because there are stages in your growth

Each of our three boys learned to ride their bikes in very different fashions, ones that honestly matched their overall personalities.  Our oldest learned gradually, methodically moving from one step to the other until he finally stopped freaking out enough to realize he was really riding on his own.  The video of the first ride is priceless!  Our middle just decided one day that that was the day he was going for it and then pretty much jumped on the bike with minimal help and took off as if he'd practiced the event so often in his head that he didn't need practice in the physical world.  Oh to have his confidence and determination.  Our youngest, oh that baby, rocked his first time on two wheels.  I was inside cleaning the kitchen when he came and told me he wanted to try his two wheeler.  Not even bothering to put on shoes, because this boy had cried wolf before, I very shortly found myself running barefoot down the street with our oldest videoing his first epic ride. However the day after that first ride, and for many more, he claimed he didn't know how to do it anymore and wouldn't even try.  It wasn't until his neighbor friend came over on two wheels and upon seeing "the competition" yelled "Daddy get my bike." Since then it has still been an up and down experience because, bless his diva heart, if the conditions are not PERFECT buckle up for a patience draining trip around the block.

While my own journey to learning to ride a bike is not one I wish to remember, I see myself so much in each of their scenarios, especially in regards to my faith.  Whether it's methodically doing the right steps the right way so that the end result is practically perfect or jumping in on my own confident that I can get it done or going down the trail of trying, succeeding, fearing failure, quitting and trying again, I am constantly given opportunity to "work out my salvation in fear and trembling"

When through our past sufferings God bent me towards a desire to write and share, I at first took it as a yes to feeling confident in Christ to share the things placed upon my heart without fearing my lack of theological prowess and coming across as not reformed enough, or not loving and open enough, or maybe even seeming completely heretical.  As time has gone by I also have seen it as a confidence in sharing my short comings, the ways I am still very much being worked on as my Inner Dispostions are being changed.  Even again this past weekend as we were sharing with an elder at the church we are going to be joining, that pesky theme of self-righteousness reared it's ugly head again as I was sharing my faith story.  It is what Satan uses to derail me and what God uses to continually draw me to Him.

If given my wish, my bike metaphor for faith would be God give me a push so I can ride on my own from here.  Amen again and again that he doesn't leave me on my own.  I wouldn't want to see the massive crash that would happen.

When thinking of the verse from Philippians 2 that talks about working out your salvation with fear and trembling it was never the fear and trembling part I had a problem with odd since that word fear usually is in my top five of describing myself.  While I am thankful that as a teenager I learned in this scenario that fear is just a deep respect and trembling is just coming in humility. the problem I have always had is with the working part.  What God always calls working I seem to translate as earning instead.

Faith is a walk, a working out, a struggle between flesh and spirit.  It is not perfect, but within it we are being perfected.  Looking back over the years there are three distinct stages of growing in faith that have emerged.  As time continues and "knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us (Rom. 5:3-5)" more knowledge will transform into wisdom and the stages of growth will expand.  That is His promise until the work in us is completed.

For now, here are the three stages that have been walked through in my life and I pray my story disappears in your thoughts and yours comes forward and you will either see yourself in one of these or be able to discern your own, not to become discouraged at your lack, but to feel power in your weakness and hope in the growth that is promised.

Stage 1- Passive Faith 

     For reasons that would require an extensive explanation of my background that will not be shared here but will delightedly be shared with you personally over a cup of tea should you ask, there was a very long period of time where a passive view on faith led my life.  While there have always been hints of self-righteous earning and the desire to be good and do good in hopes that that would up my status, the majority of my life was spent thinking that faith was just something that happened to you as in God gave us each a measure of faith and we were kind of stuck with how much we got.  Thinking no matter what I did either way would make a difference I became equally content and discontent.  

Stage 2- Aggressive Faith

     In my late 20s after a sermon series on the spiritual disciplines my spiritual life changed dramatically. Eyes were opened to Truths and Promises that were never quite understood and there before me in lists and notes were ways and things I could do to grow.  Read, Meditate on the Word, Pray, Watch, Fast, Worship, Memorize...all actions.  All tangibles that sent me from being a spectator to jumping in and participating.  It was a time of amazing growth and learning and prepared my heart for the trials that would come just a few short years later.  While this remains one of the most memorable times of being drawn close, in the background self-righteousness was growing as well.  Creeping in on was a thought in my head that now that I've started I have to keep going.  I have to work hard to continue to grow and learn.  Subconsciously the gift of a new found and growing faith was taken over and thankfulness began shifting into triumph.

