Believing Tech

Good article by Tim Challies:


Thinking about Change

Just Keep Swimming...

These are my new friends – Smaug the Beta fish, and Nessie the snail.  They are quite entertaining and beautiful to watch (yes, even the snail!).

Before they came, I set up their new home - I got the filter and air system going, I planted the live plants, I made sure the temperature was just right.  I even had to make a second trip to the pet store to see the new Betas that were scheduled to arrive.  As I looked at fish, one caught my eye; he was red and blue and purple, and I knew he would be perfect in my aquarium. The lady in the pet store was just putting him in a new cup of water when I saw him, and I snatched him up and took him home.  I carefully acclimated him and put him in his wonderful new aquarium.  He went from a small cup of water to 2 gallons with plants and a lovely environment, and I thought he would be happy.  But he swam listlessly to the bottom and sat there, his tail curled unnaturally.  For days he sat there – occasionally swimming to the surface for a gulp of air (Betas actually breath at the surface as well as with gills), only to fall back to the bottom.  He wouldn’t eat, I feared he would die.  Five days passed.  I woke up one morning and he was looking at me through the glass, not bent on the bottom but floating gracefully midway up.  I dropped in some food and cheered when he ate it, and he has been fine ever since.

 

What was wrong with my fish?  He was stressed.  But he went from a bad environment to a good one, why wasn’t he happy and healthy?  What can be stressful about being in a better place?  It seems that even good change is stressful.  His entire system was in shock and he was depressed, even in his beautiful new home.  I know how he felt.

I look at my future and it looks good.  I am excited about the path God has me on.  I am happy with my life.  Yet I still find myself occasionally sitting crumpled at the bottom of the tank, unable to function, wondering what is wrong with me.  Sometimes it is just too much change in a short period of time, and I have to stop for a while to acclimatize myself to the new environment.  It just doesn’t feel normal anymore – in fact nothing feels normal or comfortable.  Home is a whole new paradigm, a while new definition, and my emotions have taken a while to catch up.

I don’t think my fish ever contemplates the past.  I envy him that.  He just lives life today – no regret, no what if, no thought as to how different his life turned out to be.  Just an acceptance of life as God brings it.  Swimming into the current, enjoying the flow of water over his fins, resting on the plants, eating the food that falls from the sky, looking at me when I talk to him, he accepts his new life from God.  May I do the same.

 

Philippians 3:12-14 – Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own.  Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.

Thoughts on Sunrises

I’ve watched a lot of sunrises in my life; yes, I am a morning person. A lot of mornings this past summer I’ve been up early enough to be sitting on my deck with my Bible as the sun came up. There was a morning a few weeks ago that was so spectacularly beautiful it brought tears to my eyes – every shade of red and orange and yellow imaginable. This past morning, and the last few, have not been spectacular. The sky gets lighter, the ball of fire breaks the horizon, the sky is a beautiful clear blue. Not that that’s not amazing and wonderful in and of itself – it just isn’t the light show that happened a few weeks ago.

Here’s the thing. On those spectacular sunrise mornings there are clouds. Lots of low lying clouds that reflect the sun before it rises above the horizon. The red and orange and yellow flaming through the sky before the ball of fire breaks the horizon is a feast for the eyes. But these sunrises do not turn into what we would call “a beautiful day.” Clouds are often signs of storms and turbulence.

Life is like that. Clear blue sky has a beauty of its own, and life that’s cruising along without a hitch does too. But clouds reflect the sun better than clear sky, and a life full of trouble reflects God’s glory in a way that it otherwise could not. Nobody wants these bad times in life – but look to God, cling to Him, and let your troubled life reflect His spectacular Glory in a powerful and beautiful way. This Sonrise will set the sky on fire.

2 Corinthians 4:6-11 (ESV) - For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus' sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh.

 

©Rebecca Huffman Givens, 10/17/15

Where will you run?

This morning I read 1 Kings 19:1-18, and was blown away by it. Great victory comes crashing down for Elijah, and he runs. They want to kill him, but what else is new? Didn’t they want to kill him before? Didn’t they have the power to kill him before? What’s different is his fear. This is a man who stood before the prophets of baal and laughed at them publicly. Suddenly he is afraid. He is crashing from the high of spiritual victory, he is exhausted, and all he can see is an angry queen seeking his life. He can’t see God in that moment.

So what does Elijah do? He runs. But get this, He doesn’t run from God, He runs to God. He runs to the Mountain of God.  He is so depressed he wants to die, yet he runs to God. Along the way God listens to him, God feeds him, God gives him the strength to continue running in the right direction. Through his dark night of the soul, in the midst of a depression so deep he wants to die, Elijah runs to God.

He ends up in a cave on the Mountain of God, and God asks him, “Why are you here?” Elijah tells God his problems. God doesn’t berate him for being depressed, God doesn’t fuss at him at all. God’s answer was “Stand before me. Look at me. Listen to me.” Did you catch that? God’s answer was to move Elijah’s focus back onto God Himself.

So Elijah waits as God’s power blows by in a hurricane force wind. The earth shakes in an earthquake as God approaches. A consuming fire sweeps across the landscape in front of the cave. It feels like God is saying, “Elijah, remember who I am. I am the All Powerful Creator. I am in control of everything.” And then, best of all, God speaks in a low whisper. An intimate loving whisper to His child. “Elijah, why are you here?” Tell me your troubles. And God listens. God is there, present with Elijah, loving Elijah, and He still doesn’t berate him for his depression. He just listens as Elijah pours out his fear.

