Still rattling from another week of dodging arrows, taking them in the back in some cases.
I’m done with this. I’m so fed up and yet starving at the same time. Forget why; I just want to know when.
When will things get better? When will things start to turn around?
I look at Juby and I delight in her progress. It’s not that I don’t appreciate the journey…the literal baby steps one must take during these intense stretches.
But when it’s Monday morning and you’ve been out of home for three months. When it’s a brand new day and your only source of sanctuary betrays you, I’m sorry, I just can’t even…
…not anymore.
Don’t get me wrong; I haven’t given up or anything. Contrarily, I sometimes wonder if not knowing how to not believe is part of what’s working.
Yet, as I continue to wrestle and keep my head above the water, I discover new depths to what faith is like at the end of its rope…
…and it is gloriously terrifying. A place you relish and long to relinquish at the same time.
Like many paradoxes, the dichotomy is confusing. After all, vertical reliance is supposed to be uncomfortable – an achy burn as opposed to a contagious high.
I guess what I’m trying to say is: I trust God has something in store for Lys & I once this season blows over. It’s just getting harder to move, to leave the house, to function really. Even though we’re hard pressed on every side, but not crushed, even though we’re perplexed on multiple fronts, but not [yet in] despair, the temptation to think otherwise entices me.
How can the life of Jesus fully manifest when all I can do is stand? How can His glory be revealed when I’m this lost searching for a horizon to light my way?
Sure, I can stiff-arm fear all day, but at day’s end, I just want to know where I am headed.
I’m sure I’m not the only one out there wondering this right now.
Disoriented and fatigued, my charge tonight is simple…
If you find yourself at the end of your rope, rejoice in the stillness and tie a knot.
You may feel like you’re trembling on a precipice, but where courage lacks is also where much is given. In time, you will be able to strain forward to what lies ahead. For now, embrace the opportunity to receive as you persevere, let steadfastness have its full effect, and hold fast the confession of hope without wavering.
Even when you step out of your car and a freak gear glitch causes it to launch into a neighbor’s yard before you somehow, someway stop it from crashing into their house, count it all joy. Tally up His goodness and scale your conflicts accordingly.
Take it from one in the trenches with you. Your life isn’t as broken as you think. And even if it is, there’s not a solve or repair unbeknownst to God.
Why not trust the handiness of His hands as you trade in your sorrows?
So…I was going to write about some more NICU life lessons today…
So, I was going to discuss more NICU life lessons today; however, after losing my home flooring due to a washer malfunction and a rental car in 48 hours, I’m calling an audible for two reasons:
Reason #1: If frustration is a thermos, I’m overflowing past the brim, fresh off the sight of my house becoming a waterfall with pipe water sloshing from the laundry room to the front door. As steam vents from my ears, so too is my sanity.
Reason #2: If fear is a storm, I’m in the eye, scarred by the visual of my rental spiraling out of the driveway unmanned, clipping the neighbor’s mailbox, destroying my car door, and coming within a foot of impacting the neighbor’s car.
Of all the reasons and seasons for this to happen, this happens now. I mean, I know when it rains, it pours, but come on, life, this is ridiculous!Seriously, God, I know you’re up there! Can you throw us a lifeline, a SOS, anything? Just for one day, one flippin’ day, can Lys and I catch a little break?
*Sigh*
My mind says I can’t do this anymore. I’m losing my fight. I’m not made for this road. But deep down, I don’t want to give up on you being the break I crave at the end of the day. After all, when we need to stop and breathe, you are the breath in our lungs. I only must look so far as the ventilator in front of me. As alarms resound, give Lyssah and me the strength to endure with character so our capacity to believe in You and share your love increases. I thank you for trusting us with Jubilee, for this appointed time of troubleshooting through which we can model perseverance to our neighbors, literally and figuratively. Per 2 Corinthians 4:8- 10, reset that big picture again so we may be good to go by your goodness. Even though we’re afflicted, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; struck down, but not destroyed; help us carry in our body the death of Jesus, so that His life may manifest and multiply. Amen.
Perspective and prayer applied, I’m still lost at sea if peace is an ocean. From losing livability in my house to awkward conversations with insurance companies, my emotions are bursting at the seam, enough to make this passage a tough one to swallow. Yet, even as vultures begin to circle, even as these physical and emotional toils build, I will count it all joy as I consider what God may be expanding in this season.
Take it from a broken man: If all you can do is say, ‘Yes’ and roll with it, you have won in Jesus’s name. Like Bill Murray in ‘What About Bob’, what baby steps lack in initial distance make up for them in determination over time. So must our faith be as we walk and talk with God during crisis.
Lately, I’ve been thinking about dust. After all, I need a new Swiffer. Possibly another Dyson.
However, in this case, I’ve been contemplating not only my relationship with God, but my relationship to God.
For when in crisis, it’s hard not to consider the contrasts…
When chaos is great, God is greater.
If man is small, how much less are his problems?
If man can do good, how much more can God do likewise?
You get the drift.
Granted, it makes sense to embrace these dichotomies in seasons of trials; hence, why I’m writing this.
