Tag: Anchored Identity

Structure

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-Structure-

“Let all things be done decently and in order.” – 1 Corinthians 14:40, KJV

Even in the formless void, I was still there, looming in the darkness. Pressing on the people. Then He spoke and the good, binding part of me came to light. I was being formed, molded. This created, good side of me would carry throughout His creation, the intricacy and webs of creation, the essence of what was holding life.

But I bloomed into other things, into words. Words that were pure and good, but that people would use to their own advantage, for their own malicious ways. Everything that wasn’t true or pure or good. People’s flesh, their motives, working and holding and biding and judging. They had their plans, they knew what to expect. Or so they thought.

But then He came.

“Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this word, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.” – Romans 12:2, NLT

I didn’t want to notice my neighbor’s structure. Not the physical structure of their house, but the structure in her life. But as the weeks turned into months of hearing a certain noise or having my yard get water from under their gate particular days of the week, I was forced to. They had their gardening day. They had the day of the week when they cleaned their car. Their day for vacuuming (townhouses with thin walls are fun).

And me? I go weeks without it. I love a clean house, but I hate cleaning. When I do, it’s one room, one cabinet, one car at a time. Everything comes out and I deep clean and organize so it’s perfect. Then leave it. For weeks. The necessities (dishes, laundry, floors, etc.) get done. But the rest? That goes by the wayside.

I’m busy. I have things to do. A schedule. Lists.

Lists. My life as been consumed by them lately. I found myself on a trip, on vacation, but still, somehow surrounded by multitudes of lists. It’s disturbing and I get frustrated with myself for it. I get overwhelmed. And when I try to relax on vacation, I still worry about the things that I need to do. The things that don’t have a checkmark by them on my oh-so-precious lists.

It’s good to have goals, it’s good to have dreams and things we need to accomplish. It’s good to work. It’s good to have structure, an order to things. A routine. I admire those with structure. I do all that I can to have more of it. My life is marred by lists that pile up of things I need to do. Of goals. Of what I shouldn’t be doing, what I should and shouldn’t be eating. It’s a never-ending, vicious circle that I need to get a grip on.

When we become so addicted to our goals, our structure, our lists of tasks we must accomplish, that we forget to rest, we’re only harming ourselves.

There’s a saying, ‘stop and smell the roses.’

Well, as I’ve gotten older, I have forgotten how.

It’s the dent in my façade. Because I want the plans, I want the structure and order. I want to do good, to handle things well. I want to be organized and for my life, my goals to go exactly how I would like them to.

Except, the list looms and hovers and when I don’t accomplish the goals and tasks I get so stressed out. I sin and fall short. And then if I don’t have a check mark next to the thing that I was supposed to do that day, when things aren’t done in the time I would like them to be; I feel like I’m failing not only myself, but Jesus. It’s a vicious, unpleasant cycle and I’m not a fan.

Then, when things work out and I’m working with others, and they fail. Or they change plans, or they don’t do things right or how it aligns with how I’d hoped, and I get stressed out.When things don’t go how they’re supposed to, when my goals aren’t accomplished in the time I had hoped, I get overwhelmed.

Did God truly set out for us to feel like failures? Does He get angry when our plans go awry and don’t work out?

Or does He want us to live sweetly broken, holy surrendered to Him? Trusting in Him? Knowing that He is our hope, our secure foundation, who will never leave us or forsake us?

That yes, He has laws, He wants us to Sabbath rest. But when life gets in the way (and life is great about getting in the way), we can’t let it destroy us to the point where we can’t catch our breath, we’re so stressed.

If God wanted us to be orderly robots bound by structure, He would have kept the animal sacrifices and the rules that cast people out and called them unclean. He would have honored the pharisees and Sadducees and built a palace as elegant as Solomon’s.

