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

For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.  John 3:17

God didn’t commission me to condemn others either.  In fact, Jesus commanded, in Matthew 22:38, that I love my neighbor as myself.  How in the world can I do that?  Back it up two verses to His first and greatest commandment: Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.  That’s how.

When I set about loving my Lord my God with all of my heart and with all of my soul and with all of my mind, my life changes powerfully.  I receive so many gifts that I am full of God’s unceasing love and can freely give that love to others. The greatest gift is receiving God’s great love for me!  I learn to live in that love and even learn to love myself as He sees me.  When I do, when I know how much I am loved by the Creator of the universe, by the Great I Am, then I can give love generously to others as He commands me to do.

Condemning others, or myself, stops that flow because it isn’t what I’m here to do.  I am not to condemn myself.  I am to live in the truth that God loves me and isn’t condemning me.  I am not to condemn others.  I am to give them the love God has given me.

Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.                  1 John 3:18

On a mossy point at the back of the pond, the turtles like to rest in the sun.  As I round the path, they crawl quickly into the water or push up on two legs and splash upside down, abandoning their warm naps to the safety of the chilly water. Occasionally one brave (or tired) one will stay, allowing me to say hello,  even reach out and touch its shell in love and kindness.

I knew God before I started these walks and I knew He meant only to love me. But sometimes when I heard Him knocking, I pulled the shades and chose not to listen. Or perhaps I was so busy enjoying my pleasant little spot in the sun, I didn’t hear His knock at all. I will be forever grateful He called me to the park that summer day and that I heard Him and followed.

Does God first call to His children or do the children seek Him? God has called and called and He continues to call.  The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Psalm 19:1 God provided His word, the Bible, to reach his children and teach them of His love and salvation. His heavenly angels and earthly saints work to bring people to the Savior. When His children hear His call, they respond and seek Him with their whole hearts.

He answers without fail, again and again, as I seek Him more and more. I am found. I remain in His Son.  I ask God to search me, to know my heart and lead me to an everlasting life with Him.

He who said to them, “Here is rest, give rest to the weary,” And, “Here is repose,” but they would not listen. Isaiah 28:12

God’s creation spoke to me every summer on my great grandfather’s farm.  The warm tomatoes in the black fields, my bare feet on the harsh earth, goat’s milk on my cereal that tasted of the onions I fed her the day before. I loved living “close to nature”.  I felt inspired and free.

One summer our little place near the bay was hit by a hurricane. We battened down the hatches as best we could but the little octagonal screen house, our sweet space of reprieve from the nagging mosquitos and greenheads, was taken up and began rolling around the property. My mother and I ran out to save it and a single moment in the driveway has never left me.

We caught the thing awkwardly flopping on the gravel, my mom on one side and I on the other, as a flash of lightning lit the sky.  A bolt of enlightenment for us both.  As an exclamation point to the storm’s declaration of power, a sharp blast of wind blew my contact from my eye.  I instinctively reached into the gale but it was gone forever in an instant.  All at once, we dropped the impossible collapsing thing and ran back to safety.

God’s fierce winds bring destruction and renewal.  I’ve learned to see them both as one, His gift.  Beseeching Him on my walks, I am reminded of His infinite power when a strong gust altogether moves me, the heavy limbs above my head and the cluttered ground at my feet.  Stand back. It is Mine.

His way is in the whirlwind and the storm, and clouds are the dust of his feet. Nahum 1:3b

There have been times in my life when all seemed broken. As far as my eyes could see, my hopes and dreams were withered. All of my efforts, I thought, had been expended for nought and I was directionless and tired. How does one go on, when what she has been building comes crashing down, lost forever?

How? She takes her eyes off the destruction and puts them on God. No, perhaps she cannot rebuild from that rubble. Perhaps that exact dream is gone and maybe there are reasons for it. Maybe it was never what God intended for her. Maybe she was using the wrong materials or the wrong plans and He leveled it to start anew and better. Maybe He has another plan for her entirely, something she would never have considered.

Well, He does. God always has a plan for her. All she needs to do is trudge out there to the middle of her loss and praise Him. Thank you God! I know my life is in Your hands and I am ready for you to show me Your good plan!  Then, she doesn’t just stand there surrounded by the ruin, feet freezing in the snow! She begins to walk out of it, keeping her eyes on God all the way.  He leads her to restoration. He will restore what has been lost and she will gratefully accept it.

After Job had prayed for his friends, the LORD restored his fortunes and gave him twice as much as he had before. Job 42:10

If there is one thing I have learned about hard times, it’s that God always makes something good of them. Always. Turn to God in pain, He creates a renewal. Turn to God in sin, He plants something beautiful. Turn to God in fear, He reveals a miraculous way. God will always tend the cracked, furrowed ground to bring a new harvest.

But what if I wanted last year’s bounty? What if I wanted peas and got cantaloupe? What if my garden is ravaged by locusts or burned in a fire just as I prepare to reap? Something will grow, something essential and perfect, when I look to God in my strife. When my focus is on Him and not on myself or others or stuff or my will, the life God has given me becomes abundant, blessed and balanced. It bursts with the fullness of Him, with ample room for more.

God allowed Satan to take everything from His good and blameless servant Job—his family, his health, his home and livestock. Job cried, The thing I feared has come upon me, what I dreaded has happened to me. Did God allow Job to be ravaged to give him an even greater faith? I don’t know the reason.  Job continued to trust God through his agony and God restored Job with twice as much as he had before. I can appreciate and honor what God brings into my life because I know that He is omnipotent, omniscient and loving. God’s goodness is eternal and perfect.

Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.  1 Thessalonians 5:16-18