Singing these words today, over and over, trying to get my perspective right…

(You are Good, by Darrell Evans)

You are good.

You are good.

Jesus, You are good.

Jesus, You’re the passion of my heart.

I am fashioned for Your glory

and amazed by who You are.

You are good.

You are good.

Jesus, You are good.

Jesus, You’re my Saviour, You’re my Truth.

You’re a faithful God, forever

and I rely on You.

You are good.

You are good.

Jesus, You are good.

 

and now he’s eight

Two days ago, Nathanael turned 8.  I just realized this morning that I never wrote a birthday post for him.  It probably doesn’t matter to anyone except me, but I felt bad for forgetting.  If no other purpose is served, taking time on my kids’ birthdays to reflect on who they are and to be reminded of how blessed I am by them is almost a necessity for this soul of mine that is all too quick to overlook the good in daily life.

So, I’m taking time now to write about my Bug.  In many ways he is constant.  He has always been slow to speak, thoughtful, helpful, rough-and-tumble, and curious about everything – and he still is all of those things.  He still loves helping with projects.  He will still tell me out of the blue that he loves me.  He still dislikes vegetables.  He is still a voracious reader.  He still has a soft heart.

But there are more things that have started standing out, too.  In our family devotional time, he is always the one who volunteers to pray, or who has a worship song he wants to sing.  He doesn’t often ask questions, but when he does, it is always after he has thought long and hard trying to understand something.  During our individual prayer time with him, he regularly (and sincerely) asks for prayer for things like diligence, wisdom and kindness.

I’m sure there’s more I could say, but this is what comes to mind most often when I think of who Nathanael is.  His genuine heart for the Lord, his genuine love for people, his earnest desire to do right are all so clear in him – and the wrestling match that goes on inside of him when his eight-year old longings conflict with them is so obvious.  I am still so aware of how careful I need to be with his sensitive heart, but I am also seeing a foundation established in him that is showing more and more as he is faced with right and wrong, and sin and weakness, and recognizing who he needs to be.

I love this boy.  So, so much.  I was caught off-guard today seeing him run around and realizing how tall and how strong he is.  Right now, it seems like these eight years went too fast.  But I am thankful for every moment of them.  I’m thankful for him.

 

crumbs

As I was praying this morning, and wondering – for the fifty-bazillionth time what it’s okay to believe God for – I thought of the syrophoenician woman who likened the deliverance she requested for her daughter to the crumbs that fell from the master’s table.  Then, in Luke, I read about the leftovers that were collected after feeding the five-thousand…leftovers, that were more than what was given to Him to use in the first place.  And I felt challenged by this picture that God gives of His oversupply, how He lavishly pours out blessing, how the biggest things we can ask Him for are so easy for Him that even those who might seem most undeserving can receive just by drawing near and believing.

I know how hard it can be sometimes to look at circumstances, or at others’ unanswered prayers – or even at our own unanswered prayers – and still believe it’s as simple as having faith.  Questions about timing or a greater good or how God’s will might be different from our own can make it easy to doubt that He’s willing to do even what we believe He has said He will do.  And, it seems, the bigger the request, the greater the temptation to doubt.  But why?  Even when we make requests for things that seem like mountain-moving miracles, compared to His infinite power and goodness, they are like crumbs falling from the feast He has prepared for those invited to His table.

He is Almighty God.  He is sovereign. He is Creator, not just designer, not just builder, but the One who made substance and gave matter its properties and determined how and why everything would work the way it does.  He is limitless.  He holds the oceans in the palm of His hand, and weighs mountains in a scale.  All that He is is beyond human comprehension.

And He is good.  Unendingly good.  Unreservedly good.  Unconditionally good.  How could I ever expect Him to be otherwise?

just come

Usually, when I come to God, I try to do everything right.  I try to set my thoughts on all that He is.  I try to confess His goodness, His faithfulness, His sovereignty.  I analyze my heart to see if there’s any area where I have fallen away.  I analyze my motives in prayer to see if, somehow, I’ve missed God’s will in what I’m praying for.  I try to believe that He hears and answers, and I try to go forward in hope that I will, at some point, see evidence of that fact.   I try to be mindful of the reality that every area of this life of mine is first and foremost for His glory.

But sometimes, when I feel like I am at the end of myself, and all the prayers I’ve prayed seem to have fallen on deaf ears, and I have no idea how to hope anymore, and the days and weeks and months ahead promise a heart-straining, soul-grating, mind-boggling, strength-draining reality, and I just can’t see why this is what life looks like right now –  doing things the ‘right’ way seems like too much.  And I half-kneel, half-fall in a crumpled heap at His feet and just cry and ask Him to please help.  I feel badly that all of the truths that I should know aren’t faithfully tumbling from my lips.  I feel pitiful for, again, being undone by what most people would probably consider no big deal.  But you know what?  I think it’s okay.  He just wants me to come.

Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in the time of need. —Hebrews 4:16

a favorite poem

Flame of God, by Amy Carmichael

from prayer that asks that I may be

sheltered from winds that beat on Thee

from fearing when I should aspire,

from faltering when I should climb higher

from silken self, O Captain, free

Thy soldier who would follow thee

from subtle love of softening things

from easy choices, weakenings

(not thus are spirits fortified

not this way went the Crucified)

from all that dims Thy Calvary

O Lamb of God, deliver me

give me the love that leads the way

the faith that nothing can dismay

the hope no disappointments tire

the passion that will burn like fire

let me not sink to be a clod

make me Thy fuel, flame of God