The Lord is my portion. I promise to keep Your words. I entreat Your favor with all my heart. Be gracious to me according to Your promise. When I think on my ways, I turn my feet to Your testimonies. I hasten and do not delay to keep Your commandments. Though the cords of the wicked ensnare me, I do not forget Your law. At midnight I rise to praise You because of Your righteous rules. I am a companion of all who fear You, of those who keep Your precepts. The earth, O Lord, is full of Your steadfast love. Teach me Your statutes! (Verses 57-64)
We had a house guest for about six months who ate everything in sight. Way more than what I, as the cook and dishwasher, thought was his allotted portion given the number of us who were eating. Two of my children were still home at the time, or at least in and out for dinner. I remember one evening making one of their favorite meals--chicken fried steak fingers, mashed potatoes, fresh green beans and dinner rolls. We began eating and were having a jovial conversation when the front door opened, signaling the entrance at dinner time, of our guest. I still laugh today when I think of all the forks that stabbed at the meat still left on the serving plate. My family getting all they wanted before he could fill his plate to the brim without regard for anyone else. We were laughing rather hysterically by the time our guest sat down. He still had plenty, of course, but not the pile he usually forked over onto his plate.
It reminded me when I read just now that the Lord is my portion, that I have in the past grabbed for other things, in too great a quantity, with disregard for what others might need, in order to sate my appetites. Learning the all-too-hard lesson that He is all I need. My inheritance is Christ. My life providentially ordered by the creator of my story, my theme song playing in the background, as I seek to find my way into His way for me. Anyone who has strolled away from God, Pinocchio-like into the headiness of the carnival filled with delights untouchable and irreverent, should be able to say that home is better. That the favor of God exceeds in every way the favor of man. So that when we consider our ways after returning to Jesus, we think about how we can please Him from now on. Because? Because His laws, the ones that set our parameters, are good for us! We should want to do them so quickly it makes our heads swim. After all, God has chopped off the lying noses and indwelt the wooden bodies of those of us who know Him. Given us life! And doing what He wants is one of the better parts of living! We go on without being a "real boy or girl" without His breath in our lungs.
I'm up in the night often. As some of you are. Recently, the Lord awakened me before a big party at our house. At 3:45 A.M. I heard Him plainly tell me to go downstairs and seek Him. To cover our home with favor. With His Presence. Rising to be near to Him. To praise and beseech my Father. The evening of the party was miraculous in many respects. I have taken communion in the middle of the night, too. Sung praise songs. Sat on my upstairs porch, covered in a blanket, and communed with Him while I watched the stars. When I feel overwhelmed in the storms that sometimes come, it is in the middle of the night I go to my God. Alone. Just my Father and me. It is His calling me to Him that makes my feet run to do what God says. It is the love I know engulfs me when I talk to my God that makes the things He tells me to do bearable, if not sweet. It is the knowledge that He has walked this earth, is acquainted with my frailty, has been ensnared by evil and understands my limitations that bind me to my Savior. I want His favor! His blessings! But not for my own importance or prosperity, though that might come with it. I want His favor because I love Jesus. He melts my heart. Jesus has walked me out of pits and into glory. The favor I want is that He says, "Well done, Kay. Finally, well done!"
When Vanessa was a baby, she liked peanut butter sandwiches. Craved them. (She still has a love relationship with the stuff!) The problem was, the sandwich often stuck to the roof of her mouth, making her livid! She would throw a fit, scream in her high chair and pitch the sandwich to the floor. Each time I instructed her that if she'd just take her finger and scrape the bite of sandwich from her palate, there would be no further problem. Each time she was just too mad to think about the solution. I took this for a few times, then said one day when she begged for her blessed peanut butter for lunch: "I will make you a sandwich. But, if you scream or cry you will never have another peanut butter sandwich again!" Her eyes stared in wonder at the possibility. I caught her gaze and held it. "I mean it, Vanessa." And so the lunch dance between us began. Thrilled at first for the first bite of her favorite meal. Tricked again by the gunk in the roof of her mouth. She started to throw it. To scream and panic. Furious it had foiled her again. Then she happened to look at me. Looking at her. Waiting for her to decide whether she wanted to obey me or face the consequences of following her most innate desires. Our eyes were locked on each other. Vanessa's face was wrinkled in a combination of anger and thoughtfulness. Finally, after what seemed an eternity to us both, she took her finger, removed the stuck sandwich from her mouth, then looked at the sandwich and said, "Would you just cool it, peanut butter sandwich?!" Thereafter, she ate with aplomb her favorite meal. Obedience actually brought her the joy she'd been missing.
When I think on my ways...the outcomes I think are best or the attitudes that inform my actions...I am more and more turning to His. Like the sandwich and Vanessa, my God is patient with my fits and disobedience, but His expectation is that I will learn. So that I can enjoy all He has made for me...which, by the way, is vastly more amazing than peanut butter. But if I pause to look at Him while He's looking at me, give Him time, even at midnight, to instruct and engage with my life, to decide that I'd rather have what He gives me than throw a fit because I don't get my way, there's a very good chance that I will cry out to my Father, "The earth is full of Your love! Teach me more!"
