One of my favorite places to eat in college (along with every other Baylor girl) was a little hole in the wall restaurant called Food for Thought. I think I basically went for the frozen yogurt. In all of my trips back to Baylor the past eight years I've never made it there again. Which is sad. Waco has been touched by Fixer Upper though so too many new things draw my attention.
I wanted to blog today just some verses, prayers, podcasts, songs that have been food for our thoughts lately. I always wondered on the outside of trials in other peoples' lives what they thought about, how they managed. I couldn't fathom walking through things, and I have a pretty vivid imagination so I was always attempting to walk in their shoes. This situation has me realizing no two people face trials similarly. What encourages me might totally depress someone else. I am motivated by things that are particular to me. I am so grateful that Chad and I truly do think a lot alike in this situation. We play tag building each other up. What a gift. I've said it before, but MARRY UP PEOPLE. I married a man I am so proud of, every single day. This situation has impressed upon me even more what a mind-blowing gift God gave me in Chad. Praise the Living God.
I've always known I'm an external processor- but this past month its been next level. I got the chance to visit a discipleship group today I've been part of since Cade was six months old. Sharing with these sweet friends all of the things God has done over the past month was like blowing up a huge balloon in my heart; my own head needed to hear my mouth speaking about it. Like the Israelites stacking stones at the shores of the Jordan after they crossed it on dry ground, I feel like I was stacking my own stones. Here's this story, and this one, and this one...a mound of little and big stones that amount to a place of rememberance. I love how Bill Johnson says, when he can't see, when he can't feel, when he can't taste, he can always remember what God did.
Driving home after Cade's first inpatient chemo weekend, Chad and I talked about the verse in Jude 1:20-21: "But you, dear friends, by building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in God’s love as you wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to bring you to eternal life." In my mind's eye, Chad and I are sitting in the middle of a wilderness, trying to keep a fire going. There is a fire of faith in both of us, and we are tending it constantly. Life has a way of demolishing our faith if we aren't careful. I hear the crackle and blaze of my faith most clearly when I start sharing what God's doing and has done. This is the purpose of this particular post. I hope, I pray, it stokes the fire in your heart as well.
I was revisiting Psalm 20 two days ago, while praying for Cade in radiation. On November 20th, I was already distressed about Cade's fevers. I had already been fasting social media just because I knew I wanted answers, and I remember opening up my Bible app on my phone and reading Psalm 20, which starts:
May the Lord answer you in the day of trouble!
May the name of the God of Jacob protect you!
May he send you help from the sanctuary
and give you support from Zion!"
I remember thinking it was a dramatic psalm for me to cling to over some fevers. Little did I know how much we needed that whole Psalm. Later it says,
May he grant you your heart's desire
and fulfill all your plans!
5 May we shout for joy over your salvation,
and in the name of our God set up our banners!
May the Lord fulfill all your petitions!"
The beautiful thing is that the very next Psalm, Psalm 21, has a verse that says, "You have given him his heart's desire and have not withheld the request of his lips. " I am clinging to those promises.
I love the beautiful idea that the help we receive is from the sanctuary. I paused there yesterday, and relished the idea that the help we get comes from the place where God dwells. In Heaven, there is no pain. There is no sickness. There is no disappointment or discouragement. My help comes from a place where hope and peace reign. What a gift.
A few times over the past month I've caught myself walking around with a sad face. I don't know how to explain it other than I just suddenly realized I was wearing defeat on my face. God is so kind, and doesn't condemn us for our moments of losing sight of Him. But I know in this season, I am not supposed to live from defeat. I was walking out of Riley one morning, realizing my whole posture was slumped, and felt the Holy Spirit kindly tell me to stand up straight, just like my mom used to do. Don't slouch, Charis.
I love all the times in Psalms when David asks himself, "Why are you so downcast O my soul?" I started to think about that recently and was realizing that David had about 1900 reasons to be downcast.
