Forever

I sink in deep mire,
Where there is no standing;
I have come into deep waters,
Where the floods overflow me.
~ Psalms 69:1-2 (NKJV)

When comes the dry season, Lord?

Reproach has broken my heart,
And I am full of heaviness;
I looked for someone to take pity, but there was none;
And for comforters, but I found none.
~ Psalms 69:20 (NKJV)

Even if there should be an 'alûph, there are no words to speak.

Give us help from trouble,
For the help of man is useless.
Through God we will do valiantly,
For it is He who shall tread down our enemies.
~ Psalms 60:11-12 and 108:12-13 (NKJV)

But You are ever with me. You do not release me.

Whom have I in heaven but You?
And there is none upon earth that I desire besides You.
My flesh and my heart fail;
But God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.
~ Psalms 73:25-26 (NKJV)

Forever.

If You Let Me Choose ...

Hi, God.

Some time back, I made a public confession about being mad at You for the first time since our love story began. Although I've questioned You many times over my first 46 years, I never felt anger toward You until a year and a half ago.

I thought You'd backed me into a corner. (You had, of course. I just didn't see that You also had my back.) I got plenty angry then.

Anyway, I'm long overdue saying publicly what I told You privately a few weeks ago. I say it again now.

I could never count how many times I've wished for a do-over on my life. So if You were to come to me right now, and offer me one of these two options, I want You to know where I stand.

If You said, "You're going to live your life over again, with no memory of this conversation or the way you lived it the first time, and you get to choose how it will go until You finally end up with Me.

"You can have a happy and peaceful life on earth.

"Your idyllic childhood will offer all the comfort and education you could ask for. You'll be popular, you'll never be without a close confidant, and you'll feel good about yourself.

"You'll enter adulthood as a success wherever you put your mind to try. You'll neither suffer the anxiety of poverty nor experience the adversity and fear brought on by great wealth, but will always enjoy the exact amount of prosperity which gives you peace of mind.

"You'll find your Mr. Right at just the time you awaken to love. He'll be your first and only love. You'll grow old together holding hands through the raising of children, building a dream home, achieving all your goals. You'll die together in your sleep.

"But your peace will be artificial and temporal. You won't have Me until the last day of your life on Earth. Only then will You believe I exist and put faith in Me. You'll not feel My presence until your final hours of drawing breath, and you'll stand before Me devoid of any treasure stored up in Heaven waiting for you.

"I'm giving you another option.

"You can have the same miserable childhood, crying with confusion nearly every day, contemplate suicide often, have no close friends, and live in a home you see as anything but normal. You'll work like a dog, feel like a slave, and think you look like one of the two.

"You'll still make the same mistakes as you become an adult, thinking the ungodly people you've made your friends are good for you, and know the disappointment of looking for love and truth and peace in all the wrong places.

"When you get married, it won't be the comfort and rest you've looked forward to all your life. Of all the hard work and difficult challenges you've overcome when you say 'I do' at age 28, marriage is going to prove your biggest test of perseverance. You'll know more struggle and pain here than all that went before.

"But you'll still have Me. You'll know My presence, hear My voice, understand My truths. You'll feel lonely more often than not. Yet you'll never be alone, and you'll never, your whole life, not even before you know Me, doubt that I'm right here. When you see My face, I'll show you all treasure you've been laying up in Heaven.

"The choice is yours."

I know You'd never say all that. I know that's not the way it works. I feel more than a little afraid to admit this, knowing that You may test me.

All the same, I just want You to know, that nothing I've ever suffered or may yet suffer would be worse than not knowing You. Even if I had a shot at a life that looks and feels perfect, it wouldn't be worth it without You, Lord.

If You let me choose my here and now, and even if I'd end up in Heaven either way—if You let me choose whether You or Happiness is my Lord and my God during this visit to Earth—I'd still choose You.

I ♥ love ♥ You ♥ God, with all my heart. ♥

I can hardly wait for the day I'm able to express it as fully as You express Your love for me.

God-of-Waiting

So the other morning I was lying in bed, aware of the Lord's presence, thinking about revisions to my names of God project, thinking about how long I've worked with His names, wondering if something will come of the work—wondering how long before I even know if something will come of it. (Something outside of me, that is, since I've already been enriched personally by studying God's names beyond my wildest dreams.)

I'm acquainted with many people who have worked on much larger projects for far longer. I also make frequent additions to my mental catalog of people in the Bible who waited long upon the Lord. Knowing that I'm in good company reminds me that the Lord may be trusted to bring His purposes to pass, whether or not He makes His actual purpose known in what He asks.

Whether I wait on Him or He waits on me to get into step with Him, my God seems to specialize in waiting.

My thoughts rabbit trail from the names of God and about His waiting and back to His names. A mental whine traverses the path, that my waiting is still my waiting. Then a notion slips heavenward.

"One of Your names really ought to be 'God-of-Waiting' You know."

I immediately sense in my spirit that one of His names is about waiting, but I've just never seen it.

I sit stock still. Which name did I miss?

El Olam. Everlasting God.

Light bulb! How did I not catch this nuance when it's right there in the Scriptures?

Have you not known?
Have you not heard?
The everlasting God, YHWH,
The Creator of the ends of the earth,
Neither faints nor is weary.
His understanding is unsearchable.
~ Isaiah 40:28

No one outlasts Him. He set his plan in motion six thousand years ago, and still He waits.

Tsur Olam. Rock of Ages.

Trust in YHWH forever,
For YAH, YHWH, is Rock of Ages.
~ Isaiah 26:4

My mind's eye looks upon the Rock of Gibraltar, imagining the ocean's waves and storms and winds relentlessly pounding upon it and never wearing it away. It is solid, immovable, reliable—like my Lord, as He waits.

