Exploring Goodness and Freedom

Posted on August 7, 2015 by Elizabeth

We are in the middle of moving, so I will be fetching from the archives for the next two or three weeks. Enjoy!

Is there such a thing as good?

Not the sort of good that is only good because it results in some desired, practical outcome, but the sort of good that is good in itself. Inherently good, intrinsically good.

It would be arrogant to think that such a question could be fully addressed in this small place, but perhaps this space is sufficiently large at least to begin the wonderings.

This is a question containing quite a breadth of meaning, so it is worthwhile to ask it again: **is there anything that is good in itself, apart from any practical value it might have?**

What would it look like if the answer was no? What would our world look like if we believed that there was nothing that was good apart from its practical value? (I hasten to insert, however, that belief of some truth is not quite the same as truth itself.)

If there is no such thing as good, then that which is good becomes the same as whatever thing that I want.

When all that says “It is good” has been debunked, what says “I want” remains. ~ C.S. Lewis in Abolition of Man

**If good is the same as I want, then we become nothing but bundles of desires chasing after what will satisfy.**

American Flag

Freedom.

We in the United States love the idea of freedom, yet even that idea has changed over the years.

Freedom, for most of the time that the major religions (Christianity, Judaism, Islam) have existed, meant the freedom to choose what is good; it involved responsibility and even the idea of self-denial.

If you asked most Westerners today, even those belonging to Christ, freedom means being able to do what pleases me. It means doing whatever I want.

Those belonging to Christ might add “as long as I do not hurt others”.

Yet even that caveat seems to apply only to short-term harm and not to anything long-term such as caring for our earth and being committed to justice.

Look at our world and see the belief that there is nothing that is purely good, that freedom means the ability to follow my own desires.

Look at Christ, however, and see that **if good does exist than freedom is the freedom to choose that good rather than being controlled by what is not good.** Freedom means responsibility and self-denial. If there are things that are purely good, than those things should always be chosen for themselves and not for any practical value they might confer.

Many of those who pursue freedom are not truly free at all. They are controlled by their own passions and desires, forced to spend their lives chasing after what will satisfy, yet never finding it.

Those who freely choose to be controlled by Christ, however, are choosing to control their desires and to harness their passions in pursuit of that which is good. They will be satisfied.

Once again, Christ turns the wisdom of this world upside down and gives the good gift of true freedom to those who voluntarily offer their own freedom to Him.

Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe.

Clutching at Gold Stars

Posted on July 24, 2015 by Elizabeth

We’re moving, so I’ll be fetching from the archives for the next two or three weeks. Enjoy!

It is a difficult and forever-long process, this learning how to make everything sacred.

It is also beautifully rewarding.

Learning how to make all things in your life sacred takes focus. It takes the sort of focus that teaches me how to be single-hearted towards God.

She is good at being very focused and single-minded, my youngest. Especially when she needs something.

The dreaded event of all mothers everywhere, her special lovey simply had to be washed at bedtime one night. She just couldn’t understand why she didn’t have her bunny.

“Bunny?” “Bunny is taking a bath, darling. I will bring you Bunny as soon as she is dry.” “O-hay.”

“Can I read you a bedtime story?” “Bunny?” “Bunny is taking a bath.” “Bass? Bunny?” “Yes, a bath. I’ll bring you Bunny when she is done.” “O-hay.”

“Let’s talk about our day, shall we?” “Mommy? Bunny?”

I sigh in frustration, yet feel a small stir in my heart.

What if I were that focused in my pursuit of God, my pursuit of making all things in my life meaningful?

What if I blocked out more of the mindless stories I read and the meaningless discussions I have online in order to pursue God? What would that look like?

You will keep in perfect peace him whose mind is steadfast, because he trusts in You. ~ Isaiah 26.3

I read about a mother and daughter on a trip together through the world. During their journey, the mother speaks of a friend who accomplishes a marvelous amount of things during a day:

What’s allowed her to realize her dream where so many others fail, including me for many years, is how carefully and sanely she chooses exactly where to spend her time and energy…Kristin’s life illustrates that it takes more than passion and a lot of work to make a dream work–it takes focus. What you think about matters, a lot. Your thoughts drive your actions.

