When You Think All Hope is Lost

We were sitting at a traffic light, waiting for the green, one of those moments when it appears that it is never going to change for our direction.  I glanced up from the inside of the car to our surroundings.  A restaurant that went out of business during covid stood forlorn and friendless on the other corner.  On the other side, a barbecue take-out was doing quite a business on the site of an abandoned gas station.  I glanced to my right -- just 10 yards outside my window -- at an antique resale shop with an empty parking lot. 

 And there it was.

 

 

Just leaning up on an old park bench, H-O-P-E in capital letters, just waiting for me to notice.

How much do we miss because we are not even looking? 

Despair shouts, "Give up!  It's all over.  There is no escape or meaning." Circumstances win.

But hope whispers, "Trust God in this. It is not the end of the story."  God redeems.

The world defines hope as a rather fragile form of wishful thinking, something to outgrow, a mocking hostility.   But the Bible reveals hope as the underlying reality on which we can stake our lives, no matter the circumstances. 

We miss the wonder and the glory because we do not trust God in this, "not counting on any outcome, but counting on God." (Tish Harrison Warren, Prayer in the Night)

The rocks in my life are just intricate parts of my faith story, the times when I have realized who God is.  We would not be reluctant if we knew how God is using what is before us today.

God will not just "show up," as some say.  God is already here in unlikely circumstances, present with us in unexpected ways, already working His seamless designs, continually redeeming what we cannot understand, and calling ourselves to Him.  His steadfast love has no expiration date, His mercies are piping fresh every morning.  Hope is right there looking at you.

But this I call to mind,

    and therefore I have hope:

The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases;

His mercies never come to an end;

they are new every morning;

         great is Your faithfulness.

"The LORD is my portion," says my soul,

"therefore I will hope in Him."

                       Lamentations 3. 21-24

Hidden Path

 

 

It had been a few weeks since we had hiked this trail in the woods.  The trees stood their ground in the sepia colors of the season, and the sunlight filtered through the branches like the glory of God.

But where was the trail?

The fallen leaves and ravages of the winter composed wall to wall carpeting across the forest floor and over the path.  A few people had gone on before us and marked the way by navigating the muddy parts or shuffling the leaves like the parting of the Red Sea.  But more than once, I had to hesitate to see where the trail was. More than a few times, it was a matter of taking just one step, trusting I was still on route and not just wandering.

The only way I knew where I was treading was because I had been on this trail before.  It was a familiar place to me. I knew there was a path, even if I couldn't see it right before me.

That is what trust is all about.  Not just what I know.  But Who I know.

God has written into each of our lives a chronicle of His faithfulness.  We may have not been in this particular place in the past, but we have trusted Him before.  And trust is built in layers.

God will make a way where there seems to be no way.  We have sung that song before.

I can remember vividly a situation now almost eight years ago.  We were standing at the intersection of some huge changes.  My husband and I had thought about moving, but were not quite sure.  We prayed about it.  We talked about it.  And it became evident to us both to just take one step, even though we didn't quite know what we were doing or where we were going.

 "Do you trust Me one step?" we felt like God was saying to us.  And when we stepped out in the darkness, solid ground rose up beneath our feet.  Just that one step.  "Do you trust Me another step?"  Even if we couldn't see how this trail was leading? Or even if there was a trail at all?

That was the path we took through the woods the other day.  Take one step and the next becomes evident. Not any further than that. Am I willing to trust God, watch, wait and listen to Him?

Sometimes our trail is obvious.  And sometimes it is not.  We may think we know where we are going, but there is always that which we cannot yet see.  

When we trust God, we walk differently.  We see new vistas.  We see even the familiar in more detail.  We tread carefully, watching out for pitfalls, roots and rocks, the slippery spots, and the don't-get-too-haughty parts.  It is not the boulders that trip us up, but a singular small stone or uneven ground that appears so innocent, even hidden among the leaves.  Those are the ones that bring us down to a screeching halt, as happened to me more times than I care to admit, on the flattest, smoothest part of the trail of all. 

God never promised that we would not fall,  scrape our knees, or wound our pride.  But He does promise to give us the strength to get up again. And again. And again. And God does not let it paralyze us.  

