A Field of Glory

She was a rolling meadow small, skirts of grasses, but weeds as tall
Her wild flowers, untamed and fair led her to ignore the patches bare
Where not a green thing grew at all
And the sun, why she basked in its bliss, unaware
She was burning from its hot, dry kiss.

Then, one ragged day He came,
Plan in place He began to toil
His work, it ripped through and overturned her soil
Crushed her wild flowers down,
Uprooted the grasses of her gown
She cried in pain, "Just leave me be,
Can't you see you're hurting me?"

He did not stop but worked harder still,
He pulled the weeds that had grown so tall
All burrows were filled, so as not to fall
He broke the ground so dry and cracked
He was not discouraged by what she lacked

Horrified she looked around and all she saw was broken ground
Dusty field of brown and black, spread with muck on top of that
But now He whispered as He sowed
A promise of new life with every throw

"Shhh, small one, do not weep
My plans for you may seem but meek
But trust me and you won't be sorry,
I'll make you into a field of glory"

She ceased to cry and when she did
Tears from Heaven flowed instead
Rain immersed her ground and washed her clean
New growth, new life, she was redeemed

She loved Him now and bore His work
A meadow small she could not be
"I'll be His field of glory!"
She spoke determinedly

And where she had been stripped to dirt and dust
She grew straight and tall, leaving Him her trust
So now she wears an emerald gown
Her hair bright gold and eyes of sky
She dances in joy as the wind blows by

Because He's making her a field of glory
Fulfilling the promise that she won't be sorry
A song of courage and truth she hums
She knows she'll be with Him when the harvest comes.

~L.L.M.

The Unknown Future

Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the Kingdom

Luke 12:32

It would be so nice if the moment we became Christians we would be able to just trust God completely and be content with our lot in life. Unfortunately, if you’re anything like me, you may find that trusting God is like sunshine on a cloudy day. It feels so good when the sun is shining down on you with its bright, warm rays, but then a group of clouds pass over and suddenly its shadowy and cool and it goes back and forth like that between sun and cloud all. day. long. 

The peace that comes when you give your troubles to the Lord is such a comfort - but for me it always seems fleeting. Its not long before my worries or doubts cloud over again and I’m left wondering if I ever really trusted God with the issue in the first place. 

I’m particularly guilty of playing the “alternate universe” game. Its where your mind leads you to consider how your life may have looked if you had taken a different path that was offered to you in your past. I’m quite happy with where my life has taken me, so the little trips down reminiscence road are really a complete waste of time. What’s worse than this useless indulgence in the past however, is when I take the same game into the future which I have a feeling is a bit of an insult to God. After all, there is a difference between conscientious planning and responsibility in regards to the future and apprehensive, anxious preparations for a future that is unlikely to make you nearly as squirrelly as your pre-planning has made you.

What I’m getting at is that when I let my mind run amok with anxieties about what “could” happen or what “might” not happen - when I daydream about this possibility or that potential problem I’m not only being disrespectful to the God who has it all figured out for me, I’m being an irrational, stressed out moron. 

First, worrying is not a productive move. You can’t fix something that isn’t broken, you can’t plan a route when you don’t know your destination. My favourite saying about worry is that it’s like a rocking chair - it gives you something to do but it doesn’t get you anywhere. Trusting in God on the other hand. . .well. . .I guess it may not always feel productive but it allows you use your brain for more productive things while building your faith and its what we have been commanded to do. Personally, looking back at how things have unfolded in my life I can get a glimpse of God’s plan and it is stunning and beautiful thus far - why shouldn’t I trust Him?

Second, if I’m worrying about the future because I’m concerned about my happiness (which is usually why I’m worrying about the future) then I’m forgetting the point of my life in Jesus Christ. Circumstances never last and are always changing. If you are basing your happiness and your faith for that matter, on your life circumstances you will forever be in a cycle of searching, finding, doubting and disillusionment. Your happiness and contentment will be tied to what’s going on in your life and lets face it, what’s going on in your life will not always be rainbows, bunnies and butterflies. 

We need to remember that the only certain and solid thing in this life is God. Our happiness and contentment in this crazy world should to be tied to Him and Him alone. Nothing else can withstand the anti-rainbows, anti-bunnies and flies. There is no peace and lasting happiness apart from God. 

I “know” all this but sometimes its not enough. I’m the type of person that will probably always need to reconsecrate my future to the Lord. And since trust becomes stronger the better you know someone I need to continue to get to know the Lord by reading the Bible and hanging onto his words whenever I start to become consumed with worry. The other practice that can soothe this weakness is prayer. I really think that its not enough to just try to ignore a worry - you have to make the conscious decision to give it over the Lord and talk through it with Him. 

