Power Of A Moment

Back in February 2009 when my husband’s job was eliminated, we experienced so many emotions: fear, anxiety, uncertainty, sadness…everything you would expect.

However, there was also a sense of anticipation. This is not a typical reaction to such a major life event, but as Christians, we are called to walk by faith, NOT by sight. We recognized this was a personal invitation from Jesus Himself to walk with Him along what looked (to us) like a very scary path.

Over and over again, He gave me this verse for that season: “Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the desert.” (Isaiah 43:18-19).

That verse became my lifeline during those days. It speaks of several things:

*Live  TODAY. The past is past. Over. Done. Gone. We choose where we place our focus. Why focus on what is finished and can never be retrieved? Jesus gives us a new focus. We cannot dwell in the past. But we can and should dwell in the present. Right here, right now is all that any of us have. Now is the only place where we can experience God. His Name is I AM.   So live in the moment with the knowledge that you and Jesus are moving forward one step at a time.

*Jesus is ALWAYS at work. He is never idle. As John Piper says, “He is always at work in a thousand different ways that we cannot see.” His ways are always fresh, exciting, bold, and brilliant. Open your eyes to what He may be doing right in the midst of your mess. Pray that He would give you those eyes to see. Even when you cannot begin to imagine what He is doing, HE IS DOING A NEW THING!  You may not be able to perceive what that is. You may not have any idea where you are going but rest assured, He has a destination in mind! And it  will be for your highest good and His highest glory.

*Jesus ALWAYS makes a way. Always. He knows exactly what is going on in your life. What has taken you by surprise has not taken Him by surprise. He knows all things and He is firmly seated on His throne. There is a saying that says, “If He has brought you to it, He will bring you through it” and that is true. He has permitted this season in your life with great love and intention. You may be in a place right now where you see no way out. When you know Jesus as your Savior, that is never true. Nothing…no thing is impossible with Him. He always has a plan. As this verse says, He can make streams in the desert and a way where there is no way. You are safe in His all-encompassing, loving care.

As the days unfolded and Doug and I made the conscious decision to cling to this verse Jesus had given us, I had an epiphany one afternoon. We had been discussing what we would do to celebrate when this season was over. But…

What if we went out to dinner to celebrate BEFORE this season ended?

We had this verse from Jesus that He is at work. We know that He is good and kind and can only do good to us. HE is our life: not our stuff, our home, our paychecks. He had taught us to live with an open hand. We could trust Him with the outcome of our situation, whatever happened.

Why not celebrate in anticipation of what He was going to do?

So we did.

We picked a restaurant, had a delicious meal, and toasted to our good and kind Savior who does all things well. We were living fully in present despite our uncertainties and trusting Him for the outcome. This was an outward expression of our inner faith.

It was exhilarating!

We remembered that evening as the days turned into months and the months turned into years. It would be 30 months before we left that season and entered into a new one of great abundance and joy. In the meantime, Jesus proved in both spectacular and quiet ways that He is ENOUGH. 

Whatever situation is causing you heartache as you read this, would you consider thanking Jesus in advance for what He is going to do in your life? Take everything off the table, have no agenda of your own, open your hands and your heart, and watch Him work.

You have to go through this season anyway; why not go through it with joy and trust and a sense of anticipation? You will not regret it.

Wait and hope for and expect the Lord; be brave and of good courage and let your heart be stout and enduring. Yes, wait for,  and hope for and expect the Lord. —Ps. 27:14

Raising teenage girls is not for the faint of heart.

While I am sure that I was a perfectly delightful teenager when my mother was raising me, (stop laughing, Mom!), I am having a very challenging time parenting my teenage daughter.

When she was a little girl, Julia was a ray of sunshine. She had a mop of red curls, bright blue eyes, and a near-constant smile.

So, when my cheery, agreeable daughter reached her teenage years, I was unprepared for the moodiness, the irritability, and the occasional angry retort that was intended to wound.

I have never been one to back down from a fight. (I was not called” The Mouth Of Theresa Avenue” by the moms on the street on which I grew up for nothing).

In my natural personality, I can be combative if I am challenged. Thankfully…and mercifully for those who live with me…Jesus has sanded down those rough edges with His stunning patience, relentless love, and breathtaking grace.

However, just like the apostle Paul lamented in Romans 7:1: “I don’t really understand myself, for I want to do what is right, but I don’t do it. Instead, I do what I hate” I have done what I hate when I respond in anger toward my daughter when she  hurts my feelings with one of her outbursts.

While listening to one of Tullian  Tchividjian’s sermons  this afternoon, one of the ways he defined grace really resonated with me: “Grace is being loved when you are unloveable. Grace is God giving you His best when you are at your worst.”

I knew Jesus was speaking to me.

Tim Keller once said, “The Gospel is pretty much the solution to every problem.”

How very true those words are.

The next time my daughter lashes out at me as a result of a flood of teenage hormones, I need to remember the grace that Jesus lavished on me when He died for me while I was still His enemy. (Romans 5:8). I need to remember the way He covers my wounded heart with His mercy and grace. I need to remember His faithful love towards me, even when I am unfaithful. I need to remember His sweet forgiveness when I have broken His heart with my waywardness.

I need to remember GRACE.

Would you be willing to do the same?

Think of the person in your life that tends to hurt your feelings.

Will you respond in the flesh with an eye for an eye? Will you choose words that are deliberately meant to sear? Will your heart remain hard, unyielding?

