To Fix or Not to Fix: That is the Question

Our church is going through a difficult time. Actually, that’s an understatement. Everything that could go wrong in the process of transitioning from one pastor to another has happened to us. About the time we think we’ve weathered the worst of the storm, another huge wave breaks over our heads and more people are slammed down into the surf and come up spitting sand out of their teeth.

I am a deacon, and I assumed, when this all began, that my job was to fix things. That’s what deacons do, right? So I spent my time frantically running from one chaotic situation to another, trying to right all the wrongs.

But before I could accomplish much, I distinctly heard God say, “Ginny, I want you to quit trying to fix things. I’m not finished un-fixing things, and you’re just getting in my way.”

Well. That was a surprise. Wasn’t God supposed to fix thing? To right wrongs? I’d always supposed so. But I was sure God had spoken, so I stepped back to reconnoitre. I began observing God at work among us, and before long I came to the reluctant conclusion that it was actually He who was stirring the pot.

I’ve said this to some of my friends, and it’s resulted in a lively debate about whether or not God causes wrong things to happen. That’s an interesting subject. Maybe one we should talk about in another blog post. But for now, all I can say is I felt I saw God nodding, as if everything were working together for good, every time someone said something hurtful and someone else said a hurtful thing back. I cannot explain this, but I know God is here, and He has not been fixing things. Yet.

Last week our Care Group studied John 11. In this story, Jesus deliberately delayed “fixing” Lazarus. He heard his friend was sick, and so he stayed where he was for four days. Apparently, in the Jewish tradition, a person is not officially dead until he has not breathed for three days. Lazarus was officially dead when Jesus came to visit.

Jesus could have fixed this situation before it became so impossible. He could have saved people he loved a lot of grief. Yet He didn’t. Instead he let Lazarus die, and when He finally arrived on the scene, he cried with the mourners.

Why? It’s an easy question to ask when we’re in the midst of the pain. But God tells us why in this case, and it’s the same answer He gives us when we anguish over unanswered prayer.

He wants to teach us something about Himself that we can only learn when things are impossibly miserable.

He wants us to learn that nothing is too hard for Him.

He wants us to discover the depths of our need, and to realize that death is the ultimate end of all the world’s brokenness.

He wants to reveal that He has planned all along to bring life out of our death-ness, and nothing will stop Him from doing it. Not stones in front of tombs; not binding grave-clothes; not sceptical observers; not conniving religious leaders who will kill Him for what He has done.

So what have I learned? I’ve learned not to try to fix things. I’ve learned to observe God at work. I’ve learned to trust Him at work in my own pain and to rest in His hesed love.

The interesting thing is that nothing has changed about what I do. I still cry with people, comfort them, direct them toward different thinking, admonish and chide gently. But I do it differently now. I cry without desperation; my comfort is not sentimental; my admonitions have become simply loving suggestions and my chiding is less frantic and dictatorial.

Why? Because I know God is in charge. He is doing something. He knows what He’s doing, and it is good. I’ve learned to trust. To be restfully available and instantly obedient. It’s so much more satisfying than trying to fix everything, and it works better too.

A Follow Up to the Petals Post

Today I found an article in Christianity Today that contritutes more to my thinking on the Petals topic. Somehow it's related. Not sure how yet. Something about trusting instead of fixing. Believing instead of doing. Check it out if you like.

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2009/october/22.60.html

Dang. I keep forgetting how to put web addresses in so you can access them directly. Help?

Cleaning up the Dead Petals

I’m sitting on the back deck having some quiet time with the Lord. Beautiful sunshine! One of the many things I have to be thankful for this Canadian Thanksgiving weekend.

But thanks is not uppermost in my mind. As we begin to talk (or as I begin to talk) I notice the petunia needs pruning. So many dead leaves and blossoms. So I start pulling them off as I mutter. “God, please help my dear ones. You know how long and hard I’ve prayed for them and yet nothing has happened. Can’t you do something? I’ve invested so much in them you must know how important this is. They need your healing in their lives so badly. It seems to me like you should be doing something about this.”