And then, God gives Elijah the next job. Go do the next thing Elijah; you have three men to anoint, two rulers of nations, and your own successor. Elijah, you have a job, something important to do. Then God tells him what will happen to his enemies. Elijah, I am not abandoning you in your fight. And lastly, God tells him there are thousands of Believers still. Elijah, hear me, you are not alone.

Elijah obeys. He does the next thing. His circumstances had not changed in the least, the queen of the land still sought his life. But Elijah gets up and does the next thing. His gaze is now on God.

To me there are several things that stand out in this story.

In Elijah’s great distress He ran toward God, not away. He was physically exhausted, his life was in danger, he was so depressed he wanted to die. Yet he ran to God.

God’s reaction to Elijah was not, “you shouldn’t feel that way!” He didn’t even point out how much worse off someone else was. It was simply, “Elijah, look at ME.” And then, “Elijah, go do…” and finally, at the end, reassurance that God’s plan would take care of Elijah’s enemies.

Elijah immediately got up to obey. Obedience was important. Elijah trusted God and so He obeyed.

In your dark night of the soul, be like Elijah. Not the strong victorious Elijah, but the terrified exhausted Elijah who wanted to die.

Run to God. Hear Him; you have His Word to read. Look at Him. Trust Him. Obey Him. Because like Elijah, you have an important job to do. God will not abandon you in your struggle. You are not alone.

 

©Rebecca Huffman Givens, 09/13/15

Breaking Through

Last week we broke boards in class.  I gave an abbreviated version of this devotional beforehand.  As I did, I realized how much I needed to be reminded of it. 

 

Board Breaks

Breaking a board requires concentration.  It requires focus.  But your concentration and focus are not on the board itself, rather they are on the far side of the board.  A strike that ends at the board will do nothing.  You must go through the board in order to break it. 

I remember the first time I ever broke a board.  It was my 2^nd test ever in karate, and I had finally begun to be able to focus on what I was doing and tune out everything else.  I was standing in the gym with Sensei.  He was holding the board and as he coached me my focus narrowed down into a very tight little circle around us.  He told me to focus on his chest.  Don’t even look at the board, bring my knee up to his chest.  I breathed and concentrated and focused, brought my knee up with a loud kiai, and heard the board break.  I never even felt it.  But there it was, in 2 pieces.  I was shocked.

Our Christian life is like that.  We are surrounded by problems and pain, but to get through those problems we have to look past them. They will overwhelm us if we focus on the problems themselves, but if we look past them and focus on God, we will suddenly find ourselves out on the other side, standing in amazement because we never even felt them come apart to let us pass.

2 Corinthians 4:16-18 - ¹⁶Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. ¹⁷For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. ¹⁸So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.

Paul is writing this, and those light and momentary troubles he is talking about were huge.  He was stoned and beaten, arrested and imprisoned, even shipwrecked.  But he fixed his eyes on God and on eternity, and he made it through.

Don’t focus on your problems, focus on God.  One day those problems will part like a broken board, and you will find yourself standing in peace on the other side.

©Rebecca A Givens, 07/05/10

continued

As I said, I heard these words coming out of my mouth and realized God was speaking to me much more than I was speaking to my students.  In just a few weeks’ time I had gone from trusting God in uncertain times, to physical blessings, to becoming distracted once again by the trials of the moment.  I was staring at the board, unable to break through it. 

I was reminded in church on Sunday that God has this.  He is holding the board, He is holding all my problems.  He is holding the schedule, the money, the time, the divorce, the cars, my kids, the future, every single concern I have, big and small.  I just need to look at Him instead of the board.

Forgive me Lord. 

Be my focus.

Hold me.

Give me the will to wait, to trust, to hope, to obey.

Keep my eyes on You.  Because only You can give me this blessing, I cannot manage it on my own.

 

©Rebecca A Givens, 05/25/15

Trusting and Waiting

A wonderful thing happened a few weeks ago.  I realized I was happy with my life and the direction it was moving.  The odd thing about that was that I had no real idea of where life was going, and at that point no control of it either.  I was waiting for other people to make decisions.  Yet I was happy with whatever the outcome of the future, because I trusted God with it.

For nine months I had been in survival mode, but suddenly I was excited about the future, whatever it might hold.  I don’t know how many years it has been since I looked forward to the future.  Let me tell you, it felt good to feel alive again. 

Shortly after that epiphany moment, good things began to happen.  I was unexpectedly promoted to Yondan (4^th degree blackbelt) and given the title of Renshi (expert teacher).  I was unexpectedly given a Shodan (blackbelt) certificate to teach sword.  God blessed me with some financial gifts.  I got accepted to Graduate School.  I was offered more hours at my high paying job.
I am SO glad God’s timing brought those material blessings after He brought the spiritual blessing.  Being able to trust God in uncertain times is such a gift.  I have experienced peace and joy and life that have nothing to do with my circumstances, and everything to do with trusting my Heavenly Father.  My certainty has nothing to do with my control, because I had no control over any of those things.  Rather, my certainty is based in God’s sovereignty, in His control and power and plan for everything that happens to me - good, bad and otherwise.  And because I trust Him, I can wait for Him. 

