Meet Me At The Shack

So, in the midst of processing The Shack and all the billions ways God was using it to intersect my life, this note caught my attention on a friend's wall. It is brilliant. It captured a lot of my present and recent experiences with God, Brokenness, Pain and Redemption that I have yet found words to express publicly. I bolded the parts that really resonated with me.

From Sam Kruvand:

"Caveat: While I have some remarks to make about this phenomenon which swept the world of popular fiction called “The Shack”, I’d like to delineate some recent thoughts I’ve had on suffering, and wed them with some of the larger themes I found in Wm. Young’s bestseller. I’d only ask for your attention and your input should you choose to “speak”, as we engage this discussion.

By now you have probably realized (if you’ve read any of my past posts) that I’m not much concerned with length. Indeed, if more than 5 minutes of your time in our Attention Deficit generation would be rather spent jumping to the next wall or scanning the newsfeed, by all means carry on. Not everyone enjoys reading my style or content, and for that I am entirely sympathetic.

Secondly, I try to remain as real as possible which means I don’t hold much back. I have found that in community, growth, and communication, the open honesty policy is of chief importance. For this entry, however, I have held some things for reasons “which reason knows not”. If you have questions, I’ll gladly answer them in person.
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“Don’t worry, everything is going to be ok. God only gives us as much as we can handle”
I know I speak for many when I say that I’ve heard this statement before. Whether it be from well meaning church goers or the spiritually superstitious, it seems to be a common thread in the mainstream of modern American Christianity.

When I look at scripture in light of this popular “inference”, however, I simply can’t find the support -At least, not the sort that would make sense of the above wording. I’ll come back to that. For even before scripture, my own experiences have taught me otherwise, which I am thankful for.

In a culture where spirituality has been politicized and politics spiritualized, the garbled messages from media and modern Christian thought must be sifted through a filter, and that filter must be unwavering in the word of God, that which has and will outlast all the ideas of our day. (Isaiah 40:8)

One of the benefits of the historical scholar (which I am not, but which C.S. Lewis praised) is that he or she may gain the perspective of having lived in many places and times, so to speak, and may see with more clarity the duplicity of the imitations we hail as original and brilliant – from the political to the spiritual. But that statement must suffice for now because this reflection will not be concerned primarily with it. (See Lewis’ Weight of Glory, p.58) May we see with that same clarity as we look into the issue of suffering and the “great cataract of nonsense” that pours forth from our present age.

“Bend, not break . . .” You can never be too careful, play it safe, avoid those harmful endeavors, stay away from the emotions and the heart, avoid the vulnerable places, take the safe road, etc. etc. I think we’ve heard it all before. No matter what area of life we are progressing in, there seems to be a common goal of comfort and contentment. Death is the number one evil, and following whatever makes you happy is what’s important. Careful to avoid serious entanglements! Always seek to bend, not break.

These are messages we receive as a whole in this society. They permeate our lives. Kevin Teasley said it well, relating it back to the context of Christianity,
“We want gradual, escalating glory, and diminishing pain”And he was right. What a poignant deduction. I think when we are honest with ourselves, we find these desires at the core, often jousting with our love for God and those desires to be changed and used by Him.

The process of breaking and the events which set my mind thinking down this line of thought have revealed that I am, in many ways, all about that comfort and contentment. I think it is natural that we should want these things. And I’m not saying they are altogether bad. But what I see in statements like the above (that God only gives us what we can bear), and what creeps into our theology I think, are lies from the present age that we are too often deceived by.

In truth, I see a good principle in the thought. That principle lies primarily with the character of God. 1 Corinthians 10:13 “No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And the Lord is faithful, He will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear.”

On the surface it may seem like the first verse from Corinthians supports the original inference, namely, that God never gives us more than we can handle. However, the context (most often from my experience) in which that statement is exhausted, has little to do with temptation and everything to do with those factors that no one can help (except for, presumably, God). To name a few - the accidental death, the unfortunate bankruptcy, the uncanny disease or the poor timing of famines and floods (famines and floods may sound a bit archaic to some of us, but let us be reminded that most of the world’s population hovers in and out of poverty, and still relies heavily upon agriculture and the whims of storm and sea). Even when personal negligence is absent, some of the best and the brightest are crippled by life’s burdens, apart from temptation. All the nice guys finish last . . . well, sometimes they do.

But we run a race that doesn’t end here, and the determining factors of failure and success are simply not of this world.

