She
will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus,
because he will save his people from their sins.” Matthew 1:21
We
have carried our sins with us for so long. Why would anyone think that
we could live any other way? We have grown complacent and numb to the
pain that is caused by those sins.
And
when the Torah is read, we say that we love Your Law, Yahweh, and yet
we leave the synagogue to berate our neighbors and steal from our
customers.
O Father in Heaven how long can we go on, living this way? When will You send Messiah? . . .
“Look, there on the mountains, the feet of one who brings good news, who proclaims peace! Celebrate your festivals, Judah, and fulfill your vows. No more will the wicked invade you; they will be completely destroyed”Nahum 1:15
Did you know that God designed times for celebration? Sometimes we tend to think that people are the ones who dreamed up joy and laughter. We place God in our “serious box,” and set Him aside when we want to have fun.
I will give them a heart toknowme, that I am the Lord. They will be my people, and I will be their God, for they will return tome with all their heart.
I wasn't expecting to take a Blogging Break. I thought that a slowed down schedule was sufficient to bring me to a place of being able to hear the words of my Lord. But when He gave me the words for my last post several weeks ago, and told me to "Breathe," I heard Him say that I needed a break in order to find that place of restful breathing, where I could find His full Presence filling my lungs.
Have you heard Him call you to a deeper resting?
When I finally agreed to the break, I hoped that He would woo me with sweet nothings, and soothe my weary soul with lavish cups of fragrance and bliss.
Ah, well, our plans for ourselves usually don't quite mesh with those of our Dear Father.
Sometimes, the true comfort of God meets us with a word that at first feels harsh and jarring. Instead of finding an overload of sweet, I found additional pain, with moments of sweet only scattered around the edges. I found a deeper surrender, and a longer trial. And when the time to rejoin the blog-sphere returned, once again I hoped that He would lift the days of my trial.
But I knew in my heart that His Timing is not bound by my schedule.
As I prepared my thoughts for writing, I opened the page for my friend Gayl Wright'spost last night, where she shared a beautiful song from Michael Card that had been part of the retreat she attended this past week. Click hereto read her inspiring post.
May you be blessed as I was, with this song by Michael Card, one that he admits is his own personal favorite:
In the place of resting these past few weeks, these are the words the Lord spoke to my heart.
He brought
me to this desert place; I know it full well.
My genes may have conspired against me, as the autoimmune diseases reared
their ugly heads. My own body may be
enforcing the weakness and pain that goes with Rheumatoid Arthritis and
Fibromyalgia. But I am under the care of my Sovereign, and He has determined
the number of my days. So when I hear
Him say to me that the restlessness is not going to get me out from under this
test, my heart wants to utter its own cry.
My surrenders come with strings attached, and temporary praises for
small gifts only serve to breed discontentment under the surface.
I hear the
cries of the Israelites as they wandered in the desert, and I echo their
murmurings:
“In the desert the whole community grumbled against Moses
and Aaron.The
Israelites said to them, ‘If only we had died by the Lord’s hand in Egypt! There we sat around pots of meat and ate all the
food we wanted, but you have brought us out into this desert to starve this
entire assembly to death.’” Exodus 16:2-3
I am longing for change. My whole being rumbles with hunger pangs as I
feel myself starving for the nourishment I think I am missing. And, yet, I knew their stories, and I thought
I learned from their mistakes. I would
never test the Lord my God in the ways they did. Or would I?
When I let the weakness of my days direct my longings elsewhere, when I
let the pain in my body direct my gaze away from my true Helper, how am I any
different than they?
The desert of pain scorched And burned . . . The joints and the marrow Screamed in response.
And my heart looked away
Longingly . . . If only You had left me in the lands Of my youth.
But instead You’ve brought me here
Broken, torn . . . Where weakness leaves me Famished.
And in the grumbling I hear
Shadowy lies . . . Don’t settle here, don’t embrace Gifts in this place.
For nothing good comes from
The enemy’s camp . . . He’s blinding my eyes to the Truth That’s been given.
