One of the most often repeated lies people share with me in terms of what they think about themselves is that they are worthless. This has been communicated by various people in their lives, or by their own definition time and time again. Sometimes they feel they should be at a different place in their lives and that would give worth. Sometimes they believe if they had worked hard enough to make people like them that this would give them worth. Sometimes they have been told that their only worth lies in their being used for whatever purpose the user desires, and that they will lose worth if they stop allowing someone to use them.
Worth is not transactional. It is not given when we earn it. A person doesn’t gain worth the more they achieve, relate to others, or give. Some people try to convince themselves they have worth, but it is usually based in something they have to believe about themselves. When someone communicates they are not worth their time, the façade is gone and we struggle to believe we have worth apart from what others communicate.
When we experience rejection while trying to find someone to communicate worth, any sense of having worth is obliterated as we have placed the definition on a person or place in this world. It is gut-wrenching, and feels like death.
We had a crazy windstorm last week with almost 24 hours of intense wind gusts and the resulting damages—trees falling, fences knocked down, various lawn chairs and trampolines blown away. I’ve never been through a hurricane on the coast, and I realized what people talk about with the sheer noise wind can create. My husband had to wear earplugs to sleep, and the howling and crashing went on all night.
At some point during the night, I woke up and listened to the wind for a bit while lying in bed. It dawned on me that this was what the disciples felt when they were out in the boat with Jesus, except they were on a boat tossed by the waves rather than a warm bed in a safe house. I imagined the fear and panic that would govern in a situation like that. They were pretty sure they were going to die out there in that storm.
Jesus had been teaching about faith prior to this story told in Mark 4. When the storm comes up, he is SLEEPING. This makes no sense to us when we don’t realize that God is enough in a storm, but Jesus knew His Father was watching out for Him and didn’t need to worry or stress about anything.
God loves you. That phrase has gotten trite and feels shallow sometimes. And yet, it is anything but trite and shallow. While we hated, mocked, spat on Him, God loves us. While we ran from Him and fought any call of His to come to Him, God loves us. While we rebelled and invited more and more darkness into ourselves, God loves us. While the selfishness took over to distort us into maniacal narcissists, God loves us. While we postured in false humility and rode ego trips for our “good” deeds, God loves us.
God reached through the darkness with which we had surrounded ourselves, calling our names and extending His hand to pull us out of the pit. We didn’t know Him, but He knew us. He knew every bit of us and still chose to love us. He loved us to death, and to resurrection in power. Jesus walked the road of ultimate sacrifice, knowing what was in each of us and how we chose our own way. He looked past it and loved anyway. He never stops loving. We simply need to accept the love.
I have been thinking about how cool it is that we take a safe place with us no matter where we go. We are similar to snails—they carry their home on their backs, ready to pull into a shell whenever things get scary. The difference is that our safe place is within, and we can access it any time without physically moving. God no longer dwells in a temple made with hands, but in His people. (1 Corinthians 6:19-20) He has given us His Spirit, and His very Life within.
We are in Christ, and Christ is in us. We contain the wrap-around presence of God within us all the time. It’s kind of a cool picture, isn’t it? We carry Him, and He wraps around us and shelters us as well. So many things with God’s kingdom are both/and. His Life is in us, and we are in Him.
You don’t have to keep running.
You don’t have to keep fighting.
You don’t have to keep searching for the “cure.”
You don’t have to keep trying.
I know you are tired,
And ache for something more.
I know you just want to sit down,
Letting the weight you’re carrying fall.
The idea that you will get a place
Where it makes sense to rest
Is a fallacy and will continue to drive you
Crazy and exhausted and weary.
Jesus, hear us in our weariness.
We feel pressure, stress, unrest, evil.
We are tired and worn out,
Facing all that is ahead.
You offer hope to a weary world,
And boy, do we need it.
You are Hope incarnate,
God with us forever.
You see us in our pain,
Our frustration, our disease.
You meet us in our mess,
Sitting down and comforting us.