He wouldn’t have stepped down from His throne to be born in a manger – a feeding trough, of all things, for the Creator of the World. He wouldn’t have worked with His hands. He wouldn’t have called the tax collectors or healed the blind, deaf, lame and lepers. He would’ve turned His nose up at the little children. He wouldn’t have taken on the cross. He wouldn’t have shocked and dismayed the religious rule-abiders and welcomed the poor, the needy, sick and lame.

But Jesus came. And He broke down our walls, our plans, our structure – this box we so laid out for Him. He was real, He sought others so that they would know Him, that we might know Him. He didn’t come to be fed grapes and massaged with gold masks. He came to take our place, walk our steps, and have a relationship with us. To save us, in our broken ways with our cracked and faulty structures. To love us and let us know how completely and utterly and madly loved we are.

Everything He did was done carefully, orchestrated in Heaven and prophesied by prophets. But the way the Messiah came to fulfill the prophesies, the way He redeemed and healed, the way He saved the world transcended human structure and worldly expectation He came near for relationship, so that our anchor would not be in our structures, our rules, in our best laid plans. That our anchor would be Him, the Hope of Glory. The one who is the true Anchor. The Way, The Truth, The Life.

There were the pharisees. They were bound by the rules, bound by the law they so adamantly followed. Disciplined in everything they did, believing they knew exactly what was required of them.

They cast out the sick, the unclean. They despised the Romans but worked with them when people didn’t measure up to either of their standards. They punished those who broke the rules, especially those who broke the Sabbath.

They were uniform, knowing exactly how, what and when was expected of them all to please their God.

They believed in order, because He was the God who wrote the law. And surely, when He arrived, He would take Israel’s throne. He would come with pomp and circumstance and all of the prestige. He would defeat the ones who were holding them captive (Rome). Maybe He’d be a mighty warrior, and surely He would even have mighty warriors working for Him.

And they would be at His right hand, surely. Because they knew His law so well. Just as they were enforcing it today, they would enforce it alongside Him.

But then, He came. Him, with His unruly followers. He prophesied and He drew crowds by the thousands. He went to the houses of tax collectors to dine! He went to the demon possessed! He touched lepers! He talked to little children!

How dare He.

Then He dared to heal on the Sabbath. His disciples broke heads of grain and ate them on the Sabbath!

How dare they!

Then He claimed to be the Messiah. The Messiah!

How could He possibly be when He didn’t even uphold His own laws and regulations?

So the Pharisees and Sadducees joined forces. They even temporarily united with Rome to do away with this structure-breaker. This unruly Prophet.

They did all that they could to catch Him. They bribed. They schemed.

All believing that they were honoring the structure in which God had set out for them.

They even joined forces with Rome, condemning Him as a criminal, pushing Him toward the Roman’s way of punishment. Because that was the torture the unruly one deserved.

Thirty pieces of silver bought His betrayal, and they watched as He was scourged, the flesh torn off of Him. They were hurried, as He tripped over the wooden weight of the tree, He carried up Golgotha. They smirked as the nails went into His hands and feet.

And then, because Sabbath was fast approaching, they were quick and astute in making sure the other criminals were dead by breaking their legs. Because they had to be dead and taken care of so everyone else could observe Sabbath.

But this man, the structure-breaker, He seemed to have already given His last breath. And when the Roman guard pierced His side with a sword, blood and water hit the ground. Not one of His bones was broken.

Sabbath came and went and they ensured the tomb was sealed. But then, on Sunday, things started happening. Another sort of news began spreading, making them fear.

The unruly one, people were saying, had risen from the dead.

Which had to be a lie.

Except…the tomb was empty.

Even the structure of a tomb had been broken when the stone was rolled away.

What they didn’t realize, or, maybe – hopefully – some of them did, was that the Messiah came His own way. Because God, the Author of Eternity, isn’t bound by human structure or reasoning.

He’s not bound by our rules. He is The Way, The Truth and The Life. He knows those who are His. He is true love. And nothing is too hard, too difficult for Him. We say we know how things are supposed to go. We can uphold ourselves to the highest of standards, with our agenda books full, the list of tasks on our phones and all of our plans. But God.

