A Spirit Not Of Fear

Pain is everywhere. I hear about it at church, at home; I see people experience it every day. Sometimes that person is a stranger. Sometimes a friend. Sometimes family. Sometimes it’s me in pain. Pain touches everyone and leaves its mark everywhere you go. In short, it’s unavoidable.

Perhaps the greatest and most difficult pain to experience is when we hurt for those we love. It grieves me so deeply to see a loved one hurting, I wish I could experience their pain just so they don’t have to. Because when they’re hurting, I feel even more helpless than when I’m the one in pain.

Imagine how much Jesus must have hurt for us, that he would die to give us hope! We were broken and He healed us, we were lost and He found us. We were hurting and He gave us joy. And when He comes again and all things are made new, every tear and every sorrow will be wiped away forever.

That doesn’t mean we don’t hurt. In a world so full of sin and hardship and death, pain surrounds us continually. But in the midst of pain, we have hope. Because nothing we experience now, no hurt, no hardship, can compare to the peace and glory we are gaining in Christ. And when the day comes and we are drawn into His presence forever, there will be no greater joy in heaven or earth.

For all sorrows will be over, and we will live in a place of no tears. Forever.

Blindness. There seems to be nothing more fearful in all the world. It is why we fear the dark when we are children — it is why, no longer as children, some of us still do.

Yet it can seem, at times, as though we walk in a constant blindness. For who can claim to see the steps that lie ahead of them? The ones behind are easy to see; yet for lack of the future, even the present ones are full of fear. It seems that we who walk by faith are doomed evermore to the urgings of sight: the taunt of a world which cannot see that it lies even more deeply in plight than we. It is a world lost in the comfortless pursuit of comfort, blind to everything but its perception of our seemingly visionless faith — we, who have only been called to set our eyes on Joy, yet find ourselves so often begged to look only upon the fading things of the Ending.

Soooo... Life is tough. That seems to be the general idea I'm getting at.

But this is not the matter's end. I have never seen an odder thing, nor a truer thing, in all my life than this: Without fail, the limited must impose its own limitation upon that which is Limitless; then, with all the wretchedness contained within its tiny and finite self, bemoan that which still escapes its understanding. Shall we never realize that any attempt to control the path which lies before us is nothing other than an attempt to harness its Maker; to place a bridle on the One who placed Pegasus at untamable heights, the One who breathed a soul and a heartbeat into the dust itself? Should it not be a comfort rather than a curse, that the Author of my life has a vision that extends beyond these present pages? It must be so; for to demand that that which by very definition must be beyond comprehension become as small as myself is nothing less than to demand that God cease to be deserving of His Name.

But you cannot make me. No, you cannot; and none shall convict me otherwise — no matter how long the world weeps bitter tears of betrayal over the audacity of its Creator being bigger, wiser, truer, more good and more faithful than itself; though it claw and weep and rage at me, though it claim that the dimness of this mirror-world is unfair, though it do all it can to argue the unjustness of these small understandings — though it do all of this and more, I shall not compromise the greatness of my God.

You see, there comes a time for every soul, when the eyes of those who seek their Maker are brought gaze-to-gaze with that question, that truthful blight that can lift the lowest heart in laughter and bend the highest head in shame. That question — Wouldn't you think we would know better by now? Is it not time that the little side-paths that ever evade our vision might become to us no longer a thing of fear, but of joy? For the One who holds our hand is ever faithful; oh, He is faithful! And not a Promise has been reached by a pilgrimage that did not, by some walk or wayside, leave a wilderness in its wake.

Yet the school of day-by-day is teaching me its lesson; though it is a lesson slowly and arduously learned. The name of that lesson? None other than Trust. Oh, Trust is a wild thing; and the taming of it is equally so — but aren't the best and truest adventures always touched by fear? There is no one I would rather cherish, no one that I would rather follow, than He who holds the fragile universe perfectly on tilt, beautifully balanced, yet still cares for me with a love so deep that He would die for me. And did.

For such a One must be great, indeed.

“Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God!
How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out!
"Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor?"
“Who has ever given to God, that God should repay him?"
For from him and through him and to him are all things.
To him be the glory forever! Amen.
– Romans 11:33-36

 

Sometimes...



And even if you are a Writer, and you Like Ink... that is not a compliment.

Sometimes, I feel like an inkstain on the written work of my life, penned by the hand of God. Like a very unsplendid blot that landed in the middle of the page somehow; the sort that makes you wince, trying to rub it away with your fingers, even though you know it won’t do any good.