There seems to be a cycle of trust, peace, hope, wait.  That is where I want to stay.  That is what I need to carry me through the difficult times which are always going to come.

Can you walk in light through the valley of the shadow of death?
Can you walk in abundance through the wilderness?
Can you walk in oasis through the desert?

Only if you carry the light and the abundance and the oasis inside of you.  And I do. 

I can wait upon the Lord because:

I have hope in Heaven rather than on earth.
I have peace that passes all understanding, peace with God, no matter what my circumstances are.
I trust His Sovereign plan and His Love for me.

 

©Rebecca A Givens, 05/11/15

Let it go - shame

All year I have avoided homeschool meetings.  Divorce isn’t supposed to happen in homeschool families.  We are supposed to be the solid foundation, the families most committed to – well, the family.  I guess I have prided myself on being part of that.  Now I find myself out of sync with that group, and I don’t like it.  I feel enormous shame in it.

But this past week some things have occurred to me.

Is this shame for something I did?  Was it my decision, my choice that led to this divorce?  No.  The shame I feel is due to my soon-to-be ex’s decisions and his actions.  It wasn’t my choice or my action, and it isn’t my shame.  Period.  It is time to let that go. 

Was I a perfect wife?  No, of course not.

Did I try to work through our problems?  Yes.  He refused, for years.
Did I decide to stay in the marriage?  Yes.
Did have an affair?  No.
Did I offer reconciliation?  Yes.
Did I choose divorce?  No.  Never.

So I confessed my own sin, including my pride, and let it go.  I acknowledged that my life is what it is, God is still in control, and He has blessed me greatly. 

And suddenly, I was free. 

Free to enjoy God’s blessings in the midst of this desert, this wilderness wandering, this exile.  

I went to the last homeschool meeting, and the thing I have avoided all year became a source of great encouragement.  I was reminded that I am not alone out here in the marriage desert.  Even in the homeschool group there are other hurting women, wounded warriors, and we can walk together, encouraging and supporting each other.  And we are not looked down on as inferior Christians by God or by mature Believers.  I was the one blaming myself.  My ex was blaming me, Satan the accuser was blaming me, but God was not and is not blaming me.

God, the Healer, lifts my head, heals my wounds, provides for me in the desert, leads me from grace to grace out of exile into the Promised Land.  Will I embrace this path or will I grumble like the Israelites did?

Thank you Jesus.

I will trust You as You hang on to me – to the end.

©Rebecca A Givens, 4/12/15

I feel the need to add a postscript to this.  I have some very dear divorced friends who have had a different experience.  Their ex-husbands put on a show of godliness, or if they were caught in sin a show repentance, to the outside world, often over several years.  But as sincere as these men looked on the surface, there was nothing but darkness on the inside.  People have no idea the hell these women and their children were going through at home.  The emotional manipulation and bondage is devastating, but there is no outward mark to show to the outside world.  It is even hard to understand it themselves because the manipulation is so subtle, the guilt and blame and shame so accepted by the victim.  So they faked being ok, while their husbands faked being good and even godly.  When they finally admitted their situation was truly abusive and found the courage to leave, these women were judged by their own church families and the Christian community in general.  This is doubly devastating, and I don’t know how they manage.  I am so thankful for my church family who have supported me, so thankful that I did not have to deal with a divorce like this.  A human being can only manage so much, and while God does call us to forgive and love the sinner, sometimes even to put our lives at risk for the proclamation of the gospel, that is not what staying in a physically or emotionally abusive marriage is.  Allowing that abuse to continue is not loving the sinner, it is not forgiving the sinner, it is abuse and bondage.  Don’t think these women’s problems are like your own imperfect marriage and they are just giving up.  If you have never endured emotional abuse you have no idea what these families are going through.  Pray.  Pray for wisdom.  Pray for families and marriages that are hurting.  Sometimes there is no good solution.

I was going to write something about this.  But dang.  Just read it.  It's so good.  Click the heading to go to the original posting.