The mother continues to talk about the myriad of women who choose to please others, to accommodate others, rather than choosing to stand up for themselves and their families.

She says that many of us choose to be “good girls going for gold stars, instead of clasping tight the gold of our lives by living as we truly desire.”

This has the scent of truth that makes me pause. If I substitute “living as God desires”, this touches something deep in my heart.

How many times have I said “yes” to an activity, to a time commitment, even to a service opportunity, simply to please someone else or to create a certain image of myself?

So many times those “yeses” have cost me and my family. They have kept me from clasping tight the gold of obeying God’s desire that I should, for this season, focus most on these little disciples running around my feet.

I want desperately to be single-hearted. I desire to chase after God, to pursue and focus on only what He has called me to do rather than to fritter away my moments on activities that attempt to please others.

What does this look like? How do you do this in your own life? How do you carefully and sanely choose exactly where to spend your time and energy?

Do you have a goal, a purpose or mission statement for your family? Do you have a lens through which you filter every request, every moment’s choice?

The mother in my book says that “change happens in the small moments, when a sliver of light finds its way through the cracks”.

To help herself to focus, “I wrote down every single thing I did in fifteen-minute increments for three entire weeks…I asked myself a thousand times a day before acting – and, miraculously, speaking – What am I creating with this choice right now?”

I want to see everything around me as sacred, to be single-minded in pursuing God and His desires for me. I want to choose with intention rather than feelings, excuses, or circumstances. I want to please God rather than man.

I want to clasp tight the gold instead of aimlessly grasping for gold stars.

Best

Posted on July 17, 2015 by Elizabeth

God’s Words are often difficult to understand.

I don’t understand why this is so, why God wouldn’t want us to easily understand Him and His ways, but that is a wondering for another time.

All throughout His Word, God makes promises about what will happen when we approach Him. He makes promises about how He answers when we ask Him for something. He makes promises about what He will give if only we would ask.

Sometimes those promises seem to be contradicted by the reality we can see.

Jesus tells us that if we ask, we will receive.

Jesus tells us that if we ask together with others, we will receive.

Jesus tells us that if we ask in His name, we will receive.

Jesus promises that if we are just persistent enough, just have faith enough, just beg Him hard enough with our faces to the ground and our tears falling like blood in desperation, He will give us what we ask for.

This is not what we live.

This is not what we live when a young mother dies of cancer. This is not what we live when a child lives her life in chronic pain and then dies. This is not what we live when a family is torn apart by depression.

So how do we reconcile this? How do we reconcile the promise with the life lived in this world?

Because Jesus also made other promises.

He promised that we would have trouble in this world, that storms would come against us, that we would be hated by this world in which we live.

Did He lie? Is He crazy?

Or is there something deeper within His words that we have trouble understanding?

Is there something deeper that we cannot see from our place here on earth, tethered as we are to the physical, unable to grasp the spiritual all around us?

From one who is stumbling along in the dark along with the rest of you, here is what I believe based on what I read in God’s Word as a whole.

What God does is not always what I want. What God allows is sometimes more than I can comprehend. What God gives is often too hard for me.

What God accomplishes is always best.

Best for me, best for someone else, best for our world. Just…best.

Not painless, not comfortable, not happy.

Best.

I know from my own experience as a parent that best is often painful and unpleasant. My children often are unhappy (to put it ridiculously mildly) with what I decide would be best.

When Jesus tells us to ask in His name, rather than His name being a magical incantation to get what we want, perhaps it is a way of living, of remaining in Him as He is in His Father.

When Jesus tells us to ask alongside of others, rather than it being a way to coerce others into asking for what we want so that we can manipulate God, perhaps it is a way to allow the Holy Spirit to work in our hearts in a way that cannot happen on our own.

I don’t know.

As my Papa would say, “Well, I’ll tell you.

I don’t know.”

Here’s what I do know.

When I look at God’s Word in its entirety, whether that be the whole of Scripture or the whole of Jesus’ life, I see a God who is ultimate power and who is ultimate love.

