From the fullness of his grace we have all received one blessing after another. --John 1:16
I am too often guilty of taking my blessed life for granted. Complaints and wants tend to find their way to my lips more frequently than praise. I see the good in life in fleeting moments that pass between the times when I am busy focusing on the bad. But no matter how far my life falls short of my idea of perfection, the truth is that I am blessed with one blessing after another, the biggest of which being a Savior who speaks on my behalf. I often remember that blessing, but I would probably be a lot happier if I counted my little blessings more, too.
I am blessed to have a job that I can do and that pays enough for me to live on even if I can't afford the big house of my dreams. I am blessed to have enough of my health that I can enjoy most activities without a second thought. I am blessed to play on a terrible softball team that loses most games but usually has more fun than the winners. I am blessed to live in an area where seasons change and I can see God's beauty reflected differently all year. I am blessed to be able to drive with the top of my car down and the wind whipping through my hair while I blast Kenny Chesney and Toby Keith CDs. I am blessed to have people who love me enough to accept me where I am but also to help me keep striving to be better.
And this list is just the beginning. God has blessed me in innumerable ways--both material and nonmaterial, both of which I need to remember and thank Him for, particularly when I get run down with a case of "have not". I'm in good company among the blessed. God has blessed all of us in unique and innumerable ways. In Psalms, David often recounts how God has blessed him. These lists of praise give him strength to get through the dry times when he may feel less than blessed. Even further than building spiritual endurance, these lists of praise form sharp daggers that we can sling at the enemy when he tries his hardest to make us feel needy. If most of us stopped and took an honest inventory, we would see that we have more than enough. God pours the blessings until our cups overflow. But Satan doesn't want us to see this because when we notice our blessings, his hold on our lives is weakened. We know we have all we need in God, so we realize we don't need the emptiness Satan offers us. Satan knows that if we see our blessings, we would never cease to rejoice at God's goodness to us. If we notice how much our cups have overflowed, we will stop looking for new ways to fill them. If we knew how much we had in Christ, we would start living like the blessed people who we already are.
As I was sitting in the emergency room yesterday becuase of an asthma problem, I found myself contemplating once again the subject of healing that I wrote about earlier this week. At 28, I feel too young to have medicine to take every day and to have a phsyical breakdown that leaves me in the hopsital instead of at work, where I should have been at that time and where I actually would have preferred to be (yes, some places do rank lower than work). It feels unfair to me that I should take so many steps to live healthier and still end up in the ER. I could wallow in self-pity for days, it is one of my exceptional skills that I omit from my resume. But yesterday I started thinking again about the healing God chose to give me in my eating disorder. I don't want to leave anyone with the false impression that God healed me, and I left that old woman behind for good. I've certainly remembered her and felt the temptation to be her again. I have even dabbled in the old behavior on occasion since my deliverance. But the reason I know I'm free now is that I never toy with my old ways long enough for them to control me again. God reminds every time I act like I used to be that I am a changed woman now. I am not who I was. God has healed me and made me different and my old ways no longer work or stick. My eating disorder used to be shackles around my feet, and now I walk freely thanks to my Savior. I praise Him for that healing every day. But I still occaionally need to remind myself of the sufficiency of His grace and how nothing else matters. As Paul wrote in Philippians 3:8, "What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ." Even healing from my asthma, no matter how badly I think I want it, would be rubbish compared to Christ. Healing would be nice, but it wouldn't matter at all. I can squelch the feelings of self-pity that swarm in the ER air by remembering Paul's words in Romans 8:18, "I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us." This life is only temporary. I have been blessed tremendously with freedom from my eating disorder, and I can certainly learn to persevere through a chronic health problem. After all, it is only "chronic" while I am in my phsyical body and that one day, when I walk with Him in glory, I won't even remember how much it got me down to have to leave work early one day to get emergency medical treatment for it.
