What is that?

So, I'm driving down the road listening to NPR's Science Friday with this guest talking about images from some space mission. He's talking about how they got these pictures of something they didn't expect. There's these two lights in the pictures, and they don't know what they are. Right now, the images are from so far away, all they really look like is two dots. But, he says, they plan to take shots closer to the lights, or whatever they are, and those shots will be 100 times better than the current ones. And the current shots -- they are already 100 times better than the previous ones. And, listening to him talk, it hits me.

The truth of what he's saying---how they are seeing something. They have the images. But they don't know what it is they're looking at...Yet. Those things, whatever they are, have always been there. But, before, they were looking from so far away, they couldn't even tell. Now, they're closer, and they can seem something. Soon, they'll be even closer, and maybe they'll be able to make sense of what exactly they're looking at. 100 years from now? Who knows what they'll know about these little mysteries?

One hundred years from now, who knows what I'll know about my own little mysteries? God has all of my days recorded. He has for forever. Literally. "Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be (Psalm 139:16)." In some mysterious way, all of my days have always been, in that God has always had them planned out. 

But me, I'm so small, so inside time, that I haven't been able to see the happenings of my life plainly until I arrive right up on top of them. Sometimes, I see dimly the things that are coming---so dimly that all they look like is those 2 blobs of light out there in the universe. 'What, exactly, are they? What am I looking at?' If I'm being honest, even when I am "right up on top of them", I am often, still, perplexed. 'Okay, yes, I see them now. They are, uh...well, they look like...well, they feel like...um...well, I don't really know.' 

Sometimes, I look back at "old pictures", and suddenly, in the right light, those memories and experiences seem so much more plain. 'Oh, that's what was going on then. I see what you did there, God.' And, sometimes, no matter what the light looks like, no matter the quality of the "picture", I still don't have a word for what I'm seeing. Maybe sometimes---maybe most times, I have to settle my hope in the fact that, one day---maybe 100 years of days from now---the picture will be clear. I will have words for what I will then see clearly. All the angst will fall away, and it will only be joy that I comprehend. And it will only be pleasure that I experience. And it will only be praise that I speak.

"For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known (1 Corinthians 13:12)."

This. This truth that God knows in full. God plans in full. God loves in full. This truth is enough to sustain when I don't know why. All the things I don't understand now. All the "no's" in answer to prayer. All the suffering that doesn't make sense to me. All the waiting. All of it. It's those 2 lights...out there. It's something. It's not meaningless. In time, it will even make sense. And, more than just making sense, it will bring praise to the One who is Creator, Father, Lover, Friend, Shepherd, Master. It's good. 

So, I look forward to the coming closer. To the understanding, yes. But, mostly, closer to the One who understands. And I don't wait alone. He's here now.

This House Ain't Big Enough For You! SO GET OUT! {The tale of a couple + an unwanted house guest}

SO

Home Not Home

Strangers and aliens. Sojourners and exiles. That's been a recurring theme these past few months. Part of the reason this place is so dang hard is because it's not home. The good news is we do have a home, and we are going there. Soon.

When this phrase, "strangers and aliens", first gripped me it was in 1 Peter 2:11, where Peter reminds the believers scattered because of persecution that they are strangers and aliens in this world, so they should live like they are waiting on home and not try to get too comfy in a place they aren't made for anyway.

I've taken much solace from the fact that this broken place isn't the final destination. On the days when everything seems to be going wrong, I can remember that, as my friend Andrew says, "This world is fading, along with it's promises...and you who've held out hope will rise into His arms."

Last night, in our Life Together Group, we read Ephesians 2 together and this familiar phrase struck me in a new way. Paul is reminding the Gentile readers that they used to be excluded from the people and the promises of God, but now because of Jesus, they are "no longer strangers and aliens, but fellow citizens with God's people and members of God's household (v. 19)."

So, they used to be strangers and aliens to God and His people. Now, they are strangers and aliens to the world. One way or another, we are going to be strangers and aliens. The issue is to whom will we choose to belong? I know where I wanna land.

"Better is one day in your courts
than a thousand elsewhere;
I would rather be a doorkeeper
in the house of my God
than dwell in the tents of the wicked." (Psalm 84:10)

If feeling at home on earth means being cut off from you God, forget it! I would rather just stand at your door for one day than to feel cozy here on earth forever. "Blessed are those whose strength is in you, who have set their hearts on pilgrimage." (Psalm 84:5)

I'll leave it with this quote from Gregg Allison I found as I looked up that 1 Peter verse on strangers and aliens (or, as some translations say, "sojourners and exiles"):

"...the church, living in the boundary epoch between the two advents of Jesus Christ, is composed of people who live their short (earthly) lives away from their home for the purpose of being on mission for and with God." 

What a beautiful truth! We are not home. Not in this world. God is our home, and though we aren't as fully with Him as we will be one day, even now He's given us His Spirit as a deposit  guaranteeing our inheritance. Just like Jesus left home to come to earth and lived on mission for and with God, He now enables us to do the same for this short time (70, maybe 80 years, as Psalm 90 says) we have on earth. What a privilege! That we could be made like Jesus in that way staggers the mind.

So I'm praying with the psalmist:

"Teach us to number our days aright,
that we may gain a heart of wisdom." (Psalm 90:12)

 

Trial + Steadfastness = Joy

"Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing." (James 1:2-3, emphasis mine)

Tams is learning James and quoted these verses to me Wednesday. And the word steadfastness jumped out. It's been appearing quite frequently lately. Most prominently in Psalm 5:7

But I, through the abundance of your steadfast love,    will enter your house.I will bow down toward your holy temple    in the fear of you.

God's love for His people is steadfast. Because God is steadfast. And good thing, because we sure are fickle. I have recently been enjoying the fact that no mater my shortcomings, God steadfastly loves me. Because He is God, and He has set His love on me in Jesus, and He does not change. 

James says we should count trials joy because that testing of our faith produces steadfastness. Trials create steadfastness in us. Steadfastness -- the very character of God. What?! What a privilege that God would grant that we mere creatures could experience what He experiences when He is steadfast. 

I don't want trials. Because they are harddd. But I do want more of God. If He ordains that more of Him right now means trials that cause me to have more of Him, then I will count it joy.