Often in my life, I want to find hope in a variety of external changes. Maybe it’s financial security, good relationships, success or self-reliance. I can be tempted to believe that hope lies in achieving these things. I can work myself to death trying to be in control of my life, but I am becoming more and more convinced that hope can’t be found in any of these.
I can look around the world and see instances of all kinds of trouble, suffering, insecurity. I can look in my own life and see the same. So, if my hope lies in getting rid of the trouble, I am not doing very well at getting to hope.
If, however, my hope is God Himself, then I don’t need to worry about changing my circumstances in order to find hope. This is the concept that I call “rising above” the situation at hand and acknowledging God’s presence regardless of the seeming impossibility of the problem. This is not a denial, but rather an acknowledgment of both the problem and the God who owns the problem. I believe it is recognizing my abiding in the Vine, and accessing all that this abiding gives me.
Honestly, I am not always excited when God brings the theme of the coming year for me as I pray on it in December. It is almost never something I expect (or frankly, want) and I sometimes get a bit nervous about how He’s going to bring it forth over the next year.
So, with the upcoming year when the word is “strength” I really wanted to ask for a different one! Ha! Why? Well, strength sounds nice, and in fact, it’s often what we work towards. We want to strengthen our physical bodies, our minds, our spirits, our hearts. We try self-help programs, workouts, a variety of methods to strengthen ourselves, thinking that one day we will be able to look at ourselves with admiration.
I find, though, that God’s view on strength is different. You see, divine strength is what God is going to give us, not necessarily an increase in fleshly strength. He doesn’t want the flesh to get stronger because He knows that’s bad for us. Instead, He wants us to grow more and more dependent on Him for supernatural strength that only comes through Him.
Though the economy seems desperate and the bank account is empty,
Though friends may forsake and leave for someone they decide is better,
Though the job situation looks bleak and the prospects look even bleaker,
Though health may not be improving, and even might be getting worse,
Though dreams of where you would be at this point in life are not at all reality,
Though a spouse might leave for another and reject and betray,
Though singleness continues after years of hoping for a good and kind relationship,
Though infertility steals any chance of parenting, and your heart aches,
Though kids have gone down roads never wished for by a parent,
Though traumas of the past continue to rear their ugly heads,
Though looking around the world exhibits only see damage and evil,
Though hope in the circumstances seems lost and forlorn,
If your week looks anything like mine, you are running a little ragged. Yours might feel better or worse, but regardless there are so many days that I wake up telling God how I don’t have what I need for today at all. I don’t know how to do it. I can’t possibly have the strength or time to do it. I don’t even want to do it.
Sometimes the way ahead feels completely impossible. The mountain in front of you looks insurmountable. The feelings around you threaten to drown you, and you are convinced that there is no other way but to live in anxiety and constant hypervigilance.
I will tell you what God has been telling me. Not because I understand it completely, but because it is most comforting when you are facing a life that seems impossible.
I’ve been thinking a lot about how God gardens. I have a little garden in my backyard that I enjoy, and I’ve written about it before. I’ve read somewhere that the greatest optimists in the world are gardeners in the spring, as the sky is the limit in the harvest that is planned and expected. Even if my crop turns out to be bad one year, I am still back at it in the spring, hoping for a better year with returns that make me happy.
The first thing I do when planting is to disturb the soil. I dig down into it, and mix it with rotting food and poop (also known as compost and manure). The soil must be disturbed before it can be planted. I bet the disruption is not comfortable for the ground, but I can see past the mess to the possibility of what can come out of it—the anticipation of good makes it worth the disruption.
Some days you wake up and it seems the whole world is on fire. And you haven’t even turned on the news! The financial strain looks like it will push you into a place you never imagined yourself or your family. The health prognosis gives you pain on top of pain, and no good treatment or way ahead. Or the treatment is more painful than the original problem! The government turmoil speaks of continued dire predictions as well as death, destruction and evil. The family division cuts you up inside into a million little pieces that cry out for restoration.
