New Mercies

I wish I could bottle up the sunshine and seal it tight and save it my dresser drawer. That way when the clouds come and refuse to leave I could take it out and empty it in my room. Then it would bounce around and light up everything so I would forget about the clouds. I can't bottle up the sunshine though so I guess today's sunshine is only for today. Will there be sunshine tomorrow? Or will the clouds come and refuse to leave? My Father promises me new mercies tomorrow but still I fear the rain. I wish that by mercy he meant sunshine but I know that mercy sometimes means rain.

Rain.

Rain.

Rain.

Then I think that on dry days, I wish I had bottled up the rain. So I guess rain is a mercy too and each day cannot live up to yesterday even though I try to make it do that. Today can only be today and mercy doesn't necessarily mean rain or sunshine but mercy means God wants you closer to Him and what He gives you today is specially designed so that can happen. That sounds really nice like it would feel good all the time but I know that's not always really the case. I know it means that tomorrow might be painful or sad or I will have to give up something or make a hard decision or maybe I will laugh so hard that I fall on the floor.

Mercies are meant to be received today, whatever they are. Sometimes it's hard and sometimes it's easy. Maybe I need to throw away all my bottles but I think I'll keep them and use them for memories instead. That way I can remember that no matter what the new mercies were from my past days, they were given out of love and I'll be able to empty them out on days when I need to and remember that God is faithful and will be for all my days.

To Set Sail

Our hearts cannot live apart of my hope. I am living proof of this. To be detached from things that you used to trust and to be left floating like a boat out in the water. When you were fastened to the dock, you didn't have to worry about the strength of your sail or the rudder but now you find yourself wondering whether today will be calm or storm. There can be an impending fear that takes over you when no longer have lines fastening you to a place you are used to. You raise your sail for the first time, watching it flutter and fill out and feel the wind pulling your boat forward with a quiet exhilaration. You are moving in a certain direction and you wonder where the wind is taking you. And so your hand finds the tiller and you adjust your rudder and see how the bow draws itself across the horizon. The rudder and sail are the first things you trust and your heart begins to slowly wrap itself around them and become familiar with them. When the storms come, they only cause your heart to cling more tightly to these things and your heart sends it roots deeper into their surface. Though even then you still fear the storm and you feel deeply in your heart that you can use your sails and rudder but there is a power beyond you that could overwhelm you. Your heart clings to the aspects of the boat for stability but all these live and move over the ocean and your heart slowly comes to realize that while it can control the sailboat, it can't control the ocean. The heart wonders, "Then who controls the ocean?" And what would it be like to sink your heart's roots into the one who made the ocean?

Our hearts cannot live apart from hope. And this is evidenced by how we lay in bed at night and wish our day had gone differently. We wish we had used different words. We wish we had not spend all day thinking about ourselves. We wish there was greater richness in our friendships. We wish so many things and our heart feels like a tree that wishes it would rain so that it could drink and not be thirsty. Why such thirst if there was not water that could satisfy it? Hope is born out of this thirst. All of our hearts are thirsty and so we begin tying ourselves to things that help quench our hearts. We lie in our beds at night or when we wake up and we wonder what could quench the longings of our hearts. There are those who do not lie in their beds at night and wonder this and I believe it could be because they are tied so tightly into their slip of security that they have forgot what is to have their boat placed at the mercy of the ocean or rather to have their heart placed at the mercy of God. They have sheltered themselves from the natural elements which force the heart to confront its' true thirst. Everyone is scared to leave their slip though because no one knows what exactly God will do or whether he will bring calmness or storm if all is abandoned to him. And so we sit in our slips and do not risk the ocean. In doing so, we keep our hearts from the very reason we were made.