We do not walk, hike or run alone.

In his devotional My Utmost for His Highest, Oswald Chambers expresses the sense of adventure that should mark us:

"...we do not know what a day may bring forth.  This is generally said with a sigh of sadness, it should be rather an expression of breathless expectation.  We are uncertain of the next step, but we are certain of God.  Immediately we abandon to God, and do the duty that lies nearest, He packs our life with surprises all the time."

Am I willing to trust God and even take a first step?  God may be leading somewhere entirely foreign than what I anticipate.  God may also be leading me to live differently right where I am. Poet Luci Shaw wrote an entire book entitled The Crime of Living Cautiously.

We spend far too much time looking for new doors to appear when indeed every day is a threshold.  It may lead to something new or just to something now, or even to the not yet.  Don't think of doors, but passages.  That courage always leads us to Him.

I may not be able to see the trail, but there is a way.  And if not, God makes one for us.  Sometimes He even leads us to bushwhack. I've seen too much to question God in this.  The Bible is woven with off-road routes to a deeper understanding of Him.

Behold, I am with you

and will keep you

   wherever you go...

Then Jacob awoke from his sleep

and said,

"Surely the LORD is in this place,

     and I did not know it."

                   Genesis 28. 15-16

Knowing, Not Knowing, and Thinking Again

In the summer of 1949, a group of wilderness firefighters parachuted into a remote blazing forest.  They planned to dig a trench in the soil around the flames to contain and redirect it.  But soon, the foreman Wagner Dodge saw that the raging flames, now 30 feet high, had transcended the ditch they had dug in the ground and were racing uncontrollably right toward them, moving so fast their lives were in sheer danger.  

Dodge instructed the others to turn around and run up the slope to safety.  But after a few minutes, instead of relying on his physical speed to outrun the intense blazes, Dodge began lighting matches and starting little fires in the grass ahead of him on the slope.  The other men thought he was crazy and kept on running upwards for their lives.

Dodge then soaked his handkerchief with water from his canteen, covered his mouth with the wet cloth, and lay face down on the charred area he had just burned,  The wildfire continued to consume the slope, but passed over him, and he was saved by breathing the remaining oxygen close to the ground.

Of the fifteen men, only Dodge survived, as well as two others who had reached the ridge by running.  Physical fitness may account for the two who got up the slope in time.  "But Dodge prevailed because of mental fitness," states Adam Grant in his 2021 book Think Again:  The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As Grant points out in his book, Dodge had no special training in creating what is now known as an "escape fire."   Dodge thought differently about the situation around him and responded immediately. And most likely he had practiced thinking differently on many other occasions, not just in the face of crisis.  What are the facts?  How do I respond?

But what about how spiritual fitness impacts our thinking? Our attitudes and perspectives are transformed not about thinking differently, but praying differently.  How do I see my circumstances? How do I approach this dilemma differently because I brought it before the LORD? How can I act, respond, and yes, think again about this in light of the Almighty?

Have I even considered praying about this?

I recently came across an index card in my desk where I had written, "If you don't pray, don't expect anything different."

Praying does not just change things.  Praying transforms my heart.  Praying changes my brain cells.

How am I supposed to do this hard thing, O LORD?

The subtitle of the book suggests "the power of knowing what you don't know."  I would rewrite that:  the power of knowing Who does.  All through the Bible, God used unlikely people in unexpected surroundings that they would recognize Him.  Even in what did not make sense to them at the time, God was faithful.  "Build an ark, Noah." 

It is not a matter of following an impulse or a set of directions, but responding to God.  At the beginning of every day or in the face of a dilemma, Henri Nouwen often wrote,  memoria Dei.  Remember God.  

Even in the midst of danger or crisis, split second timing or a long endurance, we are able to respond to God, when we have practiced trusting Him in the past.  We each have a chronicle of His faithfulness even in the little stuff -- which is never so little after all.  And that chronicle is our playbook for both now and the next.

God is still faithful.  Even in this.

How can we think differently?    Seeking God daily and being faithful in the ordinary.  Listen to Me.

 

Do not be afraid of sudden terror

   or the storm of the wicked

                  when it comes,

for the LORD will be your confidence

and will keep your foot

            from being caught.