“We can make our plans, but the Lord determines our steps.” – Proverbs 16:9, NLT

We can make all of the plans we want, but when we surrender our lives to Jesus, we really need to be surrendered to Him.

We need to open our hearts, our minds to His will. We need to trust Him, for He makes all things work together for our good. We need to earnestly seek and pursue Him, because He is worthy.

Yes, He has rules and laws for a reason. Yes, the Ten Commandments should absolutely be upheld.

God created those to protect us, guide us and give us direction.

But He came here, He came near, in the most unexpected way so we might know Him. So that we could know relationship, and how precious He is. So that we can know that, no matter how outcast, unclean or broken we are we are not too outcast, unclean or broken for the Messiah.

We should have structure, we should set goals, but we need to remember Him first. We need to walk in love with Him, and be open to His still, small voice. We need to follow His Holy Spirit, which could be out gut, our instinct, when His voice says “do this or don’t do that.”

We need to remember to rest in Christ. To know Him. To seek Him first.

To break our own rules of structure and routine so we can be messy and surrendered to His perfect plan.

God didn’t create us to be robots, He created us to come to Him like little children. To trust and love their Daddy. To know that He is always guiding. To know that He is alive, the King of Kings, and He alone is worthy. There is nothing to hard for Him.

Structure is good, but when it pulls us away from enjoying God’s beauty, from enjoying His Sabbath, we need to surrender the walls of our structure to Him.

Jesus made a beautiful world with beautiful sunsets and beautiful roses for us to enjoy and see Him in it all.

“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, that whoever believe sin Him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through Him.” – John 3:16-17, NIV

Perhaps there was a hint of pride after his years of study, of holding onto what he knew was right.

The Promised One was not supposed to come this way.

The Messiah he had been praying for. The one he spent his life teaching about.

But there He was in front of him, humble. Answering his questions. He had kind eyes, a gentle yet deep voice. Yet He spoke with such authority and wisdom that it astounded him.

The things He said about their expectations, they didn’t make sense. But then… they did. It was if His very words had the power to open eyes and hearts. It became like a fire burning in his soul, hearing His words.

His life, his teachings had been a prisoner to structure, dedicated entirely to the law. He even assumed that that was Hashem’s will.

But the Man in front of Him – the Messiah – He wasn’t in a hurry to check off His to do list, to have a palace filled with gold and servants kissing His feet, attuned to every need. Instead, He was saying He came to serve. To save. To heal.

He wasn’t in a hurry to punish for lack of structure; He was in a hurry to break the bounds of structure, to show the world who He truly was.

John and the other disciples faded to the background, and Nicodemus let every word from his Savior soak in:

“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” – John 3:16, NKJV

Sin

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“Then Jesus stood up again and said to the woman, ‘Where are your accusers? Didn’t even one of them condemn you?’

‘No Lord,’ She said.

And Jesus said, ‘Neither do I. Go and sin no more.’” – John 8:10-11, NLT

I had been there without purpose, lost in the darkness. I was there as a space, waiting for something, for some type of meaning.

Finally, that came. Words were spoken. It happened so quickly. One day went by, then two, then seven.

I was seeing these things brought to life, names being given. Lights and then a light for the darkness. Living creatures, then living man. A perfect plan taking shape, light taking over. Finally, my once formless, void-less self, was brought to form, was made a house. I was chosen, out of everything else. I was the space that was spoken to, and I abounded with thrilling creation. I was a place that would hold something so incredibly dear and near to the ones made in His Image.

There was wisdom, light. It was beautiful.

There was an enemy lurking, buried in the depths. The reason I’d been enveloped in darkness. Surely, he couldn’t win. How could anything created by the Creator go against Him? How could some slivering creature deceive those made in the Creator’s very Image? Imago Dei.

