As the Midnight Sky Flashes with Its Sparkling Lights

For Thy Word’s sake, and according to Thine own heart, hast thou wrought all this greatness, to make Thy servant know it.”  II Samuel  7:21

“So David spoke thankfully and adoringly, tracing to two matchless sources the unspeakable riches which God had lavished…

“For his Word’s sake God blesses me.  He has bound Himself to do so by all the great and precious promises which He has uttered in my hearing.  His book, from Genesis to Revelation, is studded with them, as the midnight sky gleams and flashes with its sparkling lights.  I heard once of a saint who set out to count the promises of the Bible; but having enumerated thirty-eight thousand, he abandoned the attempt in despair.  Indeed, it was a quixotic* enterprise.  For all the names of my Lord are implicit promises.  And so are the various doctrines of His truth.  And so are the mighty acts in the past history of His people.  And having spoken thus often and thus strongly, by diverse portions and in diverse manners, He will perform; He is not a man that He should lie, nor the Son of Man that He should repent.  His own faith keeping character ensures that He will fulfill His largest engagements.  What He has pledged Himself to give me in time and in eternity, He will bestow.

“And according to His own heart God blesses me.  I fancy that this new clause outruns and surpasses its predecessor, glorious although that is.  The language of the lips cannot unveil all that lies in the soul; the promises of my Lord do not explain and exhaust His thoughts of peace; God’s heart is fuller, profounder, tenderer, more mysterious, more ineffable, than God’s Word…But I must wait for the everlasting future if I would comprehend all that He has planned, and all that He has gained for my soul.  What king has wealth like mine?”

(*quixotic: exceedingly idealistic; unrealistic and impractical)

--taken from Alexander Smellie, In the Secret Place

That Everything May Commend Christ

"The other person needs to be loved for what he is, as one for whom Christ became man, died and rose again, for whom Christ brought forgiveness of sins and eternal life.  Because Christ has long since acted decisively for my brother, before I could begin to act, I must leave him his freedom to be Christ’s;  I must meet him only as the person that he already is in Christ’s eyes…Human love constructs its own image of the other person, of what he is and what he should become.  It takes the life of the other person into its own hands.  Spiritual love recognizes the true image of the other person which he has received from Jesus Christ; the image that Jesus Christ himself embodied and would stamp upon all men.  Therefore spiritual love proves itself in that everything it says and does commends Christ…"

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together

For the King and His Kingdom Are One

Don’t you think we just need more of an imagination?  Don’t you think too, after reading this, we need more of an imagination to speak these words to our children in ways that they can relate to, assimilate, and live in the reality of?

This from RC Sproul Jr, who lost both his wife and a daughter this past year:

“It is a good and glorious thing to remember what our union with Christ means in terms of our glorification.  His work did not merely acquire for us a verdict of not guilty.  Rather, because we are in union with Him, we are joint heirs with Him.  The glory that is His in His resurrection is ours.  The glory that is His in His ascension is ours.  We are even now, because we are in union with Him, seated with Him in the heavenly places.  We are kings and queens even now because we are one with Him—the One who reigns over all.

“There is, however, more still.  Remember that Jesus, when He met Saul on the road to Damascus, did not ask, “Why are you persecuting My bride?” but “Why are you persecuting Me?”  He, in union with us, so identifies with us, that what we suffer, He suffers.  Because we are one flesh, what one half suffers the other half does as well.  Because of our union with Him, Jesus suffered from acute myeloid leukemia.  Because of our union with Him, Jesus went into remission after a successful bone marrow transplant.  Because of our union with Him, Jesus relapsed.  Because of our union with Him, Jesus’ clinical trial was unable to slow the deadly progression of the disease.   Because of our union with Him, He was unable to try more chemotherapy because his kidneys began to fail.  Because of our union with Jesus, Jesus went into hospice, said goodbye to His friends, to His parents, His sister and brother, and to His little children.  Because of our union with Jesus, Jesus said goodbye to the man who loved her forever and always.  And because of our union with Jesus, Jesus, one with me, sat helpless while His bride waltzed into eternity.