                               Proverbs 3. 25-26 

"If we do not do the running steadily in the little ways, we shall do nothing in the crisis," stated Oswald Chambers in his classic devotional My Utmost for His Highest. 

O LORD,

Order our days.

Guide our steps.

Direct our thoughts.

Align our hearts with Yours.

Not What I Expected

 

 

 

 

 

We had yet another unexpected snow over the weekend.  The collection of winter birds flocked around our feeder like an all-you-can-eat buffet, some waiting patiently on the railing, others pushing their way past the meek to the head of the line.

Later at suppertime, as my husband Bill went to slice some bread to accompany our soup, he realized that the bread had begun to mold.  Before he tossed it in the trash, he said out loud, "I wonder if the birds would enjoy it."  He broke the loaf into big pieces and lay them on the railing near the feeder.

The next morning with its twenty skinny little degrees, as he looked out, the bread was still untouched.  A dove landed on the railing, waiting for its turn at the feeder, snuggling up to one of the chunks of bread, perhaps thinking it was another bird. 

Throughout the entire day, I witnessed just one lone blue jay pecking at the bread.  The others continued to ignore it completely, their eyes only on the tube of seeds.  

If those birds only knew, they wouldn't be so hungry.  A feast was just waiting right next to them on the railing. 

How often have we ignored how God provides for us in unusual and unlikely ways.   We scramble for tiny seeds in our own myopic view when he has provided so much more.  Indeed, the word provision does not just mean a random supply, but as the word implies pro-vision:  for the vision.   Not just filling an obvious need, but preparing for what is to come.  Even in ways we have not even considered or realized our need.

Indeed when the Israelites were traveling on their 40-year trek, God provided daily food that appeared every morning.  They called it manna, which literally means what is it?

Decades ago, I was traveling overseas with a group of college students through some rural places. Once in a very rustic campground in the Russian countryside, I held my nose as I entered the rather primitive bathroom to brush my teeth.  It smelled horribly.  As I was turning on the water, I accidentally dropped my toothbrush on the floor which was covered with unimaginable filth.  As I stood there speechless, a traveling companion next to me chuckled, "Oh, so that's why."  She said that for all these weeks, she had been carrying an extra toothbrush that her mom had slipped in her bag.  "I was wondering why I had more than I needed. It was for you all along."

A tool in her toolbox she didn't know what it was for.

God is faithful even beyond our expectations.  He guides, and He provides not just for now, but for the next.  God gives us our daily bread, not just for us, but to enlarge His blessing on others.  Sometimes in unusual packages.  Sometimes not what we expect....or even see as a provision.  What is this?  To sustain, to prepare and provide, to serve others in unlikely ways, and to seek the welfare of those all around us.  Open the eyes of my heart, O LORD.

What do I do with this?  Give thanks for the unexpected.  And trust Him in it.

... God, who richly provides us

          with everything to enjoy.

They are to do good,

to be rich in good works,

to be generous

         and ready to share...

                  1 Timothy 6. 17-18

Take a Snapshot

It has pretty much become a family joke when some of us are together.  As we are packing up or standing on the driveway, hugging goodbyes, and ready to get in the car, I suddenly remember and ask for us to take a picture.  Everyone groans.  Sometimes it happens.  Sometimes it's too late.

But I am always grateful when we do.

These little snapshots are not just images stored in our phones, but experiences, memories, and visible vestiges of the albums of our hearts.  Remember when?

Too often, the days speed past unnumbered and unremembered. 

What if in 2022 I grasp even one "snapshot" every day?  At the vespers of the day, remembering not just what I did, but remembering God in it.  Not just thinking about what happened, but how I intentionally lived that day.  A call made to a loved one, a text sent, responding to a nudge from God, a walk through the majesty of trees, cooking a little more to share with another, a thought written down, recognizing the extraordinary woven into the most ordinary of days.  We cannot sort out the significant from the insignificant. Because indeed, there are no ordinary days nor insignificant kindnesses.  It's not about all we accomplished, where we have gone, but how have we loved.

