Evidences of grace.

Just a quote today . . .

“Most people are more aware of the absence of God than the presence of God.
Most people are more aware of the presence of sin than evidences of grace.”
(C.J. Mahaney)

Shoes Woes.

(Just a glimpse of home.)

A couple days ago, my brother decided he wanted to buy me some shoes.

So, last night, he took me to DSW.  I’m not sure what DSW stands for, but it must be the initials for “Way Too Many Shoes” in a foreign language . . . because that’s the first thought that came to mind when I walked in there yesterday.

I walked around, going through aisle after aisle of shoe after shoe.  I was done “shopping” (& empty-handed) after about 15 minutes.

My brother found me a little later.  I told him I couldn’t find anything, but he wouldn’t hear any of it.

He had me sit down.  “Sit down & wait here.  I’m picking your shoes.”

“What?  No . . .”

So, as I sat down (on one of those blocks with the angled mirrors on the sides), he tossed shoes to me.  I can’t even remember how many shoes I tried on.  He had two criteria: something casual & something “different” (i.e., something I probably wouldn’t buy on my own).

I’d have different shoes on each of my feet, & he’d tell me to walk around with my eyes closed to see which were more comfortable.  We made quite a scene — me, bumping into things & my brother, asking passersby which shoe looked better.

He finally decided on a pair.  They were comfortable, too.

“Great!”  I put the shoes in the box & started walking towards the cashier.

“We’re not done yet.  You need another pair.”

I thought he was kidding.  He wasn’t.  I had more shoes to try on.

But in the end, 2 hours & an unexpected 30% discount later, we went home with just one pair — these:

I was wiped out when I got home.  My mom just laughed, & my dad said, “They’re cute.  Not your style, but maybe that’s a good thing.”

. . .

God has been good to us (my dad, my mom, my brother, & me), even in spite of us.  I am thankful.

The people who sing.

When I’m hurting the most, I’ll usually look for a quiet place where I can take a keyboard or guitar & a praise book. Then I’ll spend hours singing & playing through the songs. It does my heart good to sing His praises — to sing of who He is — especially when I hurt.

“A group of Christians in Africa are not called Christians by those around them. Instead they are called the people who sing. When someone wants to join their church, they say, ‘I want to sing.’ In the midst of very difficult lives full of pain and suffering, poverty and hardship, they sing. They sing from hearts full of joy in Christ. We should tune our hearts to hear such singing. We should marvel at the beauty of their song.”
- Stephen J. Nichols, Heaven on Earth: Capturing Jonathan Edwards’s Vision of Living in Between (Thanks, Cesar, for the excerpt.)

May we be people who sing through times of joy & through times of grief, because our God is always praiseworthy. Our hearts always have reason to sing — maybe not because of circumstances but because of our sovereign God.

The thankful Christian sings. The joyful Christian sings. &, as we were reminded in November, trials enhance joy.

Let’s sing. & let’s sing all the more when the day becomes night.

“By day the LORD commands His steadfast love, & at night His song is with me, a prayer to the God of my life.” ( Psalm 42:8 )

“It is good to give thanks to the LORD, to sing praises to Your name, O Most High; to declare Your steadfast love in the morning, & Your faithfulness by night, to the music of the lute & the harp, to the melody of the lyre.” (Psalm 92:1-3)

“& when they had inflicted many blows upon them, they threw them into prison, ordering the jailer to keep them safely. Having received this order, he put them into the inner prison & fastened their feet in the stocks. About midnight Paul & Silas were praying & singing hymns to God, & the prisoners were listening to them.” (Acts 16:23-25)

Robert Ector.

A dear friend, Robert Ector, passed away last night.

Robert sang on our church’s praise team. He had a weak heart for years, but you’d never have known it seeing him on stage. He was the guy who donned the funny glasses as he sang in church programs. He was the guy who, with a straight face, sang about Frosty the Snowman melting away. He was the guy with the hearty laugh, the one who always laughed at his own jokes. Every time I visited home during college, he would ask me, “How’s it going?” & sit down to hear my response. He always jokingly told me that I was the one who recruited him into the praise team when I was in high school (I don’t remember). We loved him.

It hurts. But as our pastor reminded us, we don’t grieve as those without hope. His wife & his son are especially grieving, but not as those without hope.

“But we do not want to you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others who have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died & rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep. For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord Himself with descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, & with the sound of the trumpet of God. & the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, & so we will always be with the Lord. Therefore encourage one another with these words.” (I Thessalonians 4:13-18)

He is exactly where we want most to be . . . only, he arrived there first.

We can cry with hope
We can say goodbye with hope
‘Cause we know our goodbye is not the end, oh no
And we can grieve with hope
‘Cause we believe with hope
(There’s a place by God’s grace)
There’s a place where we’ll see your face again
We’ll see your face again
(Steven Curtis Chapman)

We miss him. But we’ll see his face again.

