PSALM 119 - Riding Blind

Your Word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. I have sworn an oath and confirmed it, to keep Your righteous rules. I am severely afflicted. Give me life, O Lord, according to Your word! Accept my freewill offerings of praise, O Lord, and teach me Your rules. I hold my life in my hand continually, but I do not forget Your law. The wicked have laid a snare for me, but I do not stray from Your precepts. Your testimonies are my heritage forever, for they are the joy of my heart. I incline my heart to perform Your statues forever, to the end. (Verses 105-112)

I love Space Mountain at Disneyland. It is, of course, a roller coaster in the dark. I ride it blind. The only way I'd ever get on it. If I could see where it went, how high it is, how deep the drops and all the metal my head could potentially crash into as I speed around the track, I would be so terrified I'd balk. I hate roller coasters, as a rule. Riding blind somehow gives me courage. Strange, I know. I sit back and relax, though, enjoying the fake night sky and able only to see just what is ahead, not all the way down the course.

What would it be like if God showed us the whole spectrum of our lives from the beginning? Would it be so horrifying that we'd exit the ride...or never get on? For some of us, the journey would be so exciting we wouldn't be able to contain ourselves and then we'd blow it. Try to get to the good stuff before we went through the processes. Or we'd hope to avoid the bad stuff by trying to make decisions that go around any suffering. The joy of the trip is the journey. Up hills and down. Oases and deserts. If we knew the end from the beginning? Well, that would be a spoiler alert for most of us. Like me and roller coasters I can see, we'd just avoid the stomach churning fear of looking at life as one big thrill ride prone to disaster.

Instead God gave us a map. A navigation device more sure than our GPS. His Word. The physical Bible and the indwelling Holy Spirit. On the evening of His arrest, Jesus promised His disciples that He'd still speak with them. "When the Spirit of Truth comes, He will guide you into all the truth, for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak, and He will declare to you things that are to come. He will glorify Me, for He will take what is mine and declare it to you (John 16)." When we ask Jesus for guidance, for light on our path, He tells the Holy Spirit what to tell us. Conversation with the Word of God straight into our spirits. And His sheep hear His voice. If we listen. Take time to converse with the Light of the world. And if we think we can stay on the path without hearing from the Bible Who our God is and what our God wants, we are very likely to veer into the path of an oncoming pile-up. Our eternal GPS has a map voice and a product visual. We don't drive blind even if we aren't quite sure of our destination. He is.

Every day when we get up, we, like the psalmist, hold our lives in our hands. Make decisions that may affect the outcome of our trek. It's all we have--today. If tomorrow, then we are blessed to move forward. Make no mistake, though, what we do in the moment is important to God. Did we look at the map? Ask Jesus to speak into our itinerary? There is no joy in the journey for me without my God driving the car. I drive blind. He knows the way.

 

PSALM 119 - Honey, Do!

Oh, how I love Your law! It is my meditation all the day. Your commandments make me wiser than my enemies, for it is ever with me. I have more understanding than all my teachers, for Your testimonies are my meditation. I understand more than the aged, for I keep Your precepts. I hold back my feet from every evil way in order to keep Your word. I do not turn aside from Your rules, for You have taught me. How sweet are Your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth! Through Your precepts I get understanding; therefore, I hate every false way.  (Verses 97-104)

One of the things I noticed right off about having kids is that they aren't born obedient. We had to teach them certain things. And our rules weren't necessarily compatible with the rules of other households. For instance, I didn't want our children to touch things on the coffee table because I didn't want them to go to other homes and pick up anything they felt like touching, terrorizing relatives who don't have kids or neighbors who have Lladro porcelain figurines within reach of little hands. I was the only parent with that rule, trust me! So it was interesting when kids came to play at our house. My children were the ones enforcing the rules on their playmates. "Mommy doesn't want you touching that!" they'd say. And the other kids looked at them like my kids were from another planet. Another rule: No R-rated movies. We didn't go and we told them they couldn't. It was a rule easily bucked, and I'm sure they all either broke it or were tempted to when they were high school seniors. But they all understood the purposes behind it. We don't want our minds or yours corrupted. They didn't have any friends with that parameter in place. So, it was sometimes uncomfortable. What we had going for us as a family, though, was respect. Even though some might have thought our rules too strict, our kids knew why we wanted them to obey. It was never about power or control. Always it was for their good. To equip them in wildly unruly world.