First, he was left in a field alone to tend sheep while his brothers were hot shots for the beginning of his life. Then he gets anointed by a prophet Samuel and told he will be king, but spends more time with sheep-- not quite a palace. Then he almost gets the breakthrough and is one of the nation's most famous men, and suddenly his life is basically in danger for the next decade or so, and 400 discouraged, depressed, and disgruntled men come and meet him in the cave he's hiding in. I mean, come on. If I'd been there when David asked himself why he was so sad, I'd have been able to give him some pretty valid reasons- I won't even go into his later life when he loses one baby due to sin, has unhappy wives, has a son who kill his other son, tries to steal his throne, and eventually dies in battle. David's got reason to be downcast.
But he tells himself,
"Why are you in despair, O my soul? And why are you disturbed within me? Hope in God, for I shall again praise Him, The help of my countenance and my God." Psalm 43:5
God helps our faces. That's encouraging. It also leads me to my next encouraging thought: God helps my face by letting me see His face. All through the Old Testament, it talks about God shining his face on His people. What is it with God's face? It must be pretty beautiful. I'm remembering how Moses would stand at the tent of meeting and literally meet with God, in Exodus 33:11 it says, "face to face." When he would come away from meeting with God, his face would GLOW. I'm not making this up. In 2 Corinthians 3:13 it explains that Moses would wear a veil over his face so that the Israelites wouldn't watch the glory fade away from it as the days went by after he got back from talking to God.
That same passage in 2 Corinthians also says that if that ministry that was under the law, before Jesus, had glory, how MUCH MORE GLORY would be in the ministry that was under the shed blood of Jesus?
"Now if the ministry of death, which was engraved in letters on stone, came with such glory that the Israelites could not gaze at the face of Moses because of its fleeting glory, will not the ministry of the Spirit be even more glorious? For if the ministry of condemnation was glorious, how much more glorious is the ministry of righteousness! Indeed, what was once glorious has no glory now in comparison to the glory that surpasses it. For if what was fading away came with glory, how much greater is the glory of that which endures!
Therefore, since we have such a hope, we are very bold. We are not like Moses, who would put a veil over his face to keep the Israelites from gazing at the end of what was fading away." 2 Corinthians 3:7-13
It was like in that moment walking out of the hospital the Lord reminded me that He wants me to look at Him. His face does not look defeated, His eyes don't look ashamed or sad. His face should determine what mine looks like, but only if I'm locking eyes with Him. And only if I remember that I'm allowed to stand in front of Him, without fear, without distrust, and look Him square in the eye, while the storm rages around us.
Which leads me to my next encouraging thought: I've been praying this verse over Cade-
"For He stands at the right hand of the needy one, to save him from those who condemn his soul to death." Psalm 109:31
I watched an encouraging clip from a sermon about how we are God's right hand, and he is at ours. How can that be? Only if we face each other. If you want to watch it, click HERE.
I've been praying this over our family. God is not far off. He is the help of our countenance, He helps our faces. Such a strange phrase but I've felt it so many times this week.
I've been meditating on the idea that this trial doesn't exempt us from ANY promise or challenge God's already given. Romans 8 says the mind that is set on the Spirit is LIFE AND PEACE. Can I be honest? We are living in peace. I felt guilty about that for about a day until I realized that if we are feeling peace in this place- WE ARE LITERALLY REIGNING IN LIFE. We are doing the right thing. Trust me, I can live in fear and chaos and doubt any time I turn my eyes away even a little bit from God. But if I keep preaching to myself, I have peace.
Which brings me to another encouraging thought: I looked up my journal entry from my birthday, just to read what I felt like God had said. NOW LISTEN, I used to be so afraid to claim I could hear God's voice outside of the actual Bible verses. Then I read John 10 with new eyes, and saw that Jesus said in verse 27, "MY SHEEP HEAR MY VOICE." I wrote a letter from God to myself on my 30th birthday and it ended with this line:
"I don't want you to just make it in life, I want you to master life.
'For if, by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God's abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ! Romans 5:17".
Now, I might get to Heaven and God might say, Charis, I never said that, you just journaled your own thoughts. I am okay with that reality, because my thoughts from that day are preaching to my thoughts today. But I'm pretty convinced that was God, and because I took a minute to listen, He took a minute to speak something I'd need nearly six months later in the crisis of my life.
