is a lot less messy when you don’t have to face so many people.

I do know, however, that the Church is a sacrament, a place where the spiritual reality of God becomes embodied in the physical world.

The whole of creation was originally intended to fulfill this role, created to bring man into relationship with God. The physical world would make the spiritual reality of God known to man; man would take the physical world into his body and live out the life of God to the world.

All that exists is God’s gift to man, and it all exists to make God known to man, to make man’s life communion with God. ~ Alexander Schmemann

But then man chose to hunger for the world instead of God, to live the life of the world rather than the life of God, and the circle was broken.

The circle remained broken until Jesus came and once again offered up the embodied life of God for man.

Now the Church has become the means through which the spiritual reality of God enters the material reality of the world. There is no longer any need for temples or sacred places, for Christ’s Body, the Church, embodies the life of God to the world.

The Church now finds herself in the middle of a pandemic. We are sheltering in place and are unable to be together physically. Ever.

When you are not allowed to have physical contact with anyone, suddenly being together seems much more important.

It makes me wonder whether one way in which God will bless this time for our good, as he promised he would, might be to show us how essential it is to meet together in an embodied way.

Technology is a good and helpful tool, but that is all it is or should ever be. A tool. A substitute. We are embodied creatures and as such need embodied interactions.

C. S. Lewis used the metaphor of eating tinned fruit when writing about mistaking something necessary for what is best. Tinned fruit will feed and sustain you when there is a famine, when you cannot visit the orchard, yet the fruit loses much of its flavor and goodness in the process of being tinned.

In this season of shelter-in-place, we are being fed and sustained by our online communications, and our souls are grateful for it, but deep down we hunger for incarnate communion.

There is, of course, the opposite danger in being sustained only by virtual fellowship, and that is that we might acquire a taste for it. This we must absolutely guard against.

But do not let us mistake necessary evils for good. The mistake is easily made. Fruit has to be tinned if it is to be transported and has to lose thereby some of its good qualities. But one meets people who have actually learned to prefer the tinned fruit to the fresh. ~ C. S. Lewis

May we, the Church, in this time of being bodily separated, begin to understand and truly believe in the goodness of creation and the importance of our physical bodies.

May we continue to hunger for the fresh fruit of embodied fellowship rather than being satiated with tinned communication in the virtual world.

When this is over, may we recognize our incarnate communion for what it is – undeserved gift.

To hear my blog post read aloud, just click the play button. If you’re reading this in an email, you may have to click here to hear the post on my site.

Art credit: The Last Supper from So-called Hours of Philip the Fair; Orchard in Flanders by Emile Claus

We Are Slicing Off Ears Again

Posted on May 22, 2020 by Elizabeth

I made a mistake on Facebook the other day.

A friend of a friend posted something harsh about those who believe differently than she does about face masks, and I had had enough.

I responded.

I shouldn’t have, but I responded.

When she escalated, making comparisons to people in concentration camps, I realized my mistake. I am not going to change anyone’s mind on Facebook. I cannot not argue someone into a different viewpoint.

I can, however, love people on Facebook. I can show the unity and love of Jesus in the way that I interact with others. My comment, while not harsh or ugly, did not show unity or love.

I deleted my responses.

I expect harsh words and vitriol from the world. Christians, however, should never engage in that kind of vicious attack and nasty rhetoric.

As emotions become more volatile in this season of uncertainty, as choices about what to do next vary wildly, as words become our weapon of choice, I offer a word of warning, a plea, to myself as well as to you.

Satan wants this. This is a perfect opportunity for him to divide the church over this issue of shelter-in-place vs reopening the economy, over enforced face masks vs the freedom to choose.

I’ve already written of how important it is for us, the Church, to be unified.

Not for us to agree on everything, but to love each other. To love each other no matter what.

This is so important that it was one of the last things Jesus asked of God before He was crucified.

Why is this particularly important right now, in this season?

As more and more people get sick with COVID-19 and die, as more and more people lose their jobs because of prevention measures, we become more and more afraid.

And fear causes us to do crazy things, both to each other and to those around us who are outside of the Church.

We are living in uncertain times. Our lives and our livelihoods are threatened. The illusion that we are in control has been stripped away.

We find ourselves fighting back against this invisible enemy by fighting with the people we can see.

We as a Church are good at fighting.

We have a tendency, when we are afraid, to lash out at anyone who disagrees with what we believe to be true. Rather than following Jesus’ way of loving those who hurt us, of being at peace with those around us, we strike out blindly at anyone near us in an attempt to fight the enemy we cannot reach.

