Sunglasses

     I want to be fully honest with you; I want to know God’s will for my life.

Wait, you too?

     Some days I earnestly pray all day that God would just shine light over the unknown so I can better follow Him.  So I can know what to do.  I do not need a booming voice from the Heavens or a burning bush to tell me what God’s will is for my life.  However, a nice little letter in the mail, an email, or even a Facebook message from God would suffice.  Honestly, anything would be enough; I simply want to know which path to take.  I just want to know.

     In one of his songs, Chris Rice says that he would take “No” for an answer just to know he heard God speak because sometimes trying to see God’s will for his life is like trying to “Smell the color nine.”  That is how I feel too.  If I were to get a “No” from God when I ask about something, I would be content, because at least I know for sure that that is not the path to take.  However, every once and a while, I do not feel like I get a “Yes” or “No.”  People might say that is God’s “Wait,” but sometimes I feel like I need to act right away.  So what do I do?  I squint past the situation and try to see through to the thick, foggy future.

     In Psalm 119:105 it says, “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path.”  This verse intrigues me.  God could have inspired these words to say that His word is a headlamp to our path.  Picture a miner with his light attached to his helmet as he sets out into a vast, dark tunnel.  Sometimes I wish that that is what it said, because a headlamp shines ahead of where we stand—at least five paces ahead.  We would be able to see what was ahead, but the present would be darkened—God didn’t want that.  If it were this way, we would be left in the darkness with no comfort except seeing our own destiny; robbing us of contentment for the now and taking away the ability to learn and experience the simple joys of the season we are in.  God says He will never leave us or forsake us—He will never leave His children in the dark.

     The verse also could have compared God’s word to a lantern—something that we guide and control.  With a lantern, we have the power to shine the light over whichever area of our path we desire to see more clearly.  Essentially, we are guiding our own lives—there is no reason for us to yield to God’s will and His sovereignty.  In effect, we are leading ourselves.  But God didn’t say that either.  He purposely said His word is a lamp to our feet.  Or in other words, this situation, this day, this choice.

     God has been teaching me a lot through this verse lately.  His light is shining over today.  In other words, we have this step clear to us, and not until we take that leap of faith, do we see the next step clearly.  The choices I am to make today are being made known to me when I need to know them—in His perfect time.

     So often I miss these revelations.  I put sunglasses on, fading the brightness of God’s grace over my present situation to squint and interpret the future.  I worry over the crashing waves in the distance before I ever even step out of the boat.  I miss God’s hands aiding and guiding me over those deafening waves because I am fearing the dark clouds looming in the distance.  When all I need to do is keep my eyes fixed on Jesus, on His light, to guide me—which He is ever doing through His grace.

     One of my most favorite hymns is by a woman named Helen H. Lemmel.  In the chorus she writes, “Turn your eyes upon Jesus; look full in His wonderful face, and the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace.”  When Ms. Lemmel wrote this song, she had already been blind for years; having to trust God with each step.  While I desire to know God’s will spiritually, as do all Christians, she had to rely on God’s hand even physically.  Her hymn goes along with our verse from Psalm 119.  When we worry about the future—what is to come, and where we should be—we are allowing the fear of the world to take over our hearts and minds—to cloud our vision.  But when we focus on Jesus’ face, His wonderful, all-forgiving face, all of that grows dim in the midst of His glory.

     While it may seem somewhat unfair to have only the present situation in the light, God does not leave us without anything to go by.  Philippians chapter four, verses six and seven, say that when we present our requests and desires to God, His peace will guard our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.  This peace doesn’t always tell us straight out what God’s will is for our lives, but it transcends understanding.  An understanding that God is good that He will never leave us in the dark.  A peace that God knows and is guiding and purposing, all we need to do is learn to trust Him.

     I am still learning to take off my sunglasses and focus on the light of today’s step, and in that God’s grace abounds—praise Him!  So I do not know what His full will is for my life—I don’t know where I will go to college, when I will get married, or even who I will marry, for that matter; I do not know how many children I will have or what turns my life might take—but what I do know is that God has given me peace.  Peace for the present, a peace to trust Him.

     P.S.  I have to admit; I know a piece of what God’s will for your life is.  Would you like to know?  Funny thing is, it’s the same as mine.  His word will shed light over it.  Just read 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18, and remember to take off your sunglasses.  Praise God.

“My heart of faith keeps pounding so I know I’m doing find, but sometimes finding You, is just like trying to smell the color nine… Nine’s not a color, and even if it were you can’t smell a color. That’s my point exactly.”  - Chris Rice, “Smell The Color Nine”

My Sometimes Immovable Hands

I look down and see
Just me
Two little hands
That I direct unplanned

These hands

I can see, can dance
On the keys and make melodies
As praises to You

These hands,

Write words
And draw with the expression of the
Things of my heart

These hands are used

To express this compassion
Through a touch
And Love through contact

But sometimes these hands

Do not work as I plan

These hands shake and stall

To the point that they cannot move at all 

This desire to use my hands

To make the music of Your voice
And write the words of Your song
Was placed in me by You

This cannot be Your plan

These sometimes immovable hands
The expression of my hands
Are contracted and confined

Why must I sacrifice

This that I love and that
Which was given to me
To use for Your glory?

