in this world you will have car trouble

Cornfields.

Just cornfields, all around, somewhere in Indiana, after already driving for five hours in rain and traffic, and Dad was telling me on the phone that I needed to find an auto place, maybe a Wal-Mart? Or else my engine was going to overheat. At least, that's what the little needle by the little sailboat thing on my dashboard that was bouncing around way up above the "H" was indicating.

"Get a towel," Dad was saying, "and use it to unscrew the radiator cap, in case the water is hot and sprays up in your face. Then add some water, because you're probably just low."

My thoughts: What's a radiator, where's the radiator, where am I supposed to get a towel, what if the water sprays into my eyes and I'm blinded, where am I supposed to find a Wal-Mart, why is there so much corn in Indiana, who am I, what is life.

The nearest exit was in three miles and I prayed the whole way. Please don't let my engine explode. Please don't let my engine explode.

I told my GPS to find me the nearest auto care place. "Magg's Auto," he responded. Down a country road with more cornfields, to a lone house next to a big warehouse. Please don't let me get abducted. Please don't let me get abducted.

A woman was standing at the end of the driveway with a puppy on a leash. Harmless! I pulled up to the driveway and opened my car door.

"DON'T GET OUT OF YOUR CAR!" She screamed at me like a war buddy warning me of an incoming grenade. I jumped back inside just as a vicious snarling dog came running up to my car like it wanted to eat my face.

"DON'T ROLL DOWN YOUR WINDOW!" She screamed at me again.

I was not inclined to disobey her.

She walked up to my window and I yelled through the glass like an inmate, "My car is overheating and I just pulled off the highway. Is there an auto place nearby?"

She told me to pull into the driveway, all the while trying not to run over her angry dog, which she kept screaming at curdlingly to get away from my car.

As she coaxed her dog inside, I sat in my car and stared at my steering wheel. I laughed out loud at the absurdity. "Nothing's ever easy, is it, Lord," I said.

The woman's name was Deanna. She told me the nearest auto place was at the next exit. Instead of risking it on the highway again, she offered to call her dad to come take a look. Larry. He drove out and squirted water from a hose into my radiator. I know where it is now. And it didn't spray water into his eyes and blind him, either (thank goodness).

Then the woman's daughter, Gretta, came home with her friend Luke, and they refilled my coolant. Because apparently I was low on that, too.

Why do people let other people operate deadly machines without full knowledge of what kind of things happen inside to make them run? Why am I JUST NOW finding out about these liquids that run low and make your car a ticking time bomb?

I told Deanna my GPS sent me here and told me it was Magg's Auto. Apparently her husband owns a trucking company called Magg's.

Oh, GPS, you confused little robot.

Deanna told me that God had sent me there. Then she gave me a gallon of water and a towel in case I had to stop and put more water into my radiator, a glass of ice water because I was thirsty, and her phone number in case I had troubles further down the road. "Text me when you get there," she said.

I have met the nicest people in the midwest because my car is a pooper. (Remember last time?)

Nothing's ever easy.

I've been thinking about the process of moving down to Kentucky from Wisconsin. It has not gone smoothly. Things have not fallen beautifully into place. It has, in fact, been very hard.

And as I sat in Deanna's driveway while Cerberus leapt at my tires, I thought about opposition.

Jennie Allen talks about this in her book Anything:

Somewhere in my life I picked up the idea that if things did not feel right or fall perfectly into place, God was not in them. I thought obeying God should feel pretty easy and convenient. For instance, if God was calling you to Africa, then he would have a buyer for your house in two weeks; and if not, then he likely isn't in it....All my life I thought I had God's stamp of approval because my life wasn't going badly. Now I was faced with the fear that it might actually be the opposite. What if my life was going so beautifully because I wasn't chasing after God?

It makes sense to me that the harder we chase after God, the more opposition we will face.

Remember this blog post I wrote about living life surrendered to God? I am being reminded of that today. Surrender does not mean that we sit around and wait for God to move, or that we give up when we face opposition, but that in every choice we make, in every step we take, in every battle we fight, we are completely surrendered to whatever the outcome will be, and to the reality that God can alter our course at any moment.