What Shame Does

by James Coffield

In a moment pregnant with sorrow and hope, dignity and depravity, and su”ering and glory, a grieving mother stood before the mourners who had gathered to honor a man’s life and spoke the words, “Shame killed my son, Luke. Shame kept him quiet, living in dark secrets with terrible regrets, surrounded by friends, but so very alone.” After surveying the faces of those gathered and silently recognizing those she knew who also had struggled with addiction, she admonished them. “Do not let shame win. The evil one has filled his quill with shame, disconnection, secrets, and sorrow and is writing his story of darkness. God’s story of light with redemption, hope, community, truth, and glory is written in His own blood.”
Luke Johnson took his own life last year at the end of a protracted battle with addiction and shame. Although he was a young man who grew up in a Christian home and had professed faith in Christ, he had lost all hope. He did not grasp the truth that the gospel of grace replaced his shame-based identity with an identity in Christ. Luke’s story is narrated by the voice of shame, in stark contrast to the gospel of Luke, which is peppered with stories in which shame is trumped by glory. In the gospel according to Luke Johnson, the evil one hijacked the story of glory and shaded it with shame. A person engulfed in shame will focus on self; they will isolate and blame others for their situation. Shame ultimately creates a relational style of avoidance. We want to avoid being found out, to prevent our darkest places from being discovered.
This is not only Luke Johnson’s story, because shame is a part of everyone’s story. Shame writes itself into the stories of our lives. Shame is made manifest by isolation, self-protection, self-hatred, self-destruction, self-preservation, and the illusion of control. The first dynamic is isolation, which is the relational stance of shame.
In spite of Luke’s popularity and friends, he created a world that did not know him, a world of isolation. The sin of shame has a way of distancing us from others. A simple way to define sin is to say that it separates us, most profoundly, from God; from ourselves; from others; and finally, from creation. A shame-based person will isolate themself from people who are healthy, and though they will not share their own secrets, they will be drawn into relationships with other shame-based people. They will avoid vulnerability and move toward cynicism in their relationships. The shame-based individual’s relationships are often shallow, broken, and focused on external common behaviors (gaming, music, cars) as opposed to shared emotional experiences. In order to create a stance of isolation, the energy that maintains that stance is self-protection.
If one feels as though they are about to be “found out,” they become gripped with fear. Good relationships demand vulnerability; the commitment to self-protection kills vulnerability. Much like a soldier behind enemy lines, the shame-based individual is always scanning and assessing the environment for any signs of potential exposure. Healthy boundaries are important, especially in new relationships, but relationships can only grow as deeper risks are taken to develop kinship. Shame prevents these risks from being taken. As isolation and self-protection increase, positive relationships decrease. The absence of encouraging influences and healthy perspectives propel growing self-hatred.
The motivation beneath all of the negative relational strategies is self-hatred. The level of shame that has entered into the story of one’s life correlates with the level of self-hate that is experienced. Shame-based people will rage at themselves and be offended at the thought of grace. They often live in a state of ambiguity, having both an odd sense of entitlement and a feeling of unworthiness. There is a demand for relief, but at the same time there is sabotage when it is offered. They often demand a great deal of attention while simultaneously sabotaging this attention because they feel unworthy. They are in a constant dance with the lie of inevitability: “I am a disgusting person; it is just a matter of time before everyone knows the truth of who I am.”
Satan is referred to as the “accuser of the brethren,” and he whispers and reminds us that our darkest moments will be revealed. In Jeremiah, God’s people are thirsty and in the desert. In Jeremiah 2:13, He states that they have committed two sins. The first sin is that they have turned their backs on God, the source of living water, and the second is that they have “hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water”; that is, they have stubbornly crafted their own creative ways to satisfy their thirst. It is the accuser who causes us to feel disgust for our thirst rather than being repentant for our rebellion.
God uses powerful imagery in Scripture to describe us as hungry, thirsty, in prison, in bondage, and enslaved. These descriptors are used to describe us when we are not in relationship with Him. Shame invites us to hate our thirsty, hungry desires for connection and redemption and makes us hate even the prospect of hope. Shame’s most insidious characteristic, though, is its ability to cause people to consider the erroneous belief that at their core, they are defectively designed. It is self-hate that told Luke that there was no way out and that he was too disgusting and too far gone for redemption. His “broken cisterns that can hold no water” eventually ran dry, leaving him to believe that he was alone and beyond redemption.
Self-hate gives way to desperate and self-destructive behaviors. Shame correlates with destructive behavior. Research shows a high correlation between shame and participation in bullying, aggression, and suicide. For Luke, the destructive behavior was addiction; in others, it could be soul-numbing activities. Shame operates as a filter and an amplifier. It filters out the dignity that is part of being an image-bearer of God and amplifies our depravity. Some may live a fear-based life and never take appropriate risks. The desperate soul longs to be numbed.
The fear of exposure when one is attempting to preserve the remaining shreds of dignity becomes profound. The amount of energy required to hide the growing struggle is immense. Living gives way to surviving; relating gives way to self-preservation. It is impossible to become other-focused or God-focused when one is survival-focused. In this heightened survival state, anxiety increases, there is an increased probability of depression, and we begin to hold and protect dark secrets of who we think we are, of what we have done, and in some cases, what has been done to us. When one’s goal is self-preservation, the illusion of self-control is imperative.
Shame paradoxically gives the shame-based person the illusion of control. It allows us to feel as if we are capable of digging our own cisterns—If the problem is me, I can fix it. I don’t need to be dependent upon God or anyone else. I can fix me. A principle of life is that we only fight battles that we think we can win, and shame allows us to restructure reality and believe that we are the problem and the solution; therefore, we can win. Shame invites a person to carry the weight, and in doing so, provides a false sense of control. The shame-based person is allowed to carry this weight and not trust God or others, ever again. Luke’s story of glory was hijacked by shame, whereas the gospel of Luke tells us of glory burst forth from stories that were initially bathed in shame.
The biblical gospel of Luke includes stories of the disenfranchised: the leper, the paralytic, the infirm woman. Luke’s stories invite his readers to see Christ as the transformer and healer. Luke even begins the grand story of glory in a place that many would consider shameful: a stable with shepherds. God’s great story of glory is teeming with stories of the poor, the ill, the neglected, the scorned, but His presence turns the lowly into the exalted. As believers, our stories will be woven together and end in glory.
Luke Johnson took his life, believing that his doing so would mean his story would come to an end. Yet, the Lord is using his story to comfort, instruct, and embolden others. His family is using their grief to educate and comfort others who feel as if they are losing hope. It is both sobering and exhilarating to realize that Satan’s voice will lead to shame, but God’s voice will lead to glory. Just as shame can lead to self-destruction, living in glory will lead to transformation.

