on the first thing

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There are seasons of life that feel like endless uphill climbs, whether by circumstances or internal challenges. Today I find myself asking God, “How will I ever grow? When will I learn and change? Will I ever be more like You? What is my role in all of this?” And God spoke to my heart, “Seek Me in the morning. Day after day. Until it becomes your second nature and your first desire.”

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Sometimes we can’t have all the answers we want. We aren’t called to know everything; we’re called to rest in and know the One who has always known everything. Sometimes God gives us a path that simply requires the next step, and then the next, so that faithfulness in these little pieces of our days can blossom into grand stories — when we look back and see everything differently, see how transformed we are — and when we make that last steep scramble finally, to gasp at the glorious view from the top of the mountain, with a much greater understanding of the journey.

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“But for now,” God tells me, “seek Me first.”

how to be … on my face

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When I write on Mondays, I want to talk about our state of being, and how we are meant to live. Society and culture everywhere lack some or other of what God calls us to. There is so much glory and goodness awaiting us! I’ve posted here and here about being in awe, and here you can find more background. I think I keep coming back to this because it’s so foundational for me.

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So you guys. I’m not really done talking about awe. Sorry. But not.

I’m being consistently reminded of how necessary this is. It’s how we’re supposed to be. I so much believe that.

Last time I wrote the ‘how to be,’ I remarked that awe is not pure fear – it is fear and reverence and delight and peace all in one. But it might take us a bit to get to that. So I’ve thought about how that internal journey sometimes looks.

First, it takes us acknowledging God’s glory and sovereignty. It takes us at least admitting that we’re tiny. We might not have let go of the power we imagine we have, but we have hopefully noted that God is eternal and we are dust.

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A fairly natural consequence of such an acknowledgement is to be afraid. In Hebrews 10, the author discusses the judgement that awaits those who sin in light of Christ’s sacrifice, effectively profaning Him. ‘For we know him who said, “Vengeance is mine; I will repay.” And again, “The Lord will judge his people.” It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.’ (Hebrews 10:30-31) God alone has the right to punish, and His holiness and power should be terrifying to those who have no hope in salvation.

There’s this gorgeous hymn. Let all mortal flesh keep silence. And, you’re welcome, I’m putting all the verses. If that seems too much to read, we have bigger issues here. 🙂

Let all mortal flesh keep silence,
and with fear and trembling stand;
ponder nothing earthly minded,
for with blessing in His hand
Christ our God to earth descendeth,
our full homage to demand.

King of kings, yet born of Mary,
as of old on earth He stood,
Lord of lords, in human vesture,
in the body and the blood,
He will give to all the faithful
His own self for heavenly food.

Rank on rank the host of heaven
spreads its vanguard on the way,
as the Light of light descendeth
from the realms of endless day,
that the powers of hell may vanish
as the shadows clear away.

At His feet the six-winged seraph,
cherubim, with sleepless eye,
veil their faces to the presence,
as with ceaseless voice they cry,
“Alleluia, alleluia,
alleluia, Lord most high!” 

This song always does something to me. It puts me in my place, and I am happy to be here. I am overwhelmed with the privilege of being here.  That I could sit at the feet of God is the most marvelous gift. That He could accept me in all my refuse and filth is an incomprehensible grace. And all I will ever be able to return is ‘Alleluia, Lord Most High.’

And please enjoy a pithy quote from Calvin …


“So far are those qualities in us, which seem most perfect, from corresponding to the divine purity. Hence that dread and amazement with which as Scripture uniformly relates, holy men were struck and overwhelmed whenever they beheld the presence of God. When we see those who previously stood firm and secure so quaking with terror, that the fear of death takes hold of them, nay, they are, in a manner, swallowed up and annihilated, the inference to be drawn is that men are never duly touched and  impressed with a conviction of their insignificance, until they have contrasted themselves with the majesty of God. Frequent examples of this consternation occur both in the Book of Judges and the Prophetical Writings; so much so, that it was a common expression among the people of God, “We shall die, for we have seen the Lord.” Hence the Book of Job, also, in humbling men under a conviction of their folly, feebleness, and pollution, always derives its chief argument from descriptions of the Divine wisdom, virtue, and purity. Nor without cause: for we see Abraham the readier to acknowledge himself but dust and ashes the nearer he approaches to behold the glory of the Lord, and Elijah unable to wait with unveiled face for His approach; so dreadful is the sight. And what can man do, man who is but rottenness and a worm, when even the Cherubim themselves must veil their faces in very terror? To this, undoubtedly, the Prophet Isaiah refers, when he says (Isaiah 24:23), “The moon shall be confounded, and the sun ashamed, when the Lord of Hosts shall reign;” i.e., when he shall exhibit his refulgence, and give a nearer view of it, the brightest objects will, in comparison, be covered with darkness.” (Calvin: Institutes of the Christian Religion, Chapter 1)