I heard an interesting quote by a singer called Nightbirde, who passed away recently after a couple of years battling cancer. She said, “Some people will call it ‘blind denial’ but I prefer to call it rebellious hope.” Something about that phrase lights a fire in my soul. We don’t have hope because we are surrounded in it, or because we see the obvious way through the dark tunnel. Instead, it is a sort of rebellion, to stand in the face of whatever crisis or turmoil presented and see past it to hope. It isn’t a denial of the circumstances, but recognizing you have a God bigger than the circumstances.
Some days I need a place to hide. A place that is safe and always accessible, no matter what is going on around me. I am not denying the bad stuff—it’s definitely everywhere. But I can also experience a place in my spirit that rises above everything else, allowing me to rest. It seems like an oxymoron, right? Rest when everything is spinning like crazy. But over and over again, God calls us to rest.
I’ve been spending a lot of time praying through Psalm 31 recently. Especially when it comes to praying for many I know who are in danger, who feel like their world is falling apart, who can’t find a safe place in the world at all. I am trusting God to be their hiding place, their rescue.
This is what I pray for them, and for you.
Many people ask me how I do what I do, talking with people who feel so broken every day to encourage them and point them to Jesus. It’s true there are days that I cry out from the heaviness of the stories, and the overwhelm of all the pain. Most days I enjoy the work I am privileged to do. I get to walk into people’s lives in places that most don’t ever hear about, and I treasure the trust that people give me in doing this. But what do we do when it’s just hard, and it seems like everyone around us is suffering and in agony?
First, I need to recognize when I’m trying to take on something that’s not mine to carry. My job is not to fix people, or their situations. When the pressure is on and I feel weighed down, often it’s because I am trying to take God’s job. Yes, I want to help, but I can’t help if I am overloaded with trying to solve problems I have no business trying to solve.
Second, I ask God for wisdom and strength in what to say and do. I have realized this year that the time I spend praying for people is more important than the time I spend talking with them. Why? Well, it puts me in a place to receive from God. When I realize I am weak and don’t have what it takes to fix a problem, I can receive the wisdom that Jesus is bringing to the situation and pass it on to the hurting person. God is the counselor—not me. So, I get to participate in what He is doing in someone, and that is a huge gift and a major relief as well. My friend Mike Wells used to say that we bring an empty bag and let God fill it with what people need. This no longer limits me to my own knowledge or skills, but open the door to the power of the God who knows all and works in hearts in a way I could never do.
We cry out wondering “Why?”
We cry out for mercy, for change.
We cry out for relief from our suffering and that of others.
We cry out with David, “How long, O Lord?”
We know you are mighty to save.
We know you are present and able to rescue.
We know you feel this pain with us as we grieve.
We know you see us—we are not absent from your heart.
But we cry out for peace.
We cry out for hope when the future looks bleak.
We cry out for freedom from those who control and manipulate.
We cry out for your strong arm to reach in and bring us out.
Walking through the burn scar of a recent forest fire in the mountains of Colorado is an eerie thing. It sort of feels like a ghost town, abandoned and barren. Charred remnants of trees lay blackened and oddly shaped all around. I felt overwhelmed by sadness to see all the once proud trees cut down to just burnt sticks. And then, as He always does, God lifted my hanging head to show me the beauty. Beauty from ashes.
I suddenly saw the fantastic beauty of the flowers, especially the one called fireweed which grows abundantly after a fire. Apparently the fireweed is the first plant to grow after a forest fire burns through. The grass that was popping up through the ash was bright green, and gave a colorful contrast and spoke of hope for a new future. None of the beauty minimized the pain of the fire, but it seemed to give it new meaning—calling it forward to new growth.
I talk to so many people who have had a forest fire in their lives, and some have had a few. They feel like their whole worlds lay blackened and reduced to ash. Sometimes they lit the match that started the fire, and other times it was someone else. Regardless of who started the blaze, they now stand in the middle of what seems like a hopeless burn scar.