"Jesus, however, was raised from the dead.  With Him was raised my beloved and with Him was raised my hope.  Because she is in union with Him, she has found the fullness of the kingdom, and His righteousness is now all her own.  Furthermore, because I am in union with Him, though I see through a glass darkly, I am there to dance with her.  Because I am in union with Him, I got to be there when Jesus and Denise welcomed our little girl Shannon to heavenly rest.

"We are called to seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness.  By His grace, we know that in His grace, His kingdom and His righteousness has been seeking us.  But even that is not the utmost glory of the kingdom.  The great glory of the kingdom is the glory of the King.  For the King and His kingdom are one, even as we and the King are one.  Rest and rejoice.  Give thanks and give praise."

The Purer the Gold

Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water’.  John 7:38

When I wrote Snapshots of a Christ-focused Wedding I promised I would tell you something about the bride and groom, other than that they hail from opposite corners of the continent and were born two days apart.  For a few reasons, this was delayed until now, but I did want to share a particular bit of their romance.

I’ve had several posts in which I talk about watching our children, young or grown, walk through significant trials.  Painful though it is, for somehow we want so badly for them to be well, comfortable, happy and satisfied, these trials serve Christ’s transforming purpose in their lives.  Indeed, especially if they are walking in fellowship with the Lord it is hard to see them walk through severe trials.

Yes, this post is about a wedding.  A glorious, happy, deeply satisfying and Christ-exalting wedding.  For you see, the groom and the bride began their love story just following severe trials in both their lives.  In fact, their first correspondences were about their responses to these trials.

How do we measure the priceless jewels of suffering which turn hearts deeper in to a love for Christ, seek only to magnify HIM if even through this, and bear tenfold the beautiful fruit of being submitted to His will for their lives?  Would we still say God chose poorly this trial?  Ask why did it have to be this way? 

With their permission, I am including excerpts from their first correspondence, to show the riches of Christ-exalting suffering that came into, and pours out of, the hearts and lives of this young couple.  Yes, the suffering was real:  the groom was found to have a cancerous tumor on his leg which resulted in his leg being amputated above the knee, then followed by cancer treatments.  The bride’s trials were equally as devastating and troubling for her, albiet in a different manner, in the same months and years. 

He wrote, “If I could have my leg back I would take it in a heartbeat but I have absolutely no regrets about losing it. My life is actually so much richer than it was before I lost it. There’s nothing like adversity to really test your spirit and to let you find out what you are capable of. (I actually mean what God’s grace allows you to be capable of.) My situation has allowed me to share my faith with people and has forced me to totally trust God and depend on him for EVERYTHING.” He also wrote, “Although I am looking forward to celebrating the five year mark (of being cancer free) I realize that every day each of us is given is a gift and it truly belongs to the Lord. There are days that I forget this but once I remember the sacrifice Christ made for me it really hits home and inspires me to live for him.” And, “I’m sorry to hear about your health problems. I guess you came to the same conclusion as I did in deciding that health problems and adversity are great motivators to draw closer to God. Kind of blessings in disguise.”

She wrote, “It was such an encouragement to read your last message! You know, it is such a blessing to belong to the body of Christ, where we can see God's hand through all of our trials, and use our experiences to make our testimony that much stronger. Usually, when I look at the Christians I know who have had a lot of struggles in their life (spiritually or physically), I am amazed by their peace and faith and strong witness. Being sick myself (although I am not trying to compare my situation in any way to yours or anyone else's), I have drawn a lot of encouragement from knowing that God loves me enough to bring me through this trial, because I have grown closer to Him in ways that I probably wouldn't have if I hadn't gone through this. I love thinking of it this way: I (or you...whoever) am gold, and in order for it to be beautiful and pure, it HAS to go through fire, which is painful, but in the end will make us more and more like Christ. The purer the gold, the more He will be able to see His reflection when He looks at us.”

This, along with more of their story, was read at the wedding reception, a several-hour affair of incredible joy, celebration, and laughter.  No regrets; no looking back, or wishing for something else.  God has brought every earthly blessing and delight to them, not only in giving them one another, but in sanctifying their suffering and crowning it with perfect peace.  Thus, this wedding was a monument to God’s perfect craftsmanship in turning painful situations into the gold of our good and His glory. And a promise to parents that God’s plans for them are more well-laid than our wishes. 

