All of 17 and looking ever so fine.
Tuesday, October 22, 2019
Tuesday, October 15, 2019
Thursday, October 10, 2019
The Good Misery
When the moths multiply in my rice bag, I don't discard the remainder of the rice like most Americans would. I gently clap my hands to drop the tiny fluttering moths and delicately pick out the itty bitty moths in the million grains of rice. Through many years of discovery, I've concluded that all rice has larvae in it, and moths will hatch if you store your rice long enough. This fascinating fact may put you off from eating at our house. Nevertheless, when I was reading Hosea 5 verse 12, I became thoughtful of my very own picture of God in the paper winged moth.
"I am like a moth to Ephraim..."
God, the most powerful, claims he is like a fragile moth to his people. Why? Well, moths are pests. They flutter before your eyes and you know without a doubt they are there. It seems to me that God is saying I will flutter before your eyes, exit out of the thick darkness of your rice bag and into the light of your face. Mark my words. I will reveal myself to you. I will get your attention with the flutter of my wings.
Surprisingly, God goes on and tells how the Decayless One will be like rot to his people. I'm not making this up. Check out the rest of verse 12.
"I am...like rot to the people of Judah."
What? How can that be? Oh, yes, God will get our attention. Moths don't have a smell. You have to see a moth to know it is there, but rot, on the other hand, will permeate the air. If you refuse to see me, I will burn the scent of your decaying decision into the back of your nostrils till it slides down your throat and you gag. The Decayless One can be like rot, because he will persist and not grow weary in the wooing of our hearts and minds. The scent of God will hover over all the decomposing parts of our lives. A merciful rot will be visible in every turning away from God decision and in every idol pursuit. Just as rot clings to a potato and spreads to every potato it touches, so will God's unrelenting pursuit of us allow a good misery into our lives. We will be pockmarked with his grace till we respond in obedience.
Then I read on. The progression of God's revelation in Hosea 5:14 still happens. The Great I AM first fluttered before them like a moth, then he touched their lives with decay like rot and next his claws rip into their flesh like a lion. This would seem to be too grizzily to be grace, but the wounding is a deeper mercy. God wants us to bring the entirety of our guilt to him. God already knows our inadequacy and desperation, but he wants us to know it too. Sometimes it takes a personal tearing of our skin to own and admit our earnest need for a Savior.
As I pondered my small miseries of moths, I want to be of the camp that sees God when he first flutters before my face. That God is like a moth is truly the mystery of a good misery.
"I am like a moth to Ephraim..."
God, the most powerful, claims he is like a fragile moth to his people. Why? Well, moths are pests. They flutter before your eyes and you know without a doubt they are there. It seems to me that God is saying I will flutter before your eyes, exit out of the thick darkness of your rice bag and into the light of your face. Mark my words. I will reveal myself to you. I will get your attention with the flutter of my wings.
Surprisingly, God goes on and tells how the Decayless One will be like rot to his people. I'm not making this up. Check out the rest of verse 12.
"I am...like rot to the people of Judah."
What? How can that be? Oh, yes, God will get our attention. Moths don't have a smell. You have to see a moth to know it is there, but rot, on the other hand, will permeate the air. If you refuse to see me, I will burn the scent of your decaying decision into the back of your nostrils till it slides down your throat and you gag. The Decayless One can be like rot, because he will persist and not grow weary in the wooing of our hearts and minds. The scent of God will hover over all the decomposing parts of our lives. A merciful rot will be visible in every turning away from God decision and in every idol pursuit. Just as rot clings to a potato and spreads to every potato it touches, so will God's unrelenting pursuit of us allow a good misery into our lives. We will be pockmarked with his grace till we respond in obedience.
Then I read on. The progression of God's revelation in Hosea 5:14 still happens. The Great I AM first fluttered before them like a moth, then he touched their lives with decay like rot and next his claws rip into their flesh like a lion. This would seem to be too grizzily to be grace, but the wounding is a deeper mercy. God wants us to bring the entirety of our guilt to him. God already knows our inadequacy and desperation, but he wants us to know it too. Sometimes it takes a personal tearing of our skin to own and admit our earnest need for a Savior.
As I pondered my small miseries of moths, I want to be of the camp that sees God when he first flutters before my face. That God is like a moth is truly the mystery of a good misery.
Wednesday, October 2, 2019
Saturday, September 21, 2019
Love me or Leave me
Bake your heart out.
Jane and I died laughing overlapping her face over the desert she made. The photos taken months apart just seemed to frost and sandwich together.
Tuesday, September 10, 2019
Walking Heartbreak Hall
My heels tapped loudly as I walked the long corridor. The air was heavy and people lined the walls on either side of me. As the rat-tat-tat rhythm of my heels reached the people I came up alongside, they would stare at me. They stared at my face, my outfit with the glaring white badge and my body language as if it would give secrets away about weighty matters. It was unnerving to walk heartbreak hall. I walked it over twenty times in four days and it never got easier. I just learned to keep my heels clicking and my head down.