When you read this I would consider it a blessing if you would pray for me, that I might be able to hand over my worries and concerns to the Father and use my brain for more productive pursuits. If there’s anything you’ve found helpful when you get caught up in your worries I’d like to hear that too. 

"And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? If then you are not able to do as small a thing as that, why are you anxious about the rest? Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass, which is alive in the field today, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, how much more will He clothe you, O you of little faith! And do not seek what you are to eat and what you are to drink, nor be worried. For all the nations of the world seek after these things, and your Father knows that you need them. Instead, seek His kingdom, and these things will be added to you.”

Luke 12: 25-31

Something's Gotta Give: Part 1 of 2

I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of the phrases “the dark night of the soul” or “the law of undulation”. If you have, then chances are that you’re a Christian that has experienced a rough time in your life. I only draw that conclusion, however, because it seems that only Christians or those of a spiritual persuasion either create, or go searching for these types of beautiful flowery terms to describe those times in your life that seem to be an unending parade of unfortunate, unfair, very dark and depressing “WTF” circumstances of life that make you cry, wallow or otherwise pity your existence and fill your silent vocabulary with questions of “what did I do to deserve this?” “when will this end?” “when will I be happy again?” and my personal favourite, “SERIOUSLY???!!. . .(insert exasperated sigh here)”.

You know what I mean though, and if you don’t, you unfortunately will at one point or another (start preparing for a long metaphor. . .). Generally speaking, you’re doing your thing, probably with a lot of content satisfaction when something happens. That something that shakes your faith or your personal foundation. You start to cope with it, but just when you’re starting to make sense of it something else comes out of nowhere and blindsides you and you stumble around for a bit. Then maybe someone comes out of the shadows and shoves you to the ground and hey, that kind of makes you mad, so you get up looking for a fight, only to find that you can’t see them anymore, and then someone hits you from behind and you’re back on the ground. You try to get up but they kick you down again, and then again, and then again until you stop trying to get up and just lay quietly hoping that they’ll go away and leave you alone. It gets quiet and you’re pretty sure they’re gone, but maybe they’re just waiting for you to get up again. You’re lucky though, because you’re friends come along and find you pretty quickly. They help you get up and take you home and start to patch you up. They tell you that you’re safe, they call the police for you and say that they’ll catch the bastards that hurt you. But the police call you back to say that they have no leads, that this was probably just a random act of violence and you should go about your life like normal. “Ha ha!” you say with absolutely no humor as you order on-line a security system and four deadbolts to be shipped to you. You spend a long time fine-tuning that security system but never really feel any safer. You open the door only for those friends that were with you that fateful night. Absolutely. no. one. else.

The truth is, I could continue with this metaphor for a few more pages, but I think you know what I mean, and if you don’t know what I mean you probably have a weird mix of intrigue and disinclination happening. Hold on - I believe in using my writing powers for good and not evil, it’s about to get sunnier, just bear with me.

If you do know what I’m talking about, you know that there is no definite amount of time that this “dark night of the soul”, this “WTF?” time of life lasts. For some people it’s a month, maybe a few months, maybe a few years, maybe many years. That’s why it’s so chillingly scary. After all, this could mean that you’ll feel like the bottom of a plumber’s boot for the rest of your life. Luckily for me, I believe in Beatles songs, good luck rabbits (that’s the whole rabbit alive, mind you, not just its dead foot) the Monro-Kellie Doctrine and God’s love. This, in turn leads me to put a lot of stock in “the law of undulation” (no, you will not find this in the Bible, check out “The Screwtape Letters” by C.S. Lewis). Basically, something is bound to change eventually.

In the last few days I feel like maybe, just maybe I’ve figured something out. You know when you have days where it feels like God is “speaking” to you? Perhaps others would call it those times when you felt in tune with the universe or maybe its what atheists would say is what happens when your sub-conscious meets up with your conscious or what have you. In any case, it’s not quite a revelation but it’s a little bit of peace that comes to your attention and then you start seeing it everywhere. I will continue the second part of this in a few minutes in a second post as I am fairly determined to avoid painfully long single posts.

In the mean time you may want to look up:

“The Dark Night of the Soul”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Night_of_the_Soul

The Law of Undulation”
http://bama.ua.edu/~casey006/216/screwtape.html

The Monro-Kellie Doctrine
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intracranial_pressure
(Ya, I probably wouldn’t have read it all either if I hadn’t had to. Basically, if pressure is introduced into a fixed amount of space, like the skull, something has got to give.)