Thankfulness for Community

In the Christian community thankfulness is just what it is anywhere else in the Christian life.  Only he who gives thanks for the little things receives the big things.  We prevent God from giving us the great spiritual gifts He has in store for us, because we do not give thanks for daily gifts.  We think we dare not be satisfied with the small measure of spiritual knowledge experience and love that has been given to us, and that we must constantly be looking forward eagerly for the highest good.  Then we deplore the fact that we lack the deep certainty, the strong faith, and the rich experience that God has given to others, and we consider this lament to be pious.  We pray for the big things and forget to give thanks for the ordinary, small (and yet really not small) gifts.  How can God entrust great things to one who will not thankfully receive from Him the little things?  If we do not give thanks daily for the Christian fellowship in which we have been place, even where there is no great experience, no discoverable riches, but much weakness, small faith, and difficulty; if on the contrary we only keep complaining to God that everything is so paltry and petty, so far from what we expected, then we hinder God from letting our fellowship grow according to the measure and riches which are there for us all in Jesus Christ.

--from Life Together, Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Oxford, England, 2009

Tenfold Diligence to the Work Assigned Us

Mary Winslow raised three sons to become ministers; and she lived to see three grandsons become ministers.  She was born two years before our country’s war for independence.  She married a Lieutenant at 17, and came to Christ soon following.  Shortly after immigrating to New York with ten children, she lost her infant daughter.  Before her baby could be buried, she received word from oversees that her husband had died.  Widowed at 40, responsible for nine children, her entire life was turned upside down.  Worst of all, her spiritual darkness and despondency overwhelmed her for some months.

Nevertheless, the Lord delivered her from all these sorrows and turned her darkness into light.  Later, she confessed that affliction was for her own welfare.  “I think I have learned more of my dreadfully wicked heart, and the preciousness of Jesus during this trial than I ever learnt before”, she said.  By seasoned experience, she learned how to maintain a spirit of unwavering faith during times of suffering.   And God granted her remarkable joys to balance the sorrows.  He redeemed all of her children…

I really do love how she talks to others in her letters, and I think we have so much to learn from her forthright emphasis on gospel, on the Person of Jesus Christ, and of our heart responses to Him.  Here’s another taste:

“My dear friend, I wish to know how the Lord’s work is prospering in your hands.  However little we may know of each other here, we are to dwell together throughout eternity.  How should this thought unite the children of God, level every barrier between them erected by man’s inventions and Satan’s devices!  We shall know, even as we are known.  We shall know Jesus--precious Jesus!—and shall we not know and love all who bear His image; and should we not try and be as much like what we expect to be in the world of glory to which we are daily approaching—yea, moment by moment nearing our port.  Happy thought! Glorious prospect before us!  Take courage, my friend, and give tenfold diligence to the work assigned you by your Master.  I trust you are well assured he has called you to it, and if so, I hope you look to Him continually for materials to enable you to carry it on to the praise of His holy name, and that at last you might receive a “well done, good and faithful servant," from His blessed lips.  Oh, to live to please Him who died for us, and to do His work faithfully, and with an upright heart, looking for our reward only in knowing and feeling that we are doing His will…”

--Bio and quote from Heaven Opened, Octavius Winslow editor

Oxford, England, 2009 

Ministry of Motherhood

“Mothering is no second-rate ministry for the spiritually and intellectually mediocre. 

Mothering is a Christ-rated ministry for soul and mind sculptors and what could ever be substandard about passing on Christ’s standard?”  --Ann Voskamp 

I do wonder long at why, in today’s culture, we’ve lost sight of the magnitude of the work we as mothers have to do in our own home:  studying the personalities, needs, spiritual acumen of our children, encouraging them in appetites and endeavors that keep them focused on the Christ-path and not looking to the right nor the left for their identity or satisfaction.  Full time job, yes? And that’s second-fiddle, even so, to being a help-meet to our husbands primarily and foremost.  There is altogether too much to distract us.