Philippians 1:6 “…he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.”

This second reference gives us confidence that we are not merely left wandering after facing great challenges, but being drawn to the completion of something greater.

Jesus Christ himself reminds us that we must pick up our crosses daily and follow Him. He said himself that we will find trouble in this world.

Suffering often viewed in a sacred and positive light by the Word, much in contrast to the way we look at it culturally. If you scan any of the following, I think you may be surprised to see scripture’s take on it.

1 Peter 3:17,4:13,16
Romans 5:2-5, 8:17,18
Acts 5:41
2 Timothy 1:8
Philippians 3:10

These references not only speak of good things that come from our trials or sufferings, but also exhort us in them.

But I bring all these references about suffering forward to put this next thought in perspective.I would suggest that we must be broken completely – a rendering of our whole hearts is necessary before anything else can be achieved. There are times when we must break, not bend. For God does not want our words and our actions even as much as He wants our hearts, partially because from the heart all these things will flow. Also, it is the core of our being, not the outer shell of our existence. Forbid that we make the error of the Pharisees, lest we be like white washed tombs (Matthew 23:27). Isaiah 29:13 in paraphrase, “they honor me with their lips but their hearts are far from me.” It is tragic to think that our cultural appetites might distort our attitude toward the Savior.

One of my favorite artists, founder of the International Arts Movement (IAM) and working from New York City, Makoto Fujimura, says it this way

“In order to find hope, even in the midst of the broken and torn fragments of relationships, in order to begin to journey into the heart of the divide, we must first wrestle with the deeper issues of faith. We must be willing to be broken ourselves into prismatic shards by the Master Artist, God, so that Christ’s light can be refracted in us.”

But we think we’ve pinned God down. We’ve made Him irrelevant; He’s just the cranky old moralist in the sky, waiting to lower the proverbial “boom”- To the modernist, a comic tragedy. Comic because of the ridiculous chaos of life, and tragic because He of course doesn’t exist – and that’s true, this god isn’t real. But in his arrogance, man has suggested that he is the measure of all things, replacing God. He has attempted to climb out of his mortal cage (most likely due to the inklings within all of us that suggest we were made for much more than this) and declare his own greatness. But compared to the Maker, to the one who cannot be confined by a mere poem or a vast planet, whose glory exceeds the sun rising and the deep of space – I daresay we are the comic tragedy -Comic because of our asinine persistence; tragic because we are thus alienated.

Agreeing with some of the sentiments of the Shack, truly, God is not simply another priority. If He’s competing on a list for our attention, then He will never remain on top because of our nature, by definition. But if He is the source from which our priorities flow, if He is the mainstay in our ever-shifting world of needs and desires, a life well lived will be the beautiful evidence. That all things would flow from His life in us; that grace would move us to Him and lead us to look at others before ourselves. Yet the timing of that grace eludes our human understanding, and probably for good reason. But before I get in over my head (probably too late, ha) let me bring the focus back to what’s at stake here – our own security in what we “think” is true. Our human nature is to desire control, an afterthought (or perhaps forethought) of seeking knowledge in the garden from that forbidden tree. To be given what we can handle serves as a measure of comfort to our humanity, because we don’t like the realms of uncertainty. We largely distrust authority as it is, but to be told that our lives rest not in our own hands but in the hands of one much more powerful and elusive than we could even know is downright frightening. It may evoke such a response that we simply can’t handle the truth of it. Ah, we begin to break, even from the implication of the thought. Yet, we forget a powerful truth that functions alongside this one, and that is God’s goodness. Thus the question is not whether we believe God will only give us what we can handle (as I hope you see at this point, is incredibly false) but whether we trust in His goodness in the thick of tragedy and sometimes, despair.

For those who have not read the Shack, let me briefly (ha) fill you in. Mack is an older man whose little girl Missy was abducted and murdered four years before the book takes place. The book is largely about a fantastic meeting with God in which God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are characterized, and has a complex and powerful message about forgiveness. For anyone who has experienced the darker sides of life, it is a journey through some of the ugliest and raw emotions -ugly because of their faithlessness and raw because of their pain. I would be lying if I said I didn’t deal with my own tears in the first seventy pages, and then some. There is this thing called timing, and God’s is perfect. Reading the Shack was the final blow to make me break, and so I did. It was, what I like to call, “more than I bargained for”. And while I have a great love for that book, I have some serious reservations about it as well. And it was a difficult journey for my own heart. But those are conversations for another time. What I’m interested in here is the Brokenness. This is something cherished by the follower of Christ – for it is brokenness that leads us to true repentance; it is in being torn down that we may be rebuilt; it is in dying that we may be reborn.