God's Word must be intentionally followed. From the day we asked Christ into our hearts, we are in a new family with new rules. Good families have standards. Virtues by which they guide their lives. Bad families run amok. Children doing whatever they want. Mom and Dad either too intimidated, too enlightened or too lazy to rein them in, ignoring the shaping of their kids, which is their duty the moment a baby first gulps in air and cries its first tears. We, as parents, are responsible for their behavior and are a huge part in the development of their consciences. Would God do any less? Born now into His family, we are taught by Him how to live. We decide to obey because we respect our Father and understand that, though we don't always understand fully the whys of all God asks of us, we do know we are loved. We obey and His rules aren't annoying. As children, of course, we grow into this understanding. That is why we need to read the Bible. It's where God shares His thoughts as well as His rules. It's where we hear His heartbeat and know this Father is good.

That doesn't mean we haven't touched the "spiritual" stove and been burned. Put our hand to the fire just to see what "hot" means. Having done so, though, most of us won't do it again. We see the wisdom in the instruction and the protection it provides keeps us from greater danger from bigger fires. Sweet. Sweet to know what others don't. Sin hurts. Makes me want to know what else God says that will keep me from the burn unit and the massive uphill battle back to health. This is what makes the psalmist find God's will to be honey. It's why I want to hold back my feet from every evil way. We make a decision every day...every minute, probably...to follow what God tells us to. If we don't understand we are loved to pieces and the "precepts" are to conform us to the family and bring us greater peace and joy, we will be wild children always looking for the boundary that is ever further and further out. I love knowing what pleases God. No guessing. No reaching just to see. And I'm joyful in the corral of promise and prosperity that fences in my urges and gives them purpose. I've been a wild horse on the range, mane flying in the breeze as I'm carried along by the momentary sense of freedom that comes from rebellion. The "you can't catch me now" that drove my mutiny finally entangling me in the brambles with no way out. No thank you! Not this woman. Not any more. I love God's law. Crave His Word. Eat it like honey. Taste and see that the Lord is good (Psalm 34).

PSALM 119 - What's In A Word?

Forever, O Lord, Your word is firmly fixed in the heavens. Your faithfulness endures to all generations. You have established the earth and it stands fast. By Your appointment they stand this day, for all things are Your servants. If Your law had not been my delight I would have perished in my affliction. I will never forget Your precepts, for by them You have given me life. I am Yours. Save me, for I have sought Your precepts. The wicked lie in wait to destroy me, but I consider Your testimonies. I have seen a limit to all perfection, but Your commandment is exceedingly broad.   (Verses 89-96)

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.  John 1

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form, and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God hovered over the face of the waters. And God said.........  Genesis 1

I've tried to picture it for years. The Godhead in the throes of creation. What did it look like? The void? And from the imagination of the only true Creator, for all our small ideas come from His great mind, came all there is...anywhere. God must have brought into existence even the void into which He fashioned a universe. Twinkling with greater and lesser lights. Was it for the Godhead like stringing lights on a Christmas tree? The joy of watching them illuminate complete darkness with sparkling jewels on black velvet. Ordered, though, not random. Still configured as they were centuries and centuries ago. Reliable through the ages for direction, named by astronomers who've always marveled at their constant and consistent patterns in the night sky. The Godhead: Mind, Word and Spirit. Like us, all One yet a trinity--body, soul and spirit. And the Word spoke it into being. The Word Who became flesh and lived among us. He Who spoke, "Let there be light!" is the Light of the World. The psalmist didn't know that yet. Only knew that the Word is firmly fixed in the heavens.

Since Jesus is the first and last Word on everything, the Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End, and since His Word is firmly fixed forever, He is trustworthy to speak over my life. All His words are truth. Not just teachings from a mild mannered Walter Mitty come weakly to earth to spout and pontificate. Not political and misunderstood. The radical truth is Jesus is God of All, stepping down onto the earth He spoke into being, to redeem it from the curse of sin in which it is entangled. Jesus said that's Who He is. (John 8) He isn't in the same bracket as Buddha, Mohammed or the many Hindu gods. None of them claimed to be the Creator God who spoke us into being. Jesus is either that or a lunatic. He can't be squeezed into the mold of a kindly teacher who we can love like we love all the other gods. Jesus never gave us that option. He is the Way, the Truth, the Life. (John 14). Just like the heavens and earth are established, so is His Word.

That's why it's important to know what Jesus says. His words give life to us. They are living, active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and spirit, of joints and marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart (Hebrews 4). Like the psalmist, we perish in our various afflictions in this life, confused and defeated, if we don't know the promises of God. They navigate us through the labyrinth of life. Like the astronaut, Matt, guiding Ryan through outer space by talking her through the process of getting home in the movie "Gravity." Words that are life.