You are glorified by my hands

My desire to speak through these hands

Is Your plan
And this waltz they dance is my Love for You

I speak through my hands

These sometime immovable hands

Why must I be taught through these hands too?
Why must You temporarily take away the movement of my hands?

Yet this is how You speak to me

Through these sometime immovable hands
You gently urge me to listen
When I cannot move my hands

Instead of me playing and focusing on Your melody,

You allow me to listen to the harmony
And smile to the rhythm
When I cannot move my hands

You allocate these immoveable hands

For the purpose of my turn to listen
I need not always be the one to speak
But I also need to listen; to learn

I feel through my hands and comfort those

Who need it, but You allow me to be

Comforted and held by another

When I cannot direct these immovable hands

What I have learned

Through my sometimes immovable hands

Is they are not only my hands

They are Your hands that You gave

Your glory is not only through

What I speak through my hands

Your glory is ever shining

Even when they are immovable

I look down and see

Not just me, not just two little hands

But Your hand moving and purposing

Ever still through my immovable hands

Mystery in Modesty

    My house is out in a forest, at the top of a small, secluded road.  I have birch trees at the top of my driveway, my house is brick and I have a creek running in the backyard through the trees.  To get to the creek, one must walk under an arch made of purple wisteria, walk down many stone steps to get to the bottom of a hill where the creek is running.  It is truly beautiful.  I walked down the hill this morning to go by the creek, and, as always, it was beautiful.  However, something was different.  Most of the leaves on the trees were gone and scattered on the ground, leaving it wide open to see through the trees.  And, honestly, I was a little disappointed.

  
    I feel it necessary to say that fall is one of my favorite seasons, it is a new masterpiece every day—even when the sun is not shining.  I anticipate every year, the time when the leaves fall from the trees.  But, as I was saying, today it was not what I expected.  Usually, walking down those mossy stepping stones is like an adventure, only once you dare to take another step do you reveal even more beauty than when looking at a distance.  All the way down you slowly uncover more and more in this mystery hidden inside the trees.  If I had not experienced that mystery before—during the spring and summer when it was hidden behind the leaves—I would have missed out on the journey of uncovering that beauty.  It would have been out in the open for all to see.

    I recently finished a book on modesty.  Growing up with brothers, I have always had a different perspective on modesty—it was always just my family culture.  It became routine for me to make sure I was dressing appropriately.  However, not until a few months ago—when I started reading this book—did I realize what modesty actually means.  It is not just being conscious of clothing so as not to stumble my brothers in Christ—this is a great reason to be modest!—but it goes even deeper than that.  Psalm 45:11 says that God is enthralled with our beauty.  Enthralled.  In other words God is captivated and enraptured by our beauty so much that we are commanded therefore to honor Him in our beauty.  But what does that mean?

     We are told, even by our culture in some ways, that beauty is not just skin deep—one’s character can be truly beautiful.  I am a “character-type-person,” or in other words, I believe that someone could be the most physically attractive person in the world, but if they have bad character, or they are rude, selfish or crude, it can instantly make them very unattractive.  Beauty is definitely a part of the soul and character too.  And I believe that is what God is mostly enraptured by.  He is delighted in our hearts.  In Bethany Dillon’s song “Beautiful,” she says that she desires for God to see her and say she is beautiful, for Him to look in her heart and say she is enough.  That is the cry of every human’s heart, I believe.

     One way that we can honor God by our beauty is to cover up that which is meant to be a mystery.  As we should be physically modest so also we should guard our hearts and feelings through modesty.  Proverbs 4:23 says, “Above all, guard your hearts, for it is a wellspring of life.”  While I believe in being vulnerable and authentic in our relationships with other people, I also believe that we should guard that which makes us as women—and men—a mystery.  Essentially, we should not tell every single person we meet every tiny detail about us.  Instead, we should, while being vulnerable where we can, and authentic in every way, balance that out with the mystery of our hearts.  We should slowly reveal our beauty in time.

     Now, what does this have to do with the trees and my creek?  Well, as I described above, I was disappointed in having all of the beauty and mystery revealed to me at the beginning—as I took the first few steps, I could see all the way down to the creek.  I could see that far down because the leaves had fallen so quickly.  There was almost, I felt, no reason to continue on because I felt I had seen everything already.  The joy in uncovering the mystery had vanished.  This is also how it is with modesty.  Girls, in our modern day culture, have revealed the mystery of themselves—physically and emotionally—too quickly because that is what they believe they need to do in order to be perceived as beautiful.  When in reality, that is not found attractive.  What people love is an authentic mystery.  While it may appear that revealing ourselves is what draws attention from guys right away, I believe it is not what they truly desire.  Men were created as gentle warriors.  They were designed to have to fight for a girl’s heart by wooing and earning her love and discovering her mystery slowly and over time.

     In letting time and tenderness reveal the mystery of ourselves, we honor God, but it also brings honor to our future spouses.  The apostle Paul says that our identities are “hidden in Christ.”  He is what gives us our mystery and allure.  In essence, we should hide our mystery in Christ for Him to reveal in His time.  Just as the leaves dance to the ground in fall—in obedience to God’s seasons—so the modesty of our hearts and bodies should be revealed in His time—in the perfect season.