Expectations

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Having a goal oriented personality makes unmet expectations an opportunity for the gospel every day. As a mom, there are a certain number of tasks in our home that I know need to be accomplished for our days to roll out smoothly. When those tasks go unmet, often because I’m sick and can’t keep my usual pace, it causes me to rely on my family to pick up the slack. When their efforts don’t meet my expectations it makes me impatient. I find myself complaining in my heart, lamenting the ideas that I had of achieving the goals I had set for that day, and the image of a family that loved me enough to help without complaint, whistling as they worked, despite the fact that they’ve all had their own set of tasks and agendas for the day.

The issue isn’t with the tasks of our home or even with my needing help once in a while to ensure all of them get done. The problem is the control I want to wield over how and when my needs are met, rather than trusting that the Lord has already met all of my needs and resting in the satisfaction that brings. Moreover, the greater issue looming deep beneath the surface excuse of just wanting to make sure all the things get done, is my pride needing affirmed that I am capable of balancing all the spinning wheels just fine on my own. The Lord will find ways to remind me that this is His show. Not mine.

While I’m fussing and focusing on the dishes being unwashed before the end of the school day, because once the kids get home it’s much harder to get the chores done and all I want to do is spend time just soaking in their day with them, helping with homework, or whatever else they’d like to do, I’m focusing on what my expectation for this given outcome was, rather than God’s.

When I’m stewing because the laundry didn’t get rotated, and the clean clothes options are limited, and I feel like my family has willfully neglected to help out, and that their unwillingness is a direct reflection of their love for me, I have provided a self-absorbed, selfish example of immaturity and a lack of faith in the provision the Lord has made for us. The closets spill out with clothes and I’ve conflated the love of my children for their mother with whether or not they leapt at the opportunity to cycle one load.

Too often I subconsciously set an expectation for the sort of mood I’d like for my husband to be in at the end of a long day and when his mood and my imagination don’t align I’m discontent, sink into bitterness, confuse him with sharp tones and cold shoulders even when all he has done is work diligently all week long, and exist in our home in the way he needs to, rather than in the way I hoped he would. I don’t stop to consider what he might have hoped my mood would be like, or even what he needed from my presence so that our home could be a place of restoration for him.

In reality, my children help with daily tasks. The problem is that my heart becomes anxious, angry, and defiant when I am faced with my own limitations. In reality, my husband’s mood is often generous, kind, and affectionate and it’s certainly within his right to be less so when he needs to be. The problem is my heart that seeks the affirmation of my worth based on his praise or recognition. It’s not my family’s job to meet all my needs, nor should I expect them to, the problem is that I’ve substituted my expectation that they can for the truth that God already has.

Jesus’ death and resurrection has already met all of my needs. This doesn’t mean that I can neglect our home, let the dishes rot, and laundry mold; rather, I should be tending these things because they have been given to me by the Lord to steward and in keeping them well, I’ve honored him. Too often I confuse the tasks as mine to do, as if I’ve set the agenda, but the tasks I have are the ones that have been given to me by the Lord to do. It is His home that I keep, His children my husband and I have been given to raise, my husband belongs to Jesus first. When I reorient my mind to the truth of the gospel and ask, what is His expectation of me? All of a sudden my expectations pale by comparison to the One whose testimony I bear as I accomplish His tasks for my day. Whether the dishes get washed or the laundry gets done is immaterial if I have given my children the picture of a mother burdened by bitterness, short tempered, and unloving. But if while accomplishing the tasks I am able, with a heart of gladness, grace, and joy, I have demonstrated the sort of character they can expect to find in their savior when they come to Him needing grace, then I have accomplished the expectation for me that is my savior’s.

My expectations mean nothing if they don’t begin and end with: glorify God today in all you do and passionately prefer Christ over everything else.

Today is the day of salvation. If you haven’t accepted the free gift of Jesus’ death and resurrection on the cross you are toiling for a world that is perishing. Jesus said, “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away” (Matthew 24:35). Come to Jesus today. He will give you the purpose of your life: to glorify Him and grow His kingdom.

God bless.

Giving credit where it’s due

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Last week, in my women’s study, we posed the question, “do we credit God with the outcome when the circumstances didn’t go our way and praise Him just the same?” My heart is often geared toward the glory of God’s sovereignty and goodness when things haven’t turned out great, because the world ideology suggests that when things go badly, it’s because God isn’t good, and when things go well it’s because He is only love and just wants our happiness. There is also a connection drawn between reward and punishment. When things go good for us, then it must mean God is pleased. When things go bad, it must mean that He is displeased.