Stage 3- Active Participation

     There are times in life where God will break you down just so He can rebuild you.  So that He can rebuild you because you have been doing your level best to build yourself.  He does not need us to fulfill His plans.  As hard as that is to hear, it's true.  We are not powerful enough to destroy His plans and we are not Holy enough to fulfill them.  However, we are loved enough to be asked to participate in His Kingdom for our own benefit, for the encouragement to others, and for His ultimate Glory.  We are asked to participate through the disciplines, through acting out our spiritual gifts, through practicing the fruit of the spirit.  We are asked to participate so that we get a front row seat to seeing Him work, and love, and grow, and build, and disciple, and rescue.  We get a front row seat to the fulfilling of His promises so that we will learn to see His hand in every minute detail of life so that, instead of trying to go it alone, we burrow deeper into the shadow of His wing knowing that is the only place to be.  

I wish I could say I am fully entrenched into the Active Participation stage that I rejoice in the gift of Faith given and the way in which it increases only through Christ, but the world being the broken world it is, I crawl away at times and lie and wait for things to happen or try again to ride on my own with nothing but a push.  Then again He reels me in and loves me anyway.  

Today I pray for you words from John Piper, "Lord, thank you for our faith.  Sustain it.  Strengthen it. Deepen it.  Don't let it fail.  Make it the power of our lives, so that in everything we do you get the glory as the Great Giver.  Pray for me.

for when you need courage to take the next step

When on a vacation with your extended family which includes 12 adults and just as many kids all of which are under the age of 10 and more than half of which are 5 years old and younger, peace and quiet is not something you count on achieving.  Though fun and energy are most definitely daily tasks that are being checked off, when your soul leans more to the introverted side and thoughts do not tend to come to fruition until quiet moments are found, a writer's heart, such as mine, assumes that another week will go by where that part of herself needs to be placed to the side so that the energy needed for creativity and pondering can be funneled instead to being in the moment and enjoying it to the fullest.  Are there those in the world who do not have to voluntarily transfer their mental energy on the daily? If you are one such soul, be thankful my friend.

However, my doubt was overcome by His promise yet again and on a morning with a cup of tea in hand I sat on the front steps in Florida air mixed with humidity, a faint breeze, and the mottled noises of a houseful of folks beginning their day and came away with one thought that has continued to grow since, "It's time to keep going forward, I promise I'll tell you if you need to stop."


He speaks friends.  When you listen, you hear.

One of my children not only needs step by step instruction, but he needs it clearly written and sequential in order to complete everything needed.  If instructions are spoken instead, he requires the time to complete one, maybe two at a time, before adding to the list.  If given too much at one time, all is forgotten and nothing will get accomplished.

I simultaneously love and get frustrated with this quality of his.  The love comes from my own inner need for order and lists and wanting to make sure everything is done that is needed to get done.  The frustration comes from not understanding how, even when it's the same routine over and over, there is not an immediate and habitual moving on to the next thing.  What is keeping that little mind from using past experiences and context clues to just keep going?

Can you see where I'm heading with this?  The dawn of understanding pieces of yourself often comes through observation of others.  This is not judgement, in its negative sense, it is the judging that brings understanding, wisdom earned through situational discernment with a good dose of humility on the side.

The Christian life is full of unknowns, not for our Creator of course as He wrote our stories before the beginning of time, but for us and our minds personally.  Situations that have not yet come to past, experiences that have not yet been lived through, and wisdom that has not yet been gained are all dotted along our paths to be.  Sitting there for their planned time and place.

However, like my precious boy, we can find ourselves waiting, hesitant to take the next step because of the uncertainty of what will happen when we do.  Whether we admit it or not--and I have a feeling most of us would admit it freely--there is a great desire for a list of steps.  A sure, written in stone, sign that says go and do this exact thing.  Forgotten are the Words left with us and the example of those gone before us.  Distrusting are we to the people placed in our lives presently that mentor and guide.  Even ourselves we doubt.  What if we did not really hear what we thought we heard?

So instead of using our own context clues from the information given, instead of allowing our habit of walking in the Spirit propel us forward, instead of living in Faith and taking our own "leap from the lion's head" we sit, and wait, and look for a 100% no fail guarantee.  Both instances, the childhood chores and our spiritual stalling, stem from immaturity.  Both do not just improve with age, but with practice as well.

There are times we are called to wait.  Where there is a deeply felt need to stop trying to constantly take control and to sit and be still instead.  I have experienced a season of wait myself.  Never is a true wait on the Lord wasted, because not only is the wait required for building up those lovely qualities of patience and contentment, within it is also a process of preparation.  Whether God is preparing your heart, mind, soul and strength for the next step or preparing other people and places for your arrival, there is work in the wait. Says Oswald Chambers, "To wait upon God is the perfection of activity.  We are told to rest in the lord, not to rust."

Some can sit, wait, and look for a lifetime.

"It never works to wait for God to do what he has clearly called you to do."  ~Paul David Tripp

For myself, there are three things possible on the horizon, three things firmly planted in my heart, and for almost a year I have been trying to discern which one was supposed to be first.  Agonizing over taking a secure step forward and instead circling around trying to pick the right path.

I do not know what has been placed in your heart, but I do know that if you have prayed about it, sought the counsel of another about it, and it is still firmly planted--assuming whatever it is is not completely heretical of course--that it's time to leap, it's time to keep moving forward trusting that He will tell you when to stop.