Last year on New Year's Day 2021, our family drew together from all over the States on Zoom to wish my brother a happy 70th birthday.  Because of covid, we could not convene in person.  There were no group pictures together, but we spent a delightful hour together, as best we could, to celebrate. We did not realize even then how significant this snapshot of time would be.  We had no idea how close he was walking near the Other Side of Life.  Nor did he.  

My brother passed away two weeks ago from covid.

In the middle of the night, the still sudden news of his passing still resounded in my heart, memories of him crowded around my bed, experiences for which there were no pictures in an album, just snapshots in my heart.  And I was grateful for the stories that we built up over time, those stitches that bound us together, the joys and the sorrows inseparable over the course of a lifetime.

God already redeems all those moments.

May this year not slip from us, but may we be changed by it and transformed in it by the Almighty, one day and then the next, treasuring the moments we do have, snapshots of life, and above all, loving each other well.  And recognizing yet another precious picture in the chronicle of God's faithfulness in our lives.

My times are in Your hand.

                  Psalm 31. 15

 

A Barren Place Is Not A Mistake

What do we see?

Just an empty field, unseeded and untilled rock-hard clay, choked with weeds, an impossible and overwhelming task. Nothing's going to grow here. We have all found ourselves with such a mess at some point....or now.

But what does God see?

We see dirt and hard ground.  God sees soil just waiting to be sown.  He sees it bursting with fruitfulness.  God is working even in this discouraging landscape, even in what we cannot grasp, replenishing roots, building strength, and restoring His glory in this broken world.

A barren place is not a mistake in His sight.  God has strategically placed us right where we are. 

"Above all, trust in the slow work of God," wrote Pierre Teilard de Chardin.  Fruitfulness takes a long time, trusting God and rolling up our sleeves.  Fruitfulness comes from faithfulness, and it depends on seasons of hard work when nothing flourishes on the surface, but out of sight, rootedness in a million different directions.  And then suddenly and unexpectedly, on one unlikely morning, green shoots of encouragement appear.

The beginning of something new starts long before we see anything different.  Am I willing to get dirt under my nails?  Am I willing to be faithful daily when nothing appears to be happening?  Am I willing to trust God in this? 

And Isaac sowed in that land

   and reaped in the same year

                        a hundredfold. 

                Genesis 26. 12

What are we sowing here on this little patch God has placed each one of us and among the flocks where we find ourselves?   God grants to us not just our daily bread, but our daily seed to sow.  God brings the growth, sometimes in what we catch a glimpse, but more often in what lasts far beyond our lifetimes.  God bears the fruit that lasts generations from our response to Him. 

God calls us to Himself, to be faithful to Him, and to never despise the day of small things.  We would be shocked to know the generational impact from a lifetime of small obediences. 

"Plant sequoias,"  suggests Wendell Berry, the largest trees that last forever. Every tree in the deep forest emerges from a tiny seed of faithfulness.

The point is this:  whoever sows sparingly

       will also reap sparingly,

and whoever sows bountifully

      will also reap bountifully.

                 2 Corinthians 9. 6

Is this just hardscrabble or rich soil?  Three times in scripture, God says, "Take off the sandals from your feet, for the place you are standing is holy ground."  Acts 7. 33, Exodus 3. 5, Joshua 5. 15 

Do I see this place, this job, this assignment as holy ground?  I can't change the world, but I can be faithful with the one square foot of soil God has placed before me, one patch of holy ground for His glory, even if I never see the outcome.

How do we respond to this barren place?  Just start by walking out into the field.  Take one step of obedience and the next step will emerge. God will reveal how to do it. 

 Jesus says, "The sower went out to sow."  (Matthew 13. 30)   

A Shelf of Books 2021

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Stories do not just line up on our shelves, neatly arranged in alphabetical order.  But we are surrounded by them, some of them written down, and some of them profound stories seamlessly woven into our own lives.   

Somebody asked Willie Nelson where he got his songs, and he said, “The air’s full of them, just reach out,” stated novelist Ursula Le Guin in her 1998 book about writing.