This is what Peter did. He was terrified of losing Jesus, terrified of losing his own life, uncertain of what would happen next, and he reacted by pulling out his sword to start slicing off ears.

Jesus, however, picked up that ear, calmly placed it back onto its owner’s head, and walked quietly off to meet His death.

We have a perfect opportunity in this season to react out of love rather than out of fear. To treat those who disagree with gentleness, bringing peace rather than war. To show that we are Jesus’ disciples by the way we love each other.

Jesus speaks over and over again about His kingdom coming through the humble, the weak, the foolish. He is adamant that the kingdom of God is not about force or hatred.

When Jesus gets down on his knees to wash the filthy feet of the apostles, he washes Judas’ feet as well.

Everything we do to live out God’s kingdom here on earth must be done under the shadow of the cross.

Perhaps we should stop fighting to convince other believers that we are right and start figuring out how to work together to show God’s love to the sick and the jobless. Perhaps we should begin by humbly admitting that we don’t have all the answers and we might be wrong. Perhaps we should remember that God’s kingdom grows best one soul at a time through lives lived in quiet love and service, not through arguing angrily on social media.

Perhaps we should stop slicing off ears and instead begin the work of healing by dying to ourselves as we live as Jesus did. We can start by loving each other.

To hear my blog post read aloud, just click the play button. If you’re reading this in an email, you may have to click here to hear the post on my site.

Art credit: Photograph of cathedral by Kirk Sewell; Image of the Croisés from 1922; St. Peter Cuts the Slave’s Ear by Duccio di Buoninsegna

Our Cry to the Creator and Covenant God

Posted on May 15, 2020 by Elizabeth

How long, O God?

This has been our cry from the beginning.

How long until you rescue us? How long until you set things right?

Our world is broken and we are broken and we need you to make all things new.

You created us and you promised us. Save us, O God!

All through Scripture, God reveals himself as Creator God and as Covenant God. He is the one who made us and he is the one who promised to restore us.

Over and over again, Israel cries out for rescue to the Creator God who has an obligation to his creation and to the Covenant God who has an obligation to be faithful to the promises he has made.

The Psalms are full of the bringing together of these two aspects of God.

Psalm 19 begins by praising God for his power in creation, The heavens declare the glory of God, and ends by praising God for the beauty in his covenant law, The law of the LORD is perfect, reviving the soul.

Psalm 74 begins by pleading with God to remember his covenant people, Remember your congregation, which you have purchased of old and ends by reminding him of his power and ownership over creation, Yours is the day, yours also the night.

The covenant was given to solve the problems in creation. God calls Abraham and establishes Israel as his people to hold to the covenant. Through Israel, God will solve the problems of the world, bringing justice and salvation to the nations.

Creation is invoked by the prophets of Israel to solve the problems within the covenant. “When Israel is in trouble, and the covenant promises themselves seem to have come crashing to the ground, the people cry to the covenant God precisely as the creator.”

It did, indeed, seem that the covenant promises came crashing down.

Israel was supposed to be God’s messenger to the nations, but instead tried to achieve a covenant status for itself alone. What did God do? Abandon the covenant and move to a vastly different Plan B in Jesus?

He most certainly did not. God remains true to his covenant, to his plan, even when man proves false.

“…he will require a representative Israelite who will be faithful…to God’s purpose not only for Israel but through Israel for the world…we see God’s covenant faithfulness operating through the faithfulness of Jesus the Messiah. Precisely as Messiah, he offers God that representative faithfulness to the plan of salvation through which the plan can go ahead at last, Abraham can have a worldwide family, and the long entail of Adam’s sin and death can be undone through his obedience.”

It is through Jesus that the one who created us and our world is able to fulfill his covenant to restore us and our world.

We see this displayed beautifully in Isaiah 40-55, that great passage in which the prophet lays out God’s entire plan for rescue.

In chapter 40, YHWH is beseeched as the sovereign creator in whom Israel can trust completely. In 55, there is celebration of the way in which his Word will have the same effect of restoring Israel that the rain and snow have in making the earth fruitful.

Creation and covenant.

In between, in chapter 51, Creator God is declared to also be the Covenant God whose Word will rescue and deliver his people from the enemy.

The covenant will be renewed and thus creation will be renewed. When God rescues Israel, the nations will share in the blessing. And “the human blessing is the means by which God the creator, who made humans in his image to be his stewards in his world, will renew the whole creation itself.”