Paul says this, 2 Corinthians 12:10 “That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”

He had his strength taken, that He would rely on the strength of the Living God. That is how I define brokenness; the complete absence of our own strength.

But I think it is brushed under the rug too often when we “play church” sometimes. Brokenness is not a fun process. And since we tend to flee, as already stated, in our society and as humans, from those things which cause us discomfort, we face difficult words from the Gospel. But let us not change the Gospel to mold our own god; we must be molded by Him, if any real work of restoration is to be done.

Ya’ll, this is no easy thing. To say that our hearts are required, and that our center, our timid, selfish, greedy natures are what God is truly after, is a bit frightening. But dying to oneself (as we are called to do by scripture) will of course require a bit of pain and discomfort, perhaps more than just a bit. The way we’ve always been (and we really, really don’t like change (intrinsically) will not be an easy transformation. It is not, most often, the flicking of a switch, or the simple clarification that a single retreat, message, or seminar may bring. I’ve said before and I’ll reiterate – we are in process – thus, all of this takes time - and persistence that we, of ourselves, do not have.

Ergo, the wording in the statement, in my opinion ought to read, rather than God giving us as much as we can handle – that God seems to give us more than we can handle, and in so doing draws us back to himself. When our eyes are locked on ourselves (here I draw from extensive selfishness) it will only be from being overwhelmed that they are turned to God. And one could argue that the breaking either softens your heart to the one who heals, or hardens it to the world and all its madness. This would also explain the polarity of responses that humans have to suffering. But let me cap this with the words of a man far wiser than myself, and I’ll see if I can’t wrap up what I’m trying to say.

“God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our consciences, but shouts in our pain: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.” – C.S. Lewis

Do I like this? Emphatically, NO. Breaking is a part of that “lost art of living” which I would rather not come to terms with, because it can be terrible. But those things which we are thankful for that we can never see in the “midst of it all” have taught me to reluctantly submit, often tearful and frustrated from the process. I have come to see that the most growth blooms in those deserts, and to be cherished more than the escape of “momentary and light affliction” are those rare glimpses we get of God’s heart when we die to ourselves. The words of Paul are also some comfort (no small measure indeed) as he writes to the Romans 8:18 “I consider our present sufferings are not worth comparing to the glory that will be revealed in us”. Ah, but to hope in what we can neither see nor entirely understand tries us at times. Yes, it does. But how wonderful hope is, renewed to the weary soul that has been displaced and bewildered by the chaos and sin of life.

Some of you may be thinking, now Sam, “isn’t this all just a bit too technical, I mean, c’mon, chill out, it’s not that big of a deal, just a few minor words”. And in the past, I might have agreed with you, but I have come to learn this principle: Often our gravest errors are in those details. Next time you encounter the child who has just lost his parents to divorce, or the man pondering the gun because he’s gone bankrupt, or the perhaps the Mack whose daughter has been abducted, or maybe the student who can’t make ends meet because she works two jobs and still can’t provide . . . I would gently ask you to count your words carefully, and remember that we serve a God who treats us as we are, in the words of Dr. Ravi Zacharias: Brittle clay in His tender hands. We just may forgive the backstabbers, the liars, the murderers and thieves, (and be forgiven ourselves), but I daresay we must be broken first, for we have stubborn and proud hearts that are too easily hardened. So let us check our attitudes toward suffering and hardship, and let us count with Paul that there is strength in our weakness, lest we forget that clay pots must be broken in order to be reformed.

You know, I suppose that any sort of message that speaks about the importance of suffering or the reality of our own “lostness” and true need for Christ will not be inherently popular. On the surface, I don’t even like it, and I’m the one writing in this case! I also suppose, as stated earlier, that any message outlasting the attention span of its readers will suffer from the same neglect.

But strive with me as we engage in these difficult subjects – let us ask God for the eyes to see and to read of His word, and find what His wisdom has to say. May the flow of His grace not cease to carry us in our many errors."

