It can feel terrible to be exposed. We grow up learning to cultivate a public image that diverges from our private reality. We learn what is and is not socially acceptable in order to survive and thrive.
However, Jesus teaches a new way of living. Truth is eternally paired with grace. Fully. Exposing our truth - the gritty, ugly, rancid, animalistic humanity within - and embracing God's love in spite and around all those degraded moments IS freedom. The habit of confession, even only to God, is our starting point to grab a hold of the forgiveness and love only Jesus offers. Nowhere else in the world is transparency met with such kindness! And as we wipe the sullen mess off our soul, we find God's light shining brighter and brighter, illuminating our thoughts, even our instincts. We can only extricate ourselves from our baseness through re-learning living in Christ's grace. We can only walk forward in grace and love if we also lean into truth - even to the point of buckling under the weight, beating our chests, and crying out in our unworthiness. The alternative is a life only part lived, hiding... a broken and un-filled life. Have courage and choose truth. Luke 18 9-12 He told his next story to some who were complacently pleased with themselves over their moral performance and looked down their noses at the common people: “Two men went up to the Temple to pray, one a Pharisee, the other a tax man. The Pharisee posed and prayed like this: ‘Oh, God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, crooks, adulterers, or, heaven forbid, like this tax man. I fast twice a week and tithe on all my income.’ 13 “Meanwhile the tax man, slumped in the shadows, his face in his hands, not daring to look up, said, ‘God, give mercy. Forgive me, a sinner.’” 14 Jesus commented, “This tax man, not the other, went home made right with God. If you walk around with your nose in the air, you’re going to end up flat on your face, but if you’re content to be simply yourself, you will become more than yourself.”
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[Verse 1: Jonathan Ogden]
All that my heart desires I see in You my God All that I’m longing for is found in You my God Your love flows like a river to my soul And You fill up my heart ‘til it overflows [Verse 2: Jonathan Ogden] You make me come alive, Your spirit lives in me You bring the dead to life and cause the blind to see (Jonathan Ogden & Nathan Stirling) Your love flows like a river to my soul And You fill up my heart til it overflows [Bridge: Jonathan Ogden] And so I bow In humble adoration I surrender Nothing else compares to knowing You God Nothing else can ever take Your place (Jonathan Ogden & Nathan Stirling) So Lord I come To give to You an offering of worship Cause no one else is worthy of the glory You alone deserve the highest praise [Chorus 1: Jonathan Ogden] Your love Your love is never ending Your grace Your grace is everlasting You fill me up to overflowing Who can contain the depths of Your love? [Chorus 2: Jonathan Ogden] Your truth Your truth is never failing Your peace Surpasses understanding You fill me up to overflowing Who can contain the depths of Your love, Lord? Who can contain the depths of Your love, Lord? Who can contain the depths of Your love, Lord? Who can contain the depths of Your love, Lord? Who can contain the depths of Your love, Lord? Pastoral Postscript by April McClure Stewart The other day, it was hot and humid. It seemed like one of those summer days that would be, well...bothersome from morning to night with no breeze and mosquitos biting and the sun bearing down. I prepared to be in the air conditioning all day long. But around dinner-time, something changed. A little breeze picked up and the humidity dropped as the sun began to move towards the horizon. The light turned golden and the temperature settled into a very comfortable upper-70s. The mosquitos became occupied elsewhere. In short, it was a perfect late summer night. I have been having some issues with anxious feelings and worry lately. We found out a couple of weeks ago that the baby we are expecting is a little girl. We are happy and excited! And at the same time, knowing who this little one is means that we have a deeper love for her and a greater hope for her life. As those who have lost an infant late in pregnancy, it is hard to just rest in the positive feelings of love and hope. I find myself dwelling in the “what-if” and “maybe” and trying to prepare myself for whatever may come, even if that is hard...or terrible. For some reason, this late-summer season has been ministering to me in my anxiety. A drive through the country reveals the fields ripening for harvest, the sumac turning red, and the sedges deepening with their dark rust-colored feathery plumes. The birds flit and float and the insects hum and the smell of warm earth and grass is everywhere. Peace enters my soul. Everything is so beautifully designed, so wonderfully fit together. The words of the psalmist come to mind, “When I look at...the work of your fingers...what are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them?” (Ps. 8). And I think of Wendell Berry’s incredible poem, The Peace of Wild Things. "When despair for the world grows in me and I wake in the night at the least sound, in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be, I go and lie down where the wood drake rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds. I come into the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief. I come into the presence of still water. And I feel above me the day-blind stars waiting with their light. For a time I rest in the grace of the world, and am free." Is it possible that God designed us to be ministered-to by “The Wild Things?” I think so. Here, in this verdant, fertile, beauty-filled place that is the river valley of Illinois, I see the magnitude of God’s provision, the grace of a creation filled with goodness, and the turning of the seasons in an unending cycle of birth, life, death, and new creation. I see, if only for a moment, our temporal nature, and feel awe and gratitude that those I love are created by the same God who put together the scarlet, umber, and ochre of this late-summer season. We are put here in God’s care and kindness and I know, again- if only for a moment, that somehow, someday, eventually - all will be well. And for a time, the Peace of The Wild Things enters me. I rest in the grace of the world God has made, and am free. -April Colossians 3:12 Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience... The words "put on" captured my attention. What do we "put on?" A coat, a shirt... something OTHER than our own self. God does not expect us to innately BE these things, but rather to HAVE knowledge of them and be willing to DO them. Only by putting them on, practicing the wearing of these garments of goodness, will we be be transformed, and they will become a portion of our selves. Will they ever be truly "us?" Yes through the renewal of our minds... eventually... but the timing of that does not matter, I think. As long as we insist on wearing them, a holy barrier between our naked, broken selves and the world desperate to see Jesus, we DO the work of the Gospel. The good works of the Gospel are supernatural; charity, generosity, servanthood flow out of putting God's character upon our more disaster-prone selves. It's ok if it feels unnatural. It is the hard work of pruning our nature and submitting to the supernatural God-nature we are called toward. |
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