He promises to make those paths straight, not smooth or easy or quick, but straight to where He's guiding.

The end results might matter and they might not, what changes your heart the most is the walking forward when you do not know the way but ever Trusting that God does. So go, and in the words of the ever wise Will Ferrell, "Enjoy the process of your search without succumbing to the pressure of the results."

 I will be praying for you as you discern and take those next steps in Faith, pray for me.

because in the midst of beauty and despair there is always a faith that keeps walking through

“How is faith to endure, O God, when you allow all this scraping and tearing on us?

You have allowed rivers of blood to flow, mountains of suffering to pile up,

sobs to become humanity's song--all without lifting a finger that we could see.

You have allowed bonds of love beyond number to be painfully snapped.

If you have not abandoned us, explain yourself.

We strain to hear...

The juxtaposition of beauty and despair is a constant for us all. The scales may dip to one side or another, staying down at times longer than anyone would wish or staying up so long the next dip down catches us by surprise more than it should. Growing up you learn in school about America and it's Melting Pot of colors, faces, cultures, foods. I, for one, do not remember specifically being taught that life is also a melting pot of experiences, the good the bad and the ugly as it were. There was always work hard, follow directions, and do your best with either the assumption or adult given guarantee that everything would be okay. But then things do not work out the way you thought. The formula didn't equal the intended result.

Recently I was lying by a pool with a view of Zach in a beautiful pool playing with our boys in the foreground and the mountains of southern Utah in the background while reading a book about a young girl abandoned by her mother, for her own protection, to live in extreme poverty in Nazi Germany yet still understanding compassion for all others when the world around her claimed superiority. Beauty and Despair.

It's difficult to share a cross country experience with your sons the same day you read about Syrian children losing their lives because of chemical warfare. Or checking on social media to look at pictures of a beautiful newborn right next to another showing pictures of their young son diagnosed with cancer. Or feeling helpless as you hear about yet another couple's marriage falling apart because of sin and selfishness when your own, after a similar heartbreak, is full of grace, forgiveness, and healing. Beauty and despair.

There are a few responses our hearts and minds revert to when faced with these two opposites living side by side. There's guilt, much like survivor's guilt, that your life seems easy compared to the struggle of another. There's naivety in believing that another deserves what they're getting while you deserve the rewards you are reaping--consequences are part of actions, but grace is the only reason we see blessing in our lives--Then there is that pesky desire to ignore other's plights while you just concentrate on your "good fortune" doing whatever you can to make sure the tide doesn't turn. You have probably guessed that none of these seem to be the path we should take.

A goal for many in everything life related is calm, peace, no waves, just a constant state of positive. Actions are directed at keeping the scale dipped as low as possible to the side of our earthly vision of beauty. Heaped on top of that plate to weigh it down are a combination material possessions, shared experiences, church visits, donations, and all things that bring a sense of happy no matter how short lived.

But how do we explain with our earthly sense when the scale seemingly stays tipped to the other side whether in our own lives, the lives of our friends, or the lives of strangers on the other side of the world?

The opening quote is one by Nicholas Wolterstorff in his book Lament for a Son. But that is not the full quote. It ends with this, "But instead of hearing an answer we catch sight of God himself scraped and torn. Through our tears we see the tears of God."

When you picture that balance scale in your mind, and just so you know my picture includes a very LOST like image with black and white stones on either side, picture God, His Son, and His Spirit fully present on both sides so that one never outweighs the other because in every beauty there is an understanding of despair that would come if we did not have Him to call on and in every despair there is an understanding of beauty because He is always with us.

Hope always exists in every place hopelessness tries to overtake.

Emily Freeman said, "By faith, we trust he is building his kingdom even while we wait for the day when we can see with our eyes how he is making all things right again.

Much like my pastor's definition of love, Paul David Tripp has one on Faith that is simple to understand yet full of depth when pondered through. He describes faith as having two parts, both as important as the other. The first is believing that God exists. The second is letting that belief radically change how you live your life.

"Trust in the dark, trust in the light, trust at night and trust in the morning, and you will find that the faith that many begin, perhaps by a mighty effort will end, sooner or later, by becoming the easy and natural habit of the soul." ~The Christian's Secret of a Happy Life

So how do we explain the reasoning behind beauty and despair living side by side? We don't. Somethings are unexplainable and then again somethings just do not need to be explained. Instead, we just walk in it. Walk in the Faith that believes God exists and then continue that Faith by letting our actions shower Christ over others so that whether they believe themselves to be in a moment of despair or beauty all they will really see is Him.

As Pat Dye is known for saying, "There's going to be a lot of days where you lay your guts on the line and come back empty. Ain't a damn thing you can do about it but go out there and lay them on the line again. And again, and again."

The Truth of it is, you'll never come back empty handed if who you are laying it all down for is Christ.

Praying that in that mix of beauty and despair you can see the Faith in your life growing and the actions of your life being radically changed. Pray for me.

bec