And I see a God who has a plan that makes absolutely no sense while in the middle of it all. A plan that seems, frankly, insane while you are watching it all unfold.

A plan that, at its ending, is better, is more beautiful, is more glorious than anything I could have imagined or asked for.

A plan that is best.

And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be His people, and God Himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” And He was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.”… And He said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end.

And looking up, they saw that the stone had been rolled back – it was very large. And entering the tomb, they saw a young man sitting on the right side, dressed in a white robe, and they were alarmed. And he said to them, “Do not be alarmed. You seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has risen; He is not here. See the place where they laid Him. But go, tell His disciples and Peter that He is going before you to Galilee. There you will see Him, just as He told you.

I think perhaps that is why He gave us Jesus. To show us what the end will be even when the middle seems to be crushing the life out of us.

That end?

Best.

When This World Becomes Just Too Much

Posted on July 3, 2015 by Elizabeth

ISIS

Ferguson

Tunisia

Greece

Our world is broken. It is fallen.

Cancer

Infertility

Loneliness

Joblessness

Our lives are broken. They can be dark.

That there can be ugliness in this life is not questioned by anyone. No one would argue with the idea that we all go through times of darkness, times of weeping, times of where in the world, where in all of this hurting world are You, God?

If the question then is not will I suffer, then the question must be what will I choose when I suffer.

When I hurt, will I believe that God works for the best in everything or will I wonder whether God is working at all? When I ache, will I believe that God is most present when I am at the end of myself or will I wonder whether God is really in anything at all? When I don’t know how long I can hold on, will I believe in God when I cannot see Him through the dark or will I wonder if the darkness is all that there is?

What do we do when we are sinking, when we are drowning, when we are at the end of ourselves and are pleading for relief?

Paul pleaded with God to remove his thorn. He begged God three times for release. The first two times? Heaven was silent. The third time? God said no.

Jesus asked if there was any other way but the Cross. God’s answer? No.

Why do we think it should be different for us? Why do we think that we should be exempt?

If God is most present and works most powerfully when we are at the end of our own limits, then shouldn’t we want to lean into our suffering rather than try to escape it?

Paul chose to boast of his weakness, to be content with his hardship. He chose to immerse himself in his thorn in order to gain more of Christ.

We don’t have a choice about whether we will hurt.

Our choice is in how we will respond.

Will we spend our time begging for respite? Will we beg God to take it away and then curse Him when He does not?

Or will we receive our suffering as a gift? A gift with a purpose, even though we may never know the purpose. A gift with a promise, a promise of grace and God’s presence.

When God says no, when God says My grace is sufficient for you, instead of arguing with Him about it, instead of fighting Him with all of your strength, ask Him to help you get to the place where you can receive your adversity as a gift from a loving Father.

A gift that brings you more of His grace. A gift that brings you more of Him.

I have learned to kiss the waves that dash me against the Rock of Ages. ~ Charles Spurgeon

Art credits: The Apostle Paul sketch from 1514 A.D.; Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane by Orazio Borgianni; The Three Crosses by Rembrandt

Four Years of Writing

Posted on May 22, 2015 by Elizabeth

I have been writing here in this space for four years now.

Four years of writing and hitting “publish” once a week, every week.

Four years is a long time in the world of blogs. Not many make it this long.

To be honest, just last month I was afraid I would have to take a break.

This fourth baby has been, well, difficult.

This year of beginning to homeschool and being pregnant and then caring for an extra fussy newborn has threatened to sink me at times.

Since I couldn’t give back the baby (don’t worry…I didn’t really want to…mostly…except every once in a while at two in the morning…) or quit educating my child or let my house return to nature, it seemed as though my writing was the only thing I could let go.

Except that God wouldn’t allow me to let it go. There was always something in my heart that He wanted me to say.

Often it was pounded out in five minute spaces and published even though it didn’t feel polished or very well crafted. Yet every time I was obedient to hit that publish button, even when I felt the most inadequate, I heard back from someone about how those words were exactly what they needed to hear.

So I keep writing.

I keep writing and I keep publishing in this little space of mine.