Desperation and anxiety, hard living and broken dreams etched faces along that corridor. By returning their stares my soul was crushed with the hard circumstances, or rather, the sin that drew us all together in one location. Sin is an evil master and it doesn't let go until it imprisons the whole person, spiritually, mentally, emotionally and verbally. It was as if sin had snatched the voices of the people staring at me and only my inanimate heels tried to speak and the hollow echo reverberated somberly down heartbreak hall.
This wasn't how it was suppose to be. My heels' rat-tat-tat matched the rising rhythm in my heart. I was anguished by my choice in the garden. Oh, we chose so poorly. We chose a lifetime of heartbreak halls over relationship with our precious Maker. Sin twisted our fate and unleashed murder and hate, adultery and lust, theft and covetousness, lies and insanity, addiction and self-deception. How we are completely ruined by our very own decisions.
Someday, we will walk the final heartbreak hall and enter the courtroom. There won't be a single juror with heels that click on the floor. In fact, there will be no jury at all. It will be the hushed undoneness of standing before the Only Righteous Judge, knowing our guilt, knowing our shame, knowing our deserved death penalty. Our unrelenting accuser, the devil, will point his bony finger at us and smirk with delight. Our silence condemns us. Sin has stolen our words.
But I am one of those who looked to Jesus in the heartbreak hall of life, and my Friend Jesus steps before the Judge as my Defense. His words fill all the silence. His words shoo out the darkness. His words are so eloquent that tears silently course down my face. His words are Life. In my sin-shackled silence, I hear the voice of The Only Righteous Judge declare me, Not Guilty. How can that be?
Jesus, My Friend, My Only Defense, took my sentencing. He was condemned for my crimes. He was led away and nailed to a cross. His innocent blood poured out and covered my criminal heart. Jesus tenderly saw all the hard living and broken dreams etching the faces along the corridor, but most of all he saw me, the juror dressed up in "pretty" walking down the center, trying to keep the proper distance between the gawkers and myself, hurting with my own hard living.
When I repeatedly forget my need for God, Jesus knows my shaky heels and nice clothes are but insubstantial fig leaves. Thank goodness, I can not cover my deep heart needs from the sight of my loving Provider. How amazing that he pursues relationship with me. Jesus has patiently taught me that my every decision to choose sin over the Sinless One makes life harder. Jesus walked heartbreak hall in its entirety and selected me. Because he covered me in skin of his very self, I am a testimony that the guilty can be set free. Hallelujah!
Desperation and anxiety, hard living and broken dreams etched faces along that corridor. By returning their stares my soul was crushed with the hard circumstances, or rather, the sin that drew us all together in one location. Sin is an evil master and it doesn't let go until it imprisons the whole person, spiritually, mentally, emotionally and verbally. It was as if sin had snatched the voices of the people staring at me and only my inanimate heels tried to speak and the hollow echo reverberated somberly down heartbreak hall.
This wasn't how it was suppose to be. My heels' rat-tat-tat matched the rising rhythm in my heart. I was anguished by my choice in the garden. Oh, we chose so poorly. We chose a lifetime of heartbreak halls over relationship with our precious Maker. Sin twisted our fate and unleashed murder and hate, adultery and lust, theft and covetousness, lies and insanity, addiction and self-deception. How we are completely ruined by our very own decisions.
Someday, we will walk the final heartbreak hall and enter the courtroom. There won't be a single juror with heels that click on the floor. In fact, there will be no jury at all. It will be the hushed undoneness of standing before the Only Righteous Judge, knowing our guilt, knowing our shame, knowing our deserved death penalty. Our unrelenting accuser, the devil, will point his bony finger at us and smirk with delight. Our silence condemns us. Sin has stolen our words.
But I am one of those who looked to Jesus in the heartbreak hall of life, and my Friend Jesus steps before the Judge as my Defense. His words fill all the silence. His words shoo out the darkness. His words are so eloquent that tears silently course down my face. His words are Life. In my sin-shackled silence, I hear the voice of The Only Righteous Judge declare me, Not Guilty. How can that be?
Jesus, My Friend, My Only Defense, took my sentencing. He was condemned for my crimes. He was led away and nailed to a cross. His innocent blood poured out and covered my criminal heart. Jesus tenderly saw all the hard living and broken dreams etching the faces along the corridor, but most of all he saw me, the juror dressed up in "pretty" walking down the center, trying to keep the proper distance between the gawkers and myself, hurting with my own hard living.
When I repeatedly forget my need for God, Jesus knows my shaky heels and nice clothes are but insubstantial fig leaves. Thank goodness, I can not cover my deep heart needs from the sight of my loving Provider. How amazing that he pursues relationship with me. Jesus has patiently taught me that my every decision to choose sin over the Sinless One makes life harder. Jesus walked heartbreak hall in its entirety and selected me. Because he covered me in skin of his very self, I am a testimony that the guilty can be set free. Hallelujah!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)