The other sure thing for those of us who know Christ: we are His--belong to Him. As sure as the stars are set and the earth stands fast, I belong to Jesus. I am loved past my understanding. This morning in my prayer time, that was my request, "Let me know more fully Your love." Contemplating that changes me. Calms and energizes me at once. I belong to the Word Who has been and will be and is now the only God of All. He sings over me, guides me, disciplines me, yearns for fellowship with me and forgives me. Perfection here is limited. Thus all the plastic surgery and age defying liposuction that helps us pretend we are immortal. We aren't made to physically last forever. But the Word of God will. He is from forever to forever. So I can trust what He says.

John, on the island of Patmos, saw Jesus and the vision of the Revelation. The Word spoke of the end of finite things. "Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true," Jesus said to John. "It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To the thirsty I will give from the spring of the water of life without payment. The one who conquers will have this heritage, and I will his God and he will be my son (or child)." Bank on it. The words of the Word are life and hope and truth. In victory and in battle, we need not rejoice in vain nor despair of death if we learn to trust in the perfect Word of God.



 

PSALM 119 - Sipping Wine At Nine

My soul longs for Your salvation. I hope in Your word. My eyes long for Your promise. I ask, "When will You comfort me?" For I have become like a wineskin in the smoke, yet I have not forgotten Your statutes. How long must Your servant endure? When will You judge those who persecute me? The insolent have dug pitfalls for me.They do not live according to Your law. All the commandments are sure. They persecute me with falsehood. Help me! They have almost made an end of me on earth, but I have not forsaken Your precepts. In Your steadfast love give me life that I may keep the testimonies of Your mouth.  (Verses 81-88)

"And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the wine will burst the skins--and the wine is destroyed, and so are the skins. But new wine is for fresh wineskins."  Mark 2

The disciples and those faithful to Jesus when He was on earth were together in a rented room in Jerusalem, waiting rather unspecifically for the baptism with the Holy Spirit. The promise of Jesus was they would receive the power of the Holy Spirit "not many days from now." Then Christ ascended into heaven while they watched. That was ten days ago. Perhaps their anticipation waned a bit in the ensuing days since they'd last seen Jesus. Waiting sometimes dulls our hopes. But then again, Jesus had, in the fifty days since Passover and His crucifixion and resurrection, appeared suddenly in their midst. He'd spoken to five hundred witnesses at one time. Chatted with two men as they walked together on the road to Emmaus. On this early morning of the day of Pentecost, a harvest festival, were they milling about the room? Had they just knelt down in the prayer that occupied their days of waiting and hoping? Were they swallowing their last bite of breakfast? When a wind whooshed in. Not through any windows. Bigger than that. Power filling a void pressed them to the walls, filled the entire room in mesmerizing, ear-splitting force. Then fire. Unlit. Swirling at first with the gale then settling in glowing brilliance in pillars over those gathered. Did Peter look at John in amazement? I think so. "John! There is a flame of fire above your head!" And the mother of Jesus is jumping up and down! "There is fire above all our heads!" But the words were coming in a different language!

The Holy Spirit didn't arrive quietly into the temples now made of clay. No. Jerusalem heard the sound of a tornado as it whirred inside the upper room. The harvest feast attracted holy men every year, so the temple grounds swarmed with them. Those in the upper room scurried out and spoke as the Holy Spirit told them to. In languages they'd never learned they proclaimed the mighty works of God. And the gathering crowds heard the gospel of Jesus in their own languages. "What is happening? These people are Galileans! They don't speak our language!" And another, "How come we're hearing them talk to us in our own language?" And they couldn't think what it all meant. They stood amazed and perplexed.

The mockers, though, thought it was a stunt. "They're drunk! Too much new wine!"

At nine o'clock in the morning. A seemingly random time for Jesus to decide to finally send the Holy Spirit to us. And if drunk, yes, it was with new wine. In new wine skins. "Men of Judea and all who dwell in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and give ear to my words. For these people are not drunk, as you suppose, since it's only nine o'clock in the morning. What is happening is the fulfillment of the prophet Joel: "And in the last days it shall be, God declares, that I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh." Fill us up with new wine. Exchange the smoke-shriveled souls of dried up self-righteousness with a brand new vessel. No longer do we have to cry out from the dried up caverns of our puny piety. "Every man in Christ is a brand new creature. The old has passed away and the new has come" (2 Corinthians 5). We get to start all over.

