I know a man who gave up. He packed his few things and his dog and bought a little cabin in the hills. There, apart from everything and everyone he has ever known, he drinks his drink and smokes his smoke. He is bitter and alone says he likes it that way.

No one gives up hope who has a healthy faith in the perfect work of Jesus. There is no end to how God works in the lives of His children, no shortage of blessings, no lack of new beginnings. God is loving, all-powerful and all-knowing. With a parent like that, there is no reason on His green earth to be hopeless, to come to the conclusion that nothing could ever change, that even God has nothing left to give.

But some come to a point in their lives where it hurts too badly to open up every day and look for a ray of sun in their darkness. So they stop looking. They refuse to see the hope and the rays God sends their way. They refuse to ask God for His precious gifts for fear He won’t reply.

So he sits there on his porch with his dog and his own personal view of rolling hills, sunrises, a winding river and a horizon full of possibilities.  Some might even call it “God’s country.”  That’s got me thinking.  My friend may have given up on God, but God has not given up on him.

These all wait for You, that You may give them their food in due season. What You give them they gather in; You open Your hand, they are filled with good.           Psalm 104:27-28

Saying the wrong thing, doing the wrong thing, making that same mistake again, feeling humiliated and shameful—these things can twist my mind into a bad place if I let them. There is nothing the accuser loves more than to accuse. He loves to make the beloved children of God feel small and removed from the light, like him.

Jesus was merciful to sinners. He spoke love and truth to them to straighten them out, so to speak. He pointed to His Father, not to their sin. He invited them into a powerful relationship with Him, one that focuses on God, not their failures. He knew quite well of their failures. He came to bless them anyway.

But we have the mind of Christ.

No longer must I carry the unmanageable burden of sin and defect. No longer will I focus on the accuser’s eyes glaring at me. I turn my mind to Christ and hear the nudges of the Holy Spirit. I am who They say I am. A child of God. Not humiliated but humble in His Holiness. I have received Christ’s perfect work on the cross as my blessing, my grace and no one and no misstep can take it away. He bathes me in assurance. My strength is restored. I am not bent, never bent. I am beautifully His. I walk on, straight and grateful.

The person with the Spirit makes judgments about all things, but such a person is not subject to merely human judgments, for,“Who has known the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ.  1 Corinthians 2:15

How joyful to walk with the Creator of the universe! For the first time in my life my soles meet the ground, certain they are home.  There is no place they wander without the presence of the Lord.

My feet used to walk with trepidation and uncertainty. I questioned if I belonged in a place unless I received a permission slip of reassurance from the world.  It’s okay, relax. You are welcome here. I often felt like the earth under my toes was foreign, even hostile, ground.

Where I once may have craved a word of reassurance and shrunk back in doubt, I now feel free to exist in any space. Loving Jesus scoops me up from the dirt, wipes me clean and lifts my face toward the lovely and the true, the holy and blessed unity. With my eyes on Jesus, wherever I stand, all I see is God’s unfailing love for me.

I no longer fear that I am in the wrong place.  My soul is kept in the care of the omnipresent, omnipotent, omniscient One. He meets me everywhere. God is my advocate, my defender, my companion and guide. He justifies me.

The Lord keeps you from all harm and watches over your life. The Lord keeps watch over you as you come and go, both now and forever. Psalm 121:7-8

In whose embrace do I belong?  Whose arms dissolve my tremors?  Whose mighty presence emboldens me? Whose smiling countenance gently receives my worries?  Whose words impart the greatest wisdom? Whose heart, the perfect love?  

I have lived days which raked my body and soul.  I could only close my eyes and let my spirit crawl back into His palm where it belongs.  Carry me as You go. I am safe in Your immense hand.  Enrapt in the wondrous I AM, I trace His fingerprints with mine and sing, Holy Holy Holy, surrendering all barriers, real and imagined.

On my drive to the park, my mind enters God’s embrace. My spirit and soul are there, as they eternally are, but my mind must enter and reenter.  Again and again He is there holding me.  There are no miles to drive or steps to walk.  His Holy Spirit dwells within me, His son gave His life for me.  The Father is with me.  I deeply understand that though I may meet with rough days, I don’t face them alone.  I am in the embrace of the Almighty.  He is carrying me through.  I am in His palm, tucked under His wings.  I am with the Great I AM. I live in His embrace.

The name of the LORD is a strong tower; the righteous runs into it and is safe. Proverbs 18:10

 

At my park, once named Bethel, the bank of the pond is stately with sycamore trees.  Some gleam pure white, their skins having peeled away in the steamy heat of July.  Some are spotted brown and yellow like the strong necks of quiet giraffes.

In this cold winter, I nicknamed these giants “sick-no-more trees”.  Perhaps it was in the strenuous days of my bronchitis, when from an icy bench I imagined, even called for these bold, stalwart beings to impart to me their seemingly infinite reservoir of strength.  

But sycamores and I both receive our life blood from the One.  I don’t have to wait, like the man laying by the pool of Bethesda, for the wind to blow the sycamore’s limbs.  I am healed because Jesus died to heal me.  It is finished, He said. On my walks with God I began to see a different definition of “healed”.  In Jesus, I am healed—as white as new sycamore skin.  But I will die to this earth.  My body belongs here, used up, unsaved, mortal. My soul will go to Him, washed and healed, as surely as it was traveling along in this sometimes coughing, cold, tired body. 

Jesus heals me miraculously, He heals me here through doctors, medicine, and Spiritual guidance.  And Jesus has healed me completely, from anguish, from want, from need of anything but Him and His cleansing work.  To know His healing is to be wholly healed.

A large crowd followed him, and he healed all who were ill.  Matthew 12:15