Except it isn’t really mine, is it?

It belongs to God and has always belonged to God, so as long as He keeps asking me to write, even when I don’t have the time to perfectly craft each word to make it sing, I will continue to obey.

Someday I’ll have more time. Someday these little ones won’t be quite so dependent on me and I’ll be able to pursue those bigger writing dreams of mine.

Until then, I’ll be faithful in this season of my life. I’ll hold those tiny, sturdy, beautiful bodies extra close and then snatch a few minutes here and there to jot down what I have in my heart. I’ll enjoy this season of writing in between nursing and playing dollhouse and reading aloud.

I hope you’ll continue to read and be encouraged, even when the words don’t flow as well as they used to.

I’m grateful that God has chosen me to be their mommy and I’m grateful that God has chosen me to write in this space.

So here is where I live: trying my best to be faithful in all that God has given me.

I will end this year, as I have each year of blogging, with this:

Whatever the reason for my writing, here I am in this space. I will continue to obey, even though it is hard and often causes my heart to feel fear. I will write. God will listen. I pray He will continue to be pleased.

This is Easter

Posted on April 3, 2015 by Elizabeth

Easter.

Spring.

New life.

It is an inevitable part of life that monochromatic winter begins to melt into spaces of bright color. Snow gives way to tulips and crocuses. Perhaps it is our necessary reminder that death is followed by new life. Our reminder of Easter.

It was our first Easter without Kristina.

On Easter morning, my eldest ran into the living room where we had left the figure of Jesus on the cross the night before, eyes wide with hope of resurrection. “Daddy, look! Jesus left us flowers that God made!”

Hope and joy at the end of sorrow and pain. This is Easter.

On Easter morning, gathered with our Family, we sang, “The greatest day in history, Death is beaten, You have rescued me. Sing it out, Jesus is alive! Endless joy, perfect peace, Earthly pain finally will cease. Celebrate Jesus is alive! Oh, happy day, happy day…”

During a celebration after tragedy, hearts swell and overflow with emotions that at first glance seem to be at odds. We feel both joy and gratitude, sorrow and longing.

On Easter morning, the joy is easy. Jesus is alive!

Sorrow and longing, though, those are things that are more difficult. Yet they are real and, although hard, they are what should be.

We all suffer. We all love and therefore all suffer because in our broken world, love means suffering. Those who do not love much do not suffer much. I would not grieve so deeply had I not loved Kristina so much. God loves our world and therefore God Himself suffers.

Such sorrow was felt over our first Easter without Kristina.

We acknowledge that all of this, this pain and death and sadness, is not how it was supposed to be. None of this existed before we rebelled against God.

And so we sorrow.

Our longing is for that day of redemption and transformation. The day when earthly pain will cease and death will be banished for all time. We desperately wish to be gathered into Jesus’ arms and told that all is now well.

And so we long.

Sorrow and longing.

At second look, we are reassured that these are what we should feel. After all,

Our kind, heavenly Father has provided many wonderful inns for us along our journey, but He takes special care to see that we never mistake any of them for home. ~ C.S. Lewis

At the end of it all, however, our hearts must return again to gratitude.

On that Easter morning, as we worshiped together, we sang, “You make beautiful things, You make beautiful things out of the dust. You make beautiful things, You make beautiful things out of us.”

Just as we did in the middle of our ugly places, our hearts cry out “Why?” Yet this time, it is a vastly different sort of why.

This time we ask, why do You love me that much?

You went to the cross to allow us to become children of God. Wasn’t that more than enough? Why would You now also work so very hard to make beautiful things out of the dust that we are? Why would You pour so much into molding us into people who look like You?

Let us fall on our knees in joy and with gratitude for such lavish love.

On Easter morning and beyond, let our hearts swell with both sorrow and longing, joy and gratitude, knowing that Jesus is truly alive, knowing that He has defeated death.

edited from the archives

art credit: The Expulsion of Adam and Eve from Paradise by Benjamin West; heaven picture; cross picture by Asta Rastauskiene

The Sacredness of Bad Attitudes

Posted on January 30, 2015 by Elizabeth

I sit at Panera, laptop open in front of me, staring out the window at snow drifting down.

