More Familiar

burn through me,
course afresh
‘til Your presence becomes
more familiar
than my breath,
and all that is within me
yields itself to Your touch,
and all that is without me
bears witness
of Your hand upon my life -
whether to tear away
from that which will harm,
or to join me to
that which will ignite
in me a deeper passion
for Your heart

The Backside of Helplessness

I had once joked about shaving my head. As I still, even two months later, gawk at the reflection in the mirror, I’m fairly sure this is as close as I ever want to come to that scenario. I had specifically explained to the hairdresser what I wanted, had even corrected her when she didn’t look to be following what I’d requested, and now have to live with the consequences of her having not listened.

I’ve creatively tried barrettes and scarves to cover the surface damage, but what I haven’t been able to cover is what a pair of cutting shears has left staring at me daily: that there are moments when our will is totally overridden by someone who wasn’t ‘listening.’ That, when we are left with no alternative but to accept the damage, when there is no easy way to hasten ourselves out of the painful repercussions, we have but one solution: to forgive.

It’s terribly easy to see forgiving as a last resort, our only viable option when all other resources are exhausted; when - backed into a corner - we have no other way to cope. And with that mistaken impression, we reckon that, conversely, retaliation must be a mark of strength; an exhibition of some control over an otherwise hopeless situation for our defense.

And yet we would then miss the backside of helplessness.

For it is where we had not the voice to counter the one offending, and could not overpower the person who sinned against us, that we are given the unique access to a power greater than that which spurred the offense. In every area where we submit to the consequences of the transgression, we are enabled to declare that what we forfeit is not a love for that person, but any desire for vengeance.

But how does that process translate when the reality staring back at us is the daily consequence of someone’s not obeying?

Forgiveness…

…leans on God’s righteousness as Judge

“…and while being reviled, He did not revile in return; while suffering, He uttered no threats, but kept entrusting Himself to Him who judges righteously” (1 Peter 2:23). As one pastor put it, the silence which Christ exhibited was majestic (see Matt. 26:63); a silence of ‘innocence, of integrity, of trust in His Father as Righteous Judge.’ When there is total confidence that “the eyes of the LORD move to and fro throughout the earth that He may strongly support those whose heart is completely His” (2 Ch. 16:9); when there is utmost conviction that God “knows the secrets of the heart” (Ps. 44:21), and is able to judge between one servant and another (see 2 Chronicles 6:23), we are then released from having to advocate for ourselves. For vindictiveness could not, in all its might, yield the justice which comes from entrusting our souls to our “faithful Creator in doing what is right” (1 Peter 4:19).

…learns to relinquish personal rights

“Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death…” (Ph. 2:8). Once we recognize that walking in like manner as our Savior means surrendering our fight for self-preservation, we are brought into the awareness that we are vessels, ambassadors of the message of His very life: “…namely, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and He has committed to us the word of reconciliation” (2 Corinthians 5:19). Praise be to God for eyes to see past the devil’s scheme of keeping us from pardoning another (2 Cor. 2:11), that we may likewise ‘empty ourselves’ (Ph. 2:7) and declare that we do not count our lives as ‘dear to ourselves,’ but only useful in the ministry which we received from the Lord Jesus (Acts 20:24).

…looks to benefit the offender

“But if we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation…” (2 Cor. 1:6). When we stand in the assurance that our ‘Advocate is on high’ (Job 16:19), and that we were called to exhibit the same self-sacrifice as our Master (Jn. 15:13), we are then freed to demonstrate, through the Holy Spirit’s power residing within us, that we would do ‘nothing from selfish ambition… but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than ourselves’ (Ph. 2:3). It is God’s sheer grace that, once we set our will to forgive, He would give us eyes by which we ‘recognize no one according to the flesh’ any longer (2 Cor. 5:16), but as a ‘fellow heir of the grace of life’ (1 Pe. 3:7). And it is through His vision in us that we can then determine to “do good” to those who hate, to “bless” those who curse (Luke 6:27-28). As Psalm 122:9 words it, what Christ has given us, in His example of sacrifice, and His power to forgive through us, is the strength to say to the one injuring us, “I will seek your good.”

For what we once considered sheer helplessness becomes, through God’s transforming good, the unique avenue by which we can state with wholehearted sincerity that we will seek the good of another; that we, enabled by His resurrection life, can be infused with the same power which raised Christ from the dead, and declare with our lives that we ‘have been called for this purpose, since Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example for us to follow in His footsteps’ (2 Pe. 2:21).


“Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”
Romans 12:21

A Cardboard Box Hyena

One of my students had been asking me for help in rounding out a part of her papier mache creature. When, today, I took a pair of scissors to her cardboard box hyena, and she watched me lop off a part of the shoulder, the horror which rang through her voice was apparent: “Miss Milco, what are you doing?!”

Though she soon saw how it solved the problem of making her hyena a little less boxy, her question still stands. For I, too, have asked my Teacher on many occasions: “What are You doing? You’re cutting away the very part I need. What are You doing? Didn’t You understand what I was asking? What are You doing? Your answer’s so different than what I’d meant - ”

To walk by faith does not, however, have anything to do with our discerning God’s reasons. We are no more called to know His specific aims than we are to “bind the chains of the Pleiades, or loose the cords of Orion” (Job 38:31). Our call is only to trust.

And that is where the difficulty arises. For we are a people absorbed with sight, with evidence which should motivate us to decide. We rely upon proof in everything from court cases to sales pitches. And we refuse to be swayed without cold, tangible reasons to believe.

Yet there is a beautiful example in Luke 5 which points us to the kind of obedience which Christ seeks:

Now it happened that while the crowd was pressing around Him and listening to the word of God, He was standing by the lake of Gennesaret; and He saw two boats lying at the edge of the lake; but the fishermen had gotten out of them and were washing their nets. And He got into one of the boats, which was Simon’s, and asked him to put out a little way from the land. And He sat down and began teaching the people from the boat. When He had finished speaking, He said to Simon, “Put out into the deep water, and let down your nets for a catch” (v. 1-4).

Why would He ask of them to do what all evidence pointed to the contrary of their accomplishing? Had He missed the discouragement on their faces? Why would He ask of them to try once more, when they had no reason to believe circumstances would be any different?

And yet, the command is a grace. For in it, He permits Peter to voice a faith which states, as resoundingly as Job’s (see Job 13:15), that it is not a matter of understanding what is being asked, but of knowing the One who is asking.

For Peter’s response comes in weariness, yet also in acknowledgement of three elements:

“Master…”

…that Christ remains his Lord, his Teacher; the only One who is wise, the very One to whom his allegiance, submission, and obedience are due.

“…we worked hard all night and caught nothing…”

…a recognition of the impossibility of circumstances; a human estimation of what is attainable, and what logic says should not be attempted.

“…but I will do as You say…”

…nevertheless, all trust is rightly placed in You alone. (Or, as the NIV words it even more emphatically, “…but because You say so, I will…”)

We are not given opposing circumstances that we may be undone, but rather, that we would recognize with grateful submission that – if God is asking – it is that He may supply us the opportunity to declare more fully our trust in His character. And so, when God brings us to those moments in which our trust of Him seems the greatest affront to logic, we have the joy of crying out, even as events confound our reasoning, that our certainty of Him (2 Tim. 1:12) runs deeper than our ability to discern what lies around us.

For either we can look at the horror and discouragement of the circumstances, and declare that God’s character is contingent upon those transient elements of life; or we can look to His immutable character, and state emphatically, even where “sight” cannot bridge itself to understanding, “My God, in whom I trust!” (Psalm 91:2).