What I mean to say is that the better we know God, the better we see our own dust-ness. And we have nothing to protect us from His wrath or from the glory of His Presence. This is an incredibly important truth to know. But not to dwell in by itself, alone.

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Because God is not all anger and terror. In very fact, He is near and merciful. He is gentle, compassionate, and forgiving. It simply wouldn’t do to remain in quaking fear without love. What good is that? The fear is only the beginning.

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction.  (Proverbs 1:7)

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight. (Proverbs 9:10)

I absolutely think our society has an enormous problem. And I would say Christians have the same problem as anyone else: we don’t believe that God is that great. That all-powerful. That worthy of complete worship and deference. I think we don’t get it. We don’t really know Him if we don’t fear Him. Awe and wisdom are together. It is wise to be in awe, because when we’re in awe, we are acknowledging the truth about God. When we’re not in awe, we are foolishly ignoring plain reality.

Now listen to this song. And agree. Let it sink into your heart. We don’t know anything about holy. God is too great for us.

But He is near to us. It has to be an intimate fear. One that believes He loves us, and that desires Him.

In Isaiah 6, Isaiah sees God’s glory and recognizes his unworthiness in the Presence of God’s purity. And then God tells him his sin is atoned for.

What else can you do after God says, “Your guilt is taken away, and your sin is atoned for”? There was no hesitation from Isaiah. God told him what to do, and he only asked “how long?”¹

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So we know that, although we are nothing, He made us in His image. He made us His own. And we spit on Him and we disregarded His law and scorned Him to the greatest extent. And then He atoned for our filth and hatred toward Him, even as we gave Him every reason not to.

Hm. How shall we respond to such ridiculous, outrageous, foolish love? Our answer, unspoken, un-thought, is “let’s forget about all that, except at a surface level. Let’s carry on as though we can take care of ourselves. That’ll be the best.” But if we do really know God, and if He has really loved us that way, here’s what we should do. We should fall before Him. We should worship Him and be at peace, utter peace.

So we have to let go, Reader. Is that a little scary? Only if you believe you are in control of things and always make the best decisions and don’t need salvation. Which I do. Yeah, all the time.

Let’s give up on that. The gloriousness of awe means I don’t have to be deluded that I am in control; I can be at peace. I’m not in charge of maintaining the universe or atoms. I’m not in charge of justice or salvation. Glory be. You might read Psalm 96.

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Contentment is essential to this awe-being. I spoke of longing before – of longing for eternity and the fullness of God Himself. Longing for wholeness.

But contentment is also there in awe. It looks like rest and thankfulness.

Almighty God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, to me, the least of saints, to me, allow that I may keep even the smallest door – the farthest, darkest, coldest door, the door that is least used, the stiffest door – if only it be in Your house, O God. That I can see Your glory from afar, and hear Your voice, and know that I am with You, O God. (St. Columba)

Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire. (Hebrews 12:28-29)

Let us respond with adoration. What else is there to do?

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“I’m afraid that I can never do justice in describing or explaining the majesty, power, and perfection of Jesus. That’s the nature of human discussions, I suppose. No matter how high above my own experience I reach, I’ll never be able to adequately pen the qualities of a perfect God. And so even my attempts to expose how I have domesticated Jesus will do just that: I’m bound to domesticate Him further—to wrap Him within pages of description implies that He is small enough to describe. To have humans speak of Him, to write of Him, implies that we can in some way wrap the human mind around Him.”² 

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“A man can no more diminish God’s glory by refusing to worship Him than a lunatic can put out the sun by scribbling the word ‘darkness’ on the walls of his cell. But God wills our good, and our good is to love Him (with that responsive love proper to creatures) and to love Him we must know Him: and if we know Him, we shall in fact fall on our faces.”³

How, then, shall we be?

on our faces.

and alleluia.

