Heart Ponderings

What Moses Knew

Posted on by Christina Bailey

This post first appeared on the Living Loved Community on Facebook where I write a monthly column for Stewarding Saturdays.

The words of a worship song fill my ears and I close my eyes. I am suspended. Between the now and the not yet. On my knees before the throne. Surrounded by a host of angels.

I open my eyes and turn in my Bible to the story of the Exodus. I imagine Moses in the tent. Or on the mountaintop. Meeting with God “face to face, as one speaks to a friend” (Exodus 33:11). Try as I might, I cannot put myself there.

And yet, in my own way, I know what it is to feel His breath upon my cheek. To watch this world fade away. To slip off the shoes of my day to day. And in these glimpses, a dawning. A realization of what Moses knew to be true.

Once you have stood upon holy ground, no other ground will do.

“If Your Presence does not go with us,” Moses cried, “do not send us up from here” (33:15). These ancient words are spoken in a voice with a familiar tonality. Because the same Spirit that set the bush ablaze, burns here, inside of me.

As it has burned for centuries.

“Do not cast me away from Your Presence,” David begged in Psalm 51:11. And to Jesus’ question of fidelity, Peter’s pained reply: “Lord to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life” (John 6:68).

These stewards of the faith reach through time to hold my gaze. Listen, they say. Once you have felt the heat of the Spirit’s blaze, you cannot return to the chill of the world’s embrace. God’s Presence is the treasure we sell everything to gain.

It did not matter, in that wilderness place, what threats or promises the Almighty made. Moses did not fear destruction under God’s justified gaze. He cared nothing for angelic might, divine favors or legacies. And like a gift of grace, Moses’ heartfelt prayer speaks for me.

I cannot steward anyone on my own. Our every step would take a wayward route. It does not matter what trials may come. You, Lord, are the only thing that is true. Every single promise in that land would be empty without You. (Exodus 33:12-16, paraphrase)

Thoughts On A Walk In Springtime

Posted on by Christina Bailey

Spring is here and has been, I suppose, for a bit. But it’s so timid. So reticent. It peeks in then darts away. It lurks in the doorway. An unsure child seeking his place. Your place was always with us. Always.

I stop and take pictures of every blossoming tree. This becoming is so becoming to me. I want to hold it still, breathe it in. And how ironic that the breathing it in can make so many of us miserable. What a conflicting thing this world can be.

The tight pink balls waiting to blossom. I guess they are cherry but what do I know. This place is not my home. It is, now, but still isn’t. I am a foreigner. I speak a different birdsong. I am friends with other trees. I am just acquainting myself with these. I pass one that looks like a rhinoceros. All grey with wrinkled knees and a branch that dares the other trees to tangle with him.

And then our route turns a corner and there is a tree with tiny white florets. Too small to be flowers and to me they are barnacles. And suddenly I’m aching for the sea. The sound of waves. Little purple and green anemones. I want to crouch near sea stars. Watch tiny fish dart into crevices.

My throat tightens with longing. Who knew a simple walk around the block could be so fraught. Such a bright and hopeful day hold so many old and misty memories.

I envy the blossoms. I envy the trees. I envy the neighbors. The only one I don’t envy is me.

The Tree

Posted on by Christina Bailey

I met this tree the other day
She came upon me
as I went my way
We nodded in gentle assent
The way that strangers do
But then I turned
And looked again

“How?”
I asked in wonder
Or maybe it was
an anguished cry
From deep within
Or maybe those are
one and the same
Because what I wonder
Most often lately is
why
And
how long
And
do You even hear me at all?

And there in that place
Where the wooded path
Met the open meadow
He stopped my heart
And told me to see.

this lifeless tree
Cracked and twisted
Pain and anguish
Etched into her soul
bursting with new life

She’s given herself in death
I said to myself.
Allowed a new thing
To sprout from the ruins
Of all she used to be.

Wait, He said
His hand pressing on my chest
Look again.
She is not dead.
That new life is hers
That strength is hers
That hope is hers

I looked at her
From every angle
It made no sense
It was not possible
And yet
there she was
And oh my heart cried
She is so
Impossibly

beautiful

Barren

Posted on by Christina Bailey

The trees are barren here.
Harsh and unyielding.
As if they cannot bear
To be exposed
To feel.
To breathe deeply and
Let anyone in.
There are no soft downy paths
Through moss covered giants
No tiny mushrooms
No golden yellow snails
Making their way over smooth round rocks
And across a layer of age softened needles and leaves

The water here puddles in soggy dips in the soil.
Every step feels like an intrusion.
I miss the sound of water trickling over stones
I miss the way the sky reflected in the wet pavement
As we walked down familiar roads.