He desired a relationship. He desired true love. So, He provided free will. The choice.

I shuttered as she took the fruit, making the wrong choice.

Though I still had a purpose and housed such beauty, a darkness I had never known before entered. It felt as though it were strangling me. I had seen such life before, but now there would be death. I wondered how this story would turn out. Would there be wrath? Would I go back to what I had been before He spoke light over me? Would my story ever have redemption? I was a void, a dark shell; but He spoke purpose and life over me.

Yet sin entered in, and the darkness I thought I knew before abounded.

I waited, for thousands and thousands of years. Prophecy after prophecy of one who would redeem.

Then there was 400 years of silence and burdens unimaginable. The weight kept pressing on, the darkness of that within me grew heavier with each passing day, with each passing sin. It felt hopeless.

But then, just when it felt like the void had settled in forever and the new darkness was here to stay, a star rose in the east and with the breath of a newborn, the greatest Light had entered. 

A Light to forever shine in the darkness, to never be extinguished.

“The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness can never extinguish it.” – John 1:5, NLT

Everyone has sinned, we all fall short of God’s glorious standard. For me, it feels like I’m good at falling short every day. The gossip. The judgement. I stub my toe and a word pops out that I shouldn’t say. Someone is just a little too good looking. There are books, movies, shows and music that have themes, scenes and words that just does not simply honor God in any form. Instead, it tears Him down and makes a mockery. I lie, I cheat, I fear. I want too many things. The greed, the frustration and anger, contempt, unforgiveness, bitterness. The selfishness, the judging, the criticizing.

I sin. I fall short.

We all have.

It’s engrained in us. I feel horrible when I fall. But sometimes, I either turn around and do it again, or I keep pleading forgiveness for something that, if I was truly sincere the first time I repented, He’s already forgiven me.

Then sometimes I repent, and when tempted to go back, God helps me be strong. But what happens when I sin and fall short, when I give in again? Why do I keep going back to something that doesn’t give me life? Something that only satisfies the temporary and leaves me second guessing if I could ever deserve the eternal?

Because the thing is, I don’t deserve it.

But Jesus bore the full brunt of what I deserve, of what my sin does, on the cross. Because of Christ’s perfect work, I can have eternity with Him.

Nothing is greater than Christ’s sacrifice on the cross. No sin I commit is too big for His redemption story. I believe it’s the repetitiveness, it’s the weak side, it’s the time and time again that I fall short, that hurts the most. I’ll ask Him a million times to forgive me. And because He is truly good, He is truly just, and His sacrifice was perfect, He does. He already has. Yet knowing Him, I want to please Him and honor Him with my life. I want to go and sin no more. But we have a very real enemy that is always waiting to trip us up, waiting for us to fall. And it’s in those moments that He will use and abuse to make us think that we are no longer loved or cared for. To make us think that we’re so dirty and buried in our sin that we have no right to ask for forgiveness and come boldly before the throne of our gracious God once again. Sin separates because Satan steals.

Jesus and His perfect work ensure that though we sin and fall short, when we come before Him and repent – there is nothing that Christ won’t forgive (except the unforgivable sin which is denying the Holy Spirit): “Whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven; they are guilty of eternal sin.” – Mark 3:29, NIV

We are saved by grace through faith in Jesus (Ephesians 2:8-9). This world is going to give us a reason to sin every day. Sometimes we wake up on the wrong side of the bed and that can affect us. Or the stresses pile up so very high, and that can make us want to give in to temptation. We have all sinned and fallen short (Romans 3:23).

But. God.

God’s grace. There is nothing that we could ever do. We can sit and beg and fall to our knees and plead for forgiveness a million times. We can even resort to making some sort of sacrifice; but what sacrifice would matter when the only Perfect Sacrifice laid down His life to conquer death and the grave?