Thinking with Makoto: Beauty Without Regret

“The layers of azurite pigments, spread over paper as I let the granular pigments cascade. My eyes see much more than what my mind can organize. As the light becomes trapped within pigments, a "grace arena" is created, as the light is broken, and trapped in refraction. Yet, my gestures are limited, contained, and gravity pulls the pigments like a kind friend.

Every beauty suffers. A research scientist friend once told me that the autumn leaves are most beautiful on the trees by the roadside because they happen to be distressed by the salt and pollution. Every sunset is a reminder of the impending death of Nature herself. The minerals I use must be pulverized to bring out their beauty. The Japanese were right in associating beauty with death.

Art cannot be divorced from faith, for to do so is to literally close our eyes to that beauty of the dying sun setting all around us. Death spreads all over our lives and therefore faith must be given to see through the darkness, to see through the beauty of "the valley of the shadow of death".

Prayers are given, too, in the layers of broken, pulverized pigments. Beauty is in the brokenness, not in what we can conceive as the perfections, not in the "finished" images but in the incomplete gestures. Now, I await for my paintings to reveal themselves. Perhaps I will find myself rising through the ashes, through the beauty of such broken limitations.”

- Makoto Fujimura

*essay and painting by Makoto Fujimura

idols

you will never satisfy.
you can never give me what I truly want.

let me run to the only one who can.

“an idol promises everything and delivers nothing.” – beth moore

“I keep running after broken cisterns that never satisfy.”

America's Best Dance Crew

LOVE them!

God knows our courage is limited.

These words brought so much relief to my soul.

From my NACR devotional a few days ago:

Trembling and bewildered, the women went out and fled from the tomb. They said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid. Mark 16:8

"The most reliable early manuscripts of the Gospel of Mark end with this verse. Mark's version of the Good News ends with this very high drama. Just at the point in the story where we might have expected to find rejoicing, we find fear. The women are afraid. Just at the point where we might have expected confidence, we find uncertainty. The women are bewildered. What a remarkable thing that the people chosen by God to be the first messengers of the Good News were too frightened and bewildered to speak! God chose to entrust the future of the Kingdom to people with limited courage.

God knows our courage is limited. He knows that fear can immobilize us. God does not shame us for being afraid. God has trusted people with this kind of limit in the past. God does not need us to have unshakable faith.

The women in this text did eventually speak. Courage was granted to them. Fears faced without shame will lose their power to immobilize us. God knows that fear is part of our human condition. Our fears do not keep God from entrusting us to be message bearers of Good News.

Thank you, Lord,
for entrusting the Kingdom
to the tired and traumatized.
Thank you for accepting me
and my limited courage.
Help me today to accept my limits, Lord.
Help me to give my fears to you. Amen."


Like I said, those words spoke LIFE into me... I mean...

God knows our courage is limited.

That was so powerful for me to realize. It is okay to be weak. I don't have to be strong. He is strong. Therefore, I am allowed to be weak and have Him be my strength.

And the best part about it, He already knows how weak I am. And, I love the part about God not shaming us because we are afraid and that He does not need us to have an unshakable faith. We're called to come as we are...

He already knows...

I have probably lived in more fear and chaos in the last few weeks off and on since I’ve start recovery than in a very long time

And it’s been really hard for me to get out there and raise support when I’ve felt immobilized by my fears and feelings of inadequacy stemming from my past.

It has been a time of deep healing and things have happened that caused me to take a break even from the internet and my blog because they cannot be shared except to those around me who have been a tremendous support in this journey. But I was really starting to feel like a failure in my job because I couldn’t bring myself out of the pit. I felt stuck and I lacked the courage I once had.

God knows our courage is limited.

Me and God have grown especially close in the last few weeks and I’ve been able to ask Him to speak into my situation and my life in ways I never thought I’d need. He did things today that I’ve been praying about for a while, restored my courage so I could get back out there and face the battles ahead. I only have to take it one day at a time.

God knows my courage is limited. I tried to make the most out of it today and took as much opportunity as I could.

He carried me.
The lord provides.
He is never late.
He is never forgetful.
He is more intimately aware of our situations and our needs and our fears and the things that hold us back then we are.

He is on our side.
He fights our fears and fights to give us courage to get back on our feet.
He is my Deliverer.

Best night ever.

This is totally how God works.
I find it funny how the best “witness” to my brother, (even though I hate that term) is someone who is not a Christian...

So, my brother and I have been hanging out more regularly lately, really in these last 4-6 months since he has started calling me.

I’m having the relationship with him I have always wanted with him.

