The other day I was late getting out of the house, or so I thought. As I went out the door I was in fact, right on time to catch two of my children with arm loads of glass sheets they had taken out of the louvered windows of an old travel trailer we have. Their intention was to try to wedge it in the windows of a little cabin they had constructed. In my mother imagination all I could see was broken shards of glass everywhere and children sliced to ribbons. I had them immediately return the glass to the trailer and assured them we would come up with a safer alternative.
The part of the whole incident that was reassuring to me, is that God is completely in control, even, and probably most especially when, I feel out of control. That day I had felt that my morning had gone “wrong,” and I was feeling a lot of guilt over being late. In our hurry culture, full of schedules, we can mistakenly get the idea that we are in control of our days. Usually we are brought up short in this belief by interruptions, some as mild as traffic and some much more serious.
I know things go the best when I remember to give God my day and let Him lead me. He doesn’t always lead me where I think He should, but when I look back at the end of the day I see that His way was the best.
So the next time I think I am running late, or I get caught in traffic, I am going to say no to the instant anxiety that wells up inside me. Instead I am going to remind myself of all the times that my Heavenly Father has had perfect timing in my life and try to rest in Him.
“Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life? Since you cannot do this very little thing, why do you worry about the rest?” Luke 12:25-26
Are you a fan of failure? Not too many people are, although some people do use failure as a reason to stop trying and stand still. Granted, failure can be paralyzing. There is another option though, we can choose to fall forward. That way even though we have fallen, at least we have gained some ground!
This is such a crazy concept to me since I have been terrified of failure for most of my life. I have actually not felt free to make a mistake for fear of the judgment of those around me. The thing is, it is human to make mistakes and mistakes are also an opportunity for God to shine His grace into our lives. In a way, by trying so hard not to fail, I was actually shutting grace out of my life.
God has been showing me that making mistakes is proof that I am trying, that I am alive and engaged in my world. Life is messy. There is just no way to navigate it all without an error now and then.
When we do fall, God, in grace, picks us up, dusts us off and tells us it’s okay to try again. He never leaves us lying there. (Although on occasion I have chosen to lie there and wallow in self-pity for a little while!)
I think falling forward is similar to leaning in to Jesus when things get hard. Sometimes I find myself wanting to pull away when life gets difficult, as though it were Jesus’ fault. And all the time He is waiting to enfold me in His arms and tell me it will be okay.
Once again it is amazing how physical aspects of life mirror inner, emotional aspects. I have done this very thing emotionally, many times throughout my life. I stuff a bunch of hurts into a little cupboard of my heart. A lot of times I don’t even really know what’s in there, but I just keep pushing that door closed. It is not always fear that keeps me from looking at these things. The busyness of life, laziness, tiredness can all keep me paralyzed. Also, as with my kitchen cupboard, I know things will get messy before they get better!
After I finally clean out a cupboard or closet I have such a feeling of accomplishment. I no longer avoid opening the door, instead I get happy when I need to get an item out of the newly organized space. When I make it through one of God’s cleaning sprees, I feel the same way. The issue I had stuffed way down deep is no longer as painful or scary. I feel a new sense of freedom in that area of my life.
I pray that you and I will continue to be brave and allow God to keep showing us areas of ourselves that He wants to heal and that when we come out on the other side we will have a deeper understanding of God’s grace.
Warriors are proud of their scars. They love to tell the stories of each of the battles the scars represent: “This one was when we were surrounded and I fought my way through; my arm was half-off, but I made it! Oh, this one here? That was when it looked like all hope was lost, but we rallied and won.” Scars tell a story of battle and victory.
The Bible tells us we are in a spiritual battle all the time, “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” Ephesians 6:12 The strange thing though, is that we as followers of Christ are not proud of our scars. We try to hide or minimize them. Really they are marks that we have overcome by the power of Jesus and have lived to tell about it!
I think we see our scars as ugly, painful and useless. We can also get a mistaken idea that when we become followers of Jesus that those scars should just disappear. One day that will be true, when we get to heaven our scars will be gone. However, here on Earth they are still very much of use. For ourselves the marks we carry can be reminders to not go back to behaviors etc. that caused our hurt in the first place. For others we meet who are in similar battles to what we have gone through, our scars can be encouragement that we made it through and are still alive to tell the story.
Driving past a playground last Spring I saw a daddy climbing up a slide, drying it for his little daughter with what appeared to be his own jacket.
Random acts of kindness are always encouraging, but when people love like Jesus loves, that is truly amazing. Jesus was always going above and beyond what anyone in His day considered possible in the realm of love. He not only talked to women, He talked to the most disenfranchised of women. He didn’t just heal lepers, He touched them before they were healed. Jesus, in fact, had this uncomfortable habit of loving everyone!
God promises that some day that will be how it is. We will live in perfection and love with Him for eternity. For now, however, we need to be the ones showing that unquenchable love that Jesus showed. We just need to be willing for Him to love through us and to have Him open our eyes to opportunities to love with that amazing love with which He first loved us.
During the sermon* on Sunday the question was raised, what if Jesus was coming to dinner at your house in ten days? I of course thought immediately of the massive cleaning that would need to take place. I don’t think ten days would be enough! The pastor also talked about how we would probably want to serve Jesus the best food we could. The physical preparations that we would make was part of the point of the sermon, but there was also a deeper message.
What if when Jesus arrived it was a little awkward? “Oh, um, hi Jesus, haven’t talked to you in awhile.”
We get caught up in the formality of prayer, when really it can be very informal because Jesus is 
interested in everything about us. “That flower is so pretty Jesus, thank you for making it!” “Jesus I was thinking of making soup for dinner what do you think?” This may sound very strange, but when we can get into the habit of continually praying, even about the small things, when the big things come we will immediately take them to Jesus.