If only good things happen when we serve faithfully, it would reaffirm that since we’ve served faithfully that we are being rewarded. But, what happens when we face a trial in the midst of serving faithfully? Does this mean that somehow we’ve gotten it wrong, and that God is displeased? If someone isn’t pursuing the Lord at all, living in sin, but by all appearances living a thriving and blessed life, how does that complicate our view of a God that has some sort of incentive program for the living?

The problem isn’t with God at all, rather it’s with our limited perspective. The trials of this world are a result of sin, introduced into the world by Satan, and everyone is subject to the problems of the world whether we are born again in Christ or not. It stands to reason that God’s mercy extends then to all who live on the earth in the form of life itself, sustenance, and any pleasurable thing at all.

The Bible says, “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change” (James 1:17). Every person alive has the opportunity to enjoy the beauty of a sunset, the ability to taste a delicious meal, to smell the wildflowers bloom in spring, and participate in the daily mercies of a loving God whose will it is that none should perish (2 Peter 3: 8-10), the difference is that for the unredeemed man (or woman), this world is the closest to Heaven it gets. For the redeemed, this world is the closest to Hell we’ll ever get. What the world fails to realize is that it is the love of God that He is just and will one day separate sin, death, and suffering from the eternal state, but in doing so, anyone who has not accepted Christ will not have access to Him in eternity. In choosing to face God apart from Christ you have chosen to receive His righteous condemnation for a sin debt that you can’t pay for on your own. Because He is holy and will remove all sin, your presence will be removed from Him eternally if your unrighteous state has not covered by the righteous blood of Christ. We are all born into sin, from the point that Eve, and Adam with her, chose their desire over God’s command and sin entered the world, everyone born after was born owing a debt that couldn’t be paid. A loving God will not allow sin to reign forever. It is both His love and His judgement for sin that make up equal parts of His character. Yet, His love is demonstrated to us in this, that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us (Romans 5:8).

When we fail to recognize God’s hand in the daily mercies and as a means of drawing us nearer to Him through the trials, we don’t rob Him of glory, He is worthy of glory and will receive it regardless, we rob ourselves of the grace to be able to participate in the right worship of His glory. Jesus said, in response to being told to silence His followers from praising Him, “If they are silent, even the rocks will cry out” (Luke 19:40). We’re told in Psalm 19:1, “the heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament shows his handiwork.” Evidence of God’s glory is all around us and when we fail to see Him in every aspect of our daily lives we rob ourselves of the knowledge of God.

We recognize His glory, His handiwork, through the daily pursuit of Him. The closer we walk the more ready our hearts are prepared to worship Him through all circumstances, good and bad. We recognize the suffering brought upon us is a result of sin, that death, disease, and sin are products of the enemy, not of God. While these things are the result of the enemy, God still uses them to accomplish His good and perfect will so that even our suffering isn’t purposeless. The Bible says that, “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose” (Romans 8:28). He is powerful enough to bring beauty from ashes.

Jesus knew that the consequence of sin being introduced into the world was death. He came to solve the problem of our sin. Today is the day of salvation. If you haven’t received the gift of Jesus’ death and resurrection, turn to Him today. We will still face death as believers, the physical death of our earthly body, but we will not experience the second death. As believers we die once, but without Christ we die twice, once in our earthly bodies and again spiritually at the judgement. Revelation 21:8 tells us, “As for the cowardly, the faithless, the polluted, the murderers, the fornicators, the sorcerers, the idolaters, and all liars, their place will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.”

Come to the saving knowledge of Jesus today.

God bless.

The problem with concession

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There have been plenty of points in my life where I found myself teetering between the expectation of the world and the holy expectation of God. Human nature wants to find a compromise. It wants to ‘have its cake and eat it too,’ so to speak. Choosing righteousness is not the natural inclination of the flesh. Scripture tells us that, “the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do” (Galatians 5:17). But, the problem with making a concession is that I’ve not satisfied God partially with my partial obedience. I have not been able to keep some of God’s expectations for me and indulge in keeping from obedience the parts that are too difficult to keep. This has ultimately caused me inexplicable strife and grief, as I attempted to choose between what I wanted to do and what I knew the Spirit was calling me to do. The problem is not the expectation of God. Rather, it reveals a hole in my faith that God is in control of the outcome and a lack of trust that the outcome He has and that His will for me are good.

Since coming to faith in Jesus, the main concession that I wanted to make was keeping my past sins secret. I thought that by serving faithfully, and living obediently (nearly to the point of legalism) it would eradicate the need for me to make confession, to face the consequence of sins that I had chosen prior to coming to salvation, early in my walk, and even daily sins that, by comparison, seem little in contrast to the sins of my past. But, they are not little to God. Ten years ago, as a new believer, I had decades of world habits, sin patterns, and struggles that I attempted to just stifle and snuff out. Walking in obedience required the exposure of some of that sin, only by bringing it into the light is it able to be properly handled, and absolved. It was the only manner by which I ultimately attained freedom from sin and shame, though the regret and shame of my past is still a daily overcoming, I now live in the freedom from fear of my sin being exposed. Additionally, I was piling new sins on top of the pile of former sins, as I became more and more sure that I was able to atone for my past insurrections through acts of service and obedience. I became judgmental and self-righteous at times; I was becoming one of those Christians that for so long gave me ’cause’ to avoid the judgement and hypocrisy of the church.