I do love the opening quote by Ann.  Another wonderful and godly mentor, Mary Winslow, writes the following in a letter to one in ministry; I am seeking to apply its truths and wisdom to the ministry of my motherhood, and I find it fits well-adorned to the cause…(note how boldly she addresses this person, for the sake and goal of encouragement in the Lord!  Should we find ourselves closer in our friendships if we dared such an approach to exhibiting our love for one another?)

“I am wishing to know from yourself, not only how it is with your own soul, but how it is with the little flock over whom you are placed as overseer.  Are you gathering in souls for the harvest?  Does the Lord bless you with success?  Are poor sinners converted?  I do think it depends a good deal on our own state of soul whether we are useful or not.  I do hope yours is prospering, and if so, the Spirit within you will shew Himself in your work.  This I have had occasion often to observe.  And yet, the Lord might not bless us in the way we mark out for ourselves; for though in our poor wisdom it may seem the right way, He might see differently. 

“I have learned much from long though painful experience of the narrow road, and seem now to be left a little longer that I might speak a word in season to those who are coming after me—a word of warning, a word of counsel, a word of encouragement.  It is a mercy to be employed in any way, however humble the attempt and weak the instrument.  

Dear friend, do you feel Jesus precious to your soul?  Is He not the fountain, yea, the ocean of love?  Oh, get much of it into your heart!  Aim to live on high.  The soul naturally, through the weakness of the flesh, cleaves to the dust; and Satan is ever busy encumbering out minds with the poor world we are rapidly passing through.  Well might he be called ‘the god of this world’.  Be not ignorant of his devices.  A throne of grace is always accessible.  Never stop to argue with Satan, but flee to Jesus your strength; He will give you the victory over His old enemy.  What a precious resource is this!  How could we live a moment without it!  A throne of grace is the only verdant spot in this wide wilderness.  Oh, the power of prayer!  Coming in the name of Jesus, the Father can withhold no good thing from us.

“You need wisdom from above to accomplish this great work.  The Holy Spirit must be your teacher.  He alone can accompany His own word spoken to the soul.  He it is who gives life…” 

--in the middle of a bike ride

Christ Often Heareth

““Words are but the body, the garment, the outside of prayer; sighs are nearer the heart work.”  What about when we are not answered in our prayers?  This is perhaps the most difficult aspect of prayer to deal with.  Why does prayer seem to be unanswered?  How do we know when we are answered?  In respect to the first question, Rutherford responds that the delay in answers to prayer have a merciful and beneficial aspect to it.  “Christ often heareth when He doth not answer; His not answering is an answer, and speaks thus, Pray on, go on, and cry; for the Lord holdeth His door fast bolted, not to keep out, but that you may knock and knock.  Patience to wait for the answer is itself an answer.  Prayer is to God, worship; to us, often, it is but a servant upon mere necessity sent on a business.”  Even prayers that would seem to be lost and wasted are not so at all; they are both heard and answered. 

“I may pray for victory to God’s people in a battle; they love, yet I am heard and answered because I prayed for that victory not under the notion of victory, but as linked with mercy to the church and the honor of Christ.  The formal object of my prayers was a spiritual mercy to the church and the honor of Jesus Christ.  The Lord hath shown mercy to His people by humbling them and glorifies His Son in preserving a fallen people.  He hears what is spiritual and not the errors.”

“We are heard when we ask in faith according to God’s will.  How shall we know we are answered?  Hannah knew because of peace after prayer.  Paul knew because of receiving new supply to bear the want of what he sought in prayer.  Liberty and boldness of faith are other indications…”

--taken from The King in His Beauty, excerpts and biography of Samuel Rutherford edited by Matthew Vogan  

Better To Be Blind Persons

"It is often advantageous to us also to have no way open to us, to be straitened and hemmed in on every hand, and even to be blinded that we may learn to depend solely on God’s assistance and to rely on Him; for so long as a plank is left on which we think we can seize, we turn to it with our whole heart.  While we are driven about in all directions, the consequence is, that the remembrance of heavenly grace fades from our memory.  If, therefore, we desire that God should assist us and relieve our adversity, we must be blind, we must turn our eyes from the present condition of things, and restrain our judgment, that we may rely entirely upon His promises.  Although this blindness is far from being pleasant, and shews the weakness of our mind, yet, if we judge from the good effects which it produces, we ought not to realty shun it; for it is better to be “blind” persons guided by the hand of God, than, by excessive sagacity, to form labyrinths for ourselves…

"Although God does not immediately send relief, still believers will suffer nothing by the delay, provided that they wait with patience…

  –taken from John Calvin, Commentary on Isaiah

photos from Thistledown Cards

Snapshots of a Christ-Focused Wedding IV

And we can’t just leave it there. 