All that to say again, we all need more of the voice of the Shepherd. We will never regret spending time with Him, risking to hear Him, believing Him.
I keep telling Chad that I feel like I've heard stories my whole life of people who risked with God. They decided, in the face of fear, to believe Him, just a little beyond what their own faith allowed. And I've never heard a story where it ended up they were disappointed. If this is a Caleb and Joshua situation, where 12 spies go to see a Promised Land and ten come back griping about the enemy and gripped with fear, I gotta be on the Caleb and Joshua side. This is how God brags about Caleb's choice to reject fear:
"But my servant Caleb, because he has a different spirit and has followed me fully, I will bring into the land into which he went, and his descendants shall possess it."
I'd rather risk, believe God, keep peace in my heart by reminding myself of all God's capable of, all He has already done, and freaking fight fear with all my heart, and find myself standing in the promise, then dread and get depressed and just barely make it to the end of this thing. I just know it's going to be worth it. Every time I choose to reject fear, it's like a final, exhausting effort on my heart's part. It takes every bit of my strength. And yet He always brings fresh strength, right when I reach the end of mine.
Y'all, Jesus is worth it. He is so exciting. He is so faithful. He doesn't abandon His friends or blindside His children. He was putting tools in Chad and my hands all of our lives so we could do this hour well, and so we wouldn't find ourselves derailed and our faith stripped. In Jewel's phrasing," if I could tell the world just one thing it would be" make Jesus your friend. He is the best there ever could be for our hearts.
Here are some podcasts we've been listening to:
Expect Blessings by Bill Johnson
Unrelenting Prayer by Bob Sorge
And here are some albums we've been just living in:
Labyrinth by David Baloche: like the whole album is STUNNING. Thanks, James Mark Gulley, for introducing us
Where His Light Was by Kristene Di Marco: she doesn't know she actually wrote this album for us. IT IS AMAZING
I wanted to blog today just some verses, prayers, podcasts, songs that have been food for our thoughts lately. I always wondered on the outside of trials in other peoples' lives what they thought about, how they managed. I couldn't fathom walking through things, and I have a pretty vivid imagination so I was always attempting to walk in their shoes. This situation has me realizing no two people face trials similarly. What encourages me might totally depress someone else. I am motivated by things that are particular to me. I am so grateful that Chad and I truly do think a lot alike in this situation. We play tag building each other up. What a gift. I've said it before, but MARRY UP PEOPLE. I married a man I am so proud of, every single day. This situation has impressed upon me even more what a mind-blowing gift God gave me in Chad. Praise the Living God.
I've always known I'm an external processor- but this past month its been next level. I got the chance to visit a discipleship group today I've been part of since Cade was six months old. Sharing with these sweet friends all of the things God has done over the past month was like blowing up a huge balloon in my heart; my own head needed to hear my mouth speaking about it. Like the Israelites stacking stones at the shores of the Jordan after they crossed it on dry ground, I feel like I was stacking my own stones. Here's this story, and this one, and this one...a mound of little and big stones that amount to a place of rememberance. I love how Bill Johnson says, when he can't see, when he can't feel, when he can't taste, he can always remember what God did.
Driving home after Cade's first inpatient chemo weekend, Chad and I talked about the verse in Jude 1:20-21: "But you, dear friends, by building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in God’s love as you wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to bring you to eternal life." In my mind's eye, Chad and I are sitting in the middle of a wilderness, trying to keep a fire going. There is a fire of faith in both of us, and we are tending it constantly. Life has a way of demolishing our faith if we aren't careful. I hear the crackle and blaze of my faith most clearly when I start sharing what God's doing and has done. This is the purpose of this particular post. I hope, I pray, it stokes the fire in your heart as well.
I was revisiting Psalm 20 two days ago, while praying for Cade in radiation. On November 20th, I was already distressed about Cade's fevers. I had already been fasting social media just because I knew I wanted answers, and I remember opening up my Bible app on my phone and reading Psalm 20, which starts:
May the Lord answer you in the day of trouble!
May the name of the God of Jacob protect you!
May he send you help from the sanctuary
and give you support from Zion!"