When Christ said His yoke was easy, it was not because the Christian walk is, but because He is yoked to us, and walks beside us as we pursue the Christian walk. It’s no wonder the apostle Paul wrote, “But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me” (2 Corinthians 12:9). I could not carry the yoke of my former sin on my own. I could not atone for some of the earthly consequences of sin by simply living righteously enough to erase the past. There were still steps necessary to take in order for me to find true freedom. Repentance and confession to God for sin precedes any further action, but it was necessary for me to confess to those that had been directly affected by my sin, seek forgiveness, and demonstrate behavior in accordance with God’s holy expectations. Confession and repentance does not mandate any expected response, though for the believer, the command is forgiveness and reconciliation, these should not be the motivation for confession and repentance, rather the motivation comes from a heart that desires to be obedient and reconciled to God.

Jesus Christ came so that we may have hope. Our human nature will wage war against the sort of obedience that the Biblical prescription for handling sin requires. But, at the root of it, is the reality that we can accomplish none of it on our own. I was so rooted in behavior that sought to hide my sin it took ten years before I was able to start making confession and the Lord had to press hard down on me to get me to comply. I didn’t want to utter the truth of the things I’d done to the man I love more than anything in this world, second only to God, but in doing so he was given an opportunity to obey, extend forgiveness and the grace of Christ to me, and as I revealed more and more of truly what God had changed about my life, the glory of God was able to be revealed all the more.

Confessing sin to a holy God who is right to condemn and judge us is daunting. One of the things that held me back for so long from running to God was the idea that a God so holy could never forgive a wretch like me. I believed He could never love me. Never forgive me. But what I found, when finally I came crawling to the foot of the cross, was grace. I found freedom and hope in Christ.

Today is the day of salvation. If you haven’t received the grace of Christ, come to the cross. Come. No matter what your life looks like. There’s no need to tidy up before facing Jesus. He came to seek and save the lost. Nothing is hidden from His sight anyway. It’s not like He doesn’t already know all that you’re attempting to hide. You can’t clean it up on your own. He’s the only one who can grab the broom handle and begin sweeping clean a life stained by sin.

Mark captures the heart of Jesus in 2:16-17, “And the scribes of the Pharisees, when they saw that he was eating with sinners and tax collectors, said to his disciples, “Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners? And when Jesus heard it, he said to them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.”

Today is the day of salvation.

God bless.

Roles in our home

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I am currently a stay at home wife and mom to our three children, seventh, third, and pre-k grades. Honestly, being a stay at home wife and mom is awesome. I get to drive my kids to and from school. I get to be the one who hears about their day as they unload on the way home from school. I’m the one who gets to pick them up when they’re sick. I get to volunteer for class parties, welcome the kids and my husband home to a tidy home and warm dinner (most days). One of the greatest things about the role I’m in during this season is the tethers of time being peeled back from the corners of my anxiety. I don’t have to have lessons prepped, essays graded, or revolve my life around being put together and out the door early in the morning only to not return until evening. I’ve done the working mom gig. I’ve revolved our life and schedule around my job and, by comparison, the work I do at home is far more fulfilling and a far greater blessing than the paycheck ever provided.

I’d love to say that we chose this for me. That I decided to stay home when we had kids, but I didn’t fall into this role willingly. I fought against the Biblical role for women for most of my life. I was conditioned by my family growing up that I needed to be able to work, that the tangible product of work was what gave a person value. I grew up on a farm, so we could point to buildings, silos, animals and literally see the tangible result of a hard day’s work: a hayloft full of bales, a fence post re-secured, a trailer of hogs loaded and taken into market. I still struggle with not bringing in an income, despite the fact that my husband works faithfully to provide more than enough to meet our family’s needs, and that the base of our faith regarding provision and sustenance is in the Lord.

My husband is one of the most diligent and faithful men I’ve ever known. From the moment I met him I was drawn to him because of what I perceived to be a high moral integrity and he has not failed to maintain that integrity. His role in our family is provider, protector, shepherd, and servant. He rarely takes a day off work for himself, but will take one for me, the kids, or our family if we need him.

So, last night when I tossed and turned all night with a 103 degree fever, I should’ve known that he would take off today. But when he came back to bed and told me to snuggle in and rest because he’d already requested off, I was still inexplicably thankful for this measure of grace he extended to me, without me knowing or asking for it, though I needed it desperately. (He took me to the doctor where I tested positive for influenza A, started tamaflu, and after I publish this entry will be going back to sleep.)

