Being Sorted Out

I find myself driven to write, to get thoughts out on paper, to sort out the events of the past year. Writing is for me in many ways an admission that I don’t have it all together, that I really need help, and that I’m really the one that needs sorted out. The times I write are often born out of the realization that however much I know the answers, they aren’t being lived out as they ought in my life. So my little writing sessions end up being my attempts to preach the gospel to myself, as John Piper exhorts believers to do, to get truth from my mind to my mixed up heart, and to teach myself that my feelings and emotions are fickle and I am in perpetual need of truth grander, deeper, and more enduring than my small situation.

It’s a fight to get outside of myself and all weakness of my mind, to climb out into the big wide world, take part in other people’s lives, and most of all, to lose myself in the splendor of the divine Word. I tell myself lies, sometimes without even realizing it. Ideas have consequences, and often I’m convicted of patterns and habits of thinking, living, acting, and speaking that do not bring good to others or glory to my God. I am convicted of sin, of selfishness—of smallness of goal. After all, as Lewis wrote, “It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”

It’s easy to lose sight of the goal, to forget what is true, good, beautiful. The compass gets turned around. Prayer becomes stagnant, the light of the Word appears dulled, relationships seem like more work than they’re worth. If I’m honest, my lack of energy in pursuit of holiness isn’t from ignorance as much as it’s from choice. I let down my guard, let up the fight, and wander off on side paths when I’ve been set on the straight and narrow way. He’s called and redeemed me, renewed my heart, given me the Spirit, He teaches, guides, comforts, and yet I desire that which cannot satisfy.

In these past months I’ve been taught by so many fellow travelers; often through the writings of those already passed to glory, but also through professors, pastors, brothers and sisters. I’ve been given the gift of sitting under those who have learned much from the Word, who are farther along in their journey, those who humble me by their selflessness and dependence on God. I’ve seen and experienced the value of friendship more than ever before in my life. Over and over, I’ve come back to this song by Need to Breathe as one which captured the deep longing in my heart to both have friends to lean on, and to be a faithful friend on whom others can lean—all channels of grace and hope to one another.

Ramblers in the wilderness we can’t find what we need
Get a little restless from the searching
Get a little worn down in between
Like a bull chasing the matador is the man left to his own schemes
Everybody needs someone beside em’ shining like a lighthouse from the sea

Brother let me be your shelter
I’ll never leave you all alone
I can be the one you call
When you’re low
Brother let me be your fortress
When the night winds are driving on
Be the one to light the way
Bring you home

Face down in the desert now there’s a cage locked around my heart
I found a way to drop the keys where my failures were
Now my hands can’t reach that far
I ain’t made for a rivalry I could never take the world alone
I know that in my weakness I am strong, but
It’s your love that brings me home

And when you call and need me near
Sayin' where'd you go?
Brother I'm right here
And on those days when the sky begins to fall
You're the blood of my blood
We can get through it all

It’s never like we plan it, or even how we’d choose it. The people God puts in our lives are just as messed up as we are, yet every conversation, every interaction and encounter happens with purpose, and we possess countless opportunities to encourage, challenge and strengthen those around us. In the community of saints down in Florida, I think few know the impact they have had on my life as they’ve given me their time, their care, their love; as they’ve called out sin in my life, spoken words of truth, and pointed me continually to Christ—the One who changes everything. As Fernando Ortega sings,

Take heart my friend, we'll go together
This uncertain road that lies ahead
Our faithful God has always gone before us
And He will lead the way once again

Take heart my friend, we can walk together
And if our burdens become too great
We can hold up and help one another
In God's love, in God's grace

Take heart my friend, the Lord is with us
As He has been all the days of our lives
Our assurance every morning
Our defender in the night

If we should falter when trouble surrounds us
When the wind and the waves are wild and high
We will look away to Him who rules the waters
Who spoke His peace into the angry tide

He is our comfort, our sustainer
He is our help in time of need
And when we wander He is our shepherd
He who watches over us, never sleeps

Take heart my friend, the Lord is with us
As He has been all the days of our lives
Our assurance every morning
Our defender in the night

Take heart my friend, the Lord is with us
As He has been all the days of our lives
Our assurance every morning
Our defender in the night

In fact, my journey as Christian really began by learning at the feet of others, with amazement at the faith of other saints, and the passionate longing to be used by God. As I read biographies of missionaries and explored their lives through their own writings and those of others, a fire was lit in me. It has never gone out, though it has been clarified and refined by God’s grace. There have been times when it died down, when the cost seemed great and the world seemed appealing, but each time He’s called me back, given me courage and strength, transformed my appetites and longings to be conformed more into His image. I clearly remember reading Hudson Taylor’s Spiritual Secret when I was about eight (actually, in the very chair I’m in now), and realizing I wanted nothing more in the entire world than to see God work in powerful ways, to pour myself out in the work of the gospel, to be spent for the kingdom no matter the cost. That can happen in China, like it did with Hudson, or in a church with a hundred people in Washington, or in a Florida cathedral.