Now instead of me always calling and wanting to do something, if 2-3 weeks go by and we haven’t hung out or talked or texted, he starts asking what’s up.

And he’s been in a period where he’s really wanting to find his place.

Today, I texted to see if he wanted to grab lunch. He doesn’t text back till after 4 or so and says, maybe dinner.

He’s very non-committal. I didn’t really know what that meant and texted back, yeah when/where.

Don’t hear from him so I start considering my other options. Jenni wasn’t going to be back from St. Louis till late. Some of my friends were going to a wheelchair basketball game with Nia and Chris, Thai food before with Leah and Banana. Nothing really grabbed me.

After dance I ended up going to the post office and went to my secret Starbucks to read for a few minutes, just picked up C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves again.

I texted Chip to see if he wanted to grab dinner at The Berg. Then two minutes later my brother calls me back. He wanted to see if I was still free. Of course, yeah. And I was just thinking, I’d go eat with my brother since I knew he’d probably have plans later and then I can catch up with Chip later in the night. Then, I’m thinking, wait, since I overbooked and now have plans with both, let’s just ALL go eat.

My brother was like, are you serious? I don’t want to be the third wheel. And I’m like, dude, he is one of my best guy friends and he’s got a girlfriend, you are NOT gonna be the third wheel!

Keep in mind, I have been wanting the two of them to connect since I first met Chip.

And it just totally happened that they have a lot more in common than I thought, they have mutual friends, nearly the same major and the biggest thing is, Chip totally gets where my brother is at and is able to speak to him from a completely different place, it is beautiful.

Chip brought up how he hadn’t seen Drage in a couple weeks or so and then mentioned to my brother, he doesn’t go to church but hangs out with a few peeps like me and the pastor. And then my brother kinda warms up a little more.

Chip mentions some more about the Tough Questions group that he leads with some other students and John Drage and explains what it is… all of the language he was using, like it’s a place where different people of different views can come and respectfully listen to other people’s views on how the world works, on spirituality, etc.

And my brother starts chiming in.

THEN, we get our food and start talking about something else and inside I’m already glad they got to talk about that stuff and was thinking in the car my brother would think I put chip up to this, but especially Chip not being a Christian, my brother could see I wasn’t trying to get him in some “little club” or trying to convert him or anything, so then he switches subjects and brings it back to Chip.

So when did you stop going to church?
You could tell he was really responding to Chip and wanted to know more.

I could not believe it.

And they have more in common than I thought.

And it was cool to see my brother in that context.

I was the one more uptight than anything on inside secretly worrying my brother wouldn’t connect. He’s not that outgoing, but the minute Chip got in the car I could tell my brother liked him.

Lord, you are amazing.

And my brother was asking from a place of utter curiosity and wanting to know. Little did he know that a lot of Chip’s reasons and frustrations with Christianity and the Church were the same things my brothers has felt for a long time but never had the courage to voice.

It was AWESOME!

I just kinda wished I wasn’t there for a minute so they could just talk, but it was so cool to see my brother really respond to Chip.

I am just still so taken aback.

The person who has probably had the biggest influence and really awakened my brother was a non-Christian.

This should come as no surprise though. And I loved how Chip could explain his journey, there was no bitterness towards the Church or Christians, but he was just simply offering the love and acceptance he offers and allowing my brother permission to feel how he was feeling for once.

I feel like I saw a completely other side of my brother, but in a good way. To see the wheels turning and to hear him interact with one of his peers about real issues, since the only times I’ve been around my brother and guys his age were guys he played soccer or football with over the years.

It was amazing.

All I can do is give thanks to God.

I came home and got to just relay the whole story to Jenni.

A-mazing.

And I’m learning I have a lot to learn about how to be in relationship with people. Like outside of planning coffee dates or meeting up for lunch or dinner or having someone over for tea. Because I am a very structured person and I am always afraid of people getting tired of me, I am very scheduled when it comes to seeing the people I want to see just friends, cause obviously with mentoring relationships or support appts. schedule meetings works best. But I am learning how to just let relationships breathe and evolve and how to just hang out, even with girls I've mentored/mentoring. And my brother was like what are you doing this weekend. And he's really reaching out to mom. He goes to "check" on her about once a week and talks to her. She's so lonely he said... God is really doing something. I still can't see it and don't have to be able to, but it is AWESOME!