We have all sinned. But He tells us broken, fallible creatures to, “Go and sin no more.” When we fail? I believe that’s His same command. Repent. Genuinely, remorsefully, repent. Realize what you have done isn’t in God’s best interest for you. Realize the stain. Realize the bloody cross and the punishment that you deserved, that He bore. He bore our sins and sicknesses, and He conquered death and the grave so we can have eternal life through Him.

We can never fully comprehend the entire weight of what sin does until we look at the death Jesus had to die for us. We must closely examine how He took our place. The beatings, the lashings, the crown of thorns, the nails into His wrists and feet. The bloody cross. His blood for ours. His life for ours. Death had to die so we could live. Without Him, we would be bound to the Old Testament laws and the sacrificial system. Without Him, we would be hopeless, barely getting by, guilt eating at us until the next sacrifices were made. An animal’s life for what we had done. All eloquence and grandeur, but it would never be enough. It was never enough until love came down and took our place.

“The Lord observed the extent of human wickedness on earth He saw that everything they imagined was consistently and totally evil.” – Genesis 6:5, NLT

I’ve read Genesis so many times, but this time, it jumped out at me.  With every evil intentioned theme in movies, shows and other media, this feels like what’s going on in our world today. It feels like the United States has quickly, devastatingly, become Babylon, where everything people imagine – especially things highlighted in the media – has become consistently, and totally evil.

This is also the first place in the Bible where God’s heart breaks. Because of humanity’s sin and wickedness. The floods came along with Noah’s story, where the few righteous (Noah’s family) were saved. Everyone else was swept away.

But all have sinned, all have fallen short. Nothing could ever truly fix it. No one sacrifice would cover a person’s sin throughout their lifetime, nothing could ever truly be enough. People would always have to repent, to plead. To find the right lamb.

But God so loved the world.

God, and only God, could know the one, perfect sacrifice. The only Lamb that could cover every sin throughout all of eternity. Only God, through taking our place, could bear the weight of the world, bear our punishment, and give us freedom. The full extent of our wickedness, the full extent of our sins and sicknesses and sorrows. Of death.

Only God. He gave His one and only Son, Jesus. “For God made Christ, who never sinned, to be the offering for our sin, so that we could be made right with God through Christ.” – 2 Corinthians 5:21, NLT

It was there, on the cross, full circle, where His heart broke. Before the flood, before the rainbow, His grand redemption plan was set into place. He broke there before Noah, and it broke for all humanity forever on the cross (deduced by the blood and the water. Jesus died of a broken heart.) By His grace, through faith, we are saved. It was nothing that we could ever do but everything He’s done. Because of Jesus, we have hope, we have eternity, and we can rejoice because, though we don’t deserve it, we get to have His peace and His joy. We get to rest in our Savior. We are redeemed. We are given new life. And it’s all because of Jesus!

Jesus. It’s all because of Him. It was nothing I could ever do, or you could ever do. We are so imperfect. But the perfect one bore our sins and sicknesses and conquered death so we can know eternal life.

Paul once said about His sinful nature:

“So the trouble is not with the law, for it is spiritual and good. The trouble is with me, for I am all too human, a slave to sin. I don’t really understand myself, for I want to do what is right, but I don’t do it. Instead, I do what I hate. But if I know that what I am doing is wrong, this shows that I agree that the law is good. So I am not the one doing wrong; it is the sin living in me that does it. And I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. I want to do what is right, but I can’t. I want to do what is good, but I don’t. I don’t want to do what is wrong, but I do it anyway. But if I do what I don’t want to do, I am not really the one doing wrong; it is the sin living in me that does it… I love God’s law with all my heart. But there is another power within me that is at war with my mind. This power makes me a slave to the sin that is still within me. Oh, what a miserable person I am! Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin and death? Thank God! The answer is in Jesus Christ our Lord.” – Romans 7:14- 25, NLT

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He believed his cause was of righteousness, and he was doing the right thing. He was all in for persecution and condemning His followers. He hated them with a passion he believed was from Yahweh. He lashed out. He agreed with the killing of the young man they called Stephen. Surely Yahweh would be pleased. After all, how dare this man who came from Nazareth be called the Son of God? After all, he was condemned to die on the cross. Found guilty. He was buried in a sinner’s grave. Surely, no Messiah prophesied would come as He did. So poorly, hanging out with despised tax collectors and other sinners. Fishermen. The diseased outcasts. Manipulating people by the thousands and using bizarre methods to work His supposed miracles.