And all this, says Isaiah, through the Messiah. This Messiah, we now know, is both the Word of God and the one in whom all things were created. Paul tells us that the image of the invisible God, the true fulfillment of Let us make man in our image, after our likeness, both was the first born of all creation and in him all things were created AND was the first born from the dead and through him God reconciled all things to himself.

Jesus himself is the point where creation and covenant come together.

Jesus is the means by which God has done what, “as creator, he has the power and right to do, and what, as the covenant God, he has the responsibility to do.” Through Jesus, God has set things right again. He has set in motion the restoration of creation and has killed sin and death on the cross.

Which brings us back to where we began.

How long, O God?

How long until you rescue us? How long until you set things right?

Praise be to our God! Through the obedience of Messiah and the power of his Spirit, our Creator and Covenant God has already done it.

To hear my blog post read aloud, just click the play button. If you’re reading this in an email, you may have to click here to hear the post on my site.

Credits: These ideas, and all of the quotations, come from N. T. Wright and his book, Paul. I have merely synthesized and condensed them for you. The painting of Peter drowning is an excerpt from a fresco inside the cathedral of Maria Saal in Austria. All photographs are mine.

How to Practice Discipleship in the Middle of Suffering

Posted on February 21, 2020 by Elizabeth

How do you practice discipleship in the middle of suffering?

When everything seems aligned against you, seems to be throwing up barriers to your life with God, how do you continue walking in the way of Jesus?

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a pastor and theologian in Germany during the Third Reich. He gave all that he had to fighting evil. Including his life. Bonhoeffer wrote a book entitled The Cost of Discipleship. He truly knew what that meant.

Bonhoeffer’s theology was first of all Christ-centric, but second it was centered around community. He wrote that the way to successfully practice discipleship in the midst of suffering was found in the idea of the Sermon on the Mount.

The practices of turning the other cheek, going the extra mile, giving up the cloak, these were all essential to staying true to Christ when the darkness is enticing you to give up.

This seems counterintuitive. When evil and injustice are all around, we want to fight, to punch back. God, in fact, tells us to do the opposite.

God tells us to feed our enemy, to give him water to drink when he is thirsty.

Not once does God tell us to punch him in the nose.

Paul tells us in Romans to overcome evil with good.

This is how we practice discipleship in the middle of suffering. This is how we die to ourselves, and in so doing, bring God’s kingdom rule to our world.

Jesus was, after all, as he was teaching these practices, living in the middle of his own enemies.

Part of the way we are able to have the strength to live out the Sermon on the Mount while surrounded by our enemies is by knowing that we are not alone.

Jesus is Emmanuel, God with us, and he has not left us alone. He has given us his Spirit inside of us and is himself praying for us before the Father.

We also have each other. This was the other piece around which Bonhoeffer’s theology revolved. The way we are able to follow the commands in the Sermon on the Mount, the way we successfully practice discipleship when everything seems conspired against this kind of life, is by living it together.

We are the body of Christ, and together we are stronger than each individual. Together all the parts of Christ are joined and are unified in one heart and mind. Together we are united with Christ in the bringing of his Kingdom on earth as it is in heaven.

We are to speak God’s truth to each other, encouraging each other to continue the incredibly difficult practice of dying to ourselves and living for Christ. No matter our circumstances.

In Christ, we are together even when physically apart.

We are one in Christ, and in Christ we can do this.

So encourage each other as you continue to live out your discipleship in the middle of your enemies by loving them well.

God will take care of the rest.

To hear my blog post read aloud, just click the play button. If you’re reading this in an email, you may have to click here to hear the post on my site.

Art credits: photograph of Bonhoeffer from The New York Times; The Sermon on the Mount by Carl Bloch; The Sermon on the Mount by Gustave Doré; The Road to Emmaus by Robert Zünd; Christ Washing the Disciples’ Feet by Francesco Vanni

How to Know God – Part Two

Posted on February 14, 2020 by Elizabeth

Last week we began to explore the way that we can know God. If you haven’t read that post, you may want to click here and read that one first.

How do we know God?

By obeying.

By doing what we see Him do, and this best by watching Jesus, by imitating Him.

This does not mean that we should spring immediately into action.

This is not the way that Jesus obeyed.

First, it means to be still.

Be still and know that I am God.

It means to go to the wilderness, to the lonely places, to get away and be alone with God.