So, you accept that Jesus is the way and you invite Him into your life, accepting the complete forgiveness He’s already given for all the ways you’ve tried to do life on your own, and recognizing He makes your spirit alive. In this acceptance, you emerge a new person with access to all the power of the living God who does not ask you to live life by yourself and in your own strength, but provides His through His Life within in the presence of His Spirit.
You aren’t trying to prove yourself or do the right things, but rather you are living out the worth that God has already given you. You haven’t earned it, and it can’t be taken away. Jesus said you have worth, value and meaning, and He wants relationship with you—that’s why He suffered and died to make a way ahead. He beat up death, sin, evil and darkness, freeing us from ever having to serve them. We do choose to serve them sometimes, but we don’t have to—we have another way.
So, how do we live life now? First, you acknowledge that you are loved without having to perform or achieve or do one solitary thing. You have been called a child of God, and He loves you immensely without your achievement. Second, it isn’t about sin. Sin was dealt with on the cross, and is our master no more. Instead, it’s about believing that God will do what He says and recognizing that I can’t do it on my own.
Life for the religious often becomes a hamster wheel of doing “for” God and staying away from the things that might make Him mad. But in doing that, we are missing the point. He wants relationship, not performance. We don’t love others because we’ve decided to love really hard. We love others because He loved us first and that love overflows out of us onto someone else. And the things He tells us not to do are not because He’s going to blast us if we do them, but we start to recognize that they are the places of misery for us. Often these are the things we run to in order to try to feel better about life—substances, people, ministry, image.
They aren’t just “bad” things as defined by religion. Anything that puts you in a place where you are trying to gain acceptance and love based on what you do or don’t do is bad for us. Instead, there’s a sweet dependence of relationship when we wake up and ask Jesus what we are doing today. And when His peace leaves, so do we. We don’t need an explanation, but rather we start to understand that His peace is a guide for our contentment.
Some days I run with passionate endurance.
Some days I walk with a limp.
The pressing on and finishing well
Can seem never-ending.
The fight could really just stop.
I don’t want to face the enemy—
I’d rather just hide.
Needing a break from it all.
That’s when I must push deep into rest,
Not sleep or taking a nap.
But pursuing quiet in the middle of the busyness,
Soaking in my time sitting at Jesus’ feet.
I come away from the distractions of life
To refocus instead on the outstretched hand,
Beckoning me to come to Him
And allow Him to restore my soul.
I cry out for relief.
I cry out in weariness.
I want change and different.
I want the pain to stop.
I want the wounds to heal,
The evil done to so many to be dealt with in justice.
I want the children to be delivered from the horror.
I don’t want anyone to suffer in the pain of this world.
I want those to be punished who do evil in Your name.
I don’t minimize any of this mess.
But I look to You.
I pour my heart out to the Compassionate One.
I ask for Your strength to keep pushing into the pain.
I ask for breakthrough with the revelation of Your love.
I see you are faithful to keep rescuing.
You continue to pursue with love not based on behavior.
I can be angry with you, and you take it.
You keep bringing hope, and redemption.
You keep buying us back from the pain,
Whether we caused it or it was done to us.
Not one evil done by us or to us
Can negate the new Life He has given us.
I need to say that again.
Nothing can steal us from this love.
Nothing.
Perhaps one of the most frustrating parts of the Gospel or good news of Jesus is that God didn’t choose to rescue us by ridding the world of evil, but rather ridding us of evil. We would like the suffering, the struggle, the darkness to go away and leave us in peace. Peace is defined by the absence of chaos, rather than trying to define peace in the middle of the mess. We also decide that God is acting only when the situation turns out as we wanted it to, with the least discomfort.
The truth, though, is that God ached for relationship with us, relationship that we had rejected in Adam and Eve way back in the garden. We want to blame Eve quite often, and think we would have made a different decision. But at the heart of every person is the desire to be their own god, controlling their own destiny and being powerful in their own right. They rejected relationship with God. I want to think that I would have chosen walking with God in the garden over the fruit that would make me like God, but in reality, God knew I wouldn’t have. None of us would have.