The grace my husband extends to me is a daily reminder of the gospel. I didn’t ask for Christ to die for me. I actually was in stark opposition to God at the point Christ came for me. The Bible says, “while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). God knew that His gift of salvation would be rejected by many. He came anyway. He died anyway and He rose three days later so that the grace of salvation could be extended to many.

Today is the day of salvation. If you haven’t yet received Christ as your savior, trust in the hope of eternal redemption through the atonement made by Jesus Christ on the cross, on your behalf, and exchange your unrighteousness for His righteousness, that you may be reunited with the Father and received into eternal glory.

We’ll all face the consequence of sin, which is death, but that is just the beginning of an eternal state where we will either face eternal judgement for our sin or receive eternal mercy for having accepted the judgement poured out on Christ on our behalf. Receive Christ today.

God bless.

Necessary changes

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My life does not look the same today as it did ten years ago. This summer, in July, marks ten years of salvation for me. Ten years of reborn living, ten years of trials that ultimately have led me into the walk I am in today with the Lord. Ten years from now, I pray that my life is marked by ten more years of a daily pursuit of the Lord. The hinge point of salvation marked a point in my life where, from that point forward, the Lord was moving me into obedience. But, it didn’t happen overnight, and it didn’t happen easily.

Ten years ago I was living a selfish, sin filled life. I was regularly using marijuana, and drinking almost every day. My view of God was that He probably existed, and even that He probably created the world -to an extent- but that He had no time or interest in the lives of the people now inhabiting earth. I believed that He’d left us to our own devices and that if He was even aware of our suffering that He didn’t care.

A drastic change was necessary for my view of who God is to change. It started with the near failure of my marriage. I was engaged in an affair, something that is not abnormal for someone who had been the victim of childhood sexual abuse, as I had been. I justified the behavior by blaming my husband for the problems in our marriage, and choosing to believe the lie that the intruder in our life understood me better and would be a better support for me to behave in ways that were ultimately destructive and dangerous. At the same time, I didn’t want my marriage to fail, was afraid of my husband discovering the affair, and lied copiously to him, family, and friends in an attempt to conceal the true details of the nature of it.

When I reflect on this period of my life, I am filled with sadness and shame. I wish I could stop the old me from engaging in behavior that was driven by my flesh, fueled by sin, and in such contrast to the will of God for my life. Change was necessary for me to be brought into the fold of God. That July, God performed a miracle in our marriage. By the grace of God, that came through a conversation with our pastor at the time, communication barriers and walls of self-preservation that I had built with the mortar of conditioned survival behaviors and layered on brick by brick since childhood, were penetrated by the love and grace of Jesus Christ. The day after the transformation of my heart occurred, I broke off the affair. It took ten years for me to fully confess to my husband and seek forgiveness. I also confessed to the pastors and deacons of our church, seeking their forgiveness, which they all graciously granted.

I had a knowledge of God’s word. I’d grown up in church learning scripture and all the Bible stories, I even professed salvation as an eight year old, one year into the sexual abuse that continued until I was fourteen, I was baptized and believed for all intents and purposes that I’d been saved. However, it wasn’t until this point in my life, when my marriage was on the brink of failure, I was engaged in such intertwined sin patterns that I had no hope to unentangle myself on my own, where God began healing the suffering and exposing the sin that was keeping me enslaved to a life of despair and hopelessness that I surrendered to His authority and governance of my life.

From this point forward, the Lord has been moving me further from the darkness and into the light. My life would not transform overnight, there would be more sin patterns, more destructive behavior, and more hardship that, as a result of the suffering, would shepherd me into a life marked by obedience and transparency. But, a lifetime of hiding didn’t morph into a life in full view overnight. Through a series of necessary changes, the Lord moved our life into a place of greater obedience day by day, as we pursued His word and will for our life.

It’s easy to view Christians as if through a lens of having a distance from sin and, therefore, the accessibility to salvation, by someone still entangled in the chains of sin, seems out of reach. However, I exist to tell you, as someone who Jesus burst into the middle of my entanglement, loosed the chains Himself, and pulled me free, there is no place where you are hidden from His sight, no place where He can’t reach you.

The appearance of a Sunday morning sanctuary where everyone is buttoned to the collar, polite, and seemingly unattainable is a far cry from some of the bathrooms floors where I found myself, dirty, broken, and hopeless. But, God was just as present with me there as He is in my row on Sunday morning. He is just as present as I load and reload the washing machine as He was beside me when I was pouring another drink.