I mutter away, out loud, which means I can hear how it sounds, so I end up doing quite a bit of repenting: for my impatience with God, for my self-pity, for my lack of faith.

Then all of a sudden I’m in tears. From out of nowhere. God, you know how much I love these people. It’s because I love them. I know you love them too. Please help them.

I sob and pray for a while, then I wipe my eyes and pick up My Utmost for His Highest from the bench beside me. I open to today’s date. The heading is "Pull Yourself Together." Hmm. Sounds suspiciously like a Word from the Lord, considering the circumstances.

Oswald Chambers says: “Yield your members servants to righteousness unto holiness.” Romans 6:13-22 is the passage it’s from.

I cannot save and sanctify myself; I cannot atone for sin; I cannot redeem the world; I cannot make right what is wrong, pure what is impure, holy what is unholy. That is all the sovereign work of God. Have I faith in what Jesus Christ has done? He has made a perfect Atonement, am I in the habit of constantly realizing it? The great need is not to do things, but to believe things. The Redemption of Christ is not an experience, it is the great act of God which He has performed through Christ, and I have to build my faith upon it.

Yup. There’s a message here for me.

I’m relieved, actually. I don’t have to fix things or worry how God is doing it. I’m sure He’s up to something and I’m sure it’s good. It might even work better if He fixes it than if I try.

Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him and He shall direct your paths. Be not wise in your own eyes; fear the Lord, and depart from evil.
Proverbs 3:5-7

The next verse says, in the King James, it will be health to thy navel. Not too sure what that means but a healthy navel can't be a bad thing.

Now I need to get out the sweeper and suck up the dead petals on the deck floor.

When it Comes to Eternity, Timing Might be Everything

It may be my imagination, but it seems lately I’ve become aware of the quiet moving of God in my life in a new way. I don’t know if He’s moving in a new way, or I’m just becoming aware of it. But it’s intriguing, and something I want to follow up on.

Often, these days, when I’m working at the computer, or out and about around town, I get a sudden, sweet urge to go to prayer in a more focused way.

The kind of prayer I’m drawn to in these moments is different than the more or less continual chatter I bombard Him with all day long—the kind that often degrades into self-talk, because I’ve become more focused on my problems than the One I’m talking to about them.

These moments are delicate, so fleeting that they’re gone almost as soon as I realize they’ve come. Kind of like butterflies landing on your shoulder. And I’ve found they totally evaporate when they come and I think to myself, “Hmm. That’s nice. I’m going to go to prayer as soon as I finish this article, or when I get home from the store.” When the article is finished, or the groceries are in the fridge, I don’t feel the same sweet urgency, and my prayer times, when I manage to fit them into my schedule, become life-less.

Why is this? Maybe, in these brief, sweet times, I’m catching the crest of the wave of a kairos moment—a spiritually significant, eternal “moment” (there are no moments in eternity but I have no other words to express it), and if I don’t hop on the surfboard and get on top of that wave I’ll miss the excitement, and the spiritual benefits, of an exhilarating experience with God.

Even more sobering, I might miss a chance to create, in prayer, a spiritually significant moment in the life (or the eternity) of someone for whom God is asking me to intercede.

I’ve decided I’m not satisfied with lifeless prayer times any more—the kind that feel like I’ve called the meeting, and God is taking His time showing up. And I’m realizing something new about obedience: it needs to be instant. I need to be instant in my response to these brief promptings or they will go away.

For some time now God has been teaching me that I need to be restfully available to Him, and instantly obedient. The first part of that admonition is easier for me now. I’ve learned to relax and let Him guide and prompt. But I’m slower on the uptake of the prompts. This is (yet another) growing edge for me.

Another Granddaughter's Birthday, October 4, 2009!

A Sonnet to
Sophia Marie Jessie Mohr
written the day she was born,
October 4, 2007
by Grandma Jaques

The rain-bowed clouds embrace your birth today.
They promise grace for sunny skies and dim.
Life spreads her wings to start you on your way,
God takes your hand to lead your heart toward Him.

Through your dear body run the threads of life
That join us all in common ancestry.
And through your spirit, as you’re led by Christ,
Those threads will lead into eternity.