No stump here comes close in size
Or in personality
To my old growth friends with wizened eyes
Bearded in green velvet.
Where do the fairies live?
There is no magic here.
No joyful surprise around every turn.
No you.
No me.
Only the barren empty husk
Of all we used to be.

This Grace In Which We Stand

Posted on by Christina Bailey

Martha’s brother is dead.

Jesus did not come, even though she sent word. He loved Lazarus. She only asked Him to do for His friend what she had seen Him do for total strangers.

But He did not come.

He waited.

For two full days after she sent word, Jesus did not take a single step in her direction. Because He loved her.

“Now Jesus loved Martha… SO … He stayed two more days in the place where He was.” (John 11:5-6)

How on earth could such a delay be motivated by love?

So many things in my life are dying. I have begged Jesus time and again to come and heal. Nothing happens. Nothing good anyway. Bad to worse? Sure. But not so much with the miraculous healings. I don’t understand. Other people get the miracles. Why not me?

When Jesus finally arrived, Martha’s brother had been dead and in a tomb for four days. Martha is all about doing the right things and so she greeted Jesus with all the faith she could muster.

“If You had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now,” she says, and I imagine her choking back a sob, gritting her teeth to say the words that a good follower should say, “… even now I know that whatever you ask of God, God will give you.”

Jesus says what she would never think to ask and cannot bring herself to imagine.

“Your brother will rise again.”

Oh don’t go there, Jesus. Don’t turn my pain into a spiritual metaphor.

But ever dutiful Martha plays along. “I know…” she says again. She puts on her “good faithful follower” face and says the right words to show she’s read her Bible.

Jesus knows Martha’s heart. She understands the scriptures better than the most learned Pharisee, but she is still on the outside looking in. He reaches His hand through the veil.

“I am the resurrection and the life… Do you believe?”

“Yes Lord.”

Yes, I believe You are who You say You are. I believe You will do what You say You will do. Someday. In the distant future that I can only imagine in the way that I imagine winning the lottery. Sounds amazing. But not likely to happen anytime soon.

And then Jesus really pushes it.

“Take away the stone.”

Martha tried. She really did. In the midst of deep grief and unbearable loss, she went to Jesus. She honored Him as Lord. Submitted to God’s higher plans even though it hurt her so deeply. But to open the tomb – to rip the scab off her wound in front of everyone – so that her loss was so unbearably real that it would turn the strongest stomach? This is too much.

“Lord, by this time there is a stench, for he has been dead four days.”

Please don’t make me go through this. Leave well enough alone.

But that is the one thing Jesus will not do. He loves Martha too much to leave her with even the most theologically robust two-dimensional faith. He wants more for her. For us. It was because He loved her that He came exactly when He did.

“Did I not tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God?”

Martha has no more Sunday School answers to give. Everything happens now quickly, in bold dramatic fashion.

(I imagine Martha and Mary standing to the side, holding hands, tears streaking their faces. Did they flinch as the stone was rolled away? Did they sob harder as Jesus prayed aloud thanking the Father for hearing His prayer? When He called for their brother to “come forth” did they want to double over in agony? Or was the air so electric with His power and authority that their tears stopped and their eyes widened in breathless expectation?)

And then, right in front of her eyes, the impossible happens. Martha’s dead four days and decaying in the grave brother walks out of the tomb.

(Honestly how did she and Mary not just faint dead on the spot?)

I do not know what to make of this. Like Martha, I know what the Bible says. I think I understand God’s plans and promises in a general sense. I know there is hope in light of eternity. But here? Now? Today? I’m speechless. In the world I live in, dead people stay dead. Not just people. Dreams. Relationships. They die and there’s no resuscitating them. There’s only grieving and finding a way to move on with a hole in your heart.

I look again at what Jesus said to Martha, just before He raised Lazarus. “If you believed… you would see the glory of God.”

Jesus did not come when Martha called. He did not perform the miracle she asked for. He went far above all she could ask or imagine. He brought the dead to life again.

I have no idea what Jesus has planned for me and all that is dead and decaying around me. It seems that God rarely performs the same exact miracle twice. Because, I am learning, it is not about the miracle. It’s about His glory.

Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief.

“Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.”
Romans 5:1-2

Stand Firm and See

Posted on by Christina Bailey

There’s a prayer in the Old Testament that I find myself praying on the regular these days:

“We don’t know what to do. Our eyes are on You.” (2 Chronicles 20:12)

“I don’t know what to do, God.”
This situation seems to go from bad to worse. This relationship that I have invested my life in is disintegrating before my very eyes. Everything I say, everything I do, only seems to make things worse. I have been brought to the very end of myself. I surrender. I lay it all down. I admit I am powerless.

“My eyes are on You.”
All the fight has gone out of me. I am so very tired. The storm keeps blowing and I don’t feel safe in my little boat. You, Jesus, are my only Hope.

