But during the night

an angel of the Lord

opened the prison doors

and brought them out...

                Acts 5. 19

(God specializes

in impossible situations.

Sometimes God 

literally opens locked doors

            for His purposes,

            for the gospel,

sometimes He keeps us

    right where we are,

    for the same reason.

His reality does not hinge

      always on what is next,

but the fullness 

                  of what is.)

O LORD,

Help me to remain 

  faithful to You

whatever,

wherever,

whenever,

however,

        and why,

to respond to You

   and follow You in it.

Even in the unexpected 

and the most unlikely,

   may Your purposes prevail.

The Hiddenness of Things

I can run the same loop in the woods a thousand times, the rote memorization of steps, like reciting a poem in seventh grade, the rhythms, the rhymes, but still be shaken awake by a newly scribbled stanza, or a word I need to look up, or a truth hobbling oddly across my path like an otter playing hooky out of the muddy river, finding his way home, or trying to escape. 

 

One morning, scanning the open field around me as I jogged past, a silent deer observed me, only his head visible above the tall grasses, like God watching, even when I don’t know it.  And the next day, feathers incredibly blending into the rotting base of an old tree, a barred owl not ten feet away, standing guard over his kingdom, my slowness enlarging my eyes to what is actually around me.  I hear the presence of invisible creatures rustling the leaves, no longer noises of fear but stirring my curiosity.

I know my four-year-old granddaughter Lu will not be asking, “Did you see anything on your run today?” but “What did you see?”  She expects wonders and what is precious embedded in every sunrise, around every corner, on the floor of the car, she who is reluctant to release the day for fear of missing something or letting go the lingering sweetness of what is left or what can be yet squeezed out and discovered, maybe what she was looking for hiding under the bed, or finding the missing pieces covered by the rug, or discovering one lone cookie in the bottom of a seemingly empty bag. 

What was that?  Did you hear that noise? She grabs at the thinnest ray of hope, even the most obscure, to stay awake a few moments longer, to stretch out the day.  Always more, always more. In an effort to slow down that sprint, we lay down side by side, watching the smoke detector light on the ceiling flash at intervals, and I hope that she falls asleep between those visible beeps of red, but she never does, just squirms some more, asking, asking, first of water and then of me when I was a little girl, stories I tell about the olden days, which to her would be last week, things that really happened to just another little girl, which was me before I got old like this, under another layer of paint every ten years or so, faded from my 40 days and nights on the ark.  We are two little girls. The number of my years do not matter to her, but the stories.

I am running differently now.  What will I see this day?  What will keep me awake tonight, reluctant to let go?  Live in Lu’s kind of wonder, the fullness of what is.

This is the LORD’s doing;

it is marvelous in our eyes.

This is the day

     that the LORD has made;

let us rejoice

     and be glad in it.

            Psalm 118. 23-24

Calling Card

Even as I am writing this morning, our front door is being repaired.  It had been crying visibly for some time to be scraped, sanded, re-stained and covered in a new coat of varnish.  Blistering hot, deep Southern sun had daily bombarded its finish, until it hung visibly distraught and vulnerable to further damage.

Sergio is the skilled individual who is doing the work.  It is obvious in how he does his job and how he approaches it that he views his work and himself, not as just a workman, but as an artisan.  This is not a mundane job to him, but a work of art.  He sees restoration in what he does. He does it with excellence.  And tomorrow, he will move onto another scheduled appointment.

But a painter of doors is not all who he is or to what he is called.

The world's idea of calling is that the one and only thing you are good at will bring you significance, happiness, and purpose to your life. And if you don't find that one thing, your life will not have meaning. You missed out. The world says "you were meant for this, and this alone."

But God says I am not called to a singular profession, nor any at all.  We are not called to something but to Someone. Our identity significance, meaning, and purpose are not manifest in what we do, but to be found in Him. 

From that point, His appointments are limitless, and every good endeavor, however small or big, visible or invisible, bears the mark of the Almighty. Everything fits together without seams. I don't have to understand something for it to carry profound purpose for untold numbers of people in manifold dimensions and for His glory.

The world says what you do
                        is who you are.
But God says,
               you are Mine.

God calls us to Himself.
He appoints us
  not necessarily to what we are good at,
        gifted for,
    or sometimes even like doing.
His purposes and power go way deeper than ourselves.
His capacity is not limited
                        by my capabilities.