Weddings are meaningful moments to reflect on our response to God. 

Adoration?  Or duty? 

Which word seems more fitting?

The bride may “hang the moon”,  but the moon only reflects the sun that it turns its face toward in response to its light.  And the bride turned her face to her new husband with all the love, adoration, and joy possible to fit into one heart, two eyes, and a radiant smile.  No reserve, just true, joyful response.  She’s follow him anywhere, happy only to be in his presence.

This, then, from a must-read book I’m just into:

[Jesus Christ and the gospel] is not only the means by which you get into heaven, but the driving force behind every single moment of your life.  I want to help, in some small way, your eyes to be opened to the beauty and greatness of God.  I want you to see how the gospel, and it alone, can make you genuinely passionate for God, free you from captivity to sin, and move you outward to joyful sacrifice on behalf of others…

The goal of the gospel is to produce a type of people consumed with passion for God and love for others. ..true love grows as a response to loveliness…Love for God is commanded in Scripture, but the command can only be truly fulfilled as our eyes are opened to see God’s beauty revealed in the gospel…

In the last message Jesus gave to His disciples, He told them the way to fruitfulness and joy—the “secret” to the Christian life—was to abide in Him…The Greek word meno means literally “to make your home in”. When we make our home in His love—feeling it, saturating ourselves with it, reflecting on it, standing in awe of it—spiritual fruit begins to spring up naturally from us…

Yes, Paul says [in I Corinthians 13), spiritual giftedness, doctrinal mastery, audacious faith, and radical obedience do not equal the only thing that actually matters to God—love for Him.  Without love, even the most radical devotion to God is of no value to Him…

The gospel produces not just obedience, you see, but a new kind of obedience—an obedience that was powered by desire.  An obedience that is both pleasing to God and delightful to you.

--Excerpts from Gospel, by JD Greear

and this from Spurgeon:

: "They [believers] love to behold Him in communion and prayer, but there in heaven they shall have an open and unclouded vision, and thus seeing, 'Him as He is', shall be made completely like Him. Likeness to God -what can we wish for more?...Thine eyes shall see the King in His beauty." Imagine! Enjoy! Anticipate!"

Snapshots of a Christ-Focused Wedding III

This morning yet another one came to mind:

Godly weddings are meaningful moments to give us a glimpse of God’s love for us.

Really, if you could have seen the way he looked at her.  To him, she hung the moon.  Beauty began and ended with her, and his delight in her knew no bounds.  When he rose to address the wedding guests, he spoke of his WIFE with exaggerated emphasis, looking for opportunities to use the word:  she was his now, for as long as they both shall live, and he wanted to proclaim it to everyone present.  Of course, we the wedding guests loved it, and reveled in his obviously passionate joy over her.  Delighted laughter each time he italicized-bolded-underlined the word by his inflection.

This—THIS—is how Christ thinks of us??  His bride, His gift, His beloved?  I don’t know about you, but after seeing that wedding, I have a challenging time believing that this is how God looks at me in Christ.  But this is the picture He has given us, that we might know how He thinks of us.  Because of the covering of Christ.  Because of what He accomplished on the Cross and through the Resurrection.  I do believe in an entire lifetime we could never grasp the sheer beauty, the overwhelming magnitude, of this Reality—our reality—our eternal Marriage. 

