Several years ago, my husband and I were camping in Moab, Utah with our one-year-old son. Camping is probably a generous term—we did have a pop-up camper and weren’t really roughing it. We did, however, drive about half an hour outside of town on a dirt road to the middle of nowhere, and then parked the camper at the top of a rocky hill. The views were spectacular, and we would only see another car on the dirt road about once every few hours. It was a little taste of the wilderness, with only us and our little camper. No cell service, no toilets, and no other people around.
This seemed like a fantastic experience until we decided the next day to head back into town to get a few groceries. After piling in the truck, my husband tried to start the vehicle, but it wouldn’t start. The truck’s battery was dead. And the wilderness experience that seemed like a lot of fun became quite scary.
I started to panic, wondering how we would ever get out of there. No cars came by on the road, and it was at least a day’s walk to get back into town with a one-year-old and only so much food for camping. Finally after a bit of worry, my husband brilliantly figured out that he could use the camper batteries to jump the truck battery, and we were finally moving again.
But what about the figurative wildernesses in which we find ourselves where we can’t figure a way out, and we sit and wait with no resources and no hope? Wildernesses are a real experience in life, and one which often catches us by surprise. I’m not sure why, as so many of the people in the Bible went through years and years of wilderness, sometimes figurative and sometimes quite literal. There are stories of prison, hardships, desert-living, wandering, frustration, hopelessness, disbursement and aching for home.
I get questions a lot of times about why I love and serve God even when He doesn’t always give me what I want. A lot of people wonder why I continue to pursue relationship with Jesus, and consider it old-fashioned or burdensome. So, I wanted to write a post about why I choose Jesus.
It’s definitely not because of the people who call themselves Christians—although some are a wonderful gift to me and I’m so grateful for them. But the people in the Church are messy just like everyone else, and when we expect them to be perfect or to never hurt or reject us, we will be disappointed. I know, though, that people who believe in Jesus recognize they need something other than themselves to do life. So, as they are dependent on Him, they love people well. When they are relying on their own self-righteousness or rule-following, they end up in a place of religion which is toxic and downright abusive sometimes. The word religion means to bind over and over again. When we bind ourselves up in trying to please God without the power He has given us to do so, we are in a bigger mess than if we deny Him entirely.
I also don’t pursue relationship with God because I was raised to believe Him and brainwashed into doing so. In fact, I have had many reason NOT to pursue relationship with Him over the years, and it would actually be easier for me and make more sense to drop the whole thing! I could make more money, have easier relationships and not experience nearly as much rejection.
Instead, I love Jesus because He loved me first, not when I met His standard or expectation. He reached out to me in love with no strings attached. I don’t have to accept His love, and He experiences rejection more than any other person I know as many refuse Him.
There’s a little boy I see every morning when I’m dropping my daughter off at school. He comes to help drop off his older brother, and always shows up in his Superman pajamas complete with cape. The thing that always strikes me as hilarious is how he walks next to his dad. He’s this tiny little man, but walks like he is 10 feet tall—he definitely has the superhero walk down. His cape flows behind him, and he takes large, commanding steps no matter where he is going.
I love watching him and it makes me giggle a little to watch him stride through the parking lot. This morning, though, God spoke and asked me how I would walk if I knew and believed the super power that dwells within me? That caught me off guard. You see, I used to always walk with my eyes on my shoes (which might explain some of my clumsiness). I didn’t feel that I had worth, and I walked like it. I didn’t understand Who I had, or who I was.
You see, when you have Christ’s Life within you, you have the power of the Living God walking around with you. He says He will be everything you need, and we have all of Him to meet all of our problems, dilemmas and circumstances. I think when I realize that I am the chosen dwelling place of God Himself (1 Corinthians 6:19), and that makes me His.
We cry out from a broken heart,
Shards lying all around us on the ground.
Our tears pour out—
It feels like they will never end.
The pain explodes from within us,
Our chests feeling like they will break apart.
Lying face down on the ground,
Our desperate plea for help and rescue escaping our lips.
Our Kind Shepherd is here,
Never leaving, never abandoning us in grief.
A man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief Himself,
He will not turn away.
Hope is often viewed as a destination—like saying we hope for the future, and believing we get the hope when we arrive at the future we are expecting or creating in our minds. We believe that our lives should “normalize” or the tough stuff should stop happening at some point, and that’s the point where hope is manifested.
I was reading Katherine Wolf’s Treasures in the Dark recently, and she addresses this after she has suffered an almost-life-ending stroke, multiple neural events, broken bones and recovery from all of those things. She says:
Whether I acknowledged it or not, hope had been a destination to me. Something to be attained or achieved. I thought I could successfully complete a one-time progressive ascent from hurting to healing to hoping, then hang out at the top for the rest of my life. Easy breezy! Maybe this sounds like something you’ve believed too.
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.
One of the most important things that Mike Wells ever told me was that success or failure wasn’t up to me, so I shouldn’t wear it. Every year that goes by, more and more of what that means is revealed to me. Most recently, I have realized that whenever I get weary with my work, it is because I have determined my worth by how people react or change.
Don’t get me wrong—it is amazing when God does a work in someone and they come back from the depression, anxiety, addictions or whatever the dark place has been for them. I see it often, and I love to be a part of the incredible work Jesus does in these people’s lives.
But then there are some who don’t seem to be moving. That can be so tough for me, but only when I determine my ministry by the outcome.
God hasn’t called me to fix people. He hasn’t called me to have incredible outcomes of being the catalyst for change in many lives. He has called me to love people. I love them through counseling and discipleship. But whether or not I love them is not determined by them achieving certain standards or even going the right direction as I see it.
