Journal Entry: Newly Sprung, Part 2

The latest from the handwritten log, or "nlog", of the happenings, prayers, and thoughts of my life.

Sat, April 9

Spring has officially arrived. Today I celebrated by cheering at the Goose Creek 5K for the fourth consecutive year, eating our community brunch, playing football in the rain, playing cards outside a coffee shop. And now I'm flopped on my belly on my quilt in my backyard, surrounded by violets – and by students, similarly situated, studying, resting, pursuing the Lord.

Have I mentioned that I love my life? Have I mentioned how fulfilled I am right now in my calling? This past week was busier, if possible, than the one before, and the grace to enjoy has been as thickly distributed as these violets.

I prefer nlogging to blogging, but I'd like it even better if it provided a simple way to upload relevant images, such as these:

Closing the Gap

I am officially a Bad Blogger. I haven't posted in almost two months. Bad! And as one who has learned by experience that interpersonal reconciliation is best achieved by plain repentance without an attempt to explain oneself, I won't tell you all my good excuses. I won't tell you, for instance, how insanely busy I've been, or the emphasis I'm trying to put on real life community, or the fact that my creative energies have been sapped by invested in work-related blogging. I won't tell you any of those things, because I hate it when people get defensive and try to justify themselves. It's not only godless, it's annoying.

I was reading an old journal this morning (Why? Because I have four whole days before I leave the country with a team I'm leading, so I was looking for something to stave off the boredom) and was startled by this prayer I'd written: "God, I want to close the gap between me and You."

Me? Close that infinite gap between a holy God and a depraved sinner? What was I thinking?

Granted, it was nearly ten years ago, and I suppose I ought to cut myself some slack for that lousy theology. What shocks me is not that I thought that way or lived that way -- I know that was the case, and I thank God every time I think about how He's rescued me from the dark weariness of striving to make Him like me. What shocks me is that I wrote that down and didn't even recognize that it was the opposite of the Gospel -- a Gospel I thought I'd embraced but clearly didn't understand.

All that to say, it challenges me -- first, to examine my own heart, and second, to examine what I teach, whether by word or by example, to make sure that any challenge to righteous living or obedience or godly standards is never presented without the why (because of love and for His glory) and the how (by His grace). Otherwise I'm just adding to a load that was never intended to be borne the way we tend to bear it because it was already carried with the cross and when He said "It is finished!" it really was.

Journal Excerpt

Tues, Jan 13, 2009

Chennai, India

"Then the Lord took note of Sarah as He had said, and the Lord did for Sarah as He had promised."
-Genesis 21:1

Oh, Father, your promises never fail! You always fulfill what you have spoken. As I've been reading about Abraham and Sarah waiting for a child - and waiting, and waiting - laughing at the promise because sometimes you have to laugh so that you don't cry - I've been reminded of my own unfulfilled promises. Certainly I haven't waited as long, and although at times they do seem impossible they are not so impossible as a 90-year-old woman having a child! "Is anything too hard for God?" he asks - and the angel who visits Mary, whose Child fulfills the ultimate promise both to Abraham and to us all, echoes the question, but with confidence: "For nothing will be impossible with God."

You, my God, are a fulfiller. You give good gifts to your children. You will provide. You always do.

Thank you for the greatest Promise of all, that you fulfilled long ago and you fulfill every day in Christ your Son. "In the mount of the Lord it will be provided", they said of the mountain where Isaac wasn't sacrificed. Abraham called you Jehovah Jireh that day, and for the first time today I saw the true significance of that name. You provided a replacement sacrifice for me. You provided what I needed the most - what I still need every day: salvation by grace through faith.