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A pair of delightful awe songs to get your blood pumping.

Rising Sun – All Sons & Daughters

Great I AM – New Life Worship

¹http://www.christianitytoday.com/biblestudies/articles/spiritualformation/prepareforshock.html?start=1

²http://www.christianitytoday.com/biblestudies/articles/theology/domesticatinglord.html?start=3

³Lewis, C.S. (1962) The problem of pain. New York: Macmillan Publishing Company

small things … five roam-y favourites

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Last year I wrote a post about five homey things, and I’ve been nurturing this idea of the juxtaposition and symbiosis of home and adventure, and how they’re together and different and on like that. So I thought I’d talk about roaming and how we can grow along the way, bringing home with us and making home where we are, and seizing the adventure in the moment.

I have yet to sort all this out in a coherent way, but sometimes I just want to tell everyone what I love – because I want you to experience it for yourself, in your own life! And I’ve been on a few trips this year and learned some things. So here are a few “roam-y” things for your enjoyment …

  • attention to detail. often when we travel, we’re focused on the destination and usually behind schedule. and we’re already a bit disoriented, so it’s hard to remember how to say “excuse me” in italian or which way to look as you cross the street. but i’m still saying, on top of that, to stop to look more closely. notice the little things that are different (or sometimes just as exciting, the same!). like how this hand dryer seems to say it’s going to give me noodles, or this captivating english brown sauce. or these pink rocks by a river in slovenia. there’s so much to take in! of course you can’t do this constantly, but let yourself just chill enough to have some of these delightful moments.

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  • spontaneous decisions. i am the opposite of spontaneous. for me, it is a tough decision, not a whim sort of thing. i like to think about my options for a while and consider the potential outcomes of each and then choose one in a calm, quiet environment. which is nigh impossible while traveling. even if you travel with a tour (which i’ve never done), i should think there would be some space for a spur-of-the-moment impulse. if not, i’m sad. yes, even me. because through those decisions i have learned to trust my husband, to go with the flow, to appreciate a change of pace/plans. and i often see something i never expected! most of our time in europe, we chose where to eat immediately before eating there. we switched up routes sometimes, and we didn’t have any activities planned, hardly. okay and i feel i should note, impulsive purchases are maybe okay when you’re having an adventure, but that’s not really what i’m getting at. when we were in slovenia, we were driving in these mountains (julian alps) and stopped at an outhouse. then we followed a roadside trail to see if we could get down to this river (soca) (because HOLY GOODNESS). we found the shore, but as we wandered down it a bit we also found a legit cave! and you could walk into the cave and then you would see an incredible, deep, clear pool that was part of the river. all because hubs pulled over suddenly and we randomly decided to walk a bit.

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  • doing a hard thing. you’re here anyway. do something unusual or hard. so many people speak english out there. but they also know a different language much better, and probably prefer it. and what other occasion would i have to practice their language in every day life? so along the way i learned the basics in italian, slovene, and german, enough to communicate very minimally about what we wanted to eat, greetings, etc. honestly i didn’t really need to do this, and it was a little scary each time i started a sentence in a different language. but i saw how people appreciated it and responded to it, and it was worth doing something awkward if it meant i could more fully experience those cultures.
  • saving maps offline. i first tried this in england earlier this year, and did it again in europe. it is so crazy helpful! when you don’t have data or a gps to guide you, your smartphone will most likely still correspond with satellites about where you are. so if you save a map, when you pull it up you should see yourself as the blue dot and be able to trace your way to your destination. paper maps are always a good idea, but the nice thing about this is that you can find where you are at the current moment.

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  • google translate. this was basically the key to speaking any language the whole trip. prior to leaving, i downloaded the languages i would need onto my phone. i searched particular phrases/words and favorited those so i wouldn’t have to look it up each time. but even if i needed to, because the language was on my phone, i could search for something on the go. you know what else is awesome about google translate? you can use it for a picture of something, or just hold up your camera to capture a sign or a menu or anything, and it’ll try to translate. it does better with type than print, and sometimes it’s still off, and you have to hold very still. but it at least de-mystifies things a bit and makes you feel more capable in the moment.

And you, friend? What are your roam-y favorites at this very moment? What things inspire you and make you adventurous and help you grow?