Yet… he saw Him when he shouldn’t have. He was acting in self-righteousness, following the regulations of the religious leaders instead of actually seeing what the prophets had written. What He had fulfilled. He had fulfilled everything.

He saw Him, real as ever, risen.  He was blinded yet seeing more than he had ever seen.

He had been malicious to His followers, promoting their punishment and murders. Despising His Way.

Only when he was blind did he truly see that He was The Christ.

When he saw, when he accepted, He guided him to his actual purpose.

If the Risen Messiah could choose him after all I had done, after the depths of his sin, then He must truly love everyone. He must desire every heart, every soul. The Jews first…and also, the Gentiles (Romans 1:6).

He would tell them about Him. All of them. He would tell of this redemption story set in place from the beginning of time. He would boast, from now on, only in Christ Jesus and Him crucified (Galatians 6:14).

The resurrected King had redeemed Saul, and turned him into Paul. He brought Paul out of death into life. Out of the darkness, into His light. He was so incredibly blind, held by the weight of what he had been taught to be right. Bound by the pride of religion and laws, while missing that He came for relationship. He came humbly. And Paul could finally, finally see.

“For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” – Romans 6:23, ESV

Lost & Confused

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“For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.” – Luke 19:10, NIV

He had led them out of the turmoil, with the promise of something wonderful in store. A land that was unimaginable and grand and prospering. It would be beautiful, full of abundance.

So they set out, even though they were being pursued. He parted a sea for them, then crushed their enemies in their wake. Then they got to the desert, to the wilderness, and began their questions. Their faith was rocky, if not there at all. Their leader took down commands, only to discover that they stooped so low as to make false gods from material they manipulated.

He had a glimpse of the Promised Land, but he couldn’t go there. They couldn’t. Because instead of recognizing how far Yahweh had brought them, instead of being in awe of how God rescued them from the turmoil in Egypt, they doubted and questioned because of their hunger and grew frustrated and impatient and manipulated false gods because they grew impatient with the real one.

So there they stayed for 40 years, wandering, lost in the wilderness. Because they doubted, because they questioned and rebelled and didn’t give their Redeemer a chance, because they focused on me, being lost, they never got to see the Promised Land.

“Oh, how often they rebelled against Him in the wilderness and grieved His heart in that dry wasteland. Again and again, they tested God’s patience and provoked the Holy One of Israel. They did not remember His power and how He rescued the from their enemies. They did not remember His miraculous signs in Egypt, His wonders on the plain of Zoan.” -Psalm 78:40-42, NLT

The wilderness is where we rebel, where we grieve God’s heart. He will make His path known for those who humble themselves and choose Him.

But how often we fail. How often we want to stick to our own path, go with how we’re feeling, and the opinions of anyone else. How often we forget to set aside time for the King of Kings – because that’s what the Father longs for. Time. Our love, and our hearts poured out to Him.

The Bible says that He knows the plans He has for us, but He never demands His own way. He gives us free will, because He desired true love. In our free will, we rebel. We wander in the wilderness. We rant and complain, we hunger and thirst. We cling to things that we think will promote us and put us on the right path. We make the grave mistake of failing to go to the One who holds eternity first. The God who sees things we can’t, who understands we don’t. We rebel while He waits.

We get so lost and misguided in this world and by it, but even so, Jesus waits. He patiently waits.

