They are building a new highway interchange in our area. It has taken many years and will likely take more. The conjoining roads in this project are highly traveled. It has been an awesome feat to create roadways, bridges and overpasses while continually keeping lanes open and everyone safe.

I take these roads weekly and must be alert to the changes, the transitions in lanes, entrances and exits. Recently I rounded a curve I’ve taken hundreds of times and found myself not in the hectic five lane merge I was expecting, but entering a brightly lit tunnel leading to a smooth, calmer traffic pattern on the other side.

Though it can be challenging to navigate, I find myself smiling at the great work these people are doing. Someday the roads will be complete and new travelers may never know what had to occur for them to cruise to work or zoom to the city for dinner.

I do not always understand what God is doing in my life or in the lives of others and I may not need to!  All I know is that He is the great I Am and His plan is perfect. He makes a way where I don’t see one. He makes it work. He is building roads for me to follow.  I need only trust, stay alert and smile.

Sovereign LORD, you are God! Your covenant is trustworthy, and you have promised these good things to your servant. 2 Samuel 7:28

 

I made a special Valentines Day breakfast for my family a few years ago. My youngest, 14 at the time, sat down and took in the spread. The table was loaded with sweet orange rolls, maple sausage links, scrambled eggs, bacon, english muffins, grapes, orange tangerine juice and coffee. “Mmm,” he said with a smile, “I wish we had apple butter!”  I’m sure I put both hands on my hips and served him up a quick retort but he didn’t do anything I haven’t done a million times. Haven’t I also glanced at all the good around me and wished for just a spoon more?

On a trip to Aruba with friends, I got a small taste of that island dream. We lounged and laughed on the beach for days, enjoying our sunny, blue spot two thousand miles from home.  It was awfully windy though, one of us would occasionally comment. The wind just blew and blew all day long. One afternoon on the white sand beach, that annoying wind died down for just a few seconds. We were instantly baked in such heat we never spoke of the wind again.

Christ’s perfect light continually pours into my moments, blessing me.  Too often, however, I am busy trying to adjust and fine tune things to my whims and fail to feel His ever present rays upon me. Christ’s love and fullness, His perfect abundance, healing and completion overflow into my every moment.  Behold! He is sufficient!

He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high…. Hebrews 1:3

I had a wise friend who liked to say, “I know I’ll be okay, I just don’t know what ‘okay’ looks like yet.” This helped him move through chaos, pain and uncertainty with peace. Larry passed last year and I do believe that he’s A-okay–in true serenity.

Let Go and Let God, they say. But how? Find out who God is. Find out what Jesus has accomplished so that His children can rest in His perfect care.  Resting in God doesn’t mean I don’t put on my boots and trudge. Serenity doesn’t mean I’m never cold. I don’t leave my gloves at home and throw caution to the wind. I meet the day with all that I have and leave the lack with God. He’s got it.

A song I sang in 5th grade choir comes to mind. Grab your coat, get your hat leave your worries on the doorstep, just direct your feet on the sunny side of the street…Sounds absurdly easy, silly even! But not if you know God. When I put my trust in God and walk with Him through my day, the Lord does see me through, He does provide what I lack. The day may not look like what I expected, but I try and let Him work out the details. He knows the middle and the end. I stand only and always at the beginning. Every moment, for me, is a new beginning, the place where God meets me and takes me through.

…I used to walk in the shade with my blues on parade… Now I leave them on the doorstep and walk on with God. I know I will be okay.

The Lord alone led him; no foreign god was with him. Deuteronomy 32:12

It is something rare and precious in mid-life to be thinking about renewal. My hair is turning gray, my knees are weak, my eyesight is pitiful, my teeth are crumbling.  This body has collected good evidence pointing to its degeneration.  This soul is learning to accept and resonate with the shedding.

Young adulthood, the great scrambling, was about plans of action, acquiring and building, working hard with the hope of making things easy. These days I still scramble some, but I know better the cost and I know better my intentions. I cannot afford to waste my power, there is so much goodness to bestow and embrace.

So what of this outer decay? A root canal here, a couple brain stents there. The walls of the old house need a slather of plaster once in a while.  But if Jesus lives there, if the house is humming with the Holy Spirit, then God has promised to renew and restore those who dwell in it.  Nothing left to do but daily live in and claim that blessed truth.

It feels right and good to be attending to spirit, soul and body. My knees don’t concern themselves with running in circles anymore, but they enjoy walking with God. I try to keep them healthy to honor what’s going on inside, the real work God is doing in my life. He is creating good things within me all the time, that I might bloom and grow in all my life’s seasons.

Therefore we do not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day. 2 Corinthians 4:16

I want to live on one of those Greek islands where it seems the sky is always blue, the weather is always mild and the white walls of home, always open, warm, and sunny. No need for windows or doors, there exists nothing harsh, only the most agreeable things: water, air, light, beauty, and a bike with a basket to take to the market. Oh, it doesn’t have to be in Greece, I suppose, any pleasant remote island will do. And by “remote” I mean, removed from all things I do not prefer.

I am sitting by my fire in sweats and a scarf. This New Jersey winter chuckles at my Santorini home. The seasons would find me there too. Not the cold and sleet, perhaps, but the seasons of my life, those pesky ebbs and flows.  Having lived through over fifty seasons, those of the calendar and the soul, I have come to understand why the Lord supplies them all.