        

© Tabletalk magazine
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Please include the following statement on any distributed copy: From Ligonier Ministries and R.C. Sproul. © Tabletalk magazine. Website: www.ligonier.org/tabletalk. Email: tabletalk@ligonier.org. Toll free: 1-800-435-4343.

•  

• From	Tabletalk Magazine
  Date	April 1st, 2015
  Topics	Christianity and Culture, Ethics, Grief and Death
  Keywords
• James Coffield

  Dr. James Coffield serves as an associate professor of counseling and the clinical director of the master’s degree program in counseling at Reformed Theological Seminary in Orlando, Florida.

  More from James Coffield

  • A Community for Broken Homes
  • From Grief to Glory
  • Going Outside the Camp

  All Resources by James Coffield
• 

Making it through... By the Skin of our Teeth

A couple of weeks ago I took my daughter to a play at a local university, “By the Skin of our Teeth”, by Thornton Wilder.  I had looked forward to it, plays there are always fun.  And it was pretty funny, until the end of Act 2.  Out of the blue, the main man is seduced by the leading lady to leave his wife and children for her.  She stops the play (this has been happening throughout) to say she’s not going to do this scene and argues with the director about it, because her friend is in the audience, and her friend’s husband just left her after however many years and she’s not going to subject her to this on stage.  Of course there is an actress in the audience who falls apart and runs out of the theater.  We sat transfixed.  It wasn’t funny anymore, it was all too real.  The scene closed with the Flood coming and the man hunting for his wife and family and getting on the boat with them.  The leading lady also got on the boat as the servant of the family, the role she played throughout the play.  The curtain closed, I still couldn’t move.  The intermission came and the audience chattered and moved around and still I sat transfixed.  Finally the thought came to me that in the end, the man on stage returned to his family.  Their family survived.  That’s not going to happen for us.

Unexpected reminders like this in the midst of what I thought would be an entertaining escape seem to come often.  Divorce is common in our culture, and not necessarily viewed as the evil that Believers associate it with.  Divorce is a part of marriage, as death is a part of life, and laughing about it helps - unless you happen to be in the middle of it.

But God didn’t design marriage to be that way.  Divorce happens due to sin, and it wasn’t the original design.  Marriage is supposed to be a picture of Christ and the church.  Something permanent.  Something sacred.  A promise never broken.

Yet here I am, in the middle of a life of broken promises.  I hurt for myself, for the loss of the future, for the tainted memories of the past.  I hurt for my own sin and inadequacies, and for the betrayal of his sin.  I hurt for the pain and anger in my children, and for my grandchildren who will not see the stability of a lifetime marriage.  I hurt because I will not be able to be the full time grandmother I dreamed of being, I will be at work. 

Somehow I sat through the last act, and I am glad I did.  The play written just 10 years after the Great Depression and in the midst of WWII, and as a whole was about the survival of the human race.  No matter what comes, the Fall, the Ice Age, the Flood, the War, man survives.  Not entirely intact, because there is the son Henry (Cain), who consistently seeks to destroy throughout the play, but the family survives and moves on with each disaster.

And so shall I, because God promises healing to His children.  He promises to make all things work together for not only His Glory, but for my good, and the good of my children, and the good of the church.  He is indeed Sovereign, and this place of exile and wandering in the desert is His Plan for me right now.  But the Promised Land is just over the horizon.  I can look back and see Him in the path I have already traveled, and I can look forward and see the future Hope of His Promise in His Words in Scripture, and I trust Him.

My broken marriage may not be the picture of Christ and His church that it should be.  But the very pain of the broken promises points me to a Faithful Father and Bridegroom, who will never break His Promises, who will never leave me nor forsake me.  And I trust Him.

©Rebecca A Givens, 4/10/15

Hope

Romans 15:13 – May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.

I’ve been reading this one verse for over a week, and each time it gets more profound.

May the God of hope – Think about the attributes and character of God.  Creator, Sustainer, Redeemer.  Sovereign over everything past and everything future.  He planned it all before time began, every detail of me and of my life, including the disastrous parts.  He also planned the end of this story, and He is all powerful and will make it happen.  And unbelievably, He loves me, He bought me, He adopted me as His child.  This is the God of Hope.  He is in fact Hope itself.

fill you with all joy and peace in believing, - OK, this is where it begins to catch me.  Paul is praying that this God that we described in the previous paragraph, would fill me with ALL joy and peace.  ALL.  Really.  That’s what it says.  All.  All is a lot.  All is bigger than I am, how in the world is ALL going to fit in me?  Remember the verse that says, “In Him we live and move and have our being”?  So maybe that’s what being filled with All Joy and Peace is like.  Like swimming in an ocean of it, it’s in me and all around me.  Oh, but we didn’t finish the phrase.  Fill you with all joy and peace in believing.  Do you ever feel like believing is hard?  Or impossible?  Yet this phrase connects joy and peace with believing.  Maybe it is trusting that God is in control and God has a plan that will work out for my good that brings joy and peace.  Maybe that’s the peace that passes all understanding.  Maybe it’s not about a peaceful happy life, it’s about Peace and Joy in Believing. 

so that.  Don’t ignore these little words.  There is a purpose in all this.  And it takes what comes before the so that to get to what comes after it.

by the power of the Holy Spirit  – Ahhhh.  What I said above about believing being hard.  Maybe it’s hard because I’m not strong enough.  But the Power of the Holy Spirit… that’s a different strength all together.  That strength, that power, breathed life into man, caused Jesus to be born a man, and raised Him from the dead.  That is true Power, and it is by His Power that joy and peace in believing happen. 