Acts 20:24.

But (even though I do not know what will happen to me, even though all I know is that the Spirit says that imprisonment & unnamed afflictions await me in every city)

I (the Apostle Paul, undeservedly loved & saved to the uttermost by the Christ I once hated & persecuted)

do not account (or reckon or calculate)

my life (my very breath, the natural life of my body)

of any value nor as precious to myself (neither costly nor dear, of no sum, rubbish)

if only (this one thing: the driving passion & purpose of my life)

I may finish my course (this race marked out for me, this course run in obedience to Christ)

& the ministry (a task weightier than my very life)

that I received from the Lord (my Authority — my Master, Owner, & King)

Jesus (the crucified & risen Son of God)

to testify (to bear witness with all my heart)

to the gospel (the good news)

of the grace of God (God’s lovingkindness extended to ruined sinners through salvation & adoption)

. . .

This verse has been such a source of comfort, reminding, & rebuking to me over the years.

I listened to a message from the 2003 Shepherd’s Conference by Steve Saint (son of Nate Saint, missionary to the Waodani) again today. I’ve listened to it about 4 or 5 times already, but I still choke up at the same parts. What a testimony of the sufficiency of God’s grace.

He shared about how he wrote an article for a Christian magazine some time after learning of “most of the details” of his father’s death. In the article, he wrote that God did not merely allow the death of his father & the other missionaries; God orchestrated it. He said he received objections from readers, asking, “How can you attribute to God something horrible like this?” His answer to them was from Acts 2:23: “this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan & foreknowledge of God . . .” He said, “If God could, as a loving Father . . . if He could do this to His own Son, why couldn’t He do this to my father, if he was willing?”

If he was willing. He was willing. Nate Saint, the Apostle Paul, & many others. They were willing to lay down their lives — not because they were foolishly reckless, but because they counted the cost & prized something more than life: the gospel of the grace of God.

Paul said his life was valuable only inasmuch as it served to fulfill the interests of Christ — not his own interests. “For to me to live is Christ,” he says (Philippians 1:21).

He loved Christ. “Jesus Christ & Him crucified” (I Corinthians 2:2) was the crux of his life. Could there be any greater thing? This one message, this one mission, this one task. His own life’s significance drowned out in comparison. Self-preservation was not high on his list of priorities. The message was more important than the messenger (& if his life was as nothing, then so was everything else within that life: comfort, pleasures, riches, reputation . . .).

The gospel wasn’t only his occupation. It was his preoccupation. It consumed his life.

Paul was probably weeping as he spoke these words to the Ephesian elders. “But I do not account my life of any value nor as precious to myself, if only I may finish my course & the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God” (Acts 20:24). He loved them dearly; it was the last time he’d see them, & more trials awaited him.

But the gospel was the heartbeat, the heartthrob of his life. Jesus had no rival in his affections. Acts 20:24 was the narrative of his life.

Single-minded, whole-hearted.

Oh, to really live like that.

Your slate.

My life is Your slate, clean (in Christ);
Your handed is poised
to etch in Your perfect plan.
Here I’ve written my plans in chalk;
Often I’ve tried to keep the wind
& Your breath
from blowing away my self-created course.
I’ve hovered over my plans,
covered them with my hands,
unwilling to see them erased.
Your hand is yet poised,
in readiness to do Your perfect will,
in Your perfect timing.
I bow my head,
my head following the reality in my heart (or so I pray).
Father, glorify Thy name.
I fix my eyes not only on the movement of Your hand,
but on Your dear face.
I am content to wait
in the stillness,
to do what I’m called to do now
& not look ahead to days that are not guaranteed.
The Hand I may often wonder at,
but the Face I pray to know & trust
& love,
more & more.
As for You, my God,
Your way is perfect.
I shall not want,
Beginning & End.

January 8, 1998.

It is well, it is well with my soul.

. . .

“There is no attribute more comforting to His children than that of God’s Sovereignty. Under the most adverse circumstances, in the most severe trials, they believe that Sovereignty has ordained their afflictions, that Sovereignty overrules them . . . We proclaim an enthroned God, & His right to do as He will with His own.” (C.H. Spurgeon)

“That God is good is taught or implied on every page of the Bible & must be received as an article of faith as impregnable as the throne of God.” (A.W. Tozer)

“‘He knows the way He taketh’ . . . [He] knows what He is doing, & ‘doeth all things well,’ even if for the moment He hides His hand. We can trust Him & rejoice in Him, even when we cannot discern His path.” (J.I. Packer)

“He is ever the same. His purpose is fixed, His will is stable, His word is sure. Here then is a rock on which we may fix our feet, while the might torrent is sweeping away everything around us.” (A.W. Pink)

I’ll look no other place.