So I'll keep walking, and fighting, and surrendering, and I will trust that God will keep making it clear what He has for me.

Because God will not waste a surrendered life. He waits eagerly for a surrendered life. Oh, what purposes God can accomplish with a surrendered life!

And you can trust that, no matter the opposition, He will accomplish them.

My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it. Therefore I will trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone. - Thomas Merton 

all to Thee, my Blessed Saviour

What words or images come to your mind when you think of "surrender"?

I think of submission. I think of resigning. I think of giving up.

When people are struggling, Christians really like to quote Exodus 14:14, when the Israelites are freaking out and Moses says, "The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still." Basically: Quit trying and let God take care of it!

What Christians don't usually quote is the next verse, when God responds, "Why are you crying out to me? Tell the people to get moving!" Basically: Um, hey Lazy Bones, I can't part the Red Sea if y'all aren't walking through it.

Because here's what I'm learning about surrender: it has nothing to do with giving up. Submission does not mean having no will, no ideas, no desires of your own. But surrender has everything to do with humility, and fear of the Lord above all other fears, and desire for His will above your own.

Abraham was completely surrendered to God while arguing that He wouldn't destroy Sodom (Genesis 18); David was completely surrendered to God while begging that his son wouldn't die (2 Samuel 12); and Jesus was completely surrendered to God while pleading that He wouldn't have to suffer (Matthew 26).

'Cause you know how you can tell someone's surrendered? It's not that they don't want anything, don't fight for anything, and don't strive to accomplish anything. It's when what they want, what they're striving for, and what they're fighting for doesn't pan out, and they accept it, trust the Lord, believe that He is good and better than what they're asking for, and move on.

Jesus ended each of His pleas for a way out with the words, "But I want your will to be done, not mine."

When David's son died despite his fasting and weeping and begging, he got up, took a shower, went into a worship service to worship God, then went home and ate dinner.

And I think the reason God let Abraham argue with Him in the first place was because He knew that Abraham respected and feared the Lord even in the midst of arguing with Him.

Surrender doesn't mean not trying or asking for things. It means humbly trying and asking for things. It means having the right perspective of who you are & what part you play in the grand story that is God's (not yours). It means praising God whether or not things turn out the way you want them to, because you know it's not about you anyway, and that even while it's not about you, God still values you and wants to give you the best. What better God to be surrendered to?

I do not mean that I am already as God wants me to be. I have not yet reached that goal, but I continue trying to reach it and to make it mine. Christ wants me to do that, which is the reason he made me his. Brothers and sisters, I know that I have not yet reached that goal, but there is one thing I always do. Forgetting the past and straining toward what is ahead, I keep trying to reach the goal and get the prize for which God called me through Christ to the life above. - Philippians 3:12-14 NCV

theirs not to reason why

(my StrengthsFinder personality profile)

We all want reasons for why things happen. We want to believe there's a reason for everything. That God brought us here so we could meet this person and this person would introduce us to this job which would help us gain this experience so that, eventually, we end up exactly where we're supposed to be, saving the world.

It's easier to deal with the things that happen, especially when they're bad, if we believe they're leading us to some ultimate, better destination.

But last night my friend Micah said something really profound. "Sometimes," he said, "things just happen."

Lots of people, including myself, have given me possible explanations for all the tough stuff in the past year. "Maybe God's taking ______ away to give you ______." "Maybe God knows that you're too ______, and He wants to make you more ______." "Maybe ______ will prepare you for ______."

Somehow we feel that, if we just know why, or at least know that there's a reason, we can trust God easier. It makes Him seem more sovereign or something, to know that everything is a part of His plan. It makes Him seem more faithful if we can point to why we went through what we went through.

But you know what I have discovered? It doesn't matter. Sometimes things just happen. Maybe they're the result of your own decisions, or the result of someone else's decisions, or the result of weather or the economy or bears. The point is, I think God's plan for us is a lot broader than we're comfortable with. And even though He daily carries us in His arms, I think He is less concerned with all the tiny decisions that consume our lives, and more concerned with whether we're loving Him, serving Him, and desiring Him above all else in all the decisions that we do make.