Only as I rest myself down
Willingly . . . Can I embrace the heat of the desert My home for today.
The desert’s the place where I am
Stripped bare . . . Ready finally to eat what’s been Lovingly prepared.
Manna from the hand of my
Sovereign . . .
He intimately gives the bread of
suffering
To those He adores.
--BG
"Moses said, ‘This is what the Lord has commanded: ‘Take an omer of manna and keep it for the
generations to come, so they can see the bread I gave you to eat in the
wilderness when I brought you out of Egypt.’” Exodus 16:32
“Tasteand
see that the Lord is good;
blessed is the one who takes refuge in him.” Psalm 34:8
Maybe you have felt the sorrow also? Does comfort feel a long way off?
Our Father has a beauty that He wants to give us,
right here, in the very center of our desert places.
"Sun of my soul, thou Savior dear,
it is not night if thou be near:
O may no earth-born cloud arise
to hide thee from thy servant's eyes."
--John Keble
What is it about poetry that causes my mind to stop its whirling spinning and to hear with my heart? In the same way that music goes to a deeper level into my soul, I believe that poetry touches something intimate and bare in the depths of my being. And when music and poetry collide, as in the stanza shared above, taken from the hymn John Keble wrote, Sun of my Soul, Thou Savior Dear, then my heart drops all of its defenses and peers into eternity.
Or even a re-working of an older hymn as here,
In this Season of Stillness that has begun my 2017, I heard God whisper to me to slow my reading even as my days have slowed. I did not think that I liked that thought! After all, last year, my spinning mind craved words, and I read more books than at any other time in my life. Nevertheless, I followed my Lord's promptings and finished up several books that had been in my Kindle list, and have been working on the reviews that I had promised to share. In the meantime, a lovely blogger who fills her posts with beautiful and encouraging book reviews, put out an invitation to join her in an online book study of C.S. Lewis' Till We Have Faces starting this week, over at her place: Michele Morin's site, Living Our Days.
And that same Whispering Voice stirred in my heart to
know that here would be a place I needed to settle in and rest my
Stilling heart.
I have loved and read many of C.S. Lewis' books, and in fact had borrowed this very title from a dear friend several years ago. He encouraged me to read it, and hold onto it for as long as I wanted, because he felt it was such an important read for me. I don't know why I kept putting it off, but perhaps God knew that I needed to be in this place of stillness before I would be able to hear the poetry that Lewis' words would ignite in my soul. This is a retelling of the Cupid and Psyche myth, C.S. Lewis' own favorite of all of his books, and one that has already swept me up into his epic storytelling.
The two main princesses in this tale, Orual and Psyche, are revealed within the first chapter. The Greek slave, "The Fox," bought by their father to be their teacher, is however, the one who stole my heart in the beginning pages. One who professed much of the Philosophies and Rational thinking, he had a poetic side that was actually the heart he followed. Early on, he shares a Greek myth with Orual, and is quick to add:
"Not that this ever really happened. . . . It's only lies of poets, lies of poets child."
Orual saw behind his facade and spoke:
"It was always like that with the Fox; he was ashamed of loving poetry ('All folly, child') and I had to work much at my reading and writing and what he called philosophy in order to get a poem out of him. But thus, little by little, he taught me many. Virtue, sought by man with travail and toil was the one he praised most, but I was never deceived by that. The real lilt came into his voice and the real brightness into his eyes when we were off into Take me to the apple-land or
The Moon's gone down, but
Alone I lie."
And, suddenly, in only the first chapter, my heart of Stillness was beating with a longing for more of the intimate words that poetry stirs.
Why is it so hard for me to still my mind even as my body has been stilled?
Why have I "allowed myself" to savor the sweet fragrance of poetry only as I lie awake at night longing to find peace? What if this very stillness is the place that God's true Poetry of Love can be tasted?
"But the closer I am to You, my God, the better because life with You is good. O Lord, the Eternal, You keep me safe— I will tell everyone what You have done." Psalm 73:28 (The Voice)
"God moves in a mysterious way
His wonders to perform;
He plants His footsteps in the sea
And rides upon the storm.
