A verse struck me this week. I realized that we can give up on God all we want. We can turn our backs on Him. We can tell Him it's OVER!
But He will never give up on us.
In Jeremiah 31, God tells us that He has heard Ephraim's moanings of repentance. Before we can ask Him--"But will you forgive? Ephraim totally turned his back on You. You can't forgive that can you?"--God answers:
"Is not Ephraim my dear son,
the child in whom I delight?
Though I often speak against him,
I still remember him.
Therefore my heart yearns for him;
I have great compassion for him,"
declares the Lord.
May we learn to show the kind of forgiveness that God shows toward us.
Saturday, June 30, 2007
Saturday, June 02, 2007
Winged Joy
He who bends to himself a joy
Doth the winged life destroy.
But he who kisses the joy as it flies
Lives in eternity's sunrise.
--William Blake
A Refreshing Thought
Recently, at Home Fellowship, a friend pointed out the beautiful words of a song by Casting Crowns: "How refreshing to know you don't need me; how amazing to find that you want me" ("In Me," from Casting Crown's album, Lifesong).
I got to thinking. Isn't that how all our relationships should be? Yes, we should rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep. However, if our well-being and very life is all wrapped up in someone else, isn't that the path to codependency?
There's a sense where I start feeling that if I truly wanted my marriage to be restored, I wouldn't be happy until it IS.
However, now I also feel God is asking me to Rejoice in the present. And that should be no surprise. I mean, He asks all Christians to rejoice always (Philippians 4:4). We're supposed to be anxious for nothing (Philippians 4:7). And over and over again in the Psalms, David tells God all his troubles--and then rejoices as He is reminded of how wonderfully good God is, despite the troubles David's going through right now. ("You have made me see troubles, many and bitter, but you will restore me again. From the depths of the earth you will again bring me up. You will increase my honor and comfort me once again.")
Psalm 4 comes to mind:
I got to thinking. Isn't that how all our relationships should be? Yes, we should rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep. However, if our well-being and very life is all wrapped up in someone else, isn't that the path to codependency?
There's a sense where I start feeling that if I truly wanted my marriage to be restored, I wouldn't be happy until it IS.
However, now I also feel God is asking me to Rejoice in the present. And that should be no surprise. I mean, He asks all Christians to rejoice always (Philippians 4:4). We're supposed to be anxious for nothing (Philippians 4:7). And over and over again in the Psalms, David tells God all his troubles--and then rejoices as He is reminded of how wonderfully good God is, despite the troubles David's going through right now. ("You have made me see troubles, many and bitter, but you will restore me again. From the depths of the earth you will again bring me up. You will increase my honor and comfort me once again.")
Psalm 4 comes to mind:
Answer me when I call to you, O my righteous God.
Give me relief from my distress;
be merciful to me, and hear my prayer....
Many are asking, "Who can show us any good?"
Let the light of your face shine upon us, O Lord.
You have filled my heart with greater joy
than when their grain and new wine abound.
I will lie down and sleep in peace,
for you alone, O Lord,
make me dwell in safety.
Give me relief from my distress;
be merciful to me, and hear my prayer....
Many are asking, "Who can show us any good?"
Let the light of your face shine upon us, O Lord.
You have filled my heart with greater joy
than when their grain and new wine abound.
I will lie down and sleep in peace,
for you alone, O Lord,
make me dwell in safety.
I think, in relationships, we need to hold each other with an open hand. Yes, I love my husband. I so want him in my life. But that's a much healthier place to be than desperately needing him, and refusing to be happy without him. God needs to be enough for me.
God will not be at all lessened if I don't love Him. That's refreshing. However, to my amazement, He loves me and He wants me.
Although I want my husband to be happy; I want my marriage to be restored; and I want us to share life together again--God's showing me that I need to look to God to meet my needs, and if my husband does not want to meet my needs, I need to let him go. I need to rejoice in the blessings God is pouring out upon me and go on with the life God has called me to live.
But I can still want him. I can still pray for him. I can still remember the wonderful things about him, admire him as a father of my sons, and treasure the beautiful memories that we do share. I can still wish him well and wish him joy.
Refusing to be joyful when the one you love is not with you or is not happy is not love--It's emotional blackmail. And I don't think ANY parent will ever get through the teen years if they refuse to be happy when the children they love are unhappy!