We think it’s easier to do everything else, all of the research, all the weight of our “friends’” opinions, instead of going to the one who has never left us or forsaken us. We think it’s an inconvenience to Jesus, a small matter to Him (even though it’s important to us). And then, when things don’t go as planned, when we’re totally lost in the maze, we get angry with the One who we never went to to begin with.

Surely, He could’ve directed us.

Surely, He would’ve set us on the right path.

But we were not still. We chose that friend’s advice. We went with that person’s opinion. We did not go to Christ first, who would’ve guided us in the right way in His perfect timing.

So we messed up, wandered in the wilderness, and take our frustrations to God even though He’s not to blame. But maybe He’s the only one who can actually handle it.

I don’t want to wander in the wilderness, I don’t want to grieve Jesus. I joke about how convenient it would be if He would just stamp a to-do list on us when we’re born. Where to go, what to study, what to do, who to marry, where to move. The unknown, the wilderness scares me. I so desperately want to be in God’s will, that I run before listening to move even though I don’t feel peace. I overthink and overanalyze to the point where I’m so laden with anxiety of what I should do to be in His will, that I actually fail to go to Christ about what His will actually is.

I’m not a good listener. I’m not good at being still and quieting the almost never-ending dialog in my head. I think, I imagine, I worry and grieve.

But what would happen if I was still enough to lay out my plans, my hopes, my desires, my fears before Him? What if I laid out my requests and dreams?

He could say no.

He could also say not now.

And He could also give me His wisdom on how to go about it. Peace for where I’m concerned, guidance for the issues that I’m facing. Knowledge on when and where and how, plus discernment on who to trust.

I want to please Jesus. I want so desperately to be in His will. But we all get stuck in the wilderness at some point. We all think that our own path is correct. And maybe we become like the Pharisees, so wrapped up in going through the motions, thinking that our thoughts and our worries and our rules are pleasing to God, that we fail to be raw and real and desperate and broken and humble before our Father in Heaven, who already knows our innermost thoughts and desires.

I can’t imagine how deeply it must grieve the Father’s heart for us to get so lost in the wilderness. For Him to know the joy, the plans and the direction He has awaiting us, but to see us stuck, to see us going anywhere and everywhere except Him.

If we run to Him, He won’t be inconvenienced. If we nag Him and ask Him all sorts of things and what to do and where to go, He won’t be frustrated or upset; I think it will delight His heart.

Because He died to give us life. He came here so we can have hope and life and abundance. He’s the Father who adores His children and wants to guide them along the right paths. His right paths. Brining glory and honor to His Name. (Psalm 23:3) 

We want a cure for the desert, a home with water and trees in a parched, dry land. We want out of the wilderness, and to have hope when there doesn’t seem to be any.

We hate the feeling of being lost, of being stuck in the muck and the mire. Of not knowing what’s next and wandering.

Sometimes, in this side of heaven, it feels like there isn’t a cure for feeling lost, for being lost. We open maps and our phones, we ask directions. But until you’re in the midst of a national park, lost in the mountains, without any cell service, you will be wondering around lost until you find the rescuer, usually a park ranger. Or are found by them (in my very real experience). But until we finally find the way, until we know we’re where we want to be, there’s always an underlying feeling of insecurity when we’re not yet to our destination. 

“For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.” -2 Timothy 1:7, NKJV

A sound mind. A trusting, confident, sound mind. A mind that knows that no matter what the conditions of the world are, we can have faith that we have confidence of a sound mind because of Jesus. Because of His grace, we can know that we are found in Him.

“For our sake He made Him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.” – 2 Corinthians 5:21, ESV

Righteousness is something we could never obtain without Christ and His perfect sacrifice. And a sound mind is a gift for all who accept Jesus. We have the Holy Spirit living in us, who gives us power, His love, and His sound mind. We have the mind of Christ. So even though this world will do everything to make us lost and confused, we can remember Who we are found in.