The Psalmist wrote in Psalm 139,

7 Where shall I go from your Spirit?
Or where shall I flee from your presence?
8 If I ascend to heaven, you are there!
    If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there!
9 If I take the wings of the morning
    and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
10 even there your hand shall lead me,
    and your right hand shall hold me.

There is nowhere that is hidden from God. No aspect of our lives that He is disinterested or disengaged from. My life underwent a series of necessary changes for me to realign the warped view the enemy had instilled in my mind regarding God’s position in our places of suffering.

But, I exist as a testimony that the life of obedience is marked by light, peace, and rest in the atonement made by Christ on my behalf.

Today is the day of salvation. If you haven’t accepted Christ as your savior there is no impediment to receiving the gift of His death and resurrection made on your behalf. I was addicted to drugs and alcohol, engaged in an extramarital affair, angry at God for the abuse I had suffered, and conflicted daily by the enslavement to sin, and that is where Jesus met and saved me.

Don’t neglect such a glorious salvation. Receive His free gift of grace, by faith today.

God bless.

Resting in gratitude

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In our home we preach a message of gratitude. When something goes the way one of us hoped it would we ask, “did you thank God?” Often when I thank my husband for the countless ways he serves and protects our home he will reply, “thank God, honey.” And I do. I do thank God for provision, protection, sustenance, and health, but this week has been a reminder to me of remembering to thank God when things don’t go my way.

I wrote yesterday that I don’t believe in coincidence, only God-incidence, and so the underbelly that I don’t always like to expose is, have I thanked Him when things don’t go my way?

When I consider gratitude in suffering, I come back to two examples of mourning in my life through the contrasting deaths of three critical people, who I loved dearly, and couldn’t have previously imagined my life without.

When my aunt, my dad’s sister, passed away unexpectedly, a downward spiral of alcohol abuse and selfish behavior followed. Though there were many factors that contributed, my behavior was not only harmful to me, but to my husband, and (at the time) our young daughter. Her death was the ignition to behaviors that were linked to sin patterns that resulted from years of abuse and suffering. Things hadn’t gone my way. Because of particular kinds of loss and hardship throughout my childhood, the specific grief of the death of a loved one was a trigger for me that ultimately caused me to believe that since I was hurting so badly, I could behave in whatever way was necessary for me to survive. The years that followed were devastating to my husband, our family, and left years of recovery in the wake.

My grandparents were pivotal to every aspect of my life. As a child, I remember lying awake in bed at night, crying until I fell asleep, over the thought of a world they would no longer be alive in. I naively believed into adulthood that they would somehow live forever, and never truly considered the reality that, one day, they would succumb to the same consequence of sin that every other living person will face. But, something drastic happened in the space between losing my aunt and losing my grandparents. I got saved.

My grandma was diagnosed with cancer in August of 2020. She was given a hopeful diagnoses and we expected her to be in remission by Christmas. She did make a full recovery when she was called home to the Lord on October 15, 2020. On December 6, 2021 my grandpa was hospitalized with Covid. On December 24, 2021 I waited on a phone call from my mom to let me know where they were moving him for recovery, as he had improved significantly and was nearly cleared for release. The morning of Christmas Eve she texted my brother and me to tell us we needed to come as quickly as we could to say goodbye.

We sung hymns at his hospital bedside and took turning holding his hand, watched as the ventilator was removed, and endured the agonizing hour of steadily decreasing breath until he was fully healed. He went home to be with the Lord at 4:15 that afternoon.

Even writing these words brings agony to my heart. A gut wrench of injustice and anger burns in my throat. But, as I drove home that Christmas Eve afternoon, I sobbed prayers of gratitude to the Lord for the healing He brought and the reunion my grandparents were experiencing at that very moment. My grandpa got to experience Christmas in Heaven that year, a celebration I desperately look forward to.

Nothing outwardly about me changed between these losses, but inwardly I’d been reborn. When my aunt died my suffering overcame me, driving me into behavior that was destructive to not only me, but to my family. When my grandparents died my suffering drove me to the cross where I thanked Jesus that because of His death, their physical deaths meant the start of their eternal life. Because Jesus died, they live. Because they trusted in Jesus’ death and resurrection they were given new bodies the moment they were absent from their earthly bodies and present with the Lord (2 Corinthians 5:8).

That Christmas Eve I arrived home to my husband and three daughters, hugged and kissed them, and we began the process of grieving as a family that included no alcohol abuse, no destructive patterns of pain management, only the knowledge and hope that one day we’ll be reunited with those who are in Christ and have gone before us.

You can read more about the walk of losing my grandparents here: https://wellwateredwalk.org/2022/03/01/grace-to-grieve/ and https://wellwateredwalk.org/2022/04/21/grace-to-grieve-part-two/ and in the future I plan to write on the subjects of healing from toxic behavior through the hope found in God’s word. It is not my intent to convey that salvation magically erases years of sin patterns, struggle, and suffering; only that because of salvation, God was able to begin using trials as a means of bringing me into greater day by day obedience, ultimately relieving the enslavement to sin, and replacing it with hope and trust in His goodness.