2021 was one of those years, full of deep chapters of unexpected magnitude -- and not just published in books. I felt almost every day as I did as a child, so immersed in a book, that I would respond "I'll be right there.  Let me finish this page.  I can't put it down now."  As a little girl who sometimes furtively read with a flashlight under the covers, I couldn't just leave mid-sentence as if the life or death of a beloved main character was dependent on me finishing another page.  Sometimes while reading, we are the ones quivering on the edge of an abyss.  Or that's how it feels, even though the names are different from our own.  

And in real-time we watch stories and lives around us unfold, page by page, cliff by cliff.

Our lives are not just a series of incidents after all, but are intricate and cohesive stories of redemption.  And in the scary I-am-not-going-to make-it moments, we are just getting to the exciting part.  God is working.  He redeems His narratives in our lives.  He always has. He is present on every page.

Of the stories published between front and back covers, these are what I read in 2021, some brand new, some centuries old, and some I am already planning to read again:

1.     Good Things Out of Nazareth:  The Uncollected Letters of Flannery O’Connor and Friends by Flannery O’Connor (2019)

2.     Reading While Black:  African American Biblical Interpretation as an Exercise in Hope by Esau McCaulley (2020)

3.     The Splendid and the Vile:  A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz by Erik Larson (2020)

4.     Just Like That by Gary D. Schmidt (2021)

5.     Gone to the Woods:  Surviving a Lost Childhood by Gary Paulsen (2021)

6.     Aging with Grace:  Flourishing in an Anti-Aging Culture by Sharon Betters and Susan Hunt (2021)

7.     Sabbatical Journey:  The Diary of His Final Year by Henri J.M. Nouwen (1998)

8.     Get Out of Your Head:  Stopping the Spiral of Toxic Thoughts by Jennie Allen (2020)

9.     Prayer in the Night: For Those Who Work or Watch or Weep by Tish Harrison Warren (2021)

10.  The Pursuit of God by A. W. Tozer (1948)

11.  The Supper of the Lamb:  A Culinary Reflection by Robert Farrar Capon (1969)

12.  Madeleine L’Engle Herself:  Reflections on a Writing Life by Carole F. Chase (2001)

13.  Exercised:  Why Something We Never Evolved to Do Is Healthy and Rewarding by Daniel E. Lieberman (2020)

14.  The Calvary Road by Roy Hession (1950)

15.  The Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi (2016)

16.  Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi (2020)

17.  Stewards of Eden: What Scripture Says About the Environment and Why It Matters by Sandra L. Richter (2020)

18.  In His Image: 10 Ways God Calls Us To Reflect His Character by Jen Wilkin (2018)

19.  Barking To The Choir:  The Power of Radical Kinship by Gregory Boyle (2017)

20.  The One and Only Ivan by Katherine Applegate (2012)

21.  The One and Only Bob by Katherine Applegate (2020)

22.  Harriet Tubman:  The Moses of Her People by Sarah H. Bradford (1869)

23.  Little Leaders:  Bold Women in Black History by Vashti Harrison (2017)

24.  The Wild Birds: Six Stories of the Port William Membership by Wendell Berry (1985)

25.  Amos Fortune, Free Man by Elizabeth Yates (1950)

26.  The Bridge Home by Padma Venkatraman (2019)

27.  A Burning In My Bones: The Authorized Biography of Eugene H. Peterson by Winn Collier (2021)

28.  The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch (2008)

29.  The Midnight Library by Matt Haig (2020)

30.  My Own Two Feet:  A Memoir  by Beverly Cleary (1995)

31.  The Memory of Old Jack by Wendell Berry (1974)

32.  Watch With Me: And Six Other Stories of the Yet-Remembered Ptolemy Proudfoot and His Wife, Miss Minnie, Nee Quinch by Wendell Berry (1994)

33.  That Distant Land by Wendell Berry (2004)

34.  The Librarian of Auschwitz by Antonio Iturbe (2012)

35.  My Remarkable Journey:  A Memoir by Katherine Johnson (2021)

36.  Sandy:  A Heart for God by Leighton Ford (1985)

37.  Tolkien and C. S. Lewis:  The Gift of Friendship by Colin Duriez (2003)

38.  Skunk and Badger by Amy Timberlake (2020)

39.  Breakthrough:  Elizabeth Hughes, the Discovery of Insulin, and the Making of a Medical Miracle by Thea Cooper and Arthur Ainsberg (2010)