Or…

Will you take a minute to step back, to remember the lavish grace that  your Savior has given you, and ask Him to flood your heart with His love for that person? Will you choose to search for what is lovely?  Will you give them your best when they are at their worst?

Will you choose to treat that person as Jesus would?

(Note: I am NOT talking about an abusive situation here. I am referring to the occasional emotional skirmishes that we tend to have with those we love).

Choose grace. Choose peace. Choose love.

When you do, you will discover the sheer power of grace.

Grace conquers because grace is rooted in love.

**********

Let nobody ever tell me that our God does not have a sense of humor.

Would you believe that before I even finished writing this post, the teenage hormones reared their ugly head?!

I chose to give my daughter grace.

Surprise registered in her beautiful blue eyes.

She was uncertain.

She was silent.

What could have escalated into a pointless argument instead settled into…peace. The tension drained from the room.

“I’m sorry,” she said quietly.

I accepted her apology.

A few minutes later, she told me something funny.

We both laughed.

Grace won.

It always does.

Christ’s way is best. Every time.

For out of His fullness (abundance) we have all received…one grace after another and spiritual blessing upon spiritual blessing and even favor upon favor and gift heaped upon gift. —John 1:16

“Unless we take God just as He is in His wholeness, we will never find hope in our own brokenness.”—Jennifer Rothschild.

I listened with tears in my eyes as a woman from our Bible study shared her heartache. Four years after Jesus allowed  her life to take a detour that she never wanted , she is still struggling to deal with her new reality.

She is hurt. She is angry. She is scared. She is afraid to hope. She is weary.

However…she is resilient. She is a fighter. She refuses to leave the path that Jesus has led her on…because to do so would be to leave Jesus.

She could no more leave Jesus than she could refuse to take her next breath.

He is her very life.

Her tenacious faith inspires me.

Afterward, I thought about the cost of truly following Jesus.

It is never easy.

Sometimes it is downright dangerous.

He requires every last piece of us. No holding back.

Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone desires to be My disciple, let him deny himself (disregard, lose sight of, and forget himself and his own interests) and take up his cross and follow Me (cleave steadfastly to Me, conform wholly to My example in living and if need be, in dying also). (Matthew 16:24).

Not a whole lot of wiggle room is there?

When Jesus called His disciples, He asked them to leave everything and follow Him.

They had a choice: yes or no? Stay with the familiar or venture into the unknown?

A quick read through the Gospels will show that the instant they said yes, their lives changed forever.

Rather than live on Easy Street for the rest of their earthly existence, they would travel Calvary Road.

Time and time again, Jesus failed to live up to their (very limited) expectations.

He simply (mercifully) shattered those false perceptions to smithereens. Instead, He gave them a front row seat to what it looks like when GOD breaks into history and walks this earth as a Man.

It took them all the way to the Cross.

Talk about a horrific detour that none of them saw coming.

Yet…this was exactly the place of God’s greatest triumph and victory.

We know that now, 2000 years later.

They didn’t know that then.

What will do with those moments in our own lives?

It is when Jesus allows something into our lives that we never imagined or wanted that we have a choice to make.

Do we really want to follow Jesus?

Not the Jesus we may have invented in our minds…but the real Jesus as He has presented Himself to be in His Word?

The One who plainly told us, “In this world you will have tribulation and trials and distress and frustration.” (John 16:33).

Notice what He did NOT say. Jesus does NOT say: “In this world you will have prosperity and good times and lots of laughs and all your dreams will come true”?

Everyone would like to follow a jesus like that.

But that jesus does not exist.

The real Jesus does not exist to make your earthly life easy and comfortable. There was nothing about His life that was easy or comfortable.

The real Jesus tells you that even though this life is difficult, you can “be of good cheer (take courage, be confident, certain, undaunted!) For I have overcome the world. (I have deprived it of power to harm you and have conquered it for you).” (John 16:33).

Following Jesus means saying “YES” to everything He allows into your life.

He is good. All the time.

He is incapable of doing us harm.

He always knows what He is doing.

He is kind and compassionate.

He went to hell and back to save our sin-saturated souls.

He does not enjoy seeing us in pain but He loves us enough to do whatever is necessary to ensure our highest good and His greatest glory.

So…when pain sears and life hurts and hearts ache…will we say the hard Yes?

NOT a masochistic “yes” to pain…but a full-throated, whole-hearted YES to the Savior who bled and died and rose again to give us LIFE?

Will we say “YES” to His heart? His ways? His love?

Will we say “YES” to trust rather than doubt? To courage rather than fear? To life rather than death? To hope rather than despair?

Will we say “YES” to the healing of our scarred hearts?

Will we say “YES” to the Jesus of the Bible who has traveled the very roads He asks us to travel and freely gives us His strength and His joy for the journey?

Will our entire lives be one of “YES” to the One who said “YES” to us when He came to rescue us from sin?

The choice is yours.

The disciples said yes. It cost them everything. Jesus led them to the bloody Cross and it all must have seemed like a cruel joke.

Their “YES” led them here?

It did.

Although they never would have believed it at the time, they were in the very center of God’s will on that Good Friday.

Yet…on Sunday, there was an empty tomb.

Their “YES” had led them there too: to ultimate triumph. To life everlasting. To a blazing, eternal JOY that would never end. To freedom.

Don’t be afraid to say the hard “YES” to Jesus.

When you do, you will discover that you have actually said “YES” to inner healing, supernatural joy, exquisite intimacy, boundless hope,  tremendous purpose, deep peace in the midst of the storms, and fiery courage.

Bottom line: your “YES” gives you all of Jesus.

And He is all you ever need.