It sounds harsh to say that you don't need someone you love. But in the end, I do believe, our dependence needs to be upon God. People will always let you down, in big ways and small ways, and it's not valuing them to let them ruin your life.
This morning, I looked back on the wonderful book, How We Choose To Be Happy, by Rick Foster and Greg Hicks. This paragraph jumped out at me:
If you're blaming someone, you're looking backward. It is impossible to look backward and forward at the same time. My focus is on learning from the past to make the future better, not on punishing someone for what happened. It's a waste of time (page 61).
In The Great Divorce, C.S. Lewis has George MacDonald, in heaven, explaining why he was wrong on earth about universal salvation. (A little unfair, I might add!) "It must be one way or the other. Either the day must come when joy persists and all the makers of misery are no longer able to infect it: or else for ever and ever the makers of misery can destroy in others the happiness they reject for themselves" (p. 121).
Earlier in this passage, he talks about "the demand of the loveless and the self-imprisoned that they should be allowed to blackmail the universe: that till they consent to be happy (on their own terms) no one else shall taste their joy: that theirs should be the final power; that Hell should be able to veto heaven" (p. 120).
In the past, I've thought this argument rather strong. Indeed, he's explaining what I'm trying to say here--that just because one we deeply love is unhappy does not mean that we have to be unhappy.
However, I think now I see the fallacy with regard to universal (eventual) salvation. The whole reason we can rejoice, even when someone we love is going through hell, is knowing that, one day, God's love will reach them. One day, though it be an eternity away, they will know how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ. And then their joy will be so complete, and our own joy will be all the more complete.
It's not that we don't care about their suffering or that their suffering doesn't matter. It's knowing that a loving God will bring great good out of their suffering, showing them His tremendous love, just as God has done for us.
In her book, The Irrational Season, Madeleine L'Engle shares some truly wise thoughts on marriage:
To marry is the biggest risk in human relations that a person can take…. If we commit ourselves to one person for life this is not, as many people think, a rejection of freedom; rather, it demands the courage to move into all the risks of freedom, and the risk of love which is permanent; into that love which is not possession but participation....
I’ve learned something else about family and failure and promises: when a promise is broken, the promise still remains. In one way or another, we are all unfaithful to each other, and physical unfaithfulness is not the worst kind there is. We do break our most solemn promises, and sometimes we break them when we don’t even realize it. If a marriage has to be the pearly-pink perfection suggested by commercials for coffee or canned spaghetti sauce or laundry detergents, it is never going to work…. I can look at the long years of my marriage with gratitude, and hope for many more, only when I accept our failures.
It is a free relationship, but it is built on promises. Like every other couple we break our promises one way or another, but we take the breaking of the promises seriously; the fact that the promise has been broken does not make us permissive about breaking it again; instead, we try to mend. We have used an extraordinary amount of glue.
No long-term marriage is made easily, and there have been times when I’ve been so angry or so hurt that I thought my love would never recover. And then, in the midst of near despair, something has happened beneath the surface. A bright little flashing fish of hope has flicked silver fins and the water is bright and suddenly I am returned to a state of love again—till next time. I’ve learned that there will always be a next time, and that I will submerge in darkness and misery, but that I won’t stay submerged. And each time something has been learned under the waters; something has been gained; and a new kind of love has grown. The best I can ask for is that this love, which has been built on countless failures, will continue to grow. I can say no more than that this is mystery, and gift, and that somehow or other, through grace, our failures can be redeemed and blessed.
Not possession but participation. Hmm. Sounds a lot like wanting someone, but not requiring them to meet my needs.
May my own failures be redeemed and blessed. And may I not fail to rejoice when God asks me to rejoice--and then blesses me to make it easy. He is good.
God will not be at all lessened if I don't love Him. That's refreshing. However, to my amazement, He loves me and He wants me.
Although I want my husband to be happy; I want my marriage to be restored; and I want us to share life together again--God's showing me that I need to look to God to meet my needs, and if my husband does not want to meet my needs, I need to let him go. I need to rejoice in the blessings God is pouring out upon me and go on with the life God has called me to live.
But I can still want him. I can still pray for him. I can still remember the wonderful things about him, admire him as a father of my sons, and treasure the beautiful memories that we do share. I can still wish him well and wish him joy.