A lot.

Jesus spent much time alone with God before He did anything of importance.

Before beginning His ministry.

Before choosing the apostles.

Before the crucifixion.

Don’t worry. Action will come.

Obedience does not only mean being still. There is much to be done to bring God’s kingdom to rule here on earth as it does in heaven.

But obedience first means to be still and know.

Once you know what to do, then you begin the work of obeying.

You begin the practice of obeying. It, like anything, feels awkward at first. You continually go back to Jesus to figure out how to obey. You have to return again and again for specific instruction.

Yet slowly, over time, it feels more natural. You know more quickly what to do or what not to do. When to act and when to go back to being still.

Obedience becomes instinct.

I have used the image of a jazz musician before, but I will bring it back here again because it gives such a beautiful and concrete example of why this practice of obedience is so important.

It shows us why obeying is what brings us to know God.

A jazz pianist, a really good one, knows his art intimately. It is a part of his spirit.

When he plays with a band, he knows what exists in the music. He knows the nature of the musical form, he knows the structure of the harmonics well enough to think quickly and compose something that fits in with the reality of the music.

It is so seamless it appears effortless.

This kind of perfection, however, is far from effortless. This kind of intimacy with the music does not come easily or quickly. It takes hours and days and months and years of practice.

This, too, is how we know God. By practicing the discipline of obeying for hours and days and months and years.

This is how we learn to know God. This is how we learn to know the way He created the nature of this life and this world well enough to know how to respond no matter what is happening around us.

This way of obedience leads to knowing God which leads to better obedience which leads to…

a beautiful circle.

A circle wherein we abide with our Father in peace and blessing.

How do we know God?

By obeying Him.

There is no other way.

To hear my blog post read aloud, just click the play button. If you’re reading this in an email, you may have to click here to hear the post on my site.

Art credits: Children at Prayer byAntoine Édouard Joseph Moulinet; Prayer by Mednyánszky László; Gethsemane by Carl Heinrich Bloch; Christ in the House of Martha and Mary by Johannes Vermeer

How to Know God – Part One

Posted on February 7, 2020 by Elizabeth

We all, every one of us, want to know God.

Whether we acknowledge or even realize it, knowing God is one of the deepest desires placed immovably into the heart of humanity.

It has been so since the beginning of time.

It is the reason behind the Fall.

To know.

The tragedy behind Eve’s choice of disobedience is that God had already given her the way to know Him. He had already given her the way both to know Him and to stay with Him.

It is the same tragedy that lies behind every act of our own disobedience, when we believe that our way is better, that our shortcut is easier than God’s (admittedly, often longer and harder) way for us to know Him.

What is this way? This way both to know God and to remain with Him?

By obeying Him.

To obey him is the only way to be one with him. ~ George MacDonald

If you want to know the mind of God, do what He says.

Jesus, who was the very image of God, knew the Father absolutely. He also obeyed the Father absolutely.

Jesus told the Jews that He can only do what He sees the Father doing.

Why? Because the Father loves the Son and shows Him all that He Himself is doing.

The Father loves the Son. He wants Jesus to know Him and to know what He is doing.

The beautiful, astounding piece of this?

He loves all of His children in the same way.

Jesus affirms this when He prays that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.

He wants us to know Him because He loves us.

He is not hiding from us. He is not playing games with us. He wants us to know Him.

How do we know Him?

By obeying.

By doing what we see Him do, and this best by watching Jesus, by imitating Him.

This does not mean, however, that we should spring immediately into action.

Will you join me next week as I ponder this idea a little more? I would love to explore with you about the way Jesus obeyed so that we can obey and know the Father in the same way.

I am grateful for you.

To hear my blog post read aloud, just click the play button. If you’re reading this in an email, you may have to click here to hear the post on my site.

Art credits: Children at Prayer by Antoine Edouard Joseph Moulinet; Adam and Eve by Foster; Christ Washing the Disciples’ Feet by Francesco Vanni

A Dry and Weary Land Where There Is no Water

Posted on January 31, 2020 by Elizabeth

We are living in a dry and weary land where there is no water.

All around us are people who are dying of thirst.

In our neighborhoods.

In our workplaces.

In our schools.

We are in desperate need of springs of living water.

One of the beautiful things about our God is the way He allows us to be the ones to bring His kingdom into being on this earth.

Perhaps allows is not a strong enough word.

