A Spell-Check Society

Not that I’m overly intrigued by how to spell the word “zucchini,” but it strikes me: when the heavy, old dictionary is sitting on my shelf, and my laptop is within arm’s reach, I’m far more prone to type in my best guess, and let autocorrect take over.

Perhaps I do that too much with what I’m to be learning in general; maybe I’ve deemed it easier to let myself be corrected by default, and never actually recognize that knowing how to "spell" has intrinsic value.

Is it not easier (or at least seemingly more convenient at the onset) to forge ahead with however we think life should go, and let God “autocorrect” us, than to start out submitting to His throne? Isn’t it more tempting to let ‘recuperation’ efforts be the drain on our energies, than to actually do what we were originally told would ‘profit’ us?

And yet Isaiah 48:17 states plainly why His instruction is life to us:

“‘This is what the LORD says –
your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel:
“I AM the LORD your God,
who teaches you what is best for you,
who directs you in the way you should go.”’”

Our waiting to be ‘caught’ rather than diligently applying ourselves to “treasure” His word in our heart (Psalm 119:11), completely undermines us in the purpose for which we were created. For, when we are expecting that God will “amend” where we are “off,” nothing in us is actually learning to “fear God and keep His commandments,” though that is the ‘whole duty’ of man (Ecclesiastes 12:13).

What insight we would borrow from the Scripture - what ruptured communion (Zech. 1:3), what entrapment by the Enemy (2 Cor. 2:11), what heartache over our transgression (Psalm 51:3), we would spare ourselves - if we only applied to our lives the words which would guard us from unrighteousness to start; if our heart’s cry were not, “Lord, save me!” (Matthew 14:30), but rather, “Show me Your ways, O LORD, teach me Your paths; guide me in Your truth and teach me… God my Savior” (Psalm 25:4-5).

Godly Repentance

There are few things which irk me as much as manipulation or defiance. When one of my students went down to the office today to get an ice pack for an injured finger, I expected that she would rejoin the activities in class. After much crying, and her being told that she couldn’t make another trip to the office, she left the room and specifically did what I had told her not to.

When she came back a little later, and I confronted her, my tone restrained nothing of my disapproval. She quickly ran behind my desk, and quietly took some time. Figuring she was sorry at having gotten into trouble, I resumed working with the students at the table where I was sitting.

A little while later, she came up behind me, her hood still over her head and the tears streaking her face. Instead of saying a word to justify herself, she wrapped her arm across my shoulder and put her head against me, quietly crying. And I could only hold her arm, and try soothing her… because, all of a sudden, I realized that what squeezed those tears to the surface was not her anger at being caught, but her remorse in having disappointed me. I might have recognized that look the minute I’d started scolding –

How our relationship with our Father is to be one in which our tears are not a self-pitying anguish at having been convicted of our wrongdoing, but a deep sadness over how we have failed the One we long to please. How prone we often are to see God as filled with wrath, to the point that we huddle in some corner, rendered alienated, rather than restored. Yet He longs for us to come running to Him, and weep upon Him. To forsake the pride which defied Him, and to fall against Him in true penitence, seeking only the privilege of again being able to please Him.

What greater promise of hope exists than within that genuine grief, for in it lies renewed opportunity to obey, and to let Him right us with His will. As one devotional puts it, ‘The tears of godly repentance have been sweet.’

May our tears ever be to Him that welcoming plea which beckons that He invade us more fully than ever before ~

Glorious Tension

Free will tends to stay one of those esoteric quandaries that is fascinating for contemplation – until its existence crashes into the reality we inhabit.

For some reason, it’s so much more palatable to numbly assert that Christ was under obligation (as we were His creation) to free us from our mess, than to stand the sight that – while He could have chosen not to redeem us – still He undertook the painful, nasty battle to bring us back. Ezekiel 16:59-60 makes it clear: “‘For thus says the Lord GOD, “I will also do with you as you have done… Nevertheless, I will remember My covenant with you in the days of your youth…”’” Void of any ‘mandatory duty,’ God sacrificed Himself because of His volition, and quite apart from our state, in relation to Him.

Our free will is an uncomfortable glimpse at His not ordaining “coercion” the status quo, but instead supplying us all the liberty to move into spheres which would yield searing pain and grievous repercussions. Could our desiring Him freely really have been “counterbalanced” (were spiritual matters quantifiable) by the costliness meant to Him? Why is there greater value in giving us the allowance of setting our hearts elsewhere, than in simply denying us that free choosing, and having us at least abide in right standing with Him, untainted by sin; innocent and holy?

Part of me can fully appreciate that true fellowship could not exist apart from deliberate devotion. There would be no method of securing genuine vulnerability or openness, if not for a will intentionally set on giving back to our Father in that manner. And I can recognize even that the greatest honor is in our choosing Him without any “incentive” outside of knowing Him and enjoying His presence.

Yet what disturbs my finite mind is more to do with the way our “testing,” the purification of our love for Him, cannot be separated in any way from our having all of those pain-filled options available to us. Why can’t we simply declare that we are dedicated, and then let God “lock in” our decision? Why must there still be a propensity to wander? Why must our having a ‘choice’ remain ever in operation?