40.  Faithful Leaders:  And the Things That Matter Most by Rico Tice (2021)

41.  The Language of Fire:  Joan of Arc Reimagined by Stephanie Hemphill (2019)

42.  A Swim in a Pond in the Rain: In Which Four Russians Give a Master Class on Writing, Reading, and Life by George Saunders (2021)

43.  Here In The Real World by Sara Pennypacker (2020)

44.  All The Frequent Troubles of Our Days: The True Story of the American Woman at the Heart of the German Resistance to Hitler by Rebecca Donner (2021)

45.  The Light of Days:  The Untold Story of Women Resistance Fighters in Hitler’s Ghettos by Judy Batalion (2020)

46.  Wendell Berry:  New Collected Poems by Wendell Berry (2012)

47.  The Failed Promise:  Reconstruction, Frederick Douglass, and the Impeachment of Andrew Johnson by Robert S. Levine (2021)

48.  The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles (2021)

49.  The Crime of Living Cautiously: Hearing God’s Call to Adventure by Luci Shaw (2005)

50.  Letters From The Mountain by Ben Palpant (2021)

51.  The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V. E. Schwab (2020)

52.  Everything Happens for a Reason:  And Other Lies I’ve Loved by Kate Bowler (2018)

53.  The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky (1879) (1990 edition)

54.  The God of the Garden:  Thoughts on Creation, Culture and the Kingdom by Andrew Peterson (2021)

55.  Steering the Craft: A 21^st Century Guide to Sailing the Sea of Story by Ursula K. Le Guin (1998)

56.  Diary of a Young Naturalist by Dara McAnulty (2020)

57.  No Cure For Being Human (And Other Truths I Need to Hear by Kate Bowler (2021)

58.  The Bible

 

Starting Now

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I just put a pan of pathetic-looking dough in the pre-heated oven.  "Alexa, set a timer for 35 minutes."

"Timer set for 35 minutes," the voice repeats.  "Starting now."

This is the third day of the new year.  And we already feel behind.  We still have cartons full of stuff left undone from 2021. We want this year to be different.

I cannot rewind, but I have today.  This year is not a matter of seeing how much I can get done, but seeking God in it.  When we meet with God every morning and walk with Him each day, we find the world there.  We see differently, respond differently, and walk differently.

God does not just fill our days, but fulfills our time.  And that means for us to be faithful, even in the little ordinary things--which are never so little or ordinary.  Eternity is composed of ordinary days with God's extraordinary designs spread all over them.

Last evening, I was texting with one of my son-in-laws about a recipe for making rice krispy bars with Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal.  "That is now on my to try list," he said.

I love that.  Not imagining lofty resolutions, vague plans for someday, or a list of easily erasable intentions, but to try new things.  Not make new habits but to establish new patterns.  To think again about what we do, how we do it, how to approach the same tasks with a different heart.

Not be successful but faithful in this day that the LORD has made, no matter what He has placed before us. We never can know how God is using us, but we can be assured that He is.

The timer just rang.  I removed from the hot oven a loaf resembling a brick on a construction site.  It never rose.  But I am willing to try again.  And again.

Our days are built on one choice at a time, one day at a time, one afternoon, one hour, what I choose to do in the now and in the next, and who I am becoming.  God redeems this new day and this new year.

Starting now.

 

"Teach us to number our days."  Psalm 90. 12

Which Way?

 

 

Choose carefully.  

Whenever I run this particularly hilly route, I must make a choice.  This way or that.  Sometimes I know what I will encounter, sometimes I discover huge surprises along the way, sometimes I find I have forgotten my endurance at home.  But it is always an adventure.

It is commonly said, "We will not go this way again."  But indeed, we will make choices every day to follow Christ.  No turn, no curve, no seemingly dead end, no fork in the road, no decision is ever insignificant, but more profound, eternal and life-changing than we can know.

But which way is the right way?

"Trust Me in this."

 

Trust in the LORD with all your heart,

and do not lean on your own understanding.

In all your ways acknowledge Him,

and He will make straight your paths.

                     Proverbs 3. 6-7

And running with Jesus,

life is always an adventure.