‘Cause truth is…
When we wrestle with God during challenging times, we’re wrestling in our weakness to understand Him…and trust IN Him.
As the story of Jacob’s wrestling match (Genesis 32) tells us, there is a holy way to contend as we confront our failures and frailties.
The question is: How do we model this type of dependence?
For starters, I submit we perceive our smallness as a big deal. As the Scriptures stress, we are significant, yet small compared to the grandeur of the Almighty (Psalm 40:17, Isaiah 66:1-2, James 4:8-10); in fact, the Hebrew word for ‘wrestle’ literally translates to dust. Go figure!
As such, we can take joy knowing the freedom of living life to scale in the fullness of who God is.
For when we embrace our weakness at the feet of Jesus, we can accept how struggling with God in faith leads to peace, revelation, even blessings. This ties to the concept of divine wrestling being a grappling of our humanity and a tenacious acceptance into intimacy. Just as God relentlessly pursues us, so is there a renewing of life when we hold onto the vastness that is Him.
My encouragement to you, my friends, is this: If you’re, like me, feeling like dry bones, as if you’re going back and forth between, ‘All I can do is stand’ and ‘All I want to do is fight’, understand the reason you’re not alone is also the reason you’re more than a conqueror (Romans 8:37) with life to come back to.
While the ways to restoration are many, dare to see wrestling with God as a spectacular way to get there. Even if you feel too weak or too stuck, remember who you are in light of God and what you can do when you view perseverance as a way to discover Him. You’ll find as you abide in God’s sovereignty, the more capacity you’ll have to hope while receiving His strength in place of cheerful fatalisms.
A few thoughts coming off a quick coffee chat with dad…
No question, it’s been a crazy month – the most intense, unpredictable stretch I’ve ever endured. But somehow, someway, I’ve unlocked a few secrets on how to overcome anxiety while operating in stillness. While a second post will debut later this month, I figured I share a few breakthrough breadcrumbs for now:
1) Slow It Down – When we sense the target on our back, human nature is to panic and accelerate to resolution. Unfortunately, this is where many of us trip up. While prayerful proaction is ideal, when we’re striving for answers to stay ahead of the arrows, we tend to create more stress for ourselves. We beg God to know ‘why’ to justify the cry as if there’s no silver linings in persevering; however, when we surrender amidst the chaos and still ourselves in the face of uncertainty, only then can we truly embrace that James 1:2-4 joy.
In my case, there have been many problems of late. Yet, I’m grateful for them as they’ve helped me learn how living in slow motion can be a bridge to calmness. Granted, it’s a paradox to any cultural definition of pace. Then again, we’re called to run the race, not race the run. Given the latter doesn’t even make sense, I’d say all the more reason to stay cool when…
2) Defer Worry – When we feel stuck in a rut, like the cosmos is out to get us, the temptation to worry (and the emotions involved) is completely valid. I know for me when the break I crave seems far out of reach, I often cater to self-preservation as a means to sanity. Yet, as the Juby journey has taught me, when we acknowledge our weakness as an extension of worship, we find God’s perspective scaling our issues to the point deferring worry makes more sense than yielding to it.
To use a football analogy, the next time you feel sacked by negativity, invite God into the fear, press into His promises, and punt the worry away*. As Psalm 57:2 says, “[We] cry out to God who fulfills his purpose for [us]”. We may not understand the timing of them or the reasons for them; however, when we silence our ego, we enhance that still small voice reminding us how God’s faithfulness is far greater than our ability to see how it applies in any given situation. Put another way, our contentment and dependence does not have to be rooted in knowing how God works but rather knowing God, especially through the ups and downs of life.
Going back to Psalm 57:2, this makes perfect sense. Check out this context:
“Be good to me, God—and now! I’ve run to you for dear life. I’m hiding out under your wings until the hurricane blows over. I call out to High God, the God who holds me together. He sends orders from heaven and saves me, he humiliates those who kick me around. God delivers generous love, He makes good on his word.” ~Psalm 57:1-3 (MSG)
This tells me even though I don’t know what the future holds with Juby’s health, even though I don’t know if my car’s radiator will bust again, even though I don’t know how work and home life will balance out for the foreseeable future, I can count it all joy as I ride out the storm.
‘Cause frankly, I’m so weak right now, I have no margin to do otherwise.
Selah/Stay tuned…
Footnotes
*More specifically, as you rely on God, punt worry to the point it becomes obsolete the next time it makes sense
Have you ever had a really, really, really bad day?
You know…the kind of day where absolutely nothing goes right…where the only musterable reaction is a masquerading laughter to hide behind?
Well, let’s just say I had one of those infamous episodes a few days ago…
…one that was not only terrible, horrible, no good, and very bad, but one that gave a new and literal meaning of what it’s like to have a ‘crappy day’…
It all started last Wednesday, when I returned home from a decent day at work ironically enough. I was on the phone with my wife, Lyssah, discussing our next day travels to Atlanta and prepping to take our new puppy, Selah, on a walk when I suddenly slammed into a brick wall disguised as a sinister stench.
The smell was downright unbearable…like fermented dung reeking from the decaying innards of an infested beast.
Okay, okay…maybe it wasn’t that bad, but clearly something was wrong.