Part of our calling, our mission, as Jesus followers is to proclaim God’s kingdom rule in every corner of the piece of earth in which He has placed us.

For me, this begins in my home.

I want every person who enters my home to experience the love and peace of Christ. I want the love and peace of Jesus to radiate out from our home. I want our home to be a sacred place that draws others to Him.

Space matters, whether that space is a sprawling farmhouse in the country or a tiny apartment in the city, and what we do with the space we are given matters.

Let Thy kingdom come, let Thy will be done, in my home as it is in heaven.

We are called to fill our spaces with truth, goodness, and beauty.

We are called to fill our spaces with water.

We who have chosen this God-life have been promised that the living water given to us will become springs of living water.

A spring is an opening in the surface of the ground where water from deep under the ground comes bubbling out.

This is what we are given and this is what we are called to.

We who will never be thirsty again, we who have been satisfied in our deepest places, we who have been filled up with Him,

we are not to hoard this gift.

We are to be springs, not stagnant ponds.

Our land is a desert land.

Our neighborhoods, our workplaces, our schools are all parched and dusty places.

We are surrounded by people who are in desperate search for a true water that can quench their thirst once and for all.

They need springs that are not stopped up but are flowing freely.

We do not need to fear running out, do not need to fear not having enough. Our spring will never run dry because it comes from a place that is deeper than ourselves.

We only must ourselves continue to drink from the source. We must continue to fill ourselves up so that we can continue to overflow.

We live in a dry and weary land, and God has asked us to water the desert.

He has made us into springs of water for this very purpose.

To hear my blog post read aloud, just click the play button. If you’re reading this in an email, you may have to click here to hear the post on my site.

Art credits: photograph of Cleopatra spring of water in Siwa by Sara Nabih; photograph of mountain spring by Kirk Sewell; photograph of sand by Made Sacred

I Need His Silence

Posted on January 10, 2020 by Elizabeth

Sometimes the silence is daunting.

I sit and I sit and I sit and I wonder where God is.

I want the Voice, the delight, the spiritual moment, and when it is not there I wonder what went wrong.

Yet if I only experienced bliss, I might only trust in bliss. If I only experienced delight, I might only trust in delight.

I might never trust in the infallible character of God.

It is easier to make a lot of noise.

It is easier to keep up a steady stream of words and song.

By filling my space with words it is easier to convince myself that all in my world is as it should be.

By making a lot of religious din we assure our faltering hearts that everything is well. ~ A. W. Tozer

The silence, therefore, however daunting, is necessary.

I must be taught to rely on the Everlasting Father rather than on His comfort.

I must be taught to put my faith in the promise of His presence rather than on my experience of that presence.

I must be taught to trust in Christ the Rock regardless of any corroboration.

I need to sit in the silence.

God often withdraws His inward comforts. Sometimes for long periods.

I need to sit in His silence. And be okay with it.

The silence is still daunting.

I sit and I sit and I sit and I know that He is here.

I will put my trust in Him.

To hear my blog post read aloud, just click the play button. If you’re reading this in an email, you may have to click here to hear the post on my site.

Deep Love in the Darkness

Posted on November 8, 2019 by Elizabeth

Deep love.

Deep love turning scumbag into son, derelict into daughter.

Deep love transforming stone into flesh, filth into snow.

It is beyond my comprehension, this love, a love that covers a thousand sins and yet refuses to leave me sinful.

It is a promise of restoration, this love, a hope of lasting joy, a covenant of the very Presence Himself.

What of the times I am fumbling through the dark? The times the pain engulfs my heart, the sorrow blinds my soul, the ugliness of this world threatens to destroy all that I hold dear?

What of the times when I, seemingly alone, cannot catch even the faintest whiff of Him?

It has happened before and it will happen again that I feel deserted.

Alone.

Forsaken.

My God, my God!

It brings to mind another cry. Another forsaking. Another time of searing loss as the Father turns His face away.

Yet this time it was not only a feeling but a truth. A forsaking for a time in order for me, for you, for us to never be truly forsaken.

Deep love that took Him to the cross.

Deep love that took my filth upon Himself, that felt the greatest of all absences so that the Father would never turn away from me.

Those times when I am fallen in the dark?

Deep love is still surrounding me, still transforming me, still giving me Himself.

I can trust in His deep love.

To hear my blog post read aloud, just click the play button. If you’re reading this in an email, you may have to click here to hear the post on my site.

Art Credits: When the King Came by George Hodges; photograph of wooden statue by Asta Kr