Deep in unfathomable mines
Of never failing skill
He treasures up His bright designs
And works His sovereign will.
Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take;
The clouds ye so much dread
Are big with mercy and shall break
In blessings on your head.
Judge not the Lord by feeble sense,
But trust Him for His grace;
Behind a frowning providence
He hides a smiling face.
His purposes will ripen fast,
Unfolding every hour;
The bud may have a bitter taste,
But sweet will be the flower.
Blind unbelief is sure to err
And scan His work in vain;
God is His own interpreter,
And He will make it plain."
Have you tasted a sweet gift of Poetry lately? Or perhaps you have a favorite work by C.S. Lewis? I would love to hear your comments as you share your thoughts! And even though I feel that I may be "out of my element" by joining in with an Online Book Discussion Group while being such a Newbie to this world of Blogging, my Stilling Heart is longing to hear the poetic sharing about such a great storyteller as C.S. Lewis.
Here is an index for the series on C.S. Lewis' "TILL WE HAVE FACES" book study. Within each post, I have included the link for that week's discussion led by Michele Morin at her site.
So I searched out my tucked-away notes and found these words saved
from Wikipedia on Winter Wheat farming:
"Winter wheat production quickly spread throughout the Great Plains, and was, as it still is, usually grown using the techniques of dryland farming.
"The nature of dryland farming makes it particularly susceptible to erosion, especially wind erosion. Since healthy topsoil is critical to sustainable dryland agriculture, its preservation is generally considered the most important long-term goal of a dryland farming operation. Erosion control techniques such as windbreaks, reduced tillage or no-till, spreading straw (or other mulch on particularly susceptible ground), and strip farming are used to minimize topsoil loss."
And more about Dryland Farming from this article in
(these farmers) "continue to wring profits from their yields through the practice of
extremely efficient farming, using no-tillage methods to preserve
moisture and soil, while leaving at least half the ground fallow at any
given time."
Can you hear the words that jumped out at me?
"preservation"
"windbreaks"
"no-till"
"fallow"
Each of those words speak to a process that has been
given extra care,
perhaps even labeled
"tenderly."
The Master Gardener is not subjecting
those little green shoots
to the harshness of winter
before He has made sure
that the proper
provisions and tender care
have been made.
I thought I had listened to all of Rich Mullin's songs,
but I had missed this one,
the one that God had hugged close to His heart
until just the right moment:
"And the moon is a sliver of silver
Like a shaving that fell on the floor of a Carpenter's shop
And every house must have it's builder
And I awoke in the house of God
Where the windows are mornings and evenings
Stretched from the sun
Across the sky north to south
And on my way to early meeting
I heard the rocks crying out
I heard the rocks crying out
Be praised for all Your tenderness by these works of Your hands
Suns that rise and rains that fall to bless and bring to life Your land
Look down upon this winter wheat and be glad that You have made
Blue for the sky and the color green that fills these fields with praise
And the wrens have returned and they're nesting
In the hollow of that oak where his heart once had been
And he lifts up his arms in a blessing for being born again
And the streams are all swollen with winter
Winter unfrozen and free to run away now
And I'm amazed when I remember
Who it was that built this house
And with the rocks I cry out
Be praised for all Your tenderness by these works of Your hands
Suns that rise and rains that fall to bless and bring to life Your land
Look down upon this winter wheat and be glad that You have made
Blue for the sky and the color green that fills these fields with praise." --Rich Mullins, "The Color Green"
My heart must stop and Praise Him here, for all of His tenderness that He works over this quivering and small planting that is held within my heart.
He knows what He is doing, my friend. We may not even realize it, but He has already made provision for every step that has been needed before the winter winds will blow.
"Listen and hear my voice; pay attention and hear what I say.
When a farmer plows for planting, does he plow continually? Does he keep on breaking up and working the soil?
When he has leveled the surface, does he not sow caraway and scatter cumin? Does he not plant wheat in its place, barley in its plot, and spelt in its field?
His God instructs him and teaches him the right way."