Moses said to the Lord, "You have been telling me, 'Lead these people,' but you have not let me know whom you will send with me. You have said, 'I know you by name and you have found favor with me.' If you are pleased with me, teach me your ways so I may know you and continue to find favor with you. Remember that this nation is your people." The Lord replied, "My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest." Then Moses said to him, "If your Presence does not go with us, do not send us up from here. How will anyone know that you are pleased with me and with your people unless you go with us? What else will distinguish me and your people from all the other people on the face of the earth?" And the Lord said to Moses, "I will do the very thing you have asked, because I am pleased with you and I know you by name." Then Moses said, "Now show me your glory." And the Lord said, "I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you, and I will proclaim my name, the Lord, in your presence. I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. But," he said, "you cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live." Then the Lord said, "There is a place near me where you may stand on a rock. When my glory passes by, I will put you in a cleft in the rock and cover you with my hand until I have passed by. Then I will remove my hand and you will see my back; but my face must not be seen." --Exodus 33:12-23
Moses is such a great example of the power of faith that I am going to talk about him again today. Moses came to God boldly. He spoke directly to God in reverence, but without apology or self-censorship. He let God know how he felt and what his requests were, no matter how lofty the requests might seem. Moses love God, trusted God, and stood in awe of God. He wanted to see the glory of the God with whom he spoke so intimately over the years. He wanted to see the glory of the God of all creation who created Moses and could just as easy squash Moses if He so chose. But God didn't choose to squash Moses for his request to see God's glory. Instead, God chose to respond to Moses' bold request by doing what He had not been recorded doing for anyone prior to Moses--He would show Moses a glimpse of His glory and splendor. Moses must have felt the excitement and joy bubbling up in his heart that God would grant his unusual request and afford Moses another unique opportunity. As we saw yesterday, God expected big things of Moses and Moses acted obediently; in the scripture today, we see that Moses asked God for big things and God rewarded him. Oh what we would see if we would have the courage to do likewise.
At that time the Lord said to me, "Chisel out two stone tablets like the first ones and come up to me on the mountain. Also make a wooden chest. I will write on the tablets the words that were on the first tablets, which you broke. Then you are to put them in the chest." So I made the ark out of acacia wood and chiseled out two stone tablets like the first ones, and I went up on the mountain with the two tablets in my hands. The Lord wrote on these tablets what he had written before, the Ten Commandments he had proclaimed to you on the mountain, out of the fire, on the day of the assembly. And the Lord gave them to me. --Deuteronomy 10:1-4
When we make ourselves open to His leading, God uses us to do great things for His kingdom. Moses had a friendship with God (Exodus 33:11). He knew God's word well and he communicated with God regularly via prayer. In response to Moses' faithfulness to God, God communicated regularly with Moses as well. He knew from Moses' actions that Moses had a heart for God and for God's kingdom. Because Moses loved God, knew God from His word, and maintained a strong relationship with God through regular communication (prayer), God used Moses in amazing ways. God knew He could trust Moses with a high calling because Moses trusted God so much. God called Moses to lead the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt and into their promised land. Moses could have questioned God when God told him to hold up his staff and the Red Sea would part. He could have chosen to act in fear instead of faith. He could have turned back to the Egyptians rather than try to cross the sea. Fortunately for his people, he choose faith. Later in the journey, God called Moses onto a mountaintop where Moses met with God and God handed him the ten commandments. Moses could have questioned God when God called him into a cloud on the top of a mountain. He could have acted in fear and chosen to stay with his people rather than climbing an unknown moutain to meet with God. But Moses chose to trust the God he knew so well. Imagine what he would have missed if he had not acted in trust! I certainly believe God's kingdom would still be furthered, but He would have picked someone else to do these huge kingdom tasks. If Moses had not been so open to God's leading, Moses would have missed opportunties to see God act powerfully. God wants to use each of us to do things for His kingdom that we cannot even imagine. God wants to show each of us His power. Like Moses, we can be part of something much grander than our own schemes if we are open to God's leading and willing to step out on faith. First, we must get to know God through His word and regular communication via prayer just like Moses did so that we can better recognize God's voice. When we're open, God will do His part of calling us and our part will be to follow and watch Him act through us and around us.
Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." --2 Corinthians 12:8-9a
I know God has the power to provide complete healing. I know He is still the God of the miraculous, just as He was when Jesus healed the sick. He is the same yesterday, today, and for eternity (Hebrews 13:8), so I know that His power to heal is just as potent as it was 2000+ years ago. Sometimes He chooses to heal, sometimes He does not. His power is the same in both cases, His choice is a matter of motive. God's motivation is always to bring about the greatest good for us and the greatest display of His glory.
