Desperate Hope

Daniel 9:19

O Lord, hear; O Lord, forgive. O Lord, pay attention and act. Delay not, for your own sake, O my God, because your city and your people are called by your name.”

We are not strong and secure beings.

We're born imperfect, fragile, breakable.

Or rather, we're born malleable.

But to be fragile or changeable, that is generally considered a weakness, a lack of conviction or strength.

What if we lived with a realization that we don't have the answers, the strength, or the foresight and that's okay.

"For Your own sake..."

I don't think it's about us being smart.

I don't think we were sent to earth to hoard knowledge in hope of becoming wise. Nor were we sent to feel everything and understand everyone.

We have a place, and that is a position of reliance, of desperation.

Daniel was wise, strong, handsome, intelligent, and as close to an ideal example as you might find in the Bible. The Word never talks about his weaknesses, throughout every trial he performs near perfectly.

But Daniel was desperately reliant on God. He never trusted in his own ability, only ever the greatness of His God.

We were not made to achieve strength, we were made to accept it.

I want to choose surrender every time, because I've found that's the only thing that works. Not my intellect, but my messy submittion.

The Lion's Den: Christ is Enough

Daniel 6, the passage of Daniel in the lion's den, is well known to most Christians.
Right now, instead of focusing on him in the Lion's den I wanted to look more at his responses beforehand. Three times a day he would open his windows to Jerusalem and pray. This was his time for seeking God.

When life hit him hard (the other wise-men trapped him through the law passed), he continued in his pursuit of God.

Daniel believed something very crucial here: God is enough

God is truly and actually all we need. That was his firm understanding.

And if Christ is all we need, then anything else but simply God Himself is an added blessing.

Family, friends, finance, and any other blessings, all of that is not necessary.

By saying, "I am enough," God is saying that we were designed to be able to live even if we only have Him.

Now, God gives us all of that other stuff because He wants to bless us. But, the point is that He is all we need.

Daniel understood this. And God was enough for Him.

We don't see his three friends in this passage coming and patting him on the back saying, "It'll be okay," and so on.

No, all Daniel had was God. Yet that was enough.

So the point of him going into the lion's den wasn't to show his courage or trust. No, it was revealing that in every step Daniel knew that God was enough and in that, that God can overcome.

So if that understanding is had (that Christ is enough), then being in a lion's den, standing before kings, being alone, any problem we face really, quickly loses it's power because a rescue isn't based upon our courage but God being enough

And He is.

Sides of Perfection

God is perfect.
And as humans, that really aggravates us.

Let me explain. I'll use the best possible example to exemplify this: the Church.
We have our opinions, we have our hopes, we have our dreams and what we do with all of that is transplant it into attempting to define God, who (if you didn't know) is indescribable.

There is a natural paradox that occurs when humans come into relationship with their Creator God. They try to seek Him and know Him yet He is unknowable. They long to learn who He is and explore the vastness of His character and yet they can never truly know the fullness of His expansive nature. Thus the paradox of Christianity.

Due to this lack of ours (or rather the fact of our mortal and human nature) we fall to choosing. We come to choosing which side of God's perfection we most prefer and thus disunity abounds. For God is indeed perfect. Just as He is perfectly merciful He is also perfectly wrathful. He is in Jesus both the man of sorrows who knows the pain of the entire world and simultaneously the man who embodied the very reality of joy. He is always perfect, in everything. And we don't know how to deal with that.

So we choose a side. From denomination to denomination, from congregation to congregation, from person to person, we choose which side most pertains to our opinion and mindset. Some choose to focus on the perfection of God's love whilst shunning the reality of His vengeful anger. Others look primarily to the wrath of God and find themselves transfixed on God through fear, yet they fail to allow God as their Friend to come further into their hearts.

Due to the vastness of God's perfection there are countless sides that are taken within the Church and thus disunity and division occurs from the pride in our human nature. As we choose sides we are profaning the very perfection of God that we commit to pursue. God is perfect, which means that both sides and all aspects of His perfection are just that: perfect. There is no bias. There is no favoritism. God's perfection is in perfect balance. Unfortunately due to our choosing of sides on the expanse of God's perfection, we dispel so much of the perfection that God would bring into our own lives and into His Church.