And the end of this matter? 

you may abound in hope.  Hope.  Hope that can keep me moving in the face of adversity.  Abound in hope, not just a little hope but an abundance of it; not hope that maybe we might win, but Hope in knowing that God is in control of everything and I am just waiting for His plan to unfold.  That’s trust again.  But not trusting in myself, trusting in God.

And so abounding in hope feeds my trust and belief which fill me with joy and peace which feed my trust and give me hope.  And so it goes, circling ever deeper in the ocean of His presence.  Because in Him I live and move and have my being.

Romans 15:13 – May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.

©Rebecca A Givens, 04/06/15

Make a muscle for me

Make a muscle in your arm.  Come on, let’s see how strong your arm is.  OK, now tell me, is your arm ever going to be as strong as your whole body?  Ever?  Even the kids in my karate class acknowledge that the body is stronger than just the arm by itself.  So I try to teach them to punch with their whole body, not just with the strength of their arm.

I am beginning to realize the Christian life is like that.  I try to do this life in my own strength, and I realize I have none.  In fact, I seem to have nothing but weaknesses and faults.  I beg and plead for God to take away my weaknesses and my faults but He doesn’t.  He doesn’t take away my problems or my pains either.  I can easily descend into despair at this point.  But then I read Paul.

2 Corinthians 12:7-10

So to keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited.  Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me.  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.  For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities.  For when I am weak, then I am strong.

Even though my karate students, kids and adults alike, acknowledge that the body is stronger than the arm, they continue to punch with just their arms.  I remind them over and over and over, and they still punch with just the arm.  And even though I acknowledge that God is stronger than I will ever be, I still try to live my life in my own strength rather than His.  Fortunately, He reminds me over and over and over of His power, His grace, His love, His Sovereignty, Christ in me, the work of the Holy Spirit.

Oh God, let me learn this lesson; be still and wait on You.

 

©Rebecca A Givens, 02/14/15

2014 - The Year of the Wrecked Christmas Tree

This.  This wrecked Christmas Tree.  This is totally a picture of my year. 

From the star that looks like it crashed into the tree at the top to the lights falling off at the bottom (probably due to a cat fight underneath), from the whole thing leaning to the right to the middle string of lights that burned out a few days before Christmas, this tree has been my year.

The year started with my daughter spending a heart wrenching week in the hospital, and it ended with the heart breaking end of my 27 year marriage.  Yeah, I have felt a lot like this tree.  Listing sideways with burned out lights.  Not quite sure whether I was going to make it or not.

But you know what, the star is still burning brightly on the top, and there are wonderful presents waiting underneath.  Maybe it’s not perfect, but there’s still light and life in this thing.  A whole lot of Light and Life.  Because you see, the Light in the star and the Life in the presents don’t come from the tree itself.  No, the Light and Life of the Christmas tree come from somewhere else entirely.

The Life and the Light in me don’t come from me either.  They are the Gift that came 2000 years ago in the form of a Baby.  Immanuel.  God with us.  I love that name of Christ.  Because as Feri Basci said to me many years ago in Romania, “When you are most alone, Christ is with you.” 

In that Gift of Immanuel, there is the promise of a future.  Because of Christmas, because of Immanuel, Light and Life surround me and fill me and I will never, ever, ever, ever, ever be alone. 

The tree may be a wreck on the surface, but reality is that there is a Hope and a future of Light and Life, and it is good.  I am looking forward to it.

II Corinthians 4:6-11        For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shown in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.  But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us.  We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies.  For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh.

II Corinthians 5:4-5          For while we are still in this tent, we groan, being burdened – not that we would be unclothed, but that we would be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life.  He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who has given us the Spirit as a guarantee.

Romans 5:1-5     Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.  Through Him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God.  Not only that, but we rejoice in our suffering, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

Hebrews 13:5    … be content with what you have, for He has said, “I will not, I will not cease to sustain and uphold you.  I will not, I will not, I will not let you down.”

“In my deepest wound I found you, Lord, and it dazzled me.” St. Augustine

©Rebecca A Givens, 12/31/14

Is it really well?

There is an album of hymns I listen to almost every day at work on my ipod, as background music to drown out the music coming over the speakers. Piano, no voice, turned down very low, so it doesn’t distract me. Even so, the words to the hymns often come to mind. Today I found myself arguing with the song “It is Well”. No, it is not well. Life is not well right now in any sense of my understanding. It’s tough. It’s hard. It hurts more than I can say. Everywhere I look I see myself being run over, and throughout the whole world the innocent being trampled. It’s not fair. But I do trust God. How can I reconcile that? Is God all powerful? Is God Sovereign? Is God good? Those three things can’t all be true, can they? But I believe they are. As the argument went back and forth in my heart and mind, and my hands did their job automatically, the music to the song resounded in my ears… it is well with my soul. With my soul. Oh my. That’s it. No, it is not well with my life. But yes, it is definitely well with my soul. My soul has been rescued by God. (Psalm 18:19) One day my body will be too, and that is what I wait for. But right now, yes, even now, it is well with my soul.

