One Way or Another?

Snowing. Freezing. Driving?

No, I thought, I’ll just go to the Sun Fresh. It’s small and expensive, but the closest grocery store to my house. But there is only one road that goes from here to there, and when I got to the intersection, a white police van was blocking the way, lights flashing.

Wasteland to the right (well, a windy road that I have never followed to the end since it seems to lead past oddly populated ponds, electricity compounds, and graffiti’d underpasses). To the left – Walmart. A very far-away Walmart, when the snow is blowing and the roads treacherous.

To the left I went. Odd, how the Lord takes a day and flips it around on you, as if you’re not really the one in control. And odder still when you find that your heart just easily follows him, without the usual frustration over changed plans.

Besides the fact that I forgot to buy the chicken (a central ingredient when cooking Chicken-and-Wild-Rice for dinner guests), it turned out to be a very successful shopping venture. I recognized my check-out clerk as the same one who’d had a cold several months ago and who I’d said I’d pray for. (Not that she had asked, you know. But what can a clerk say if you offer to pray for them? The customer is always right.)

I asked if she was the one; she sort of laughed, obviously remembering it, and said yeah, and that she had felt a bit better. I’m a little slow on the draw sometimes (comes from having once been shy), and it wasn’t until I was already at the doors out that the Lord reminded me He had detoured me miles out of my way in order to re-meet her. So I abandoned my cart to a door attendant who said she’d look after it (she didn’t) and ran back to the counter, interrupting the next customer to reiterate to this young girl (in case she hadn’t already realized): the Lord LOVES you!

It was as I entered the doors of Starbucks down the road, not willing to brave the cold ride home without a latte, that I remembered the chicken. Too many cute men had smiled at me in Walmart – can I blame my memory lapse on that? So, armed with instructions from the barista on how to bake broccoli (with olive oil in a 375 oven for 15 min.), and yet another smile from a cute baristo (is that the male form of barista?), I headed off to Hyvee…where a very handsome butcher seemed quite keen on assisting me. The thing is – a butcher?! Remember Fiddler On the Roof?

Back to the moral.

1.) Don’t let men distract you from chicken.

2.) Watch for God – what seems like inconvenience to you might actually be an invitation to do some heavenly damage (good damage, I mean, to colds and sad hearts).

28 Days of Joy

The other night I could not sleep. Pressing down on me, a massive, immobilizing weight, were all the things I had to be anxious and sad over. It has been said that the artistic temperament (which I don’t think I have) tends toward angst, but that has always been an ill-hidden and blatant strategy of the enemy’s, designed to draw people like me into deep mires of oppression and confusion. I finally turned the light back on, reached for Habakkuk and re-read the portion God had led me to the previous day.

Though the fig tree should not blossom,

nor fruit be on the vines,

the produce of the olive fail and the fields yield no food,

the flock be cut off from the fold and there be no herd in the stalls,

yet I will rejoice in the LORD;

I will take joy in the God of my salvation.

GOD, the Lord, is my strength;

he makes my feet like the deer's;

he makes me tread on my high places.

(Hab 3:17-19)

It was that little middle part, the one I’ve highlighted, that suddenly struck me with such clarity. I was granted, simply put, revelation. You know those moments when the Holy Spirit has (very graciously) made it all very black-and-white, very easy to understand? Something in the scripture that has been staring me in the face for decades, and that every once in a while I’ve grasped only to loose, finally stood straight up and demanded a decision.

The question is not whether I am or am not currently experiencing some sort of loss or delay. Nor is the question whether I will eventually be happy (we all know I will, when heaven comes to earth or Amy comes to heaven). The question is what will I choose today? It turns out, I have the right to choose joy. It turns out, joy is the portion promised to me. It turns out, that if I decide to reject joy, or not engage in the pursuit of joy, I will have submitted myself to a double loss, an unnecessary loss – one that could truly be called a tragedy because its opposite was fully within my grasp.

Something deep shifted, and all emotion stood far off, as I stared a simple decision in the face and told the Lord that I chose to rejoice in Him.