I hear people say that “God don’t make no dirt.” (The grammar? Horrid. The phrase? Existent. More's the pity.) When I hear it, two things come to mind (apart from the miseries we shall soon endure if we do not learn to better wield the English language). The first: I know it is true. The second: I’m perfectly capable of making my own dirt, thank you very much, and ruining my life to the fullest of my abilities without any help whatsoever.

There are times when I believe I am more capable of doing wrong than I am of doing right. And it frightens me.

In the midst of this petty life, where the wakeful darkness of my Saturday nights is spent wondering how to be as impossibly perfect as possible at church the next day, living through a sermon about the splendid potential within the 'Good Christian' who has somehow invaded our expectations, and then returning home to face every unholy thought, word, and deed that has plagued my steps and not knowing which is better—avoiding the truth, or facing the reality of what I have been—I cannot help but wonder, sometimes, what this trembling heart could be missing. 

Perhaps, it is 2 Timothy 2:11-14— the promise that no matter how faithless I am, His faithfulness never fails. That He is constant where my own failings can never be—into eternity itself. That He has overcome the self within me, and now: torn, slain, and conquered back into life, I am His.

What is His is His forever. Even an inkstain.

And by a queer thing called Grace, He turns those inkstains into love stories. Because the truly beautiful love stories are about those who were loved, without having anything loveable to offer—and through that love, becoming worth loving.

If you don’t believe it, just ask the inkstains.

In memory of Christina, who sees the face of Jesus while we still wait. And in hope, knowing that someday we'll join her in the most glorious place of all.

At first the feeling was so strange to her, it was frightening. But as it washed over her, all fear disappeared. The feeling itself was calm, was stillness, was peace. And as all awareness of fear and anxiety vanished, she felt her gaze drawn irresistibly back to the window.

She didn’t expect what she would see, and didn’t wonder. But in a heartbeat, suddenly, amazingly, it took her breath away.

As she looked, a sudden gust of wind released itself and hurled through the air. She felt the house shudder, heard the wind rush past the window – and saw it. Watching, she saw the falling rain shimmer and ripple in the burst of wind, like a curtain of cascading diamonds swayed by a breath. But as the raindrops shivered mid-fall, they changed. The crystal droplets suddenly erupted into a rainbow of gleaming colors, as though they were prisms, and the wind, a burst of light. Color after color glittered into sudden radiance, jewel tones glistening in each raindrop as it fell and spattered, and again in the next, as the rainfall was transformed into a shining curtain of beauty.

It took her breath away. Yet despite the oddness of their sudden appearance, there was something still odder about the colors. And as she stared, she suddenly knew why: There were new colors. Shining out amid the gleaming rainbow of colors, there were shades and hues that no one had ever seen or known the name of. Colors that no one could imagine. Colors that never existed.

Or did they? she wondered. Just not…here… The thought trailed off and a shiver ran through her; not of cold or fear, but of awe. What was she seeing? She felt almost as if she knew, yet couldn’t quite grasp it. All the while a feeling of excitement was rising within her, drawing the knowledge nearer, nearer…

And then she heard the music.

It was the sweetest, loveliest, most beautiful sound imaginable; yet no one could imagine it, and none of those words were wonderful enough to describe it. The music was joyful, and while there was no wanting in it, her heart began to race with longing: yearning for assurance that the music would never end. She could not tell if the sound of the music reached her ears or only her heart, but it touched her far more deeply than any music she’d ever heard in…on..

On earth. The music was unearthly. Unimaginable. Indescribable. Yet though it was beyond description, it was more real to her than anything she had ever heard or touched or seen or smelled or tasted. As she listened, she felt as though she herself was becoming more real; finally beginning to understand what trueness really was.

And suddenly, she knew.

She watched as the colors gleamed brighter, listened as the music grew stronger and even more real. And suddenly the sun burst through the clouds. As the rain kept falling, the already-gleaming colors sparkled, and she gasped. There was light behind the light; shining through and over and beyond everything, so bright and wonderful that one could tell just by looking that it filled all the heavens and more. It was so bright that she knew her eyes couldn’t stand it; but somehow, they did.

The light flowed over everything, embracing it, filling it, dissolving it. Her heart rose as she saw the light flood into her room; saw the walls glow, brighter, brighter, and then slowly disappear; watched everything fade away, until there was nothing but light and colors and music, and then –

Jesus.