I come from a morning full of harsh words and impatience, full of angry attitudes and frustrated responses.

I watch the fat flakes piling up and am struck by the beauty of the view, struck by the sacredness of a dirty world turning white.

I sift through my memories of this morning and wonder why I am unable to also see those parts of life as sacred.

It is easy to see the sacredness of snow. It is difficult to see the sacredness in a child’s anger.

When life is beautiful, when I gaze at spring flowers or at a little girl reading to her sister, I have no trouble in seeing God.

It is when my children fuss and yell, when they shove each other and bang angry fists on the piano and Mommy hollers back in return, that God seems to vanish.

Yet if I truly believe that there is no separation between sacred and secular, if I believe that the fullness of life is sacred, if I believe that there is no difference between kneeling before God in prayer and kneeling in service before a dirty toilet…

Then there is sacredness even in my child who is storming away from me in anger and frustration.

There is sacredness in a fussy toddler, in a stubborn preschooler, in a huffy elementary school child.

It is easier to react with impatience than to see God in these things. It is easier to speak harsh words in response than to pause long enough to search for the sacredness and speak words of Love in answer.

I am trying to figure out how to hold on to the truth that there is no distinction between the sacred and the secular, between the body and the soul. I am trying to figure out how to hold on to the truth that God made this world and made this life and uses every piece of both to bring me to Him.

I am trying to figure out how to “become more fully human, trusting that there is no way to God apart from real life in the real world.”
(Barbara Brown Taylor in An Altar in the World)

It is this, this living of real life in the real world while focusing myself on God, that will change me, change my life, change the way I live my life.

Which, in turn, will bring me closer to God.

And that is indeed truly sacred.

Terrible Love

Posted on October 24, 2014 by Elizabeth

It is Thanksgiving time and there is light.

They sit around the table laden with food, this family bound together by blood. There is light and laughter, talk of sports and of God, there is caring and kindness between generations. There are eyes shining bright, shining with love and with joy in the company around them.

And there is darkness.

There is one who is recently bereft of the comfort of spouse, struggling to find what is normal. There is one who sits heavy with the weight of marriage that is harder than expected. There is one who wonders if anything they do will ever seem good enough.

There is one who struggles with getting older, one who struggles with trouble at work and money that slips through the fingers, one who wonders if there is anything good coming when they can’t see what lies further down the road.

There is darkness in all of us. It is a part of being human to feel the weightiness of the absence of God. And there is an absence of God in this world. The Bible we profess speaks of it. The prophets and psalms all speak of Him who is not there when He is most needed. The author of Hebrews strips all of our pretense away when he speaks of Noah, of Abraham, of Gideon and David and the rest who “all died without having received what was promised.” It is the anguish of glimpsing the briefest glow of the light of presence without being allowed to bask in the sun.

It is a terrible love, this love of God for us. It is a love that means His absence as often as it means His presence. It is a love that Jesus speaks of when He utters in His darkest moment the piercing cry of Where are you, God?

You who are in heaven for us, why are you not down here in hell with us?

It is a terrible love that speaks of carrying our own cross, that utters the truth that all ye labor and are heavy laden.

It is a terrible love that wounds, or allows the wounds, before the healing can come.

It is a terrible love that weeps at the death of a friend, of Lazarus. They are tears that speak of the absence of God. Of the part of God in the very body of Jesus who would not save the life of His own friend.

This is, after all, the Gospel. It is terrible before it is beautiful. It is darkness before it is light.

We all labor and are heavy laden. We work so very hard to pretend that it is not so, but even when we are appalled at the darkness, we cannot help but listen to Jesus because we see in Him not only the darkness of being without God but the glorious light of what it looks like to be with God.

It is out of the absence of God that He becomes most present. It is out of the whirlwind, out of the storm that God first speaks to Job, answering Him not with answers but with Himself. It is out of darkness that we first begin to perceive the light.