Our life's work
              is worshiping the LORD,
no matter what that looks like,
      manifest in daily appointments. 
The most significant thing I can do today
                     is to be faithful to Him.
Not just what I do --no matter what--
 but how I do it with all my best,
                      and why I do it:
                                  to glorify Him.
His glory can't help but get all over everything, even the unexpected, the impossible, the not obvious at all.

I glorified You on earth,
having accomplished the work
that You gave me to do.

                     John 17. 4

In whatever appointment God places before me today,
             may I be faithful and fruitful.
Nothing but nothing, no one but no one,
      is insignificant in His kingdom.
I can bring Him glory in every detail of my day,
                            even in my attitude.

Please help me, O LORD, to see my work
                      as worship to You,
in the big stuff and even in what I can only see as mundane.
I am called to You.
My relationship with You impacts everything I do,
changes what I think,
and profoundly influences everyone around me.
Be glorified, O LORD, even in this day.

Years ago, when someone came to a house or office, they would leave behind a small card with one's name and address to reveal who had been there.  

May my calling card be not what bears my name,

                     but His.

 

On the other hand

Now, almost two months ago, I ran through the forest on a particularly beautiful spring afternoon. The trail was bordered by tiny wildflowers.  Sleepy trees groaned as they worked out the stiffness of their limbs, awakening from a long winter's nap.  It was glorious.

The route was easy to follow, having been pounded down by thousands of feet passing before me through the years, the path weaving its way over the hills and through the woods. Even the roots of trees artistically formed organic staircases up the slopes, not to block my way or hinder my steps, but to give me a foothold, a grip, and traction for my ascent.

But quite suddenly, on a rather flat non-descript part of the path, I tripped.  No rocks, no roots, nothing in my way, but I was lost in thought and not paying attention.  I fell hard like a bag of mulch, skidding full body in the dirt to a stop.  If I were a cartoon character, I would have had stars rotating above my head and X's on my eyes. I crawled up to my feet almost immediately, a little shaken and somewhat chagrined, but all movable parts still intact, my favorite leggings untorn, and both my knees scraped like a third grader on the school playground.  I brushed off the dust and twigs, and enjoyed the short remainder of the trail at a much slower pace.

But the next morning, swelling indicated something was not right.  A visit to the doctor revealed a broken bone in my right hand.  I was given a brace to constrain my range of motion to help with the healing, but limiting my mobility, more than I would have imagined.  Some ordinary things I could manage with this claw-like contraption strapped with Velcro to my hand.  But even in simple tasks, I was embarrassingly dependent on the help of others.

As a right handed writer, having my right hand incapacitated put a strait jacket on my writing.  With the brace wrapped around most of my hand, I was able to hold a pen precariously between my thumb and my index finger, but my handwriting was excruciatingly slow and almost indecipherable. 

I was never more aware of how much I do with my right hand, and how little I use my left.  Brushing my teeth with my other hand, trying to flip an egg with a spatula, or even pulling up my socks with my left hand only, should have qualified me for an Olympic sport.  Ordinary actions were not so ordinary anymore. 

Throughout those six weeks with the brace, I stopped throughout each day and considered "What is a different way to do this?"  Or out of sheer necessity, "How can I approach this differently?"

Instead of limiting me, I found my disability enlarging my thoughts.  I was not unlearning how to do things, but instead learning another way through. 

Automatically reaching out with my right hand was my default, as if that was the only way to do something, not even thinking about my actions or reactions.  Which is mostly the way I hurt myself in the first place --not thinking about what I was doing, where I was going, definitely a pothole of my own transgressions.

On what other things am I on automatic pilot?  How can I do this differently?  How can I think with another perspective on this?  Is my default limiting me? Is my attitude getting in the way of who, what, where, when, why and how I treat this work, this relationship, this problem to be solved or resolved?

All the while my hand was healing, even while the brace restricted my movement, new neural pathways were coming into existence in this old brain of mine, revealing new passages, open doors, incredible connections between unrelated things, not so much newly created as discovered.  Those new trailheads were always there, but I just didn't realize I could take another trail through that difficulty, taking me on a different journey toward another outcome.  There is something different here.  "Behold, I make all things new." (Revelation 21. 5)

I am no longer caught up in this one thing I do, but on the other hand.....What if I thought about this differently, approached this roadblock, traversed this boulder-strewn path, followed God's scarlet thread through this impenetrable thicket?  What if I tried....?  "But I have always done it this way," my thin excuses fade even more.  My "I can't" is revealed to be more like "I won't even try."