This morning, I read this:  “For the Lord delights in you…as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so shall your God rejoice over you.”  Isaiah 62:3

 

And this: “We will greatly rejoice in the Lord, our soul shall be joyful in our God;  for He has clothed us with the garments of salvation, he has covered us with the robes of righteousness, as a bridegroom decks himself with ornaments, and as a bride adorns herself with jewels.  For as the earth brings forth its bud, as the garden causes the things that are sown in it to spring forth, so the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise to spring forth.”  Isaiah 61:10-11

And a favorite of mine:  “The Mighty One will save; He will rejoice over you with gladness, He will quiet you with His love, He will rejoice over you with singing.”  Zeph. 3:17

This is True.  This is our Reality Check.  This is our eternal significance, this our Love Story.

Snapshots of a Christ-Focused Wedding II

When I spoke to her, mother of the bride the morning of the wedding, she was walking the young men through how to usher wedding guests, in her living room.  This, the girlhood friend with whom I wrote endless notes, stayed up late countless nights talking about our futures, when I was 12—and then 18.  When I was 10, her mother had taken my mother aside and said she was worried about me, while they would be out-of-state with my brother undergoing leukemia treatment, and would she consider having me come and live with them for a time?  That was 37 years ago.

 

Weddings are meaningful far beyond the celebration of a couple’s union before God.  More than almost any other gathering they have a power to encompass the past, present and the future; and a power to lift us out of the moment and transport us to a light-filled reality that we seldom navigate in our mundane daily-ness;  but that is, nonetheless, very much not a fantasy.

Weddings are meaningful moments to remember all that God has done in our lives.  This wedding was, for me, more poignant than most, having prayed about our marriages before there were marriages and our children before ever there were children.  But in every wedding except the most dutifully attended, some history is hearkened, that as God weaves His tapestry of our lives, should point us to a reality of His Hand moving and bringing His designs to pass over extended periods of time.  Weddings are a time to raise our Ebenezers – “hither by thy grace I’ve come”…and if we pray regularly for those we love, most weddings should be a time of rejoicing over answered prayers. 

Weddings are meaningful  moments to draw attention and glory to God, the Creator of weddings.  This was, after all, His idea.  “It was not good that man should be alone…therefore shall a man leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife…”  God is the Author of marriage.  God is the mastermind behind beauty.  God Himself is Love, and the atmosphere of love and beauty and heightened awareness of our most meaningful relationships at a wedding ought to be a rich feast of remembering Him and indulging in the reality of His character as revealed in joyful celebration.  Interesting that Jesus’ first miracle was at a wedding, and that turning mundane water into the best of wines. 

  

Weddings are meaningful moments to remind us of the marriage supper of the Lamb.  Can we ever, ever get our minds around what it means that we, as His church, are His bride?  Should we ever shed the wonder of this reality?  Could we ever forget that when all the toil is done here, what awaits us is, first, the Marriage Supper of the Lamb?  All the moments of our lives are leading to a consummation of eternity, beginning with a wedding feast?  I won’t have to run out at the last minute and buy shoes for everyone, and my new dress won’t be wrinkled and snagged there…the passage describing this never fails to take my breath away and give me chills, and tears besides…

“Then a voice came from the Throne saying, “Praise our God, all you His servants, and all those who fear Him, both small and great!  And I heard as it were, the voice of a great multitude, as the sound of many waters, and as the sound of mighty thunderings, saying, “Alleluia!  For the Lord God Omnipotent reigns!  Let us be glad and rejoice and give Him glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and His wife has made herself ready.”  And to her it was granted to be arrayed in fine linen, clean and bright, for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints.

“Then He said to me, “Write: Blessed are those who are called to the marriage supper of the Lamb!”  And He said to me, “These are the true sayings of God.” 

Tell me you can read that, ponder it, without your heart bursting out of you with gratitude, expectation, and undone awe.  If not, perhaps you’d better read it again and ensure you’re actually going to be there with me, sitting right down the table in your New Linens, that sacrifice of praise, those acts done in love enervated by Christ’s grace, to serve the saints, wrapped finely around you in beauty and radiance.

Weddings are meaningful moments to cause us to look with new eyes at our own lovers and remember our own romances.  Not all of us are married.  But many of us are, and we know how the daily-ness and our own sin, takes it out of us--that remembering of the spark that lit our first days and years.  A wedding is a perfect time to remember, to re-live, to hold hands and kiss again and to celebrate our own lovers. 