Today is the day of salvation. If you haven’t trusted in Jesus, the only guarantor of our hope, trust in Him today. Believe that He died on the cross to pay a debt you could not pay, that by His blood alone you are granted the gift of eternal life and rest in the gratitude that peace provides.

Happy Friday! I’ll be resting this weekend, cherishing every moment with my family, and will rejoin you Monday.

God bless.

The facade of control

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Last night, around 5:30pm eastern standard time, a jet carrying 64 passengers departed from Wichita, Kansas. Sixty four families had someone they loved aboard that aircraft for what should have been a routine flight less than five hours from their departure.

At around 9pm EST, sixty seven families’ lives were impacted in a way that will forever enact for them a “before and after,” phase of their lives. The American Airlines jet collided with a military black hawk helicopter that was carrying three passengers. The collision occurred as the jet attempted the descent to land at Reagan National Airport, just outside of DC, plunging sixty seven people, dads, moms, sons, daughters, sisters, brothers into the thirty seven degree waters of the Potomac River.

One eye witness described the collision as a “fireball,” in the sky. An emergency rescue operation is underway to recover any survivors, but early reports presume that all sixty seven people are dead.

All of them had plans for today. All of them had agendas, meetings, schedules. I would wager that they all had plans for tomorrow, this weekend, next week. Personally, my family has plans as far out as July. I know the crater that would devastate our home if my husband didn’t come home from work today. I feel the dread in my bones. For sixty seven people, they received a phone call informing them that there has been a terrible accident and they need to prepare themselves, their children, their parents, for the worst.

The illusion that we have a say in the events of our lives is simply a coping mechanism. We live under the idea that our meticulously organized, color coded schedule blocks are somehow the fibers that hold together the circumstances of our moments, but this just isn’t the case. The aviation world, experts, pilots are shocked by the “swiss holes” in flight technology that aligned perfectly and allowed this sort of tragedy to occur, but God wasn’t surprised.

I don’t believe in coincidences, whether good or bad. This was a tragic occurrence that was completely within God’s control and timing. The wives who are now widows, the children who will grow up without their mom or dad, the parents who lost children in this horrific accident are not unseen by God who is sovereign over all. His power and presence doesn’t stop tragedy from occurring. It is within the scope of His knowledge that tragedy occurs, and He does have the power to stop these terrible things from happening before they occur. However, the moments of despair and despondency, when we are faced with a trial that we don’t have the strength to endure on our own, are exactly the circumstances that drive us to the foot of the cross.

It is grace when we face suffering beyond our comprehension and mercy that is extended in the form of comfort and peace by the hand of His sustaining power because it is one means by which God will draw us to Him. The problem is that we view these circumstances through the lens of our temporal perspective and not through the lens of his eternal one. This doesn’t mean that grieving, devastation, anger or shock are inappropriate. At the tomb of his friend Lazarus, “Jesus wept” (John 11:35) and in the Hebrew the connotation for this use of the Hebrew word, “wept,” was a guttural cry of anguish and dismay at the suffering of God’s people at the hands of the consequence of sin, which is death.

God’s plan of redemption for the world began before the foundations of the earth were laid. He knew the serpent would deceive Eve, and Adam who was with her, in the garden and therefore introduce sin into the world. He knew that the law He gave to Moses for the Israelites would be impossible for them to keep, and that they would continually fall short of the holiness required of them to be reunited with Him. He knew that only by a savior could those who trust in Him be redeemed. Jesus came to earth to redeem His own and by His word we are provided all the information we need to understand why tragedies like this occur: because satan introduced sin into the world which separated creation from a holy God and allowed for pain, despair, destruction, division, and death. But Jesus came to overcome these things.

Jesus states in John 16:33, “these things {His instruction and teaching} I have spoken to you so that in Me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world.”

When Jesus came, died on the cross, and was resurrected three days later it was to secure, for those who would believe, a future that does not include happenstance tragedy. It will not include sickness, pain, or death. He died so that the payment for the sin of man, which made man irreconcilable to God through any other means than by grace through faith, was made.

Today is the day of salvation. Confess the sin that separates you from God and trust in the payment made by Christ on your behalf.

Pray for the families of this most recent tragedy. Unfortunately, there will be another one somewhere today, tomorrow, soon. The facade of control is that we have any but Jesus provides a solution. The tragedy and brokenness have already been overcome and can be accessed in a future day because of the blood of Christ.

Come soon, Lord Jesus.

God bless.