But this time, I was forced into a shattering of my deeply dug ruts.  Not "What are you going to do now?" but "How are you going to do it?"

A counselor friend once told me, "People do what works for them...until it doesn't work any more."

Even the smallest detail done differently shifts ever so slightly the tectonic plates of my heart.  And through those microscopic cracks in my stubborn pride, I begin to hear His quiet whisper, "Follow Me."

O LORD, what is Your way in this?

For My thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways My ways,
                           says the LORD.
For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are My ways higher than your ways
and My thoughts than your thoughts.

                                  Isaiah 55. 8-9

Telling or asking?

It is in the countryside, the rolling hills, the deep forest with trees that appear to touch heaven itself, that I am most aware, not how much I am alone, but the presence of God who is here.  Even there in the darkest places, the tiniest flowers poke their heads through the leafy mess last autumn left behind, the evidence of hope, the revealing that another season is coming about.

And in those grand and cavernous spaces, I find not emptiness, but a sanctuary where I can talk to God outloud.  I can't help it.  There may be no words that fit the occasion, but that is why God invented prayer.

Prayer does not bring God into the conversation nor into the situation at hand, the crisis or the breathless beauty.  But prayer recognizes God already in the room, already working, always responding in one way or another, sometimes in the unexpected, sometimes in mysteries, sometimes in incomprehensible ways.  But when I pray, am I seeking Him in this... or only an answer of my own liking?  Am I asking God -- or am I telling Him -- what to do, how to do it, where, when, and why?  Where is the relationship in that?

One prayer of Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane keeps resounding in my thoughts:  Not my will, but Yours... (Matthew 26. 39, Mark 14. 36)   What does that intimate prayer look like in my life today? 

How does that verse take root, not just in what I pray, but in how I pray?  What am I really asking for?  What do I really want?  His will -- as long as it conforms to mine?  Or something much deeper? 

I thought a lot about it while I was running, several days in a row, stopping every mile or so, to jot down my thoughts.  And a study in contrasts emerged.  How can I pray specifically and personally Not my will, but Yours…? 

Not my designated route, but Your path through the thicket.

Not my schemes, but Your incredible plans.

Not my wishes in this, but Your desires for me.

Not my great ideas, but Your enlargements.

Not my good, but Your welfare for many.

Not my better arrangements, but Your sovereignty.

Not my expectations, but hope in You.

Not my wavering opinions, but Your unchanging truth.

Not my control, but Your steadfast hand.

Not my feelings, but Your Presence.

Not my theories, but Your creation.

Not my performance, but Your grace.

Not my patching together, but Your redeeming.

Not my weakness, but Your strength.

Not my awkward stitches, but Your tapestry.
Not my despair, but Your resurrection.
Not my fictions, but Your truth.
Not my slight momentary affliction, but Your unfailing love.
Not my searching for new portals, but Your knocking on my door.

Not my adding, but Your multiplying.
Not my prescription for how it should be written, but Your eternal narrative.
Not my running away, hiding, pretending to be okay, but Your deliverance.
Not my fears of "what if...," but Your faithfulness in "what is."
Not my obsession with "what's next," but Your strength in "what's now."

Not my myopic vision, but Your eternal perspective.
Not my comfort, but Your Kingdom.
Not my crumbs, but Your banquet.
Not my selfishness, but Your sacrifice.
Not my reaction, but Your response.

Not my glory, but Yours.

Not me, but You.

Not my will, but Yours...

This little phrase of five words is not just a little prayer at all, but profoundly alters how I pray, and radically changes what my life looks like.  Praying in everyday places for what is eternal changes my perspective and reveals the comparison of what is and what can be.  O LORD, align my heart with Yours.  Help me to pray about that which is before me.  Help me to pray like that for what only You can do.  Not my will, but Yours...

For this slight momentary affliction
is preparing for us
an eternal weight of glory
     beyond all comparison,
because we look not
to the things that are seen
   but to the things that are unseen;
for the things that are seen are transient,
but the things that are not seen
                      are eternal.

                  2 Corinthians 4. 17-18

His response may very well take my breath away.