So, He sent a part of Himself in Jesus to make a way, and to make a different decision. He chose to humble Himself. He was God, but chose to empty Himself of that power, and become a human—the opposite direction of the humans trying to be god unto themselves. Everything that Jesus did on earth was because of His connection to the Father and the Spirit—the union of the Godhead was perfectly demonstrating the union He wants with us. He wants to participate in each part of our lives, empowering us through dependence and connection to Him, rather than us empowering ourselves through intelligence or independence. It feels all backwards for the American culture of pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps. But it’s a relationship that God desires—not a dictatorship or slavery.
The problem isn’t the problem. That’s something Mike Wells used to say a lot. It’s easy to get distracted, though, by whatever tough situation is in front of you and figure that if you could “fix” it, then you’d be happier. And don’t get me wrong, I’m all about getting problems resolved, but not at the expense of growing in relationship with Jesus.
Problems have a purpose, and their purpose is to draw us closer to Jesus and allow us to realize that we need His Life for dealing with them. When I treat them as burdens that need to be sorted out, I miss Jesus calling me to Himself. I miss casting my burdens on Him.
We don’t grow in a deepening relationship with people if we go hide out every time there is a problem and don’t allow them into our lives in vulnerability. With God, it is the same. When we push Him away and decide we need to figure this out ourselves before we reapproach Him, we miss the sweetness of the shared struggle. And we miss the power of His Life within us to handle the issue.
I really hate cliff-hanger endings. I know some people consider it an art form, but I just get frustrated and want everything wrapped up and sorted out. I wrote a post a couple of years ago on the hardship of being in the middle of a story with no idea what the end will be. We like to listen to those who have completed that part of their journey—the cancer is gone, the marriage is restored, the kid has returned to the family. But right now, there is so much that cannot be tied up and completed. I feel that my most common answer to questions is “I don’t know.”
I battle with the part of me that wants to make plans, schedule things, get excited about whatever is coming next. And God keeps calling me back to moment-by-moment of walking with Him, and entrusting the ending and the future to Him. And frankly, I don’t like it.
The revelation I’ve been having, though, is how there is such a sweetness to that simplicity and smallness of the moments lived hand-in-hand with Jesus. I am weary, and it’s because I keep trying to run ahead and sort it all out for God. In taking a pause, I am reminded that it isn’t my responsibility to do God’s job—I get to follow.
My son and I were talking yesterday and I watched him finally confront the sadness that he had kept at bay for the last couple of weeks. He was sad he wasn’t going back to school for the foreseeable future, that he wouldn’t get to enjoy days with his great teacher and friends. And he asked me how long the sickness was going to last. And I don’t know. So, we talked about how we do hard things, and find the joy in them. And we talked about how it’s okay to be sad and miss things, and then also okay to enjoy the day in the way we could.
The reactions from many of the people I work with in counseling have been similar—how do we do this season when everything has been uprooted and made raw?
I was thinking through practical tools I’ve been giving people, which I will talk about later in this post. But first, God reminded me this morning we do this season of life just like we do every other season--in dependence on Jesus. Every morning we can wake up knowing that the day is too big for us, and ask Him to be all we need for it. That hasn’t changed with the magnitude of the situation, or the radical difference many of us feel in our lives. God hasn’t changed. He is still more than enough for all the pieces of our lives, even the ones that look like pandemic, shelter-at-home and remote everything.
I often misunderstand God’s peace. I want it to be an absence of hard circumstances, or not being uncomfortable. Sometimes, it’s equated with happiness. But the verses in the Bible about peace don’t view peace like this at all. In fact, it’s often talked about in the middle of hard things. And Jesus says that it’s not a fragile peace like the world gives, but perfect peace. Unexplainable peace.
I have realized that I generally want peace to be tied to circumstances, but that’s comfort. No, peace doesn’t come from what surrounds you, but from Jesus Himself. To me, that’s actually quite a relief as that means I don’t have to have great circumstances to find peace. (Although, don’t get me wrong—I’d love to not be in the middle of suffering.) But that means that anywhere, and in anything, Jesus can be my peace.