Seeing the courage of brothers and sisters gives me courage to press on. God has helped them through situations I could never dream of going through, and they’re made it out to the other side. They’ve seen the faithfulness of God, they’ve learned to delight in Christ through impossible odds—and even more amazing, they’ve all testified that it was worth it.

Worth it. Forever I return to that. Is it worth it? Deep down I always know the answer, but the fact is that all to often I live as if I don’t, as if it’s really a question still needing to be answered.

The past year and a half has taught me how much I fear. I’ve generally thought of myself as a fearless person, or at least someone who hated weakness and cultivated that daredevil spirit. It’s led me to face terrifying things, and over the years I’ve realized that the absence of fear isn’t the same thing as the conquering of it. Not that I’m strong—that’s kind of the point. I’ve realized more than ever my own inherent weakness and the rampant distrust of my heart toward a good God. I fear hurting other people. I fear the failure of close relationships. I fear leaving home and growing up. I fear being a mother responsible and accountable for the hearts and minds and souls of children. Often the things I desire the most are the things I am in some way hesitant to pursue. I’ve seen the sickness of my own heart, the things I’m capable of, and it horrifies me.

As I learn more of myself and grow more intimately acquainted with the effects of sin all around me, it grows more and more apparent that there is no way to make it through this world alive. Those who try to save their lives lose them anyway, and the fools are those who hang on in denial. As Jim Elliot said so honestly, He is no fool who loses what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose. Jim lost his life after all, and his wife lost her husband, but as a result, the Waodani people now know the hope of the gospel, and killers play with the grandchildren of the men they speared.

Here is my heart take what you want
'Cause I have no use for it anyway
Well of all the stupid things I've ever said
This could be the worst may be the best
But those are the breaks
These are the bruises
And if I can't give myself away I'm the only one who loses
And I don't want to lose this. . .

- Rich Mullins, The Breaks

So amid all this tumultuous world, the dangers of my flesh, the attacks of the enemy, and the temptations of the world, there is one answer, and one only. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. In the Hebrew sense, wisdom is the full-orbed, lifetime pursuit of applying truth to all of life. In my experience, this is not a simple thing, and it not only takes sacrifice (like every good thing in life), but also quietness of spirit and dedication to the common means of grace. Life gets busy and loud, and true north can be accidentally forgotten more than outright rejected—but the end result looks nearly the same.

Which is why this is a month in which I desperately want to get off the social media bandwagon for a time, slow down, and listen to the people across from me, look into their eyes, and let them know I’m all there with them. I want to run up the driveway in the dark and cold of the early morning, take pictures every minute I get, write through the mix of thoughts and emotions that have swirled around in my mind over the past months, revel in the simple, breathe in the quietness and peace, take time to read the Word slowly—like one savors caramel, in no hurry, simply enjoyment of heart. Right now it’s Isaiah, and the wonder of a faithful God in the face of sin. He is jealous, He pursues, He speaks peace and draws us near with His love.

How lovely is your dwelling place,

O LORD of hosts!

My soul longs, yes, faints

for the courts of the LORD;

my heart and flesh sing for joy

to the living God.

Even the sparrow finds a home,

and the swallow a nest for herself,

where she may lay her young,

at your altars, O LORD of hosts,

my King and my God.

Blessed are those who dwell in your house,

ever singing your praise! Selah

Blessed are those whose strength is in you,

in whose heart are the highways to Zion.

As they go through the Valley of Baca

they make it a place of springs;

the early rain also covers it with pools.

They go from strength to strength;

each one appears before God in Zion.

O LORD God of hosts, hear my prayer;

give ear, O God of Jacob! Selah

Behold our shield, O God;

look on the face of your anointed!

For a day in your courts is better

than a thousand elsewhere.

I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God

than dwell in the tents of wickedness.

For the LORD God is a sun and shield;

the LORD bestows favor and honor.

No good thing does he withhold

from those who walk uprightly.

O LORD of hosts,

blessed is the one who trusts in you!

(Psalm 84 ESV)