It’s there, in that place of total surrender, that God speaks. His answer to that Old Testament king had three parts. Three steps for every battle I face in this life.

“… Take up your positions; stand firm and see the deliverance the Lord will give you…Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged…. the Lord will be with you.’” (2 Chronicles 20:17)

  1. Take up your positions.
    Put on that full armor of God. Figure out who you are and what matters most. Boundaries have to go around something – what is worth protecting at all costs?
  2. Stand Firm.
    “…after you have done everything, stand” – with that belt of Truth buckled tight. There are days when standing looks more like kneeling. More like laying prostrate before my Lord, my face wet with tears. But in my spirit, I am standing on the Rock, the firm foundation that will never ever let me down. The earth may shake, but the ground beneath my feet is solid.
  3. See the deliverance the LORD will give you.
    Keep those eyes on Him. Don’t falter, don’t look away. And don’t confuse my ideas of how things should play out with God’s perfect plans. Sometimes deliverance looks like going into a fiery furnace. Like spending the night in the lion’s den. Those three men who took up a position to honor God at all costs came out of the furnace – without even the smell of smoke on them. And Daniel walked out of that den in the morning “and no injury whatever was found on him, because he believed God.”
    “Therefore, we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day.” See the deliverance the LORD will give you.

    Hold on my friends.

    The night is nearly over.

    The day is almost here.

pselaphao

Posted on by Christina Bailey

We don’t grope for things in the light. 

Grope is a word we use for struggle. 

For when we are lost and cannot find our way. 

When the darkness is so thick it’s palpable and our usual way of seeing fails us. 

In the black of the darkest night or the deepest cave, you can open your eyes as wide as you want, you still won’t see a thing.  

When he preached to the Greeks in Athens, Paul used this word – pselaphao – which the New King James Bible translated to “Grope”. Other versions say “reach out” or even “feel their way” and these are good, but I don’t think they go far enough. The Amplified translated it “grasp” and that comes closer I think. Grasping implies holding on for dear life. Like if you let go you will fall. Sink into the depths. 

I know the feeling. The world has shaken, hard, and the ground around me has fallen away. A storm blows through and there is wreckage everywhere. At times like that, it doesn’t feel like enough just to “seek” God. I need to grasp Him. With both hands.

And if we can’t see God – maybe we don’t even know where to look, or our eyes are utterly useless because all around us is deep, overwhelming darkness? We turn to one of our other senses, the one that usually takes a backseat when it comes to belief. “Seeing is believing” we say.  But when our sight fails, we need to feel our way.

The day that Jesus rose and walked out of the grave and appeared to the twelve in the upper room where they sheltered, disillusioned and asking themselves what comes next… they looked at Him and did not believe their own eyes. They saw Him die. Saw His beaten and disfigured body taken down from the cross and buried in a tomb. It was impossible for Him to be there, in their midst. They must be having a shared delusion. Perhaps He was a ghost. It was not joy they felt in that moment, but abject fear. 

And so He gave them a gentle invitation: “Handle me and see…” 

Pselaphao. 

In your darkness, reach out. 

Feel your way. 

Grope for Him. 

Grasp His hand.

Paul told the Athenians that God made us so that we would seek Him, “in the hope” that we would grope for Him and find Him. He will not leave us alone in the dark, blindly waving our hands around, grasping nothing but air. “He is not far from each one of us,” Paul assures those who will look, “For in Him we live and move and have our being.” 

He is not a figment of our imagination. He is real and He is near. 

As close as your next breath. 

As close as your very heartbeat. 

In Him we live. 

In Him we move. 

In Him we have our very being.  

“And Lo {see!},” Jesus whispers, “I am with you – ALWAYS.”  

Rest

Posted on by Christina Bailey

“Come to Me, all who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.”

Matthew 11:28

“Come,” He says. It is an invitation. One that requires no special outfit or preparation. “Yes, my soul, find rest in God” the psalmist says and the word he uses for Rest is also translated to be silent and still. To be astonished. Stopped in our tracks.

I think back to a day when my Beloved invited me to follow him down a narrow trail into a wood hushed soft with thick moss and years of gentle decay. A delicate fog enveloped us and I was certain we must have stepped into a dream. The only rushing came from the river that accompanied us. The noise in my mind settled and I breathed in air so fresh and filling I felt doubly alive. Every few steps I would stop and look up at a huge fir with branches that filled the sky. Astonished. I could not help but smile and even laugh aloud, so full was my joy. To be there, in that magical place with one who loved me walking just a few steps ahead; joy indescribable.

That is His invitation. To walk with Him. Let go of all that weighs us down and follow Him down the path.

Look up.

Be astonished.

And in that place, I discover where my Hope comes from.

And I find Rest.