My roommates who both grew up in big families are teaching me just from living, what it means to live in community… especially Jenni’s sisters and her, seeing them interact and how they are completely home with one another has really given me a lot of insight to true community.

I’ve been really challenged over the last year or so to learn how to love without an agenda.

The other day in one of my bible studies, we watched a Nooma video on loving people. Rob Bell is amazing, I love what he has to say about loving people and loving Jesus.

I am learning that I have learned so much and have so much to learn about this from my friends who are outside of the Church. They are teaching me how to love regardless and free of agenda. Jesus make me into one who loves freely and loves as you love.

Valentine's Day

*** So this year was probably my best Valentine's Day to date, more on that later when time permits, but I really liked this, so I'm re-posting Sam's Valentine's day post that he re-posted from last year:

"I decided to re-post this, written one year ago. It's still quite relevant for me, and circumstances are eerily similar. Have a great VDAY!
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Today is February 14th. The gears of the semester are beginning to grind, as they invariably do. I have just recovered from a week long illness that had me bed ridden for two days, and I am only starting to regain the edge I had forged on my classes and crazy schedule. My life is filled to the brim with meetings and study sessions and the various “recreations” of a second year university student trying to keep up appearances and scholarships.

Fortunately, I have friends here that come take care of me. Fortunately, I have family who send me meds and congratulations. And fortunately, I am not in a state of spiritual and emotional confusion that marked the past semester. But others are not so fortunate. And today is a day when those who, like myself, have never had a significant other to look to on this day – today is a day that those people are tempted to spurn.

It forces this certain insecurity to the surface, and that is, the security of someone else’s arms. It is an insecurity because many people do not have, as I said, that security to run to.

Something that this sickness gave me, a blessing in disguise, was an enormous sense of clarity.

Clarity came for me after exhaustion and confusion. It comes to recharge and refocus.

Sometimes we look at our circumstances in life, and we wonder why we must endure. Whether they are difficult classes, financial question marks, relationship blunders, singleness – you fill this part in with all the ridiculous scenarios we face- and it seems easy to lose heart.

But I say take heart! It is Valentine’s day anyway.

We approach what I will describe as deserts in life, and we are daunted. This semester is in many ways one of those times for me. But I have found balance in understanding two things: 1.It is not for me to decide the unforeseen factors that mark my life. There is purpose that comes from God because He is sovereign, and much of the time, I don’t understand that sovereign purpose. Time is steady and change is certain. The past is not malleable and the future is not entirely in our hands. 2. It is not for me to dwell on all of the above. That is certainly not where peace lies, anyway.

We often talk of the major and minor questions that mark our lives. It seems to me that we live in a state of anticipation for whatever is to come instead of living where we are today. And so we are not fully present. We miss opportunities. We miss smiles, and relationships, and lessons. At times I am swept away by longings and questions and desires and hopes and yes - frustration. And I think that to remain in that sorrowful or pensive state is very selfish of me. It produces a completely “self absorbed” individual. And it hinders us from learning - true - but also from loving.

Here is an excerpt from C.S. Lewis – “Learning in War – Time”

“Never, in peace or war, commit your virtue or your happiness to the future. Happy work is best done by the man who takes his long-term plans somewhat lightly and works from moment to moment “as to the Lord”. It is only our daily bread that we are encouraged to ask for. The present is the only time in which any duty can be done, or any grace received.”

And so it is right now for me. I am crossing my fingers and my t’s – working hard in what I have before me, hoping in what is to come but not staking all on what I do not know. You cannot give yourself to something that has not yet come to pass. Give yourself in this day. Reason bids me to do so. After all, It is not in blind fate or fortune that we hope and trust for whatever is to come, but it is in God!

People probably read about the idea of “seeking God” and getting “clarity” from Him and find it funny or ridiculous. I won’t attempt to explain this mystery, but I will quietly suggest, to those with disbelief, have you ever asked God for clarity? This is what His word says.

Matthew 7:7 “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.”

After all, Christ exhorts us to cast our burdens on Him. Matthew 11:29-30 "I am gentle and humble in heart, and YOU WILL FIND REST FOR YOUR SOULS. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light."

Perhaps the reason you lack clarity right now is because you have not asked for it? I hadn’t. And it came in an unlikely package. But then, I don’t think I would have slowed down to listen for it.

Best to all of you on this fabulous day."

- photo courtesy of meghan burkett's wedding, friend from high school.