I remember thinking it was a dramatic psalm for me to cling to over some fevers. Little did I know how much we needed that whole Psalm. Later it says,
May he grant you your heart's desire
and fulfill all your plans!
5 May we shout for joy over your salvation,
and in the name of our God set up our banners!
May the Lord fulfill all your petitions!"
The beautiful thing is that the very next Psalm, Psalm 21, has a verse that says, "You have given him his heart's desire and have not withheld the request of his lips. " I am clinging to those promises.
I love the beautiful idea that the help we receive is from the sanctuary. I paused there yesterday, and relished the idea that the help we get comes from the place where God dwells. In Heaven, there is no pain. There is no sickness. There is no disappointment or discouragement. My help comes from a place where hope and peace reign. What a gift.
A few times over the past month I've caught myself walking around with a sad face. I don't know how to explain it other than I just suddenly realized I was wearing defeat on my face. God is so kind, and doesn't condemn us for our moments of losing sight of Him. But I know in this season, I am not supposed to live from defeat. I was walking out of Riley one morning, realizing my whole posture was slumped, and felt the Holy Spirit kindly tell me to stand up straight, just like my mom used to do. Don't slouch, Charis.
I love all the times in Psalms when David asks himself, "Why are you so downcast O my soul?" I started to think about that recently and was realizing that David had about 1900 reasons to be downcast.
First, he was left in a field alone to tend sheep while his brothers were hot shots for the beginning of his life. Then he gets anointed by a prophet Samuel and told he will be king, but spends more time with sheep-- not quite a palace. Then he almost gets the breakthrough and is one of the nation's most famous men, and suddenly his life is basically in danger for the next decade or so, and 400 discouraged, depressed, and disgruntled men come and meet him in the cave he's hiding in. I mean, come on. If I'd been there when David asked himself why he was so sad, I'd have been able to give him some pretty valid reasons- I won't even go into his later life when he loses one baby due to sin, has unhappy wives, has a son who kill his other son, tries to steal his throne, and eventually dies in battle. David's got reason to be downcast.
But he tells himself,
"Why are you in despair, O my soul? And why are you disturbed within me? Hope in God, for I shall again praise Him, The help of my countenance and my God." Psalm 43:5
God helps our faces. That's encouraging. It also leads me to my next encouraging thought: God helps my face by letting me see His face. All through the Old Testament, it talks about God shining his face on His people. What is it with God's face? It must be pretty beautiful. I'm remembering how Moses would stand at the tent of meeting and literally meet with God, in Exodus 33:11 it says, "face to face." When he would come away from meeting with God, his face would GLOW. I'm not making this up. In 2 Corinthians 3:13 it explains that Moses would wear a veil over his face so that the Israelites wouldn't watch the glory fade away from it as the days went by after he got back from talking to God.
That same passage in 2 Corinthians also says that if that ministry that was under the law, before Jesus, had glory, how MUCH MORE GLORY would be in the ministry that was under the shed blood of Jesus?
"Now if the ministry of death, which was engraved in letters on stone, came with such glory that the Israelites could not gaze at the face of Moses because of its fleeting glory, will not the ministry of the Spirit be even more glorious? For if the ministry of condemnation was glorious, how much more glorious is the ministry of righteousness! Indeed, what was once glorious has no glory now in comparison to the glory that surpasses it. For if what was fading away came with glory, how much greater is the glory of that which endures!
Therefore, since we have such a hope, we are very bold. We are not like Moses, who would put a veil over his face to keep the Israelites from gazing at the end of what was fading away." 2 Corinthians 3:7-13
It was like in that moment walking out of the hospital the Lord reminded me that He wants me to look at Him. His face does not look defeated, His eyes don't look ashamed or sad. His face should determine what mine looks like, but only if I'm locking eyes with Him. And only if I remember that I'm allowed to stand in front of Him, without fear, without distrust, and look Him square in the eye, while the storm rages around us.
Which leads me to my next encouraging thought: I've been praying this verse over Cade-
"For He stands at the right hand of the needy one, to save him from those who condemn his soul to death." Psalm 109:31
I watched an encouraging clip from a sermon about how we are God's right hand, and he is at ours. How can that be? Only if we face each other. If you want to watch it, click HERE.