Yet there are diseases – awful diseases, which threaten to pull us away. They pull family members away. It’s heartbreaking and frustrating, and overwhelming to the person and their family. And that is hard to understand. Why there hasn’t been a cure for horrendous heartbreaking diseases like dementia and Alzheimer’s is something difficult to grasp. We pray desperately for a cure, and try to eat the right foods – but when people find out that they’re genetically predisposed, and where do you go from there?

Do you live in constant fear of the illness you may or may not get; or to you choose life and your family, and choose to be in the present as long as you can? Which is something we should all be doing.

Soundness of mind, having the mind of Christ, is a gift. And so often, we take it for granted.

It’s hard not knowing what the future holds. It’s difficult trying to understand why we have to be caught in the midst of the unknown, when Christ is always for us. When He says He knows the plans He has for us. It then becomes difficult to understand why He doesn’t make those plans abundantly clear.

Yet He does give us a road map. He does direct us. The guidance for our lives, the map that we need, is the Bible. From Genesis through Revelation. We want to know what the future holds and the direction we need to go, and everything that we should do, our work, and the people we should be involved with on this earth. The Bible provides the key road map to what matters most: Eternity. And it also provides the key road map to who matters most: Jesus.

From the beginning, since sin entered the world, people were desperate for the Messiah. The Promised One. All of the scriptures pointed to Him. Then He arrived, welcoming everyone who would seek Him. But today, so many are still searching, too prideful to the ways of this world to recognize all the promises He holds. He always was, is and is still to come.

We want to hear His voice, His direction. But He speaks to us with a still, small voice.

We take tests, we fear the unknown. We wonder what will happen and when. But at the end of the day, the best thing we can do with the unknown is place our faith in the one to whom all things are known. He sees all things, and He makes all things work together for our good.

We grasp and yearn for understanding, for clarity, we pray for things to happen or not to happen. But when Christ is truly in control, when He truly sets us free, when our faith and the hope of our unknowns is truly in His hands – we can know the future. Because Jesus is the future.

“Whoever finds their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for My sake will find it.” – Matthew 10:39, NIV

Maybe there had been a storm. He was out playing with his friends, exploring, on the outer edges when the sky grew dark. He heard the call and his friends scattered back to the group, but maybe his foot was stuck, or he tripped.

That’s when the horrendous downpour hit. Once he freed his foot, he was swallowed up by the rain, blinded by it. He yelped and hollered, but got shoved off course, slipping and sliding down a seemingly never-ending path of water mixed with earth.

He started trembling, shaking. He’d been taught to wander but stick with his group, and he had. But out much could change in an instant. He closed his eyes against the rain, and fear until he finally came to a stop.

He was surrounded by rocks and trees, away from his group, away from his family. Away from his leader. The wise one who always seemed to know just where they should go. When to go back home.

He was well and truly alone and lost. And oh, so terrified.

He curled up in a ball, bruised and hurt, crying for anyone, for any help. But this area was unfamiliar to him as well as the rest of his group, and certainly must be for his leader. Maybe they forgot about him.

Maybe he was lost forever. After all, who was one little one amongst the ninety-nine?

But, as the sun finally came out again, he heard a voice in the distance. He heard that call. The one just for him and his group, his flock. But this time, specifically, it felt like it was just for him. He was so sore though, barely able to stand much less run toward the sound. But it grew closer, and he began to bleat. It was soft and gentle, but the sound of his leader’s voice grew closer and closer.

Then, with a cry of joy, his leader was suddenly running to him, then checking on him, murmuring and praying over every ache and sore he had. His shepherd, with shouts of joyful praise, put the lost little sheep over his shoulders and carried him home. The sheep’s friends and family rejoiced, and the shepherd ran about, telling his friends and neighbors to rejoice with him over the little sheep.

He felt so insignificant and thought he would be forever in the wilderness, but he was being rejoiced over! For he had been lost, but now, he was found.



“Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Doesn’t he leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it? And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep. I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in Heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent.” – Luke 15:3-7, NIV