My desire is that my heart would sink itself into the one who made the ocean and I would be tied to him in love. Storm or calm, I do not care. I want to be willing to leave my slip and risk the ocean because anything else would be to deny my existence and to deny that he created me for Himself. God calls every heart to abandon itself to him. To say, "Lord, WHATEVER you want, I am yours. I will cast myself upon you. Make me yours." Only when every tie is cut, can the sailboat leave the slip. And if my heart is stubborn and does not have the courage to cut the final cord, I pray that God would send a wind to pull me until that cord is snapped and I am loosed fearfully into the open water. It takes an abandoned heart to take a knife to the cords on your boat as the world is crying out and scoffing at your foolishness, "Why would you set sail?!" The answer is obvious, "Because I am a boat and I was meant to!" There must be a greater voice that is calling you in your heart in order for you to ignore the voice of the world. The ocean calls us and we hold a knife in our hands. The ropes are taut in our slips. Our sails are waiting to catch the wind. And the Maker of the ocean is waiting to reveal himself to those he created for himself.

"And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you, but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to keep the commandments and statues of the Lord, which I am commanding you today for your good?" Deuteronomy 10:12-14

To Give God Glory

What does this mean? It sounds so intimidating and beyond us. I was try thinking of examples of people bringing God glory and it's hard. I think most of the time I would use the phrase to describe someone doing something and then giving God the credit. As in, "I worked really hard at something and now that I've accomplished it, I must tell you that it was really God all along." Of course, this truth cannot be disputed. Only the person in question will know whether this was really true in their heart. This brings us to the place where giving God glory is determined: the heart. You can go to church, sing, serve, work, dance in a circus, love your wife, and give to the poor and say that it's all for God's glory but how can we tell that's really true? There's two options: either you are telling the truth and your heart-desire really was to glorify God or else you are paying lip service to God when really your heart-motive was focused on yourself. The only way we could tell for sure is if we're in a trusting relationship with you and you disclose your motives to us. We know our own heart-motives though and so I think each of us has to look inward for ourselves and see things for what they really are.

Notice how we try to squirm out of this using a number methods though. Sometimes we prefer apathy. We say that we're overthinking things and who can really have perfect motives all the time? So we hide from truly examining our heart. Sometimes we prefer busyness and we just keep our lives so filled with activity that we never take time to examine our hearts. Sometimes we compare ourselves to others and since we do more good things than others or maybe even have "better" motives than others, we don't take time to examine our hearts. Lastly and worst of of all, we can prefer to just plain fool ourselves by redefining God's glory into something less than it is. We lower the bar so that our current heart-motives are satisfactory.

If prayer is coming to God with our hearts and we get in this habit, how could we ever claim to come to God truly as we are and as a result, how could he ever truly meet us in our hearts? I experienced this in a personal way recently. I was disgusted as I realized how squirmy I was with letting God truly have my heart. I didn't want to be vulnerable. I didn't want to give him my heart unless I knew what he was going to do with it. Most of all though, I was afraid he would kill and put to the death all the things that my flesh holds on to for comfort (friendships, my plans for the future, my future career path, timing, etc.). This is the place of surrender and it where's I found myself. I began to pray that I would live a life devoted to giving God glory. Something began to break inside of me as I prayed and I felt a sharp pain in my heart. I wanted to shrink from it but I wanted to hold myself there because I felt like something was dying in my heart that I was really sick of having there. Afterwards, I felt a very real desire growing that yes, I did want to bring God glory. Since then it works like this. I get into situations and I realize how selfish my heart is that my desire is not to bring God glory through the situation and I realize I need help. And so I come to God again and force my squirmy heart to sit still and be exposed to his light. Perhaps we are meant to have a small taste of what Job felt. "Though he slay me, yet I will trust him." When we give him our hearts truly, he truly changes them right down the very core. Right where it hurts the most, and right where it feels the best afterwards.

When you come out on the other side there's just peace and joy. You start to actually have experiences where your heart-motive is to bring God glory and you encourage, love, or serve someone. I'm probably more emotional than most but it seriously make me want to laugh. I will tell you, I have not laughed so much and so deeply in a very long time. Bringing God glory doesn't seem as intimidating and beyond anymore. To intentionally do things with the heart-motive to make Jesus look more beautiful is what brings God glory. I'm praying that my squirmy heart will eventually become established and rooted in this mission. It's not just the call for believers who want to go the extra mile. It's the call for every believer. To give God your heart and have him transform you at the core of who you are.