Having the right response in difficult circumstances

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This morning, on the way to drop my girls off at school, I hit our neighbor’s dog. I called, and let them know, not wanting to stop and traumatize my young children with the death of a pet that they recognize from across the street, and we continued on.

Prayer, communing with God is a regular part of our daily habit. One of my older girls closed her eyes and began to pray silently. My youngest asked God to heal the puppy, and my oldest began to pray out loud. “Dear God, please comfort {our neighbors}, please help them not to suffer today, and thank you that if their dog was going to be hit that it was us.” I nearly hit the brakes, what on earth do you mean, “thank God that it was us”? But before I could even wrap my head around her heart posture, she continued, “we were at least able to call, say we were sorry, and let them know what had happened so that they didn’t just discover their dead dog later today. So, thank you God.” The Lord used this humble plea of my precious daughter to hit a very sensitive place in my heart: the place that thanks the Lord for trial, even in the midst of it.

Her response was rightly placed before the Father, who had sovereignly ordained that we would experience the death of a {beloved} living thing today on our run of the mill, everyday, ordinary, way to school. Knowing that trial brings sanctification does not mean understanding the “why” in the midst of it, and it is not what we are called to do. Rather, we are called to “rejoice always, pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks. For this is the will of God, in Christ Jesus, for you.” (1 Thessalonians 5: 16-18) We will not understand the why outside of the revelation of God through the Holy Spirit (if at all), but that doesn’t change the call to rejoice, counting it {the trial} as joy even when we don’t feel joyful, and knowing that it is for our good that the Lord has allowed it. This is the place where behavior meets belief: when we are hard pressed does it produce faith and trust in the Lord from us, or does it produce discontent, anger, or rebellion in our behavior and response.

Our neighbors graciously forgave us. They met our call of confession with compassion and understanding. As you walk through the trials of life, if you don’t know Christ, it’s impossible to reconcile certain tragedies and trials. But God, who loves you enough to have come to earth in order to die on a Roman cross and resurrect from the dead three days later, offers hope in the midst of suffering.

If you do not know Him, today is the day of salvation. The gospel is simple: you owe a debt you can’t pay, so He paid it. Accept his payment on your behalf and turn from the sin that separates you from a Holy God who can only allow you into His presence because of the blood covering of the sinless Christ alone. There is nothing we can add or take away to contribute to our salvation. It is by grace, through faith, alone. Accepting Christ’s payment for your sin won’t stop your trials, but accepting Him will mean that you have a hope in an eternity where sin and death, sickness and despair will no longer be part of the equation. There is no greater comfort in the midst of trial than a relationship with Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit then, who indwells every believer, activates a heart that so deeply trusts in God’s goodness that it cries out a prayer of thanks even in the midst of suffering.

God bless.

Man’s plan and God’s provision

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Today will wrap up our advent study as we turn our hearts and minds to the blessing of the Christmas season. God took on flesh and dwelt among us, to save us, while we were still sinners, Christ died for us (Romans 5:8).

I want to abide in reflection, with brief examples throughout scripture, of when God’s plan proved not only superior to man’s, but was far more powerful than man could have ever conceived.

In the garden, when Adam and Eve stood cowering, hiding, under hand hewn fig coverings Jesus provided a sin offering to cover their shame. Man’s plan to conceal his sin and shame couldn’t have fathomed that the God walking in the garden would be the same incarnate God that would be born with a mission to provide a once and for all offering for the sin of mankind.

Mary, full of faith and belief in her son as the Messiah, planned for him to fix the problem of the bridegroom’s shortage of wine. She couldn’t have fathomed that the picture of celebration at the miracle of turning water to wine will one day be reflected in the glory of the Messianic kingdom, where we will celebrate His victory, and worship Him as King of the earth, ruling and reigning in perfect justice.

Herod, at the knowledge of Jesus’ birth planned to use the wisemen as caveats of a plan to rid the earth of this newborn King. God used Herod’s wickedness to fulfill the prophecy that, “ When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son (Hosea 11:1)” and to demonstrate his provision by warning Joseph in a dream to flee Bethlehem. It’s likely that the gifts given to Mary and Joseph by the wise men are how they afforded to live in Egypt during the years between Herod’s rage and his death.

There are countless other examples in scripture that demonstrate God’s goodness, and love, but this Christmas season please remember that God’s grace is always sufficient, His mercies are new every morning, His plan and provision for your life began before the foundations of the earth were laid and extend beyond the plot point set marking the end of your life.

If you haven’t trusted in Jesus as your savior, don’t delay. This Christmas season the greatest gift you could receive is salvation by grace, through faith, in the son of God, who loved you, and gave His life for you.

Humble beginnings

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When Jesus was born, there were no trumpets or fanfare. There were no armed guards protecting the route to His nursery. There were no silk sheets to wrap him in. His mother was not a queen, and his father wasn’t royalty. What scripture does make clear, however, is that His birth satisfied prophecy and aligned Jesus with the will of the Father to act as the atonement of our behalf.