Paul says that “God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise. God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong. God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are”, and he points to “the apparent emptiness of the world where God belongs and to how the emptiness starts to echo like an empty shell after a while until you can here in it the still, small voice of the sea, hear strength in weakness, victory in defeat, presence in absence.” ~ Frederick Buechner

The cross itself is a symbol of defeat before it is a symbol of victory and it, too, speaks of the absence of God.

When the absence is all that we see, when we are tempted to see in it a well of doubt that could lead us into atheism or at least into becoming agnostic, there is yet something else to see as well.

It was out of the darkness and absence that God first spoke. “In the beginning…the earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep.” And darkness is upon our faces as well, a void that sinks deep into our hearts. And perhaps it is necessary for the reality of this darkness to fold itself around us for us to be able to glimpse the reality of the word that God spoke into the darkness, “God said let there be light, and there was light.”

It is a terrible love that is offered to us, and perhaps we must face the truth of the terribleness before we are capable of accepting the love.

Art credits: Three Crosses sketch by Rembrandt; Supernova photo by NASA

Outside the World

Posted on October 10, 2014 by Elizabeth

We stand outside the world.

We dance and dream and die, and through it all we long.

We long for something else, for something more. We long for something bigger, for something more real.

Some understand what they long for and others do not. We long for what is true. We long for a world that is fully real.

We catch breaths of the morning air, fresh and clean and pure. We catch glimpses of the morning light, startling and bright and glorious.

Yet we stand outside the world and these hints of morning air do not change us. We do not become pure or glorious.

We stand outside the world and we hear a Word. We hear a Word that spreads a rumor.

It is a rumor that this shall not always be so. It is a rumor that one day we will be allowed to walk through the door and stand on the right side. On the inside.

It is a rumor that one day we will finally be changed by the Morning. Through the Morning Star we will become pure and clean, bright and glorious.

We will be as we were made. We will become as we are remade. Remade into the very image of the Word.

And by moving through the Word we will be allowed to stand. To stand in desperate gratitude. To stand covered in another’s glory.

We will dance and we will dream, but we will not die.

We will stand inside the world.

Piety or Knowledge?

Posted on October 3, 2014 by Elizabeth

I have written before of the battle between holiness and justice. Some say we are to focus on our own moral purity, on becoming more like Jesus. Others say we are to focus on social justice for others, on being Jesus to those around the world.

When describing the wickedness of Israel, Isaiah says “He looked for justice, but saw bloodshed; for righteousness, but heard cries of distress.”

It seems that one of the Deceiver’s favorite ploys is to take a set of discipleship practices, a pairing that works best when done in concert with each other, and separate them, throwing them into battle with each another. In doing so, he not only diminishes the efficacy of both practices but he also divides the very body of Christ.

Clearly both holiness and justice are important. We should not focus on half of God’s commands to the exclusion of the rest.

Another battle I’ve been trying to understand is the battle between piety and knowledge.

Is it better to obey God, to act on His behalf, or is it better to learn about God, to know what it is He commands?

Some would say that knowledge is too dry, that the life of the mind is on par with selfishness. It brings to mind ivory towers and keeping oneself unsullied by the realities of the real world.

While it is true that focusing solely on knowledge and learning would keep one from ever actually helping this world of hurting people, modern church culture seems to lean too heavily in the direction of anti-intellectualism. There is a growing spirit of pragmatism in our churches. A spirit whose first question about an idea is not “Is it true?” but “Does it work?”.

“Young people tend to be activists, dedicated supporters of a cause, though without always inquiring too closely either whether their cause is a good end to pursue or whether this action is the best means by which to pursue it.” ~ Rev. John R. W. Stott in an address at the Inter-Varsity Fellowship Annual Conference

It seems this is another set of discipleship practices that when separated leads to reduced success.

On one hand you have people rushing crazily about for the next good idea regardless of the wisdom or truth of it, perhaps even causing more harm than good. On the other hand you have people sitting stagnant with their books, not allowing any of the knowledge of God to seep into their hearts and affect the world around them.

Both piety and knowledge are desperately needed together. Only with knowledge can you know what God truly wants, what is the wise action to take. Only with piety can your own heart be changed, can the hearts and lives of other people be changed.