That’s what the song says:

My hope is found in You
In Your saving love & grace
I’ll seek the one, true God
& I’ll look no other place
I’ll look no other place

I admit, I often look to other things: fleeting joys, people, overwhelming circumstances, my heart’s wretchedness, worldly devices, the things I want but don’t have, & [sadly, most often] self. In all of this, the shameful proof to my foolishness is this: I keep looking to things that do not save, satisfy, or sanctify.

My gaze is most often inward. My journals are full evidence of this. I walk in circles around my heart – planning, musing, pondering, analyzing, prodding, weighing, & looking so intently at its contents. I’m often so fixed (& hence, so wretched) about what I find within . . . as if I expected to find anything better in a completely depraved heart in desperate need of Christ.

The fact is, I will fix my eyes where my affections lie. I will fix my eyes where I place my heart & my trust. It should be Christ. Only Christ.

There is only one one Savior for every sin, one Balm for every wound, one Source for every need, one Hope for every circumstance, one Treasure worthy of lifelong pursuit: Christ alone. King David knew that . . .

“One thing have I asked of the LORD, that will I seek after: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD & to inquire in His temple. For He will hide me in His shelter in the day of trouble; He will conceal me under the cover of His tent; He will lift me high upon a rock.” (Psalm 27:4-5)

“O God, You are my God; earnestly I seek You; my soul thirsts for You; my flesh faints for You, as in a dry & weary land where there is no water. So I have looked upon You in the sanctuary, beholding Your power & glory. Because Your steadfast love is better than life, my lips will praise You. So I will bless You as long as I live; in Your name I will lift up my hands. My soul will be satisfied as with fat & rich food, & my mouth will praise You with joyful lips, when I remember You upon my bed, & meditate on You in the watches of the night; for You have been my help, & in the shadow of Your sings I will sing for joy. My soul clings to You; Your right hand upholds me.” (Psalm 63:1-8)

King David’s ‘best thought by day or by night’ was the Lord. Regardless of circumstances (even when his own life was in peril) & regardless of his own frame of mind (even when he was mentally tormented & in anguish), he directed his thoughts & his vision (the sights of his eyes, the hope of his heart) to the Lord.

Be Thou my Vision, O Lord of my heart;
Naught be all else to me, save that Thou art.
Thou my best thought, by day or by night,
Waking or sleeping, Thy presence my light.
. . . Heart of my own heart, whatever befall,
Still be my Vision, O Ruler of all.
(Dal­lan For­gaill, 8th Cen­tu­ry)

Everything else is but naught – nothing. There’s no need to look any other place, because in one Place, we find our All. In Christ, I find salvation & my heart’s delight. He is my vision, the object of my soul’s constant gaze. I look to Him in love, in humble adoration, in expectant hope.

In The Pursuit of God, A.W. Tozer writes:

“Faith is the gaze of a soul upon a saving God . . .`They looked unto him, and were lightened: and their faces were not ashamed’ (Ps.34:5). `Unto thee lift I up mine eyes, O thou that dwellest in the heavens. Behold, as the eyes of servants look unto the hand of their masters, and as the eyes of a maiden unto the hand of her mistress; so our eyes wait upon the Lord our God, until that he have mercy upon us’ (Ps.123:1-2) . . .

In full accord with the few texts we have quoted is the whole tenor of the inspired Word. It is summed up for us in the Hebrew epistle when we are instructed to run life’s race `looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith.’ (Hebr 12:2) From all this we learn that faith is not a once-done act, but a continuous gaze of the heart at the Triune God.

Believing, then, is directing the heart’s attention to Jesus. It is lifting the mind to `behold the Lamb of God,’ and never ceasing that beholding for the rest of our lives. At first this may be difficult, but it becomes easier as we look steadily at His wondrous Person, quietly and without strain. Distractions may hinder, but once the heart is committed to Him, after each brief excursion away from Him the attention will return again and rest upon Him like a wandering bird coming back to its window . . .

Faith is the least self-regarding of the virtues. It is by its very nature scarcely conscious of its own existence. Like the eye which sees everything in front of it and never sees itself, faith is occupied with the Object upon which it rests and pays no attention to itself at all. While we are looking at God we do not see ourselves–blessed riddance. The man who has struggled to purify himself and has had nothing but repeated failures will experience real relief when he stops tinkering with his soul and looks away to the perfect One. While he looks at Christ the very things he has so long been trying to do will be getting done within him. It will be God working in him to will and to do.

Faith is not in itself a meritorious act; the merit is in the One toward Whom it is directed. Faith is a redirecting of our sight, a getting out of the focus of our own vision and getting God into focus. Sin has twisted our vision inward and made it self-regarding. Unbelief has put self where God should be, and is perilously close to the sin of Lucifer who said, `I will set my throne above the throne of God.’ Faith looks out instead of in and the whole life falls into line.