My waiting suddenly becomes very small as I recall that He is bound up with me in the waiting. It isn't really even my waiting, but our waiting—mine and His.

Yes, the waiting of seven billion other people too.

Beyond Your Ability

He has redeemed my soul in peace
from the battle that was against me,
For there were many against me...
Cast your burden on the LORD,
And He shall sustain you;
He shall never permit the righteous to be moved.
~ Psalms 55:18,22 (NKJV)

Thank You, Lord, for the healing I've experienced. Thank You for all the healing yet to come. Thank You for carrying me when I felt too weak to move.

Thank You for showing me, once again, that You can be trusted; that even when the fire feels too intense to bear, the word You have spoken to me holds firm: "You will not be tested beyond your ability to stand."

Therefore humble yourselves
under the sovereign hand of God,
that He may lift you up at the right time,
having cast all your anxiety upon Him,
for His concern is about you.
~ 1 Peter 5:6-7 (author)

Damages

My seat is among spectators
to a circus named lawsuit
I have no place on arena floor
where Man of Malice is encompassed.

What is hatred's boundary?
How far does its cancer spread?
Can numbers compute its injury?
Does Mammon reward its minions?

This is not court of my recourse
for You, O YHWH, are my King and my God.
My heart seeks You for recompense
and waits upon You for restoration.

But let there be before You
no testimony against injustice
nor argument for equity
for I am too poor to pay.

The bondservant needs no audience
from the Lord Who is Judge.
You own injured and injury
to You alone belong all debts.

If your maid has favor in Your sight
if any plea is brought before You
let my Lord give award to whom I injure
let my Lord restore what I have damaged.

After You Have Suffered a While

But may the God of all grace, who called us to His eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after you have suffered a while, perfect, establish, strengthen, and settle you.
(1 Peter 5:10 NKJV)

You have answered Your servant Peter's prayer and settled me. I am not perfected. But I am complete, established, and strengthened. With a new month You have given me a new peace.

Thank You, my Lord. Thank You.

It Will Be Better

Place:
Prayer Closet

I haven't stopped struggling with a feeling of being unworthy to draw as closely to God as I've been for so long. I've been meditating on this verse and its context:

When Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus' knees, saying, "Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord!"
(Luke 5:8 NKJV)

I've often identified with Peter. It seems to me that he wants desperately to be a godly man. Perhaps he tries too hard. He is continually tripped up over his foot in his mouth—by being confronted with his inherent sinfulness.

In the Scriptures, I can feel Peter's great love for Jesus. I empathize with how horrible Peter would have felt to have declared with sincere passion that he would follow the Lord anywhere, and then falter in the moment of testing. I think of Peter plunging into the sea and rushing to shore when Jesus appears after His resurrection, and their verbal wrestling over Peter's love.

Then the Lord surprises me with a question.

Abba whisper:
Do you still love Me?

I cannot answer. I want to say, like Peter, "Lord, You know all things—You know I love you." But I've fallen so far short in expressing love that I don't feel I have the right to assert my love, even as I can feel it burning within my heart.

Abba whisper:
Why do you not come closer?

I have to think for a long time. The question has been dogging me for months. I've come up with many reasons, and I search my heart for the root of the matter.

It's one thing to lose my temper or have some other outward action confront me with a display of the sinfulness I still carry with me. It's another to have my Lord's words of rebuke sear my soul with revelation of my inner iniquity—and with expression of His displeasure.

I know I'm forgiven for all my sins, past and future. I also know that the iniquity of my flesh is just as present. I hate myself to know I'm just as likely to keep stumbling in front of the holy God I love.

Me:
I fear Your displeasure.

I think of the phrase I've seen in Scripture, "Your hot displeasure." I look it up and read two Psalms where it appears, begninning to end. I linger over these words.

O LORD, do not rebuke me in Your wrath,
Nor chasten me in Your hot displeasure!
For Your arrows pierce me deeply,
And Your hand presses me down.
There is no soundness in my flesh
Because of Your anger,
Nor any health in my bones
Because of my sin.
For my iniquities have gone over my head;
Like a heavy burden they are too heavy for me.
(Psalms 38:1-4 NKJV)

I think to myself that if the Lord simply spoke word of affirmation, words of favor, I could feel it safe to again draw as close as I have. I feel I cannot presume upon His favor until He extends the sceptre. I think of how many times and ways He has affirmed me in the past and how I wish He would do so now. But that is not what He offers.

Abba whisper:
You want only a Father's affirmation and not the rebuke?

Again, I cannot answer. I know His many affirmations have been far more numerous and greater than His few rebukes, even more than that last, strongest rebuke.

Me:
I just want the sweet fellowship again. It won't be the same now.

Abba whisper:
It will be better.

I know what He speaks is true. I don't disbelieve. But I'm so discouraged to know my weakness that I don't know how to engage myself with the Lord. He's so strong. His might overwhelms me.

Me:
I'm so weak. I just want You to carry me.

Abba whisper:
I have been. I want you to walk with Me.

Prayer:
Lord, I feel too weak to walk with Someone as mighty as You. I once wanted to do great things for You because of my great debt to Your Love, to Your Grace. I used to leap up onto the altar. It's all I can do to crawl onto the altar now that I understand what a shamefully blemished sacrifice I am. You deserve better. Please help me in my weakness. Please help me understand how to see myself as You see me, neither putting myself down nor puffing myself up. If You ask me to walk with You, please help me rise to Your steady pace, with the unforced spring in my step that I used to have. Please let me be Your joy.