Paul says in II Corinthians that we are to take every thought captive toward the obedience of Christ.

Piety and knowledge. Obedience and intellect. The heart and the mind.

Both are needed. Both are required to continue to bring about God’s kingdom here on earth.

Only together can these practices nourish “a warm and fruitful devotion set on fire by truth.” (Stott)

Is there such a thing as good?

Not the sort of good that is only good because it results in some desired, practical outcome, but the sort of good that is good in itself. Inherently good, intrinsically good.

It would be arrogant to think that such a question could be fully addressed in this small place, but perhaps this space is sufficiently large at least to begin the wonderings.

This is a question containing quite a breadth of meaning, so it is worthwhile to ask it again: is there anything that is good in itself, apart from any practical value it might have?

What would it look like if the answer was no? What would our world look like if we believed that there was nothing that was good apart from its practical value? (I hasten to insert, however, that belief of some truth is not quite the same as truth itself.)

If there is no such thing as good, then that which is good becomes the same as whatever thing that I want.

When all that says “It is good” has been debunked, what says “I want” remains. ~ C.S. Lewis in Abolition of Man

If good is the same as I want, then we become nothing but bundles of desires chasing after what will satisfy.

Freedom.

We in the United States love the idea of freedom, yet even that idea has changed over the years.

Freedom, for most of the time that the major religions (Christianity, Judaism, Islam) have existed, meant the freedom to choose what is good; it involved responsibility and even the idea of self-denial.

If you asked most Westerners today, even those belonging to Christ, freedom means being able to do what pleases me. It means doing whatever I want.

Those belonging to Christ might add “as long as I do not hurt others”.

Yet even that caveat seems to apply only to short-term harm and not to anything long-term such as caring for our earth and being committed to justice.

Look at our world and see the belief that there is nothing that is purely good, that freedom means the ability to follow my own desires.

Many of those who pursue freedom are not truly free at all. They are controlled by their own passions and desires, forced to spend their lives chasing after what will satisfy, yet never finding it.

Those who freely choose to be controlled by Christ, however, are choosing to control their desires and to harness their passions in pursuit of that which is good. They will be satisfied.

Once again, Christ turns the wisdom of this world upside down and gives the good gift of true freedom to those who voluntarily offer their own freedom to Him.

Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe.

It is a difficult and forever-long process, this learning how to make everything sacred.

It is also beautifully rewarding.

Learning how to make all things in your life sacred takes focus. It takes the sort of focus that teaches me how to be single-hearted towards God.

She is good at being very focused and single-minded, my youngest. Especially when she needs something.

The dreaded event of all mothers everywhere, her special lovey simply had to be washed at bedtime one night. She just couldn’t understand why she didn’t have her bunny.

“Bunny?” “Bunny is taking a bath, darling. I will bring you Bunny as soon as she is dry.” “O-hay.”

“Can I read you a bedtime story?” “Bunny?” “Bunny is taking a bath.” “Bass? Bunny?” “Yes, a bath. I’ll bring you Bunny when she is done.” “O-hay.”

“Let’s talk about our day, shall we?” “Mommy? Bunny?”

I sigh in frustration, yet feel a small stir in my heart.

What if I were that focused in my pursuit of God, my pursuit of making all things in my life meaningful?

What if I blocked out more of the mindless stories I read and the meaningless discussions I have online in order to pursue God? What would that look like?

You will keep in perfect peace him whose mind is steadfast, because he trusts in You. ~ Isaiah 26.3

I read about a mother and daughter on a trip together through the world. During their journey, the mother speaks of a friend who accomplishes a marvelous amount of things during a day:

The mother continues to talk about the myriad of women who choose to please others, to accommodate others, rather than choosing to stand up for themselves and their families.

She says that many of us choose to be “good girls going for gold stars, instead of clasping tight the gold of our lives by living as we truly desire.”

This has the scent of truth that makes me pause. If I substitute “living as God desires”, this touches something deep in my heart.

How many times have I said “yes” to an activity, to a time commitment, even to a service opportunity, simply to please someone else or to create a certain image of myself?