After all, we had just finished decking the halls with cinnamon branches and autumn-wreath scented candles a few days prior. One would think the fragrance in the aftermath would be seasonal, not hinted with nuclear bowel explosions.
At any rate, while I could only pray the stench belonged to a deceased rodent, as I crept towards Selah’s crate, the writing on the wall became clear…and brown with streaks of splattered excrement. Like a chaotic scene from an abstract Jackson Pollock painting, my mission was now set:
I had to free Selah from her sharty prison…and the demonic oppression possessing her stool.
And so for the next hour-and-a-half, I devoted all energy to conquering Selah’s anal glands and my chemoreceptor triggers. After a thorough scrubdown, I then called Lys to discuss our Wednesday night gameplan in light of the situation. Initially, I was to meet her at church following my Selah break to pick her up from a Sunday service video shoot. From there, we’d return home, eat dinner, and head back out to church for our youth discipleship gathering; however now, due to changes in Selah’s health, Lys would forgo youth service and hitch a ride home to tend Selah leaving me to lead youth service alone.
An understandable predicament all things considered; unfortunately, since I’d lost 90 minutes cleaning fecal material and had to be at church one hour before service, I had no choice but to leave Selah unattended outside her crate. Granted, hindsight is 20/20, but at the time, I figured the risk was worth taking given what I had just cleaned on top of Lys having started her drive home. I mean, c’mon! What damage could Selah possibly accomplish in 10-15 minutes or less? Or so I thought…
Well, as it turned out, quite a bit actually.
Although I can’t vouch for every canine conundrum, at some point during that 10-15 minute window, Selah apparently snuck into the bedroom, located the sparkling spectacle that was my wife’s engagement ring, and devoured it.
Now, thankfully, I wasn’t aware of this prior to youth service; however, after returning home to a wife and dog pawing around the bedroom floor on all fours, it didn’t take long for the light bulb to ignite. A quick glance at my wife’s eyes told me everything.
Something valuable had gone missing…
…and something as valuable had contributed to it.
Needless to say, once I realized our furry companion had consumed Lys’s engagement ring, I couldn’t help but wonder what the crap was going on (pun intended). First, the fecal fiasco; now this!?! Sure, the day could have been a lot worse, but this was getting ridiculous. Something needed to give and fast.
Well, as it turned, I didn’t have to wait long or look far for motivation. For as I watched my wife morph into a modern day version of the woman looking for her lost coin (Luke 15:8-10), it hit me how our joy was being deliberately pursued.
Realizing the target on our backs, Lyssah and I stopped our ring hunt, prayed, packed our suitcases, watched a new episode of 30 Rock, then prayed some more. During the time, we were discouraged but hopeful God would shed light on the missing ring and cure Selah’s rectal dysfunction.
The next day, as we started our Georgia journey, we both sensed the same conviction: Although we did well in praying into the stress, we hadn’t taken every negative thought captive (2 Corinthians 10:5) to the obedience of Christ. Having recently preached on this with LEGACYouth, we knew full well what we needed to do.
First, given the small and big-picture anxieties, we recognized we’d been under assault from the enemy. So we acknowledged our authority in Christ and rebuked his schemes.
Secondly, we confessed we hadn’t been as immediate in our obedience to overcome. So we repented and asked God to forgive us and redeem any unsurrendered part of our hearts.
Thirdly, we renounced our fear and replaced it with godly belief and truth. And lastly, we expressed thanksgiving unto the Lord for all He had done for us.
Once we took these steps and laid our troubles at the feet of Jesus, I kid you not…the atmosphere in the car completely changed.
Suddenly, we felt secure in our circumstances knowing we’d been given everything we needed to be content in the Lord.
Suddenly we felt excited knowing there was nothing Satan could do to break our confidence in Christ.
Suddenly, we felt hopeful that God would meet our needs…and then some.
I mean…you talk about a weary car-ride transformed into a triumphant road-trip; no question, we had entered into a new peace as we crossed over into a new place both internally and locationally.
So why do I share all this?
Well, for starters, you may feel the emoji of your life right now is nothing more than a steamy pile of crap. You may feel burdened by adversity and think there’s nothing you can do when the devil comes after you. For others, you may feel indifferent or incapable of persevering through the obstacles in your midst.
Wherever you’re at, remember when your joy is being pursued, you can pursue joy in the Lord right back. Even when the bottom line feels like a loss, you can still choose to see endurance as victory and strength when you feel Satan is after your weakness. And if you feel powerless to do this, when in doubt, just pray…even if you don’t have the words or the energy. For it’s in these moments God wants to reveal His grace, power, and understanding to you…to encourage and remind you He’s not only present in the dark times…but all the times!
My encouragement to you, friends, is to be unwavering in your reliance especially when Satan seeks to rob you of the good you carry. Rather than feel helpless or assume you’ve done something wrong, dare to let Jesus answer the call. As Billy Graham once said, “He’s the best home security system there is“; therefore, we have nothing to fear and no grounds to worry. Whatever you’re walking through, the next time happy and crappy collide, consider the intersection a sweet spot where you can lean into Jesus and receive His love anew and afresh.
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