Peter was in hiding. Ashamed almost beyond bearing that he'd denied three times that he even knew Jesus. New wine. Poured in by grace. Lit by the same fire that Christ brought down to earth to reclaim His own. Now preaching boldly. "Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through Him in your midst, as you yourselves know quite well. This Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. God raised Him up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for Him to be held by it!" Spilling onto the crowds the overflowing from a new wineskin.

Never do we have to say with the psalmist, "I feel like a wineskin that's been left out in the garage, thrown up into some rafter and forgotten. Soul shriveled and parched. Unworthy of filling once again with the joy of new wine." It's not that we don't find ourselves thinking that way sometimes. The point is, we don't have to. The hallmark of Passover and Pentecost is that we can be indwelt by that same Spirit Who raised Christ from the dead. He is powerful enough to have seen Jesus through His death and to take the body, blow His breath into it as He did with Adam, and cause the eyes of our Messiah to blink in the darkness as He sat up and stretched in the sepulcher that couldn't hold Him. The rock that enclosed and captured Jesus there rolled back at His command and He walked free past two mighty angels and back onto the earth He'd redeemed forever. That Spirit lives in me. And if you know Jesus, in you. So that no matter what it is we face today, and some face dire, dire things, we can be filled with new wine. We have the power to walk through the valley of the shadow of death and fear no evil. We can overcome addictions by tasting a better brew than the one concocted for us by the enemy of our souls. And the One Who abides in us will give us power to live here until we drink the wine anew with Jesus in heaven.

 

PSALM 119 - Why Did You Make Me This Way, For Crying Out Loud?!

Your hands have made and fashioned me. Give me understanding that I may learn Your commandments. Those who fear You shall see me and rejoice, because I have hoped in Your word. I know, O Lord, that Your rules are righteous, and that in faithfulness You have afflicted me. Let Your steadfast love comfort me according to Your promise to Your servant. Let Your mercy come to me, that I may live; for Your law is my delight. Let the insolent be put to shame, because they have wronged me with falsehood. As for me, I will meditate on Your precepts. Let those who fear You turn to me, that they may know Your testimonies. May my heart be blameless in Your statutes that I may not be put to shame!  (Verses 73-80)

The potter took the slippery wad of clay into her hands and plopped it onto the wheel. The early morning sun shone through the window of her garage studio. The kiln was already baking an earlier creation because the potter couldn't sleep for all the designs that burst upon her thoughts as she lay awake in her bed that night. With this lump of clay she wanted to create a vessel for her mother. A special creation. A ewer for the dining room table to hold the roses from the spring garden which always burst with hundreds of grandiflora beauties. As the wheel turned to the rhythm of the potter's foot and the water slicked the clay in her hands, the woman noticed something strange. Each time she would build the vessel upward, the clay would collapse back onto the platform of the wheel, as if refusing the form she had in mind. Less water. Added clay. The lovely pitcher took all morning. Finally, though, it was ready for the kiln. The master potter's idea from the night realized despite the clumsy, mutinous clay. Fired and set, the gift delivered into the hands of a delighted mother, it was soon all the more glorious for the multi-colored array of long-stemmed roses that graced it all that spring.

In the mind of the creator is a creation. Something new. Never done before. Only the potter knows what she will do with the lump of dirt in her hands. Once realized and fired, the purpose is set. All kinds of vessels. Earthen pots for many uses. God knows we aren't pots. But the picture for us should be clear. He made us. We should actually rejoice in the fact that there is thought and purpose behind each life God fashions. And, as this psalm reminds us, if God made us, it only stands to reason that if we want to understand our lives we need to ask Him to teach us. We come with instructions. And He has them in His hand. It's ridiculous to imagine a pot, fresh from the kiln, saying to the potter: "What the heck! Look at me! Why in the world did you make me into a vase, for crying out loud?" Even more insane to think of the vase walking out of the studio and going to the local pub to present itself as a stein to hold beer. Because that's what it wanted to be all along. A beer mug. Then the vase wonders why it's not happy in the bar.

It's a beautiful thing to see an earthen vessel moving in all that it was designed to be. The greatest glory for the lovely gift the potter gave to her mother is for it to be used to hold the bouquets for which it was created. We, like the pots, are designed for something. God thought about us before He fashioned our lives. We aren't a matter of happenstance. An afterthought in a world of chance. I was made to fit into a larger plan. And I was created in love. I've met lots of little pots who are in the wrong household. Frustrated and chipped because no one seems to understand how precious they are. Misuses them. Decorative urns stuffed with garbage. Crystal bowls used for morning cereal. And always feeling like that's all they are good for. I've had a few shards of my own pot fall to floor from the mishandling of what is sacred to God.