Autumn delivers a sudden change in circumstance. A raw wind threatens and things turn dark.  Lord, everything is dreary, bare and dry. God hasn’t left.  A winter sinks in and the gears of my days stiffen. Lord, when will it end? I don’t know where to go from here. God answers. A spring brings promises and eagerness to secure them. Lord, yes! Budding and thaw! More, more, more! God supplies. Summer completes the work and brings rest. Lord, thank you. I need You. I trust You. God blesses.  In all seasons, God blesses.

He made the moon to mark the seasons, and the sun knows when to go down. Psalm 104:19

God sees me from a perspective impossible  to imagine or attain. He knows each hair on my head and, from the highest realm, can observe my minuscule position on Earth. He sees everything and everyone around me and how it all relates to the past, present and future. God is omniscient. He knows the entire picture and He knows how it all works together.

I am here, like an ant on a tree.  I don’t know why the rains came that time and washed me away, nearly drowning me and dropping me in an unfamiliar place. But I have a God who keeps my coordinates.  He saw what I didn’t—the hungry nuthatch hopping up and down the tree searching for my kind. God let those rains carry me away to safety and new beginnings.

If I only ask God to act in ways I know and can readily see, to attend to the things I predict, fear and try to manage, I’m asking Him to understand my situation exactly how I do! When I limit Him, I become my own god, demanding that the Creator of the universe work in the narrowest ways in my life.  I used to speak to God this way. I called the shot and watched to see if He hit the target. What a silly little game.

His will, not mine, this is the beautiful way to live in His presence. Let my every moment hit that target–not, Please God, keep me safe while I do my will. God wants me to enter His rest, His companionship, His will and His flock. Where He leads, I am whole, safe, complete and secure.  He is keeping me.  He is my refuge and my delight.

Those who live in the shelter of the Most High will find rest in the shadow of the Almighty. This I declare about the Lord: He alone is my refuge, my place of safety; he is my God, and I trust him. Psalm 91:1-2

Why do I groan? Why do I allow the cold to seize me, to needle its frosty hooks into me and petrify my bones? Do I not have choices? Can I not put on the warmth I need? Can I not move to generate the glow I hold inside waiting to burst forth? Let me adjourn the fuss and focus on the glow.

Meditating on the finished work of Jesus, I am warmed. I don’t haunt the cold places so much. I would rather live free and loved in His promises. I trust that when He says I am healed, I am. When He says I am the righteousness in Christ, I am. I may not comprehend the immensity of that gift, but I accept it and leave the rest to Him. He will lead me. He will make it known to me in my days as I turn to Him in faith.

I believed I am healed. In Christ I am whole. I take my eyes off the earthly “proof” that I am not. I find that nonsense everywhere. It surrounds me—the pain, the filth, the cold, the broken. It is my choice, I can look at that all day. But I am healed, I am whole in Jesus, so I turn to Him. He reveals His blessings as I walk along loving Him.

Then he touched their eyes, saying, “According to your faith be it done to you.” Matthew 9:29

Shame came with the fall. Three consecutive verses in the third chapter of Genesis (6, 7, and 8) spell it out. Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit; they covered themselves; they hid from God. Stained by sin, the first two human beings gave birth to shame and fear in the blink of their downcast eyes.

Shame was my default emotion. I carried it at the ready.  When something went wrong in my life or even in my vicinity, I felt shame automatically, as if I were the originator of all things gone awry.  Shame is appropriate as a warning, an awareness to change one’s course, but not as a way of life.   God called me out of my shame and alienation.

Where are you? God called to Adam in the very next verse.

My Father wants a relationship with me. He has not left me in a sorry state of sin, separated and shameful. He provided Jesus, the Way, my cleansing, my healer, my righteousness. There is nothing to cover, no reason to hide.  Jesus’ flesh was marked for my transgressions.  The wounds of my soul fade with His touch.  He anoints me with His grace.

Here I am, Lord. Thank you.

You are altogether beautiful, my love, there is no flaw in you.  Song of Songs 4:7

 

I have walked these paths hundreds of times, yet each day and every view can seem fresh and new. One day my eyes fell on a concrete structure down off the path I had never noticed. Curiosity pulled my feet off the path and soon I was maneuvering through tall weeds just to peer over the edge. What looked like a well at first glance was simply a drain for a low swampy area.

Back home, I noticed that my clothes were bunched all over, stuck together with dozens of burrs the size of lentils. These clever things had effortlessly, yet magnificently, fastened themselves to my clothes as I walked by—in a matter of moments. It took a lot of time and effort, however, to remove the little buggers, all for a peek at some mud and discarded water bottles.

What seems to be a whim or innocent notion can often end up a serious departure from my clear and purposeful course. Odd little hitchhikers are the least of it. I can get hung up on all kinds of things–daydreams, wild goose chases, petty clashes with others, petty pouting parties with myself and the inexhaustible current of distractions from my electronics. What looks like the promise of a wellspring of quenching waters can become a sludge of trash, not at all intended by God for my consumption. Jesus set me free. I must be faithful to choose to be free indeed.

So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. John 8:36