So many times those “yeses” have cost me and my family. They have kept me from clasping tight the gold of obeying God’s desire that I should, for this season, focus most on these little disciples running around my feet.

I want desperately to be single-hearted. I desire to chase after God, to pursue and focus on only what He has called me to do rather than to fritter away my moments on activities that attempt to please others.

What does this look like? How do you do this in your own life? How do you carefully and sanely choose exactly where to spend your time and energy?

Do you have a goal, a purpose or mission statement for your family? Do you have a lens through which you filter every request, every moment’s choice?

The mother in my book says that “change happens in the small moments, when a sliver of light finds its way through the cracks”.

To help herself to focus, “I wrote down every single thing I did in fifteen-minute increments for three entire weeks…I asked myself a thousand times a day before acting – and, miraculously, speaking – What am I creating with this choice right now?”

I want to see everything around me as sacred, to be single-minded in pursuing God and His desires for me. I want to choose with intention rather than feelings, excuses, or circumstances. I want to please God rather than man.

I want to clasp tight the gold instead of aimlessly grasping for gold stars.

God’s Words are often difficult to understand.

I don’t understand why this is so, why God wouldn’t want us to easily understand Him and His ways, but that is a wondering for another time.

All throughout His Word, God makes promises about what will happen when we approach Him. He makes promises about how He answers when we ask Him for something. He makes promises about what He will give if only we would ask.

Sometimes those promises seem to be contradicted by the reality we can see.

Jesus tells us that if we ask, we will receive.

Jesus tells us that if we ask together with others, we will receive.

Jesus tells us that if we ask in His name, we will receive.

Jesus promises that if we are just persistent enough, just have faith enough, just beg Him hard enough with our faces to the ground and our tears falling like blood in desperation, He will give us what we ask for.

This is not what we live.

This is not what we live when a young mother dies of cancer. This is not what we live when a child lives her life in chronic pain and then dies. This is not what we live when a family is torn apart by depression.

So how do we reconcile this? How do we reconcile the promise with the life lived in this world?

Because Jesus also made other promises.

He promised that we would have trouble in this world, that storms would come against us, that we would be hated by this world in which we live.

Did He lie? Is He crazy?

Or is there something deeper within His words that we have trouble understanding?

Is there something deeper that we cannot see from our place here on earth, tethered as we are to the physical, unable to grasp the spiritual all around us?

From one who is stumbling along in the dark along with the rest of you, here is what I believe based on what I read in God’s Word as a whole.

What God does is not always what I want. What God allows is sometimes more than I can comprehend. What God gives is often too hard for me.

What God accomplishes is always best.

Best for me, best for someone else, best for our world. Just…best.

Not painless, not comfortable, not happy.

Best.

I know from my own experience as a parent that best is often painful and unpleasant. My children often are unhappy (to put it ridiculously mildly) with what I decide would be best.

When Jesus tells us to ask in His name, rather than His name being a magical incantation to get what we want, perhaps it is a way of living, of remaining in Him as He is in His Father.

When Jesus tells us to ask alongside of others, rather than it being a way to coerce others into asking for what we want so that we can manipulate God, perhaps it is a way to allow the Holy Spirit to work in our hearts in a way that cannot happen on our own.

I don’t know.

As my Papa would say, “Well, I’ll tell you.

I don’t know.”

Here’s what I do know.

When I look at God’s Word in its entirety, whether that be the whole of Scripture or the whole of Jesus’ life, I see a God who is ultimate power and who is ultimate love.

And I see a God who has a plan that makes absolutely no sense while in the middle of it all. A plan that seems, frankly, insane while you are watching it all unfold.

A plan that, at its ending, is better, is more beautiful, is more glorious than anything I could have imagined or asked for.

A plan that is best.

I think perhaps that is why He gave us Jesus. To show us what the end will be even when the middle seems to be crushing the life out of us.

That end?

Best.

This is a question containing quite a breadth of meaning, so it is worthwhile to ask it again: **is there anything that is good in itself, apart from any practical value it might have?**

**If good is the same as I want, then we become nothing but bundles of desires chasing after what will satisfy.**