Refusing to be joyful when the one you love is not with you or is not happy is not love--It's emotional blackmail. And I don't think ANY parent will ever get through the teen years if they refuse to be happy when the children they love are unhappy!
It sounds harsh to say that you don't need someone you love. But in the end, I do believe, our dependence needs to be upon God. People will always let you down, in big ways and small ways, and it's not valuing them to let them ruin your life.
This morning, I looked back on the wonderful book, How We Choose To Be Happy, by Rick Foster and Greg Hicks. This paragraph jumped out at me:
If you're blaming someone, you're looking backward. It is impossible to look backward and forward at the same time. My focus is on learning from the past to make the future better, not on punishing someone for what happened. It's a waste of time (page 61).
In The Great Divorce, C.S. Lewis has George MacDonald, in heaven, explaining why he was wrong on earth about universal salvation. (A little unfair, I might add!) "It must be one way or the other. Either the day must come when joy persists and all the makers of misery are no longer able to infect it: or else for ever and ever the makers of misery can destroy in others the happiness they reject for themselves" (p. 121).
Earlier in this passage, he talks about "the demand of the loveless and the self-imprisoned that they should be allowed to blackmail the universe: that till they consent to be happy (on their own terms) no one else shall taste their joy: that theirs should be the final power; that Hell should be able to veto heaven" (p. 120).
In the past, I've thought this argument rather strong. Indeed, he's explaining what I'm trying to say here--that just because one we deeply love is unhappy does not mean that we have to be unhappy.
However, I think now I see the fallacy with regard to universal (eventual) salvation. The whole reason we can rejoice, even when someone we love is going through hell, is knowing that, one day, God's love will reach them. One day, though it be an eternity away, they will know how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ. And then their joy will be so complete, and our own joy will be all the more complete.
It's not that we don't care about their suffering or that their suffering doesn't matter. It's knowing that a loving God will bring great good out of their suffering, showing them His tremendous love, just as God has done for us.
In her book, The Irrational Season, Madeleine L'Engle shares some truly wise thoughts on marriage:
To marry is the biggest risk in human relations that a person can take…. If we commit ourselves to one person for life this is not, as many people think, a rejection of freedom; rather, it demands the courage to move into all the risks of freedom, and the risk of love which is permanent; into that love which is not possession but participation....
I’ve learned something else about family and failure and promises: when a promise is broken, the promise still remains. In one way or another, we are all unfaithful to each other, and physical unfaithfulness is not the worst kind there is. We do break our most solemn promises, and sometimes we break them when we don’t even realize it. If a marriage has to be the pearly-pink perfection suggested by commercials for coffee or canned spaghetti sauce or laundry detergents, it is never going to work…. I can look at the long years of my marriage with gratitude, and hope for many more, only when I accept our failures.
It is a free relationship, but it is built on promises. Like every other couple we break our promises one way or another, but we take the breaking of the promises seriously; the fact that the promise has been broken does not make us permissive about breaking it again; instead, we try to mend. We have used an extraordinary amount of glue.
No long-term marriage is made easily, and there have been times when I’ve been so angry or so hurt that I thought my love would never recover. And then, in the midst of near despair, something has happened beneath the surface. A bright little flashing fish of hope has flicked silver fins and the water is bright and suddenly I am returned to a state of love again—till next time. I’ve learned that there will always be a next time, and that I will submerge in darkness and misery, but that I won’t stay submerged. And each time something has been learned under the waters; something has been gained; and a new kind of love has grown. The best I can ask for is that this love, which has been built on countless failures, will continue to grow. I can say no more than that this is mystery, and gift, and that somehow or other, through grace, our failures can be redeemed and blessed.
Not possession but participation. Hmm. Sounds a lot like wanting someone, but not requiring them to meet my needs.
May my own failures be redeemed and blessed. And may I not fail to rejoice when God asks me to rejoice--and then blesses me to make it easy. He is good.
Psalm 119:74-76
May those who fear you turn to me,
for I have put my hope in your word.
I know, O Lord, that your laws are righteous,
and in faithfulness you have afflicted me.
May your unfailing love be my comfort,
according to your promise to your servant.
May those who fear you turn to me,
for I have put my hope in your word.
I know, O Lord, that your laws are righteous,
and in faithfulness you have afflicted me.
May your unfailing love be my comfort,
according to your promise to your servant.
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