For, if devotion needs a continual purifying, if a set will cannot endure apart from the constant renewal of withstanding those temptations, then are we not always susceptible to falling? Would we not be far “safer” if we could only be deprived of that choosing – and no pitfalls could anymore overtake us?

But that is not God’s way. The pain must exist. The pain we cause Him, and that which we cause others, and that which we must bear – Appealing as it is to be “stripped of free will,” unable to harm or be hurt, the elimination of pain cannot “balance,” cannot even touch on, the goodness of being in that unhindered communion of fearless, abounding love (see 1 John 4:16-18).

What greater knife is rendered? True. But what greater honor, shown to Him, or experienced ourselves, than to be the one freely chosen – as recipient of willing and devoted sacrifice?

A privilege which could not exist outside of that state where pain is also possible.

Always

I only saw my goal;
I couldn’t see the consequence, I didn’t think of You.

All my energies were invested in “solutions” of my design.
I couldn’t see beyond my own energies.
Couldn’t taste more than my harried breath and strained brow.

The ugly cost of residing in “me;”
Of washing this soul in dust,
And having fumbling eyes
Which fail, and fail again.

And could it be that I stand
Now in You,
Not even clean “enough,”
But clean in full -- ?

Nothing in me could grant a standing here,
A position - of righteousness - so well forsaken by these hands.

Yet here I am.
Fully Yours, and fully cleansed.
Departed from iniquity,
Without its trace upon me.

And I can only bow.
At feet more pure than I could speak,
Which, nail-pierced and raw, still tell,
Were given for this pricey lot;
This reneged so costly.

Were You more captured in Your gaze
Upon my own rich blot,
Would I not suffer as I deem,
My actions measured, and condemned unto the death
I have worked so hard to earn?

But poured upon this soul,
You drape Yourself over me,
Hugging to Yourself the crimes,
And criminal alike.

And I am Yours.
Fully Yours,
And always.

Mark me Yours,
Fully Yours,
For always.

Quick Time

I’m wearing my watch, which may sound insignificant… but it’s been broken for a while, and I’ve been without.

It broke without warning. One of the pins on the chain simply fell out one evening while I was putting away a mic stand, and I could never find the little metal link. And so, I’ve been “timeless,” as a friend once joked, for quite a while.

Decided to hunt down a repair shop today, which became a rather frustrating task. The first shop, I’m convinced, does not exist (or else I simply haven’t gotten any better at adjusting to these huge city shopping complexes). The next one I found was closed, though they claimed to be having a sale today.

It was only after I’d decided to head for my last stop that I unexpectedly drove past a jeweler. And so, when that final errand was done, I took the chance. I walked in, and before the man who was paying at the cash register had even finished his transaction, a woman from behind the counter was taking my broken, little watch from my hand. I didn’t even have a chance to show her the break; she quickly inspected the piece, passed it to the man doing repairs, and – within five minutes – my watch was back on my wrist, for an unreasonably low price.

I had already given up on getting it fixed today. (Had even whined that I get tired of how God leaves things “broken.”) But the errands were, as He’d given the impression before I started out this morning, in some way to His glory.

What amazes me is that brokenness can be left for a time, until He – with wisdom which transcends everything but His mercy – quickly, compassionately mends the disrepair to which we’ve actually grown accustomed.

Sometimes it is precisely that prolonged state of brokenness which serves as the best advent for His swift movement, because it is only then that we can see how His refraining was as much under control as His acting. And when, with incredible speed, He brings about the culmination of what He’s sworn by Himself to do, then we, like those who reveled in His cleansing of the temple (2 Chronicles 29:36), can ‘rejoice over what God had prepared for the people because the thing came about suddenly.’

A feat that no one but our timeless God could do --

Resuscitate

quietly unnerved
unwrapped before Your mastery of me,
and all transparency,
not begrudging yet frightfully raw –
how You enter in so powerfully –

undoing all i thought i owned,
remaking all the claims i’d kept –
until my hands grow limp, and cold –
and grief anew breaks me afresh
on all the treachery, all the lies
i clung more fiercely to
than You, my Love,
my Sovereign King

...in tyranny removed
from that design, the good i need –
You wrest me from the captor’s hold
and break me back to You
in merciful repose
which captures but Your love for me,
a rich deliverance
for which i am unworthy

You bring me back, You rest me here:
You minister in full –
that, all proclaimed, what shouts forth
is but a glory of the Judge,
who – seeing my depravity –
would sooner my naked shame
than my soul diseased

praise – for rescue from death;
all praise – for wrenching me from fears –
that i, Your child, may inhabit that realm
where, presented to You, I bear Your Name,
a character infused with mankind --
a purity which should not be mine;
a holy heart, made righteous at Your hand

all praise to You who has
commanded my health
and restoration undiluted
with the Holy One to whom i belong

my life, my soul – Your possession

conquer yet again
all that is Yours, Most Holy Lord