Sometimes God has very specific plans for certain parts of our lives, and sometimes He doesn't. He is still sovereign, He is still trustworthy, He is still faithful, even when we don't seem to hear Him leading or directing in any particular direction. And just because God has a plan doesn't mean that everything that happens is the perfect piece to fit into the next stage of our puzzly lives. It just means that God is really good at molding, shaping, and sculpting the things that do happen in our lives into the beautiful masterpiece He intends it to be. 

God has made everything fit beautifully in its appropriate time. - Ecclesiastes 3:11 NET

God's provision

I have been thinking about God's provision lately, and what it means to be taken care of.

Last night in my Bible study we were talking about steps of faith. One girl shared that she was so afraid to move away from home, but once she did things started happening to show her that God was taking care of her. "It was so difficult to take that first step," she said, "but once I did, that first step was like a springboard for so many other things to happen." All the other ladies in the room nodded like they all had similar experiences.

I wanted to raise my hand and say, "Excuse me, but what if God doesn't provide?"

It has been four months since I lost my job and church. Three months since I came down with Mono. Two months since I wrecked my car. And a week since my relationship ended.

And every morning I wake up and walk, and every single step is by faith. I cannot turn to the left or to the right without it being by faith. I have no other choice. But where is the springboard? It seems to me like bad things keep happening. It seems to me like the faith I build is never a springboard for some sort of destination, but merely preparation for more difficulty I'm about to face.

I am tired of people saying, "As soon as I became content with being single, I found my husband," and, "As soon as I stopped looking for it, it came," and, "As soon as I stepped out in faith, my whole future became bright."

Sometimes it works that way. But it doesn't always work that way.

I'm looking through the Old and New Testaments, and I'm not really seeing any springboards. I'm seeing 40 years of waiting in wilderness, 40 days of waiting in deserts, and hundreds of years of waiting for a Redeemer. I see a lot of waiting. I don't see a lot of God promising, "As soon as _____, then _____." I see more verses like Habakkuk 3:17-19, where we promise, "Even though _____, yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in the God of my salvation."

God provides. I see it every day through friends who care about me and family who love me. But more than that, I see it in the intangible ways He is with me. We often define God's provision by where He takes us, what He gives us, how we end up where we do. But God's provision, at its basest form, is Himself.

My life seems to be not-so-slowly crumbling all around me, and it would be easy for me to cry out that God is not taking care of me. He is not providing. If the formula for God's provision were, "As soon as _____, then _____," then I could definitely argue that He is not providing for me.

But God's provision is not a formula. He does not handle everybody's life the same way. For me, it seems as though He has this plan that is taking a super long time to refine. And I must say, "Even though I can't find a job, even though I don't have a home church anymore, even though I still owe money on my car, even though I am losing people I love, YET I will rejoice in the Lord. I will trust that He loves me, fights for me, and works for my good, no matter what or how long it takes."

That's provision. Sometimes all the other stuff takes a little longer (or A LOT longer) to happen, but God's presence is always with you.

The Lord himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged. - Deuteronomy 31:8 NIV

sing a new song

I read this this morning:

I will trust, and will not be afraid; for the Lord God is my strength and my song, and he has become my salvation. - Isaiah 12:2 ESV

Depending on the translation, that word "song" is also "defense" and "protection."

This past weekend I got to hear from Aaron Keyes. One thought, among many great thoughts on worship he shared, was that we have the ability to sing something God has never heard before. Our voices singing what's on our hearts in whatever melody we choose is an offering more pleasing and intimate to the Lord than singing the words that somebody else writes.

So I look at the correlation between "trust" and "singing." How song can be a defense and a protection. Why Matt Maher sings, "Teach my song to rise to You when temptation comes my way," instead of "teach my prayer" or "my plea" or "my thoughts."

There is something very valuable and very powerful about singing to the Lord. Something freeing. Something that proclaims trust more than just speaking it or writing it or thinking it.

Sing a new song to the Lord (Psalm 96:1), and just see. See that the Lord is good. And see what a difference it makes in your heart and in your trust.

When you start to feel afraid, affirm your trust in me....Speak or sing praises to me, and my face will shine radiantly upon you. - Jesus Calling