Our potter, though? Fixes broken vessels. Never hopeless. Always loved. Our purpose is ever our purpose. No plan B. That's what we are delivered from! Found in the bottom of the cupboard, languishing and lonely, His hand picks us up and refashions and repairs. It gives hope to the other vessels. "Come and look at what the Potter did!" I cry. "He took me up out of the bottom drawer, out of the shame of my hiding place, and repaired all my broken places! Now I live, new and shiny, in the house of a king! Come and let me tell you how He rescued this little jar of clay!"

"Woe to him who strives with Him Who formed him, a pot among earthen pots! Does the clay say to Him Who forms it, 'What are You making?' or 'Your work has no handles'?...Ask me of things to come; will you command Me concerning my children and the work of my hands? I made the earth and created man on it. It was My hands that stretched out the heavens, and I commanded all their host."  Isaiah 45

PSALM 119 - "You're About As Feeling As Fat!"

You have dealt well with Your servant, O Lord, according to Your word. Teach me good judgment and knowledge, for I believe in Your commandments. Before I was afflicted, I went astray, but now I keep Your word. You are good and do good. Teach me Your statutes. The insolent smear me with lies, but with my whole heart I keep Your precepts. Their heart is unfeeling, like fat, but I delight in Your law. It is good for me that I was afflicted, that I might learn Your statutes. The law of Your mouth is better to me than thousands of gold and silver pieces.   (Verses 65-72)

I have heard it said that God is as gentle with us as we allow Him to be in dealing with our disobedience. He will wait and wait for us to straighten up before He stands mightily in our path and makes us behave. I know there are those who believe God set His commandments in place in order to punish us at every turn. And that's the way religion plays out. God is the malevolent, heavy-handed One Who ever lives to wield His golden switch and spank our behinds. Or worse. What I know from reading the scriptures God is my Father through Jesus Christ. Fathers who love their children will discipline them. Not for the joy of beating their kids, but for the joy of having children who live controlled and purposeful lives. After having taught school for several years and working with other peoples' children, I know which ones have been carefully taught and lovingly disciplined and the ones who've been allowed their own way. The undisciplined are miserable and make those around them miserable, too.

This is one of those passages I underlined in my after I'd gone astray days. Our family packed up for the beach, the sandwiches, chips, fruit, cookies and drinks into the back of the van with the boogie boards and towels. It was very hot inland, where we lived at the time, and all the other families from Riverside and beyond must've decided to go to the beach that day, too, because traffic was awful on a Saturday. Finding parking off Pacific Coast Highway was our next challenge. But we finally settled onto the sand with the beach chairs upright and the towels beckoning us to lie down and tan. Will was six or seven then. Went down to the waves to race with the surf and got lost. I could still see him, so I didn't know he was panicking. There were many people between us, but he wasn't really lost. He only felt lost. I saw him turning in circles. Looking for his family. Then he started crying. It was then I understood he needed help. He'd gone astray and was scared. "Will!" I yelled. "Over here!" I stood up so my son could see me. My boy ran over so fast he nearly knocked me down. "I thought I'd lost you," he said through his tears. "I hadn't lost you, baby," I said. "I could see you." Will stayed very close the rest of the day. Before he knew what it was like to be away from me, he wasn't worried about how far out he got. You get the picture.

God won't let us get so far away that we completely lose Him, but if we are stubborn enough to keep on keeping on, He'll step in and be as gentle as we let Him in His effort to get us back into relationship. While I was out there straying, what was very clear, and what I see with even more clarity now, is no one really cares for me like Jesus does. My heart was captive to those whose hearts had about as much feeling as a blob of fat. The Bible is surprising in its imagery sometimes. I traded the warmth and joy of my relationship with my Father for a can of Crisco or a side of bacon (although I have friends who love bacon so much it could be a hard choice!) Why would the One Who loves me, died so that I could be in eternal relationship with Him, allow me to continually pursue lard? And, of course, once again the comparison is between hearts. My whole heart belongs to God; their hearts are unfeeling, fat with their own over-indulging. My heart is only safe with Jesus. The straying only made that more obvious. Made me want more than ever to stay close. To listen to what He says. Cherish the safety of the parameters my God sets because without them, I am without proximity to Him. I can't buy that. It's priceless.

PSALM 119 - "Would You Just Cool It, Peanut Butter Sandwich?"

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!"