We as the Church must come to want all of God, not just the sides that we prefer. As each Christian and human comes to this place and submits their pride unto God to accept all of His perfection, then unity like none ever seen before will erupt in the hearts of God's people and the peace that passes all understanding will be given room to move over all of us more and more.

Matthew 5:48
Therefore you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

Future/Past

In our individual speck of existence we come to the quick subconscious or conscious misconception that well; it's about us. The fact is, that's not true. It's never been about us. Creation, existence, the universe, it may be for us, but it certainly is not all pointing to us.

There's an interesting term that's been floating in my head recently:
Being "Kingdom Minded."
To be "Kingdom minded" means to put the work of God first and foremost in your life. It means to prioritize the Lord and His plans first. When God becomes number one priority, everything else, all your hopes and desires, you begin to see them appear where you didn't expect them.

Matthew 6:33
But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.

This "putting of the Kingdom of God first" is the exact opposite of what human intellect and intention will encourage you towards. The flesh cries out for your own life, for your own good. And that might look like focusing just on God working in your life, which isn't bad, but if that is your biggest priority, you're doing it wrong. That is verse saying, put the Kingdom of God first. After that, then the rest will come. It's a chronological path. If this, then that. The steps have to be followed for completion.

God always has the best for you in mind, which is why He is building you for the future, not just this moment. That's why we go through hardships! That's why life is simply horrible sometimes, it's because God sees (unlike us) more than just today and he wants so desperately to get us there.

It's so easy to think that God is "mad" or "angry" at us, but on the contrary, everything He has ever done for us has been out of concern and care for us. Every single action, every single anything, that was for you. And we miss that. All we see is the lack, the disappearance, the invisibility, and in reality (the reality that we often miss) He is building us up and bringing us closer to who we are called to be in Him.

But all of this starts with realizing it's not about us.
It's about Him. And He is Everything.

"And You,
You are my first
You are my last
You are my future and my past" - Future/Past, John Mark McMillan 

The things of God are so much higher than we can understand. He Himself is beyond us. So we must place our eyes, our hopes, our everything upon Him, because only He can hold and carry it all. 

Job 36:26a

"Look, God is greater than we can understand."

Cast Your Cares

In our walk, there are troubles all around. They beat down at our door and scream for us to allow them footing in our lives and hearts.
In this past season, problems, struggles, and hardships have most certainly been allowed to take huge influence over me and the decisions that I make. I've felt alone, afraid, and abandoned. From my heart has come the cry of David, "Where are you God?"

It's in those moments that we think, "Didn't God say that He wouldn't give us more than we could handle?" Unfortunately the Bible doesn't express that.
What we find in the Word is this scripture:

1 Corinthians 10:13
No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; He will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, He will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.

He won't allow more temptation than we can handle. But struggle, trial, hardship; that's a different matter.

2 Corinthians 1:8-10
For we do not want you to be unaware, brothers, of the affliction we experienced in Asia. For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead. He delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us. On him we have set our hope that he will deliver us again.

"But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God."
There's the truth of the matter. We will be given more than we can bare. We will have to endure through a struggle greater than our ability to persevere through.
That's the beauty in the struggle though, we have to rely on God.

1 Peter 5:6-7
Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time He may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on Him, because He cares for you.

It has never been a question as to whether God will be there for us, He wants to exalt us, He wants to care for us more and more. The requirement to allow this to happen is for us to
1) Humble Ourselves
2) Cast Our Cares Upon the Lord
3) Rely On God

In humbling ourselves we come to understand that we cannot save ourselves or others. We cannot figure out and control ourselves. We can learn discipline and acquire wisdom, but we must come to the realization that we cannot do it without God. If we try, we will fail and fail again.

To cast our cares upon the Lord means that we take the worries and struggles that we are enduring and place them into His hands. This can be seen in relationships, in giving God the reigns and realizing that He alone can take care of them and save them. Also we see this in giving our time to Him. If we spend our time trying to "soul seek" and looking constantly on who we think we are, we'll most likely only make it worse. But if we seek God than we are becoming more like Him and thus becoming who we were designed to be in Him.

Finally, relying on God is key. The passage says, "For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself." In this Paul is saying that they had nothing left to give and no where else to go, they had to turn to God or it was death. And in relying on God they were brought through that time of feeling that they "had received the sentence of death." God rescued them.