All this may seem too simple. But we have no apology to make. To those who would seek to climb into heaven after help or descend into hell God says, `The word is nigh thee, even in the word of faith.’ The word induces us to lift up our eyes unto the Lord and the blessed work of faith begins.

When we lift our inward eyes to gaze upon God we are sure to meet friendly eyes gazing back at us, for it is written that the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout all the earth. The sweet language of experience is `Thou God seest me.’ When the eyes of the soul looking out meet the eyes of God looking in, heaven has begun right here on this earth.“

My life will be over in the blink of an eye. I can easily waste this breath of a life, or I can fix my heart on Him & keep my soul’s gaze there continually until my faith becomes sight.

I pray, “Turn my eyes from looking at worthless things” (Psalm 119:37) & let me instead “consider Him . . . that [I] may not grow weary or fainthearted” (Hebrews 12:3) until I reach my lasting city, where my true citizenship is.

Turn your eyes upon Jesus
Look full in His wonderful face
& the things of earth will grow strangely dim
In the light of His glory & grace

Turn your thoughts upon Jesus
Think deep of His wonderful love
& the thoughts of sin & of self & strife
Will be lost in that rapture above

I’ll look no other place.

Ready, Aim, Fire!

I considered whether or not to make “resolutions” for 2008. But during my long drive on New Year’s Eve, I was convicted about certain areas of my life. I suppose these aren’t resolutions solely for 2008 but for my life on a whole right now.

Ready:
In heart, soul, mind, body, will (by His grace)

Aim:
Christ, Christlikeness

Fire:
1. Take more risks. That no one I know personally would be without knowledge of the God of the gospel. If I refrain from telling them (because of fear, because of whatever other reason), then their blood is on my hands.

2. Never to make a decision based on whether it will earn me another’s good favor or good opinion but to make my decisions according to His glory & the other’s good.

3. Pray more specifically & honestly.

4. Not to focus on my heart’s desires but to delight in Him. Begin a more extensive, intensive study on the character of God.

5. Spend more time with mom & dad. Not to take them for granted.

6. Spend more time with grandpa in the skilled nursing facility, encouraging him in the Lord. My dad said this will probably be the last year I have with my grandpa.

7. As much as it depends on me, to discipline & train my body & mind . . . not to become attached to the comforts afforded me here, but to prepare myself for wherever He may take me, not clinging to any one place or people as though this were my Home.

8. Climb Half Dome. Any takers?

9. Write more encouragement notes (love you, Cathie).

New Year, Old Friend.

After a week in Southern California, I’m finally back home. It’d been a while since I’d driven to & from Southern California. The long drive was sweet – hours to just talk with God, & mile after mile of beautiful sky.

I spent the week with Jamie, a childhood friend (more like a sister), at her aunt’s home in Simi Valley. We took a mini-road trip down to Irvine & San Diego, too. During the drive back home yesterday, I spent a lot of time thinking about our friendship.

I’ve known her for the whole of her life. Our moms were pregnant with our older brothers at the same time. We grew up at the same church, & our families saw each other 66 days in a row one summer (we counted). With the exception of a few memories, from babyhood to my 13th birthday, all of my childhood memories involve her family.

One summer night in 1996, I remember our parents were drinking coffee & eating fruit as usual on the backyard patio. But that night, their conversation took an unusual turn. They said, “If anything ever happens to either of us, we’ll take care of each others’ children.” I remember thinking that if anything ever happened to my parents, I couldn’t imagine being taken in by anyone but Jamie’s family.

In January of 1998, something did happen. A series of tragic events happened that changed everything. & in short, according to all worldly, human reasoning, we shouldn’t have been friends anymore. (Maybe I’ll write about that some other time . . .)

But for the past 10 years, God, for His glory, sustained & grew this friendship despite the circumstances & despite the distance (she moved to Indiana).

Her mom hoped we’d always be like sisters, & we are. I thank God for my little sis.

We’re very different . . . She loves shopping; I don’t enjoy it very much. I love reading; she’ll maybe browse through some magazines. She’s naturally an extrovert & prefers big crowds; I’m naturally an introvert & prefer talking to people one on one. She’s most likely to be seen with a Coach purse & stilettos; I’m most likely to be seen with a big book bag & sandals. At the beach, I’m in the water with plenty of sunscreen; at the beach, she’s on the sand, tanning. She thinks I’m strange; I think she’s strange :]

But in the end, these things don’t really matter.

I love her. He knit our lives together from the beginning.

The past week was filled with shopping, movies, & other activities I don’t often engage in. But it was a week with Jamie . . . & I loved every minute of it. God is good.

I love you, Mie-Ja.