We had a house guest for about six months who ate everything in sight. Way more than what I, as the cook and dishwasher, thought was his allotted portion given the number of us who were eating. Two of my children were still home at the time, or at least in and out for dinner. I remember one evening making one of their favorite meals--chicken fried steak fingers, mashed potatoes, fresh green beans and dinner rolls. We began eating and were having a jovial conversation when the front door opened, signaling the entrance at dinner time, of our guest. I still laugh today when I think of all the forks that stabbed at the meat still left on the serving plate. My family getting all they wanted before he could fill his plate to the brim without regard for anyone else. We were laughing rather hysterically by the time our guest sat down. He still had plenty, of course, but not the pile he usually forked over onto his plate.
It reminded me when I read just now that the Lord is my portion, that I have in the past grabbed for other things, in too great a quantity, with disregard for what others might need, in order to sate my appetites. Learning the all-too-hard lesson that He is all I need. My inheritance is Christ. My life providentially ordered by the creator of my story, my theme song playing in the background, as I seek to find my way into His way for me. Anyone who has strolled away from God, Pinocchio-like into the headiness of the carnival filled with delights untouchable and irreverent, should be able to say that home is better. That the favor of God exceeds in every way the favor of man. So that when we consider our ways after returning to Jesus, we think about how we can please Him from now on. Because? Because His laws, the ones that set our parameters, are good for us! We should want to do them so quickly it makes our heads swim. After all, God has chopped off the lying noses and indwelt the wooden bodies of those of us who know Him. Given us life! And doing what He wants is one of the better parts of living! We go on without being a "real boy or girl" without His breath in our lungs.
I'm up in the night often. As some of you are. Recently, the Lord awakened me before a big party at our house. At 3:45 A.M. I heard Him plainly tell me to go downstairs and seek Him. To cover our home with favor. With His Presence. Rising to be near to Him. To praise and beseech my Father. The evening of the party was miraculous in many respects. I have taken communion in the middle of the night, too. Sung praise songs. Sat on my upstairs porch, covered in a blanket, and communed with Him while I watched the stars. When I feel overwhelmed in the storms that sometimes come, it is in the middle of the night I go to my God. Alone. Just my Father and me. It is His calling me to Him that makes my feet run to do what God says. It is the love I know engulfs me when I talk to my God that makes the things He tells me to do bearable, if not sweet. It is the knowledge that He has walked this earth, is acquainted with my frailty, has been ensnared by evil and understands my limitations that bind me to my Savior. I want His favor! His blessings! But not for my own importance or prosperity, though that might come with it. I want His favor because I love Jesus. He melts my heart. Jesus has walked me out of pits and into glory. The favor I want is that He says, "Well done, Kay. Finally, well done!"
When Vanessa was a baby, she liked peanut butter sandwiches. Craved them. (She still has a love relationship with the stuff!) The problem was, the sandwich often stuck to the roof of her mouth, making her livid! She would throw a fit, scream in her high chair and pitch the sandwich to the floor. Each time I instructed her that if she'd just take her finger and scrape the bite of sandwich from her palate, there would be no further problem. Each time she was just too mad to think about the solution. I took this for a few times, then said one day when she begged for her blessed peanut butter for lunch: "I will make you a sandwich. But, if you scream or cry you will never have another peanut butter sandwich again!" Her eyes stared in wonder at the possibility. I caught her gaze and held it. "I mean it, Vanessa." And so the lunch dance between us began. Thrilled at first for the first bite of her favorite meal. Tricked again by the gunk in the roof of her mouth. She started to throw it. To scream and panic. Furious it had foiled her again. Then she happened to look at me. Looking at her. Waiting for her to decide whether she wanted to obey me or face the consequences of following her most innate desires. Our eyes were locked on each other. Vanessa's face was wrinkled in a combination of anger and thoughtfulness. Finally, after what seemed an eternity to us both, she took her finger, removed the stuck sandwich from her mouth, then looked at the sandwich and said, "Would you just cool it, peanut butter sandwich?!" Thereafter, she ate with aplomb her favorite meal. Obedience actually brought her the joy she'd been missing.
When I think on my ways...the outcomes I think are best or the attitudes that inform my actions...I am more and more turning to His. Like the sandwich and Vanessa, my God is patient with my fits and disobedience, but His expectation is that I will learn. So that I can enjoy all He has made for me...which, by the way, is vastly more amazing than peanut butter. But if I pause to look at Him while He's looking at me, give Him time, even at midnight, to instruct and engage with my life, to decide that I'd rather have what He gives me than throw a fit because I don't get my way, there's a very good chance that I will cry out to my Father, "The earth is full of Your love! Teach me more!"
No comments:
Post a Comment