I immediately decided to thank Him for anything that came to mind. After a few minutes (and a bunny-trail adventure of having to squish my first cricket – because, well, it was hopping around in the bathroom at night…I apologized to the Lord first and got a very thick shoe to use so I wouldn’t feel its substance) … after getting through only about 5 items of thanks, I fell asleep.

The next day, the Lord had orchestrated that people very dear to me came to pray. There are definitely prophets among us, and these called right out that I was living under a spirit of fear and loss and sorrow, and that the fight against these things was “the fight of my life”. They are right. At the end of our time I pulled out Habakkuk (everybody loves that guy!) and we agreed that the road of joy is one rarely discerned or chosen amongst believers. A powerful time of intercession sealed the deal and dealt with a lot of the power these spirits had, but it is my job before the Lord now to consistently choose His way (of joy) instead of the old way.

And so, I have an invitation. I’m in receipt of one, I mean. To spend each day of the next four weeks fighting for joy – against fear and all its constant companions, like sorrow and loss (which make themselves seem oh-so-spiritual in our Christian circles).

I don’t know quite how it will go, but since our personal “un-restoration” (if I can coin such a term) actually affects all those around us whether we realize it or not, and so, conversely, does our restoration, I want to make these days of joy public. So I extend back to you the invitation I received. Join me in the journey of joy (oh boy…that’s just WAY too much alliteration). Let’s see what God does!

Lord, make the deception of fear utterly apparent to us, give us strength in the inner man to do the opposite of what we have spent our lives training our souls toward, and remove the pretend spirituality of sorrow, angst, isolation, introspection, and self-preoccupation. Teach us to choose the inheritance You’ve offered – joy.

The Whole Story

Some of my favorite things to read are the Old Testament passages where the Lord starts off explaining the wickedness of those who have not sought Him, the destruction He will bring because of it, and then the absolute grace and mercy He will pour out on the very same people who rejected Him. Zephaniah is like this -- the whole book is just three chapters long; it begins "I will utterly consume everything from the face of the land," and by the end a "meek and humble people" are trusting in the Lord.

I love seeing the whole picture (which is why when I sit down to read the Old Testament, I'm lost to the world for a good chunk of time). And the "whole picture" usually follows the same pattern:

a.) wicked & rebellious us
b.) holy and just God
c.) unmerited favor/rescue/grace from His Hand

Oh, and then of course,

d.) happy us

Usually the fact that God is jealous comes up somewhere there in the middle. This struck me again today in Zeph 3:8. "All the earth shall be devoured with the fire of My jealousy." Immediately after starts the beautiful ending song, where He gives us a pure language, takes away our pride and shame, and brings great rejoicing. "He will quiet you with His love, He will rejoice over you with singing."

I remember hearing Oprah describe how she began her descent away from God. She was sitting in church, and the very animated preacher declared that God was a "jealous God". Offense and unbelief entered, and she turned away from Him. It is epically tragic, to the point of poetic irony, that the very phrase describing the extent of the astounding personal love God has for us should be understood by her (and so many) as the utterly opposite emotion, one of selfish violence. Good being spoken of as evil -- the predictable, and all-too-often-effective, tactic of Satan in his campaign against God.

But for such a thing - such a trick! - to lead to the unleashing of the most extensive and powerful harlot spirit in centuries, as it has with Oprah! (Where is Tolstoy when we need him?) Is that it? Can Satan manipulating semantics among people who don't read the whole story really be the tipping point on the world's journey into moral relativism, secular humanism, and the end of the age?

It was already there. The whisper, as horrible a thing as it was referring to, was yet assuring. The anger at God, the rebellion, the sin leaving one open to offense...these things are already existent in a heart that looks to observers like it was suddenly, without warning, smashed by as light a thing as a misunderstood meaning. No, none of it is the fault of semantics. At root, already there, making the heart ripe for such reaping, is demonic wisdom and human pride that have combined to build vast complexes of empty heartroom just waiting to be filled with the anti-Jesus spirit.

(Gulp of air)

Those are my Zephaniah thoughts for the day! Thanking Jesus for His mercy to even grant us humble and pliable hearts, and for promising in the end that we "shall no longer be haughty in My holy mountain," I shall move on to my next task for the day -- cleaning the windows! (Those bothersome spiderwebs shall finally, thoroughly, be demolished.)