I have experienced His complete healing first hand. He has delivered me from my struggles with food and body image in a way that I know was all Him. My eating disorder problems were a long time in development and long time in action. Yet somehow, when I gave it over to Him, He set me completely free from the mindset that got me in trouble in the first place. It wasn't my limited experience with therapy or any self-help book that did it, God Himself relieved me from duty in what is typically a lifelong addictive battle. I don't know how He did it, but I know that one day I woke up and I was different. I struggled long enough to know what suffering was like, but in His time, God set me instantly free. God set me free because it glorified Him more for me to walk in freedom from that struggle. He set me free so that I would know His power. That is the lesson I learned from my miraculous deliverance.
I have also experienced what He told Paul in 2 Corinthians 12:8-9 first hand. In the midst of shortness of breath and coughing fits that I can't control, I have prayed repeatedly (probably more than Paul's three times) for deliverance from my asthma. I don't want to be dependent on medication every day for the rest of my life to function like a healthy person. I've prayed for God to take me out of that battle. God has chosen not to. I know from my other experience that it is not because He does not have the power to set me free. In this case, however, He has a different lesson for me to learn that another easy deliverance could not teach me. In this area of my life, God wants to teach me the lesson He taught Paul--that His grace is sufficient for me.
For the past 16 years since my initial diagnosis with asthma and my first prayers for freedom, God has led me back to these verses over and over again. His grace is sufficient for me. I'd be lying if I said I hadn't struggled with this concept. I questioned what it meant for His grace to be sufficient and why He couldn't just extend His grace to set me free. God has slowly revealed to me that His grace has done far more than I deserve if all His grace did was open the door for me to come into His throne room. That promise alone should be sufficient for me to get up each morning with gladness and song in my heart. God uses my suffering in the flesh to remind me of my humanity and deepen my longing for the time when I will breathe freely at all times. He granted me complete healing from my eating disorder as a demonstration of his glory and power; He denies me complete healing from my asthma to teach me that an easy life should not determine the state of my spirit or impact my utter gratitude for God's grace. In both cases, God's motivation is for my good and His glory. His grace is sufficient. I need nothing else.
"You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you," declares the Lord, "and will bring you back from captivity. I will gather you from all the nations and places where I have banished you," declares the Lord, "and will bring you back to the place from which I carried you into exile." --Jeremiah 29:13-14
God wants to lead us out of our captivity. Whatever we are captive to whether it is habitual sin, fear, anger, or an unhealthy relationship, God wants to set us free. All we have to do is ask. He promises us that if we seek Him and His deliverance with all of our heart, He will be found by us and lead us out of our captivity into the Promised Land. Our promised land can be as individual as our captivity, but the commonality is freedom. Freedom from our pasts and whatever tries to haunt us from there. Freedom from having to do it all on our own for the One who can do it all has made Himself found by us. If we ask Him, He will lead us out of the desert again and again and again. That's the beauty of grace. God takes us where we cannot go on our own, and He will lead us home as often as we ask Him to no matter how many times we fall into the same traps that separate us from Him. Sin is that which separates us from God. Our banishment, or separation, is what we bring on ourselves through sin. God loves us so much that He wants us to lead us out of that separation, but He won't drag us out. We have a choice. To access our promised freedom from captivity, all He requires of us is that we ask Him for deliverance. Seek Him and be led out of captivity. Seek Him and He will be found.
I haven't posted much lately because I've been on spring break and have not had any desire to sit in front of a computer since that is all I do at work. Posting will resume this week as I return to work. In the meantime, Happy Easter!
When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices so that they might go to anoint Jesus' body. Very early on the first day of the week, just after sunrise, they were on their way to the tomb and they asked each other, "Who will roll the stone away from the entrance of the tomb?" But when they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had been rolled away. As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man dressed in a white robe sitting on the right side, and they were alarmed. "Don't be alarmed," he said. "You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him.
--Mark 16:1-6