He wishes to do the same for you. And not just in a huge way where He comes down on a white horse to bring you home (though He does want to and will do that), but also is small everyday situations. In your conversations, in your workplace, at school, in church, when you're alone, He wants to save you and bring you higher in every one of those moments. All it takes is, "Yes, Lord."

Resurrection

The Cross.

Jesus died for humanity on the Cross.
That picture of a beaten man on a wooden cross is immortalized in the the mind of every Christian.
We see the scars, we see the blood, and we think, "wow, what pain Christ endured for us."

But in truth, there was so much more that Christ took upon Himself.
I believe that there were 3 major pains that Christ endured.

First, the least painful, the beatings, the scars, the torture, the nails, the cross.

The second we forget, for we cannot comprehend it.
Think of all the pain and suffering that you have or will see in your entire life.
It's a lot. So much pain and hurt we will see and go through.
But Christ saw, witnessed, felt, and took upon Himself the pain and suffering of every human that ever existed, in past, present, and future.

We can't understand that. It's simply too much pain for us to comprehend. He bore that.

And last, which was indeed worst of all, He was separated from His Father.
The Word says, "the Father turned His face away."
From His son!
That is the worst pain that Christ endured on the Cross.
For to endure all that pain is horrible, but that pain in comparison to all that God is, it's nothing.
So to be apart from the Father, that was truly excruciatingly painful.

But then there is the good news and the most under appreciated event in the history of existence:
The Resurrection.

By not only dying but rising again, Jesus brought hope.
Every single pain and suffering ever, was redeemed.
Jesus dying was taking away the consequence of all that, Him rising was the redemption of history, of everything.

By rising He sent hope for every heart to receive.
That is the Resurrection, the hope of history.

The Walk of Grace

Ephesians 2:8
For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God.

"By grace you have been saved through faith."
That "amazing grace" is the very substance by which the Father sent His Son to die on our behalf.
We are washed clean through that gracious love.

But grace is not a vending machine.
So often I've found myself riding from one "grace situation" to another.
I'll ask for God's forgiveness through His grace and then go on with my life.
But as I go on, I'm not living in that grace, I'm just waiting until I screw up again so I can go and ask the Lord for grace once more.

It's the similar idea of "living church service to church service."
Just making it from Sunday morning until youth group. Then just barely making it from youth group to church. And so we live event to event, thinking that God only reveals Himself in moments, not also in the journey.

But, I have found that in the time when I do accept His grace in-between the "fill-ups," those are the most fruitful parts of my walk.

God doesn't want us to "get by." To only live from one moment of grace to the next.
His desire is that His Church and Body would be a people who are perpetually living in that grace.

John 1:16
For of His fullness we have all received, and grace upon grace.

Grace upon grace. 
God is not satisfied with us living only in moment of grace.
No, He has designed for us to live as beings of grace, always walking in it, always living by it.

A lifestyle of grace is that in which we are always looking to Christ.
In living by grace, we are not walking by our ability.

Romans 11:6
But if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works; otherwise grace would no longer be grace.

Through Christ's blood and sacrifice, we are now able to walk in that.
Not bound by our ability, but walking in fullness of life

It is true, "a righteous man falls seven times and gets back up again."
But even as the righteous man experiences that moment of grace as he rises up by Christ's strength, he also goes from there and walks in that grace. 

Hebrews 4:16
Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

We are all in need of such a grace as God offers.
Do not allow yourself to simply live moment to moment.
Walk on the journey of grace.

Romans 6:14
For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.

Above All, Love

1 Peter 4:8
Most important of all, continue to show deep love for each other, for love covers a multitude of sins.

God has called His children to be a people who live by grace and forgiveness.

And when they encounter sin, they meet it with the infinite power of God's love in them.

Learn to meet hardship on the grounds of God infinite ability, not your constrained and hampered strength.

Seek to meet trial with love and hope.

Walk in the stead of Christ's blood, constantly being made new, forgiven, and washed clean.

We don't live righteously by being redeemed once and then going alone.

A beautiful piece requires constant revisions. 

Turn back to your first love.

And take on His love. 

Unity is found in compassion and grace.

So live by the Spirit, not the flesh.

Surrender your heart to the infinite love of the Father who loves you unconditionally.