Blessed

Blessed is he whose faith is not offended,
When all around his way
The power of God is working out deliverance
For others day by day;

Though in some prison drear his own soul languish,
Till life itself be spent,
Yet still can trust his Father's love and purpose,
And rest therein content.

Blessed is he, who through long years of suffering,
Cut off from active toil,
Still shares by prayer and praise the work of others,
And thus "divides the spoil."

Blessed are thou, O child of God, who sufferest,
And canst not understand
The reason for thy pain, yet gladly leavest
Thy life in His blest Hand.

Yea, blessed art thou whose faith is "not offended"
By trials unexplained,
By mysteries unsolved, past understanding,
Until the goal is gained.

Freda Hanbury Allen

Still can't be at the computer long but I'm resting in God's loving hands.

This Advent season I've been pondering these words from Henri Nouwen's The Genesee Diary:

"The expectation of Advent is anchored in the event of God's incarnation. The more I come in touch with what happened in the past, the more I come in touch with what is to come. The Gospel not only reminds me of what took place but also of what will take place. In the contemplation of Christ's first coming, I can discover the signs of his second coming. By looking back in meditation, I can look forward in expectation. By reflection, I can project; by conserving the memory of Christ's birth , I can progress to the fulfillment of his kingdom. I am struck by the fact that the prophets speaking of the future of Israel always kept reminding their people of God's great works in the past. They could look forward with confidence because they could look backward with awe to Yahweh's great deeds."

"I pray that Advent will offer me the opportunity to deepen my memory of God's great deeds in time and will set me free to look forward with courage to the fulfillment of time by him who came and is still to come." ~ Henri J.M. Nouwen

Our Christmas celebration at home has been greatly simplified this year due to schedule constraints. This has opened up a simpler season of focus on Christ's coming, surrounding our Advent Wreath and some readings to the kids. At one level I've always been in a state of "waiting" due to chronic pain. Even now, for instance, I am "waiting" to get through an aggravated shoulder injury that is keeping me off the computer (my husband is being my secretary by typing this as I dictate!)

And it's hit me that this is the mindset that has always been in Scripture. Old Testament Jews had to wait for Messiah - to just sit there and suffer until he came, That's what made his first advent so meaningful for them. And New Testament Christians are also waiting for him to return again, to set all things right and remake the world. I find myself waiting for him to come create that New Earth in which pain will be only a distant memory.

And so, as God's f0llowers always have, we wait for Jesus to save us.

I Inspire My Husband!

The title for my blog, Beautiful Descent, came out of a conversation I had with my hubby. I was telling him how I felt moved by The Water Song in Hannah Hurnard's book Hind's Feet on High Places. There, the water came from the high places that the main character is trying desperately to reach, but it sings happily about going to the lowlands to serve, and to bring life. This resonated with me because of the brokenness I live with. Despite its many forms, I can better empathize with those who also find themselves in very difficult places, and I see this as an opportunity to bring the life of Jesus within me into the broken worlds of other people.

I was trying to compress all this into a blog title and theme, and Matthew came up with "Beautiful Descent." Recently, this all inspired him to write an article reflecting on the Christian life embodies a very similar principle, whether we suffer from some form of acute brokenness or not. Read it here at the Colson Center for Christian Worldview.

An Overflowing Jar = An Overwhelmed Life

Joggers in Central Park, Manhattan, New York
By Amanda Hall Courtesy of Allposters.com

“The changing fabric of the world outside of us is what greatly impacts our sense of ourselves and of life. It changes how we think and what we want. The world we experience outside of ourselves, in fact is what makes some ideas seem plausible and others seem implausible.”
~ Dave. F. Wells in Courage to be Protestant

Opportunities to use your talents, time, and treasure seem limitless. And yet, we all have limits to what we can do, have time for, and invest in. The fall season bombards families with opportunities to get their kids involved in sports, drama, music, etc. The requests for parents to volunteer their services in helping to makes these extracurricular activities happen are also a part of the equation. Add to that the church programs and ministry opportunities and the overwhelmed feeling is complete.

Over the years Matt and I attempt to enter the start of a new school year with a set of priorities. It is like emptying the proverbial jar of life and purposefully putting in those activities representing rocks that are most important first. The size of the stone represents how much time, energy, and money those things require. The jar cannot get any bigger. I’m feeling the tension of that at the end of September. I believe I let in bigger stones (activities or commitments) that I thought were smaller. Pea gravel can shake itself down into crevices between larger stones, so I think these "small" activities will fit. But in reality, these activities or commitments are larger than I expect and they don’t fit.

I’m emptying the jar today and re-assigning priorities and re-assessing their size. This inevitably means some stones won’t fit and will need to be removed. Learning to say no to some very good things is difficult to do. However, I can’t live at warp speed and still thrive in those things God has called me to do, so it must be done.

The world outside of me seems to say I should be doing more. My kids should be able to do everything they are interested in. Ministry vacancies should be filled by me and mine if we have the talent or ability to do so. However, I’ve always observed the Western world's pace is too fast. Inside our churches it is no different. Lots of good programs and many opportunities to serve. If there is white space on the calendar I feel pressure to fill it.