Weddings are meaningful moments to encourage us to see and savor God’s providences.  This love story consummated in this weekend’s wedding is a bit unusual, and I’ll tell a small of the story soon.  Suffice it to say, God’s providential Hand has loomed large in bringing together this man and wife, both from families with six children, and with birthdays two days apart, from opposite corners of the continent.

Snapshots of a Christ-Focused Wedding I

The night before departure…

First daughter: “Mom?  Um…I don’t have any shoes for the wedding.”

“Can you please not tell me these things just as we are packing up to leave early in the morning?  Which reminds me, your sister doesn’t either.”

Second daughter:  “Mom?  Um…I can’t find that blouse—it’s just disappeared.  Now I don’t have anything to wear to the wedding.”

Son:  “Mom?  If you’re out and you happen to find a pair of shoes, I’ve outgrown my Sunday shoes.  I guess I might be able to wear a pair of Dad’s…”

Three shopping hours later we come home triumphantly bearing three pairs of shoes and one dress, and plans to leave early for the trip have evaporated.  Which matters just a little, since we’re driving 2 hours and then doing all the decorating for the reception.

 

In the morning, along with the 1001 details, we say goodbyes to our best-ever cat (no, we’re really not cat people) whom we opened our doors to 12 years ago when he sat, a meager stray, on the front porch purring to let us know he had found his family.  We’re expecting to have him put down.

On the way up north, the red and blue lights on my tailgate were indeed meant this time for me.  I pull over with dread anticipation.  Yes, (the unnamed person) who put on my new license plates didn’t realize the tabs needed to go in the back.  Yes, officer, we will switch them first thing.  The officer told me, when (unnamed person) gets his license this next year I’ll have to switch his plates so he gets to experience the joy of being pulled over—just for fun.  He let me go without a ticket.

Then there was the ten-minute Costco stop for 200 roses that, thanks to 10,000 shopping Canadians come over the border, and a car accident in front of us, took well over an hour.  With younger daughter trapped in about 10 inches of space with a wall of boxed roses bearing down on her lap to the ceiling.  It was in that moment that I saw the old college roommate and bridesmaid I hadn’t seen in 20 years, across the parking lot.

Hoping to start at 10am, I started at 3.  Hoping to be done by 11pm, I was done at 4am.  Everything converges to create a new challenge and in the middle of the night one wonders about it all.

And I wasn’t even in the bridal party. 

I tell this fraction of a string of misplaced events to come to the main point.  Weddings are wonderful!! Yes, they are worth all the effort, all the planning, all the help of an army of volunteers, all the beauty created and all the details secured.  Because weddings have significance far, far beyond the crazy romantic passion of the couple being married.  Weddings accomplish far more than the sum of their million details and hundred things-gone-wrong.

IF.

If the heart’s desire of the wedded couple, and those closest, most deeply desire that this wedding, this marriage, honor and glorify and draw attention away from themselves to their Lord Jesus Christ.

Robbed of that essential ingredient of highest beauty, yes, the wedding becomes nothing more than just a lot of ado over nothing much.

This past weekend, we had the pleasure of seeing an extraordinary love story unfold into a new life together.   This bride is the daughter of the woman I’ve known since I was 8, close friends since 10, and prayed into the New Year, with or without, since 14.  We’ve shared a long line of prayers for these children of ours, and this is the first wedding. 

 

Tomorrow, five thoughts about the real significance of a wedding, beyond the bride and groom.

All the Days, He is With Me

The path in front of me may be full of flowers or full of thorns; or, as is more probable, flower and thorn may be mingled together.  The sky may be light or dark.  The weather may be bleakest winter or glorious summer.  But I go safely and happily, if the Lord Christ, Who can and will supply my every want, is with me all the days.

Some of the days will be days of discipline, of the pruning knife and the cleansing fire.  But when He is with me, the discipline is a benediction and not a curse.  T teaches me to grasp His strong right hand with a tighter hold, to pray more earnestly, to find heights and depths of meaning in the promises of God, to feel for all who are in tribulation.  Mind and heart and character are bettered by the endurance of affliction.