And suddenly I am beginning to understand being afflicted but not crushed, perplexed but not driven to despair, persecuted but not forsaken, struck down but not destroyed. I understand, at least a little bit, the groaning of this life being swallowed up by the life to come. I understand the command to be thankful and rejoice even in the suffering, and am learning to wait for the hope of Christ. (Romans 5:1-5, II Corinthians 5:4-5, II Corinthians 4:6-11)

I see it, I experience it, I understand it just a little bit, but I cannot begin to explain it. So I will just read it from Paul and sing it with Spafford and the Gaithers.

It Is Well with My Soul

Horatio G. Spafford, 1873

When peace, like a river, attendeth my way,
When sorrows like sea billows roll;
Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say,
It is well, it is well with my soul.

Refrain:
It is well with my soul,
It is well, it is well with my soul.

Though Satan should buffet, though trials should come,
Let this blest assurance control,
That Christ hath regarded my helpless estate,
And hath shed His own blood for my soul.

My sin—oh, the bliss of this glorious thought!—
My sin, not in part but the whole,
Is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more,
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul!

For me, be it Christ, be it Christ hence to live:
If Jordan above me shall roll,
No pang shall be mine, for in death as in life
Thou wilt whisper Thy peace to my soul.

But, Lord, ’tis for Thee, for Thy coming we wait,
The sky, not the grave, is our goal;
Oh, trump of the angel! Oh, voice of the Lord!
Blessed hope, blessed rest of my soul!

And Lord, haste the day when the faith shall be sight,
The clouds be rolled back as a scroll;
The trump shall resound, and the Lord shall descend,
Even so, it is well with my soul.

 

©Rebecca A Givens, 10/27/14

Walk

Enoch walked with God, and was no more.  God gave him Heaven.
Noah walked with God into a boat and through the flood.  God gave him a new world.
Abraham walked with God to a strange land.  God gave him faith, and a promise.
The nation of Israel walked with God out of Egypt and into the desert.  God gave them the Promised Land.

They didn’t know God’s plan as they stepped into the desert, or the flood, or onto the path toward a new home.  But they knew God.  And God gave promises as they walked with Him.  I will make you a great nation.  I will save you.  I will give you a good land.  The promises must have seemed distant in the desert and in the flood and along the strange path, at times they didn’t believe.  But in the end they trusted.  They followed.  They walked.  And God was faithful.

Do I trust God?  Do I trust Him in the desert?  In the valley of the shadow of death?  Do I trust His plan that I can’t see, or will I make my own plan?  Will I be Eve eating the forbidden fruit, or Miriam dishonoring Moses, or the Israelites with their golden calf and pagan idolatry, refusing to walk into the Promised Land because of the giants that dwell there?  Or will I walk with God?  Will I walk with God in the darkness, moving when the pillar of fire moves, or will I light my own torch?

Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me. 

Psalm 23

When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you. 

Isaiah 43

For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shown in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.  But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us.  We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies.  2 Corinthians 4:6-10

I will walk through deserts and storms and floods and fires and valleys and shadows in this world.  But God promises me Life.  This Life is not perplexed or despairing or forsaken or destroyed.  This Life swallows up the desert and the darkness, the pain and the death.

For while we are still in this tent, we groan, being burdened – not that we would be unclothed, but that we would be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life.  He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who has given us the Spirit as a guarantee.  2 Corinthians 5:4-5

Jesus is the Way through the desert and the dark valley, the flood and the fire.
Jesus is the Truth of the Promise of God, the Promise of His Presence, the Promise of Heaven.
Jesus is the Life that swallows up death, sin and shame, affliction and sorrow.
Jesus is the Light that banishes the shadows, the Light that illuminates the path, the Light that dwells in my heart, the Light that continues to shine through the cracks of my brokenness.

 ©Rebecca A Givens, 09/29/14

The Voice in my head packs a pretty good punch

Voice in my head: “Do you believe God is sovereign?”

Me: “Of course.”

Voice: “Then start acting like it!”

The words are a slap upside the head.

I pick myself up off the floor.

Pick myself up out of depression.

And laugh.

 

I have no control over life,

                or over the future.

I don’t have even an inkling of what the future will look like.

I have been yanked back and forth these last two weeks,

The whole universe yanked first one way and then the other.

Which way is up?

I don’t know which direction I am moving,

I don’t even know who I am anymore.

But I do know this -  

God is sovereign.

God is in control.

God has a plan.

God is Creator of all,

                including me.

God is Sustainer of all,

                including me.

God is my Savior.

God loves me.

God, and His Plan, are good,

                even when life doesn’t feel good,

                even when my whole world shakes. 

God is Sovereign.

That is my trust.

That is my peace.

That is my joy.

 © Rebecca A Givens, 08/25/14

Rats

I knew we had rats or mice, the evidence they left could not have been anything else, but I elected to ignore them.  Much easier to pretend they aren’t there than to deal with them.  But one afternoon I opened the bunk house door and a whole herd of giant rats came flowing out of the hen house.  I might have screamed and run away, but if I did nobody saw me.  I checked.

These rats were huge.  Think Rats of Nhim (my daughter questioned whether this movie was suitable for children), Ratigan (Great Mouse Detective, you must see this classic Disney film!), ROUSes (rodents of unusual size, for all you weird people who have never seen Princess Bride.  Seriously, I can’t believe there is anybody who hasn’t seen and loved that movie.  Go watch it.  Now.  I’ll wait for you to come back.)  There are probably some serious horror movies with rats that would be more appropriate, but I hate horror movies so I haven’t seen them. 