But what if I change the environment for a little while? According to Wells, “the world we experience outside of ourselves is what makes some ideas seem plausible and others seem implausible.” So maybe doing less makes me feel guilty precisely because so many people around me are so busy. But what if I try to slow down in the midst of a busy world? Perhaps then the idea that my significance does not depend on what I do will be plausible.

So at the end of October I’m going on a solitary retreat to the Trappist Abbey. In solitude and silence I expect to find the plausible idea that I can rest in doing a few things well and be okay in God’s eyes. I have to change my outside experience for a little while to own this perspective.

Desire without knowledge is not good, and whoever makes haste with his feet misses his way. When a man's folly bring his way to ruin, his heart rages against the Lord.
Proverbs 19:2-3

ESV Study Note: "Verse 2 refers to an impulsive person who unwisely acts before thinking or planning the right way. He has a 'desire' to get somewhere but he does not have sufficient knowledge to reach his goal."

I'm going to get away to reflect on the goal of being what God intends me to be in this season of life and adjust the necessary priorities if I find they are out of whack.

Troughs and Peaks

Coaley Peak, Dursley, Cotswolds, England
By Peter Adams Courtesy of AllPosters.com

Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves.

~ Rainer Maria Rilke

Just when I think I've figured something out like dealing with the present issue my child is facing, it all changes. New circumstances, new issues, new unsolved problems must be taken to the Lord for prayer and to seek wisdom. This is the next trough to plow through. I wanted to celebrate the peak of the previous phase but there doesn't seem to be time. I feel overwhelmed all over again and stuck in finding the motivation to press on.

At times like these I find it helpful to understand that there is an enemy of my soul that seeks to discourage and distract. He wants me to forget the peaks and the places God has clearly guided me through. I've been reminded through C.S. Lewis' Screwtape Letters. Uncle Screwtape writes letters to Wormwood, the demon he mentors. His goal is to help Wormwood thwart God's plan in redeeming the human he has been assigned to torment.

My Dear Wormwood,

Humans are half spirit and half [creature]. As spirits they belong to the eternal world, but as [creatures] they inhabit time. This means that while their spirit can be directed to an eternal object, their bodies, passions, and imaginations are in continual change, for to be in time means to change. Their nearest approach to constancy, therefore, from which they repeatedly fall back, a series of troughs and peaks.

Now it may surprise you to learn that in His efforts to get permanent possession of a soul, He relies on the troughs even more than on the peaks; some of His special favorites have gone through longer and deeper troughs than anyone else. The reason is this. To us a human is primarily food; our aim is the absorption of its will into ours, the increase of our own area of selfhood at its expense. But the obedience which the Enemy [God] demands of men is quite a different thing. One must face the fact that all the talk about His love for men, and His service being perfect freedom, is not (as one would gladly believe) mere propaganda, but an appalling truth. He really does want to fill the universe with a lot of loathsome little replicas of Himself --creatures whose life, on its miniature scale, will be qualitatively like His own, not because He has absorbed them but because their wills freely conform to His. We want cattle who can finally become food; He wants servants who can finally become sons. We want to suck in, He wants to give out. We are empty and would be filled; He is full and flows over. Our war aim is a world in which Our Father Below [Satan] has drawn all other beings into himself: the Enemy [God] wants a world full of beings united to Him but still distinct.

And that is where the troughs come in. You must have often wondered why the Enemy does not make more use of His power to be sensibly present to human souls in any degree He chooses and at any moment. Merely to over-ride a human will would be for Him useless…. He cannot ravish. He can only woo…. He is prepared to do a little over-riding at the beginning. He will set them off with communications of His presence which, though faint, seem great to them, with emotional sweetness, and easy conquest over temptation. But He never allows the state of affairs to last long. Sooner or later He withdraws, if not in fact, at least from their conscious experience, all those supports and incentives. He leaves the creature to stand up on its own legs-- to carry out from the will alone duties which have lost all relish. It is during such trough periods, much more than during the peak periods, that it is growing into the sort of creature He wants it to be. Hence the prayers offered in the state of dryness are those which please Him best….He wants them to learn to walk and must therefore take away His hand; and if only the will to walk is really there He is pleased even with their stumbles. Do not be deceived, Wormwood. Our cause is never more in danger than when a human, no longer desiring, but still intending, to do our Enemy’s will, looks round upon a universe from which every trace of Him seems to have vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys.
Screwtape
The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis

Several things cause me to wake up and take notice from this sneak peak of the enemy's mail.

• Change is part of living in time and I need to expect it and move with it as God has planned.
• God's love for me is immense and he is wooing me to desire to be more like him.
• God uses the difficult things for my good, my transformation to be more like Christ.
• When I feel like God isn't there and I still press on in obedience, He is very aware and this brings him incredible joy.
• When I mess up but have the intention to continue to follow the enemy's work on my soul is not gaining any ground.

Romans 8:18, 28- 30 says, "For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he predestined, he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified."

Sufferings and good seem to be opposed to one another unless you know what the goal is. God's goal for my life is to be conformed to the image of his Son. He uses the troughs more than the peaks to do this. The unanswered questions and situations that tempt my heart to be impatient are the very things that God is using to make me more like Christ. I can be persuaded to be patient for that because it is my heart's desire to be made like my Master. To Him be all the glory!