Often the days will be days of mercy.  And if He is with me, I shall have the observant eye which reaps unfailing joy from the study of His goodnesses and deliverances.  They will revive and deepen my gratitude, so that, after each fresh kindness, I shall sing a new song, realizing that the customary forms and the usual hymns are insufficient to utter the emotions of my soul.  I shall move through a land fertile and fair.

Many of the days, too, will be days of monotony.  They must be spent in little things—household labours, common anxieties, unnoticed toil.  I may long for an experience more striking and romantic.  But when He is with me, I know that He makes my life like his own.; the blessed life He lived among carpenter’s tools and village streets and peasant people.  The drudgery is a love message.  It is Jesus Christ in disguise.

Almost every day will be a day of temptation.  In the home, in the business, in company, in loneliness, I shall encounter the press of the storm.  But let my Lord be with me, and temptation shall but reveal the closeness and blessedness of the tie.  It will give Him opportunity to gain numberless victories.  It will be an instrument He uses to impart more maturity to my faith, more courage, more patience, more trust.

All the days He is with me, to the end, and through the end, and beyond the end for ever and ever. Whether I live, therefore, or whether I die, I am His and He is mine.

--Alexander Smellie,  In The Secret Place

 the gatehouse at Sir Walter Scott's home, Scotland

Lausanne, Switzerland

10,000 Things in Your Life

Priceless from John Piper, had to share it with you--

“God is always doing 10,000 things in your life, and you may be aware of three of them.” That was one of our most widely spread tweets in 2012. So we want to say it again for 2013 and make this promise even more solid.

Not only may you see a tiny fraction of what God is doing in your life; the part you do see may make no sense to you.

• You may find yourself in prison, and God may be advancing the gospel among the guards, and making the free brothers bold. (Philippians 1:12–14)
• You may find yourself with a painful thorn, and God may be making the power of Christ more beautiful in weakness. (2 Corinthians 12:8)
• You may find yourself with a dead brother that Jesus could have healed, and God may be preparing to show his glory. (John 11)
• You may find yourself sold into slavery, accused falsely of sexual abuse, and forgotten in a prison cell, and God may be preparing you to rule a nation. (Genesis 37-50)
• You may wonder why a loved one is left in unbelief so long, and find that God is preparing a picture of his patience and a powerful missionary. (Galatians 1:15; 1 Timothy 1:12-16)
• You may live in all purity and humility and truth only to end rejected and killed, and God may be making a parable of his Son and an extension of his merciful sufferings in yours. (Isaiah 53:3; Mark 8:31; Colossians 1:24)
• You may walk through famine, be driven from your homeland, lose husband and sons, and be left desolate with one foreign daughter-in-law, and God may be making you an ancestor of a king. (Ruth 1–4)
• You may find the best counselor you’ve ever known giving foolish advice, and God may be preparing the destruction of your enemy. (2 Samuel 17:14)
• You may be a sexually pure single person and yet accused of immorality, and God may be preparing you as a virgin blessing in ways no one can dream. (Luke 1:35)
• You may not be able to sleep and look in a random book, and God may be preparing to shame your arrogant enemy and rescue a condemned people. (Esther 6:1–11)
• You may be shamed and hurt, and God may be confirming your standing as his child and purifying you for the highest inheritance. (Hebrews 12:5–11)

There are three granite foundation stones under this confidence for 2013: God’s love. God’s sovereignty. God’s wisdom.

Love: In the death of Christ on our behalf God has totally removed his wrath from us (Romans 8:3; Galatians 3:13). Now there is not only no condemnation (Romans 8:1), but now God is only merciful (Romans 8:32). Even his discipline is all mercy.

Sovereignty: There is no power in the universe that can stop him from fulfilling his totally good plans for you. “I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted” (Job 42:2).

Wisdom: God’s infinite wisdom always sees a way to bring the greatest good out of the most painful and complex situations. “Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!” (Romans 11:33).

Therefore, no matter what you face this year, God will be doing 10,000 things in your life that you cannot see. Trust him. Love him. And they will all be good for you.