Anyway, rats infested the bunkhouse.  I have no idea why we call it the bunk house, it has never had bunks of any kind in it, but the previous owner called it that so we do too.  For us, it is a convenient place to pile all the crap we don’t have anywhere else to put, and it’s attached to the hen house.  For the rats it is convenient to have piles of stuff to run around, hide and make messes in (and destroy), and chicken feed to eat.

The rats clearly had become a problem that could no longer be ignored.  I began to understand why my hens weren’t laying.  Either the rats were eating the eggs, or they were irritating the hens so they quit laying.  And I began to fear for the hens themselves.  These were seriously big rats, and there were a lot of them.  Time for action. 

I started by asking the pest control guy for poison.  He has this great rat poison.  The rats love it, and when they eat it, it makes them really thirsty so they go out for a drink and never come back.  The smell of a rat nest is bad, but the smell of dead rats in a rat nest in the concrete block walls is infinitely worse and definitely something to be avoided.  Unfortunately pest control guy was sick or in the hospital or something and it took weeks to get this wonderful elixir of death.  In the meantime, I started cleaning out the bunk house.  Fortunately teen boys think giant rats are a great adventure, and two of my karate students volunteered to help in hopes of seeing one of the culprits.
Off we went, armed with dust masks and gloves and garbage bags.  It was disgusting.  The smell was suffocating.  The floor was covered in rat droppings and chewed up paper and cardboard and sawdust and straw from bags of bedding for the chickens.  We piled boxes of nasty stuff in the yard.  We sorted through stuff and rescued stuff and threw away tons of stuff.  Lots of it made me really sad to throw away.  Things that had sentimental value had been chewed up or pooped and peed on and ruined. 

I spent the next few weeks sorting the stuff in the yard - cleaning some of it, and leaving some of it in the sun and rain to get the horrible rat smell out of it.  When the poison finally arrived it disappeared almost immediately, and I quit seeing whole herds of rats.  Yay.  I would still see the occasional rat scuttle out of the hen house, along the top of the wall, and scaling the wall sideways in the place where there was nowhere on top to run.  They were rather amazing actually.  One night I turned around and there was a rat sitting just a few feet away and staring at me.  By then I was past screaming and just stared back at him.  Finally there was nothing but a few random dead rats which I disposed of.  Hallelujah!  I immediately had eggs again.

This sordid tale started a few months ago.  But the mess in the yard is still there.  The mess in the bunk house is still there.  There was no point in really cleaning it until the rats were dead, and of course I have found other things to do since the day the last rat died.  Today I started working out there again.  I threw away more stuff, cleaned more stuff.  Moved more stuff.  It’s going to take at least a few more days of hard work to get that place merely not disgusting. 

And that brings me to the point of this whole story.

As I cleaned things today and thought about rats, I also thought about sin.  I thought about how sin infests my life sometimes.  It builds a nest in the wall of my heart, it eats my energy, it destroys valuable things and leaves a really disgusting mess.  But for some reason it is so much easier to ignore the sin than to kill it; until it pours out in an ugly way that refuses to be ignored.  I try to clean up a bit, but the sin is still there, creating more mess.  Finally I ask God to kill the sin.  I confess it and repent and God begins to root it out.  But you know what, there is still all that mess that the sin leaves behind.  The consequences.  The destroyed mementoes, the valuables that have been trashed and have to be thrown away.  The friends I have hurt and the time I have wasted and the bad habits and ways of thinking I have acquired.  So I work and I clean but I never quite get the smell of sin off my hands.  I am told that rats and mice can smell an old rat nest miles away, for many years.  Yeah, sin is like that too.  Even when it’s confessed and cleaned up and appears to be gone, when you least expect it, it moves right back in.

So what is the answer to this infestation of sin? 

1.       Well, it strikes me as obvious that it would have been easier to get rid of the first rat by itself before it brought its friends and had babies and destroyed my stuff.  Likewise, if I am diligent in my own life to confess and repent of sin while it is small, then that would prevent a lot of damage down the road. 

2.       If I had kept the clutter manageable the rats would not have had a place to hide.  Is my day so full and cluttered that I don’t have time to reflect on life and evaluate and see my sin?

3.       I must keep putting out poison, because new rats are going to smell that old nest.   How do I poison sin?  I feed the new creation inside me on God’s Word. 

4.       I need help.  I needed poison from the pest guy.  I needed the boys’ help moving stuff and shoveling crap.  I needed the garbage men and my husband to take away the trash.  I need my church family and my believing friends to help me and support me, teach me and pray with me. 

5.       Most of all, I need God Himself.  I need to spend time with Him.  I need to remember that I cannot attain righteousness, He declares me righteous for the sake of Christ.  He fills me with the Holy Spirit.  As I spend time with Him, He poisons the old man, He removes the old rat nest that is lurking inside me, He washes out the sin so that I am clean, He salvages my heart. 

Romans 5-6

Psalm 139:23-24
Search me, O God, and know my heart!
    Try me and know my thoughts!
And see if there be any grievous way in me,
    and lead me in the way everlasting!
Rebecca A Givens, 05/27/14