Jesus’ lineage is broken down by the Church of the Great God and explained, “The genealogy in Matthew 1 is clearly that of Joseph, Mary’s husband. Matthew records it for legal purposes. He is writing to prove to the Jews that Jesus is the Messiah, and the Jews’ custom in keeping records is to trace descent through the father. Legally, the Jews of Jesus’ day looked on Jesus as a son of Joseph (John 6:42). Also, Joseph’s lineage is given to emphasize the fact that Jesus had been born of a virgin. Because of a curse that God placed on one of Joseph’s ancestors, Jesus could never sit upon the throne of David if Joseph had been His natural father.

Jechonias (Matthew 1:11-12), called Coniah in Jeremiah 22:24-30, was so evil God cursed him and his descendants, saying, “Write this man down as childless, . . . for none of his descendants shall prosper, sitting on the throne of David, and ruling anymore in Judah” (verse 30). Jeconiah, as his name is spelled in the Old Testament, had children (I Chronicles 3:17), but he was childless insofar as none of his descendants ruled as king over Judah.

How, then, could Jesus be a descendant of David and qualify to sit on the throne? Enter the genealogy in Luke 3, which is Mary’s. According to Jewish usage, Mary’s ancestry is given in her husband’s name. The original Greek merely says Joseph was “of Heli” or Eli (verse 23). In fact, since Joseph’s father is said to be Jacob in Matthew 1:16, Heli is most probably Mary’s father. Joseph, then, is his son-in-law.

Unlike Joseph’s lineage, there was no block in Mary’s genealogy to Jesus sitting on the throne of David. Mary’s descent from David comes through his son Nathan, not Solomon or one of David’s other children (Luke 3:31). To fulfill His promise to establish David’s throne forever, God honored Nathan by making him the ancestor of the promised King who would sit on David’s throne throughout eternity (Luke 1:31-33).

But how could Mary transmit David’s royal inheritance—the right to the throne—to her Son, since all inheritances had to pass through the male line? According to Israel’s law, when a daughter is the only heir, she can inherit her father’s possessions and rights if she marries within her own tribe (Numbers 27:1-8; 36:6-8). There is no record that Mary had any brothers to inherit her father’s possessions and rights. Thus, Joseph became Heli’s heir by marriage to Mary, inheriting the right to rule on David’s throne, even over Judah. This right then passed on to Jesus.

Both genealogies had to be recorded to establish Christ’s right to rule on David’s throne. Joseph’s genealogy shows that Christ was a legal descendant of Jeconiah and thus legally could not sit on the throne of David in the nation Judah by inheriting the right solely through Joseph.

Further, the genealogies prove the virgin birth: The curse on Jeconiah’s line would have passed on to Christ if He were Joseph’s natural son, but He was not—He was the Son of God the Father, begotten by the Holy Spirit.

Jesus was Mary’s son descended from Nathan. Jesus can inherit rule over Judah because of Mary’s marriage to Joseph, whose genealogy shows he was Heli’s son-in-law.

God’s plan and purpose for Jesus’ birth included all of the heritage of Mary, his mother, and Joseph her husband. As seen in scripture neither Mary nor Joseph led sinless lives, their ancestors didn’t lead sinless lives. Jesus, God’s perfect, sinless son was born into the lowliest of states, among sinners, and all of this was according to God’s plan. Though, he wasn’t regarded by the world as the worthy and mighty king that He is, He was regarded by Heaven as such. Scripture tells us that a host of angels announced His birth to the shepherds who then came to worship Him. Later, in Jesus’ life when He was baptized by John, “the Holy Spirit descended in bodily form like a dove upon Him, and a voice came from heaven which said, ‘You are My beloved Son; in You I am well pleased’ (Luke 3:22).” While Jesus’ beginnings were certainly humble, His rule and reign are certainly worthy to be praised. John writes in the book of Revelation (5:13) that, “every creature which is in heaven and on the earth and under the earth and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, I heard saying: ‘Blessing and honor and glory and power Be to Him who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb, forever and ever!”

The week before Jesus’ birth Mary and Joseph were traveling to Bethlehem from Nazareth. “And it came to pass in those days that a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. This census first took place while Quirinius was governing Syria. So all went to be registered, everyone to his own city. Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judea, to the City of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David, to be registered with Mary, his betrothed wife, who was with child. So it was, that while they were there, the days were completed for her to be delivered. And she brought forth her firstborn Son, and wrapped Him in swaddling cloths, and laid Him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn (Luke 2:1-7.).” God, born in a stable, wrapped in rough cloth, and laid in a feeding trough had come to save the world from sin.