I've been praying this over our family. God is not far off. He is the help of our countenance, He helps our faces. Such a strange phrase but I've felt it so many times this week.
I've been meditating on the idea that this trial doesn't exempt us from ANY promise or challenge God's already given. Romans 8 says the mind that is set on the Spirit is LIFE AND PEACE. Can I be honest? We are living in peace. I felt guilty about that for about a day until I realized that if we are feeling peace in this place- WE ARE LITERALLY REIGNING IN LIFE. We are doing the right thing. Trust me, I can live in fear and chaos and doubt any time I turn my eyes away even a little bit from God. But if I keep preaching to myself, I have peace.
Which brings me to another encouraging thought: I looked up my journal entry from my birthday, just to read what I felt like God had said. NOW LISTEN, I used to be so afraid to claim I could hear God's voice outside of the actual Bible verses. Then I read John 10 with new eyes, and saw that Jesus said in verse 27, "MY SHEEP HEAR MY VOICE." I wrote a letter from God to myself on my 30th birthday and it ended with this line:
"I don't want you to just make it in life, I want you to master life.
'For if, by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God's abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ! Romans 5:17".
Now, I might get to Heaven and God might say, Charis, I never said that, you just journaled your own thoughts. I am okay with that reality, because my thoughts from that day are preaching to my thoughts today. But I'm pretty convinced that was God, and because I took a minute to listen, He took a minute to speak something I'd need nearly six months later in the crisis of my life.
All that to say again, we all need more of the voice of the Shepherd. We will never regret spending time with Him, risking to hear Him, believing Him.
I keep telling Chad that I feel like I've heard stories my whole life of people who risked with God. They decided, in the face of fear, to believe Him, just a little beyond what their own faith allowed. And I've never heard a story where it ended up they were disappointed. If this is a Caleb and Joshua situation, where 12 spies go to see a Promised Land and ten come back griping about the enemy and gripped with fear, I gotta be on the Caleb and Joshua side. This is how God brags about Caleb's choice to reject fear:
"But my servant Caleb, because he has a different spirit and has followed me fully, I will bring into the land into which he went, and his descendants shall possess it."
I'd rather risk, believe God, keep peace in my heart by reminding myself of all God's capable of, all He has already done, and freaking fight fear with all my heart, and find myself standing in the promise, then dread and get depressed and just barely make it to the end of this thing. I just know it's going to be worth it. Every time I choose to reject fear, it's like a final, exhausting effort on my heart's part. It takes every bit of my strength. And yet He always brings fresh strength, right when I reach the end of mine.
Y'all, Jesus is worth it. He is so exciting. He is so faithful. He doesn't abandon His friends or blindside His children. He was putting tools in Chad and my hands all of our lives so we could do this hour well, and so we wouldn't find ourselves derailed and our faith stripped. In Jewel's phrasing," if I could tell the world just one thing it would be" make Jesus your friend. He is the best there ever could be for our hearts.
Here are some podcasts we've been listening to:
Expect Blessings by Bill Johnson
Unrelenting Prayer by Bob Sorge
And here are some albums we've been just living in:
Labyrinth by David Baloche: like the whole album is STUNNING. Thanks, James Mark Gulley, for introducing us
Where His Light Was by Kristene Di Marco: she doesn't know she actually wrote this album for us. IT IS AMAZING
Amen, amen!!! Thank you, Char!! Xoxo
ReplyDeleteSweet Charis - I have joined the choir of angels praying over Cade, you and your precious family! Could you please send me a picture of your family so I can share with my bible study. These prayer warriors will be praying with a grandma’s heart for your Cade. Love you dear one - Mrs. Braun. 61braun@gmail.com
ReplyDeleteCharis, I have no words really to convey the way I feel after reading your blog posts. It’s some kind of mixture of awe, conviction, joy and the fear of God mixed in together. I am so proud to be running in this tribe with you guys! He is using y’alls faith to do SO MUCH for his GLORY and to draw his kids to himself. I can’t help but feel a glimpse of the unspeakable joy this gives Him. Thank you for continuing to say “yes” in envy step! We are here cheering you guys on.
ReplyDelete