The gracious plans the Master has for you
Are mirrored in the glowing rainbow skies.
We see them faintly veiled from earthly view
As we look down into your misty eyes.

T-R-U-S-T

There are two kinds of people in the world.

I love those general statements! They open you up to challenges on every side. Of course there are more than two kinds of people, but comparisons between two extremes sometimes help us see ourselves more clearly.

This summer I presented a two-part sermon series to my church on trust. The messages were based on Jeremiah 2:13, where God accuses Israel of committing two sins:

They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that can hold no water.

The imagery God uses here is powerful. He is an Artesian Spring, spurting out an abundant supply of clean, fresh water (representing life) constantly, forever. But Israel prefers to dig empty holes in the ground, with cracks in the bottom, and trust the rains will come once in a while to fill them up.

If you walked for miles in a dry desert and came across a fountain of water spurting into the air and splashing down on the parched ground beneath, what would you do?

I have friends who would immediately shed their clothes and go for a swim. They are one kind of person.

I am another.

I am a container person. When I see water spurting up all over, my first inclination is to grab as many containers as I can find and fill them. I want the security of contained water, a water supply I have some kind of control over. This sheer abandonment, this splashing all over the place, it makes me nervous. I am a broken cistern person by nature.

But sheer abandonment is what God calls us to. It’s the only thing He asks of us, in fact, because it’s the only thing we are capable of giving Him. Sheer abandonment opens us up to receive everything He wants to give us. And He’s all about giving.

I have no problem with partial trust. I know He’s the Spring of Living Water and I am more than willing to dip into it now and then, but I'd like a couple of cisterns dug nearby as well, for a back up supply.

It’s the carefree splashing I have trouble with. The total abandonment, full of delight, without any back up system, as if the water will always be there and always be all I need. What a concept.

So, there are two kinds of people in the world. There are those who splash in the fountain and there are those who scurry around looking for something to put water in. I am a scurrier by nature. I have to work hard at splashing. I have to work hard at trusting.

How to do that? Here’s a suggestion. Five steps to joyful abandonment:

Tune in to Him.
Get His perspective. Our trust has to start with Him and who He is.

Rest in His victory.
His victory is real and eternal and it began, for us, the minute we gave ourselves to Him the first time.

Understand the final end.
Heaven awaits. All else is temporal and relatively unimportant. Trust requires us to be forward-looking.

Stand firm in faith.
Though we’re to rest in His victory, that doesn’t mean we are to act like wimps. The enemy will fight against our abandonment to the Fountain. We need to equip ourselves like soldiers (I Corinthians 16:13) and take our stand in His victory.

Thank Him for who He is and for all He has provided.
Trust automatically results in praise and thanksgiving. Lack of thankfulness is unbelief. And, when we find it hard to trust, the opposite also works. Thanksgiving will create trust because it puts us back at the beginning of this process.

It’s pouring rain outside. My shoulders are wet because I just had to sprint to get the garbage out. The truck was already roaring down my street.

I think I’ll wear the clothes for a while, as a reminder that "wet all over" is not always a bad thing.

Ah-choo! Or maybe not.

For Zouxi

Today is my little Zouxi's third birthday. She lives in the Dominican Republic with her Mama, Eridania, Dad, Andy, and brothers, Alex and baby Rowan.

I still feel the same as I did when she was born and I wrote this poem:

It’s hard to be a grandma
Who lives so far away,
When you’d love to give her kisses
At least five times a day.

It’s hard to wake up worried
In the middle of the night,
When you can’t go in and check her,
To see if she’s all right.

It’s hard to think she’s crying
In someone else’s arms,
When your arms long to hold her
And soothe her baby storms.

You’d so much love to tell her
In words her heart could hear,
That Jesus wants to be her friend
And He is always near.

But you have to make adjustments, so,
To calm your fears and cares,
If you can’t hold her in your arms
You hold her in your prayers.

You know that you can trust Him
To watch her day by day.
He loves her more than you do
And He’s not too far away.

And so I’ll be a grandma
Who lives too far away,
And spoil her when she visits
And when she’s gone, I’ll pray.