Hezekiah 33:11

I’m taking a break today from my “journey” posts to address another issue…as I will do from time to time.

“God will never give you more than you can handle.”

You know where that’s found in the Bible? Hezekiah 33:11. In other words . . . NOWHERE! It’s not in there! Just read the book of Psalms. You’ll see that writer facing stuff all the time that he absolutely cannot handle.

But how many times have you been in the very depths of despair, absolutely covered up with piles of problems, wondering how in the world you’re going to get through it all . . . when some well-meaning brother or sister in the Lord comes along to promise you that God will never do this to you…certainly not more than you can handle. And that’s gonna make it all better.

Wrong.

In the first place, God doesn’t do any of this to us anyway. Life does. Or sometimes it’s a consequence of our own mistakes. But sometimes these things just happen because we live here on Planet Earth where things are just messed up. Cars hit other cars. Cancer abounds. Fire spreads quickly. Tornadoes drop down at the . . . well, at the drop of a hat. Finances fall short. And thousands and thousands of other tragedies slam into our lives and leave us stumbling around wondering what in the world we will do.

Years ago, I landed myself in an abusive marriage. The relationship went from bad to worse quickly and after a year and a half, I knew I needed to leave or I would lose my mind. So I moved into an apartment, paid the deposits from what little money I had for the rent, utilities, and water, and bought a couple of pieces of furniture I needed. I believed I would finally find peace.

The next Monday I went into work and my “eccentric” boss fired me on the spot, lying profusely for his reasons to do so. I had no choice in the moment but to take my personal items and leave, returning to my new apartment and experiencing a total meltdown.

I knew I couldn’t go back into the relationship I had finally escaped, and without a job I wouldn’t be able to keep my apartment. I believed I had followed God into a separation, although I had never thought I would be a divorced woman. I looked back and knew that I had gotten into the marriage in my own will, not God’s, so I didn’t believe it was his will for me to stay.

At that point, it was simply a matter of examining my options and putting my life in God’s hands. This was so much more than I could handle. So I picked up the phone and called my parents . . . my Godly, gracious parents. “Come home,” were their first words. (I’m weeping now, just remembering the love that overwhelmed me in those two words.)

I called my husband and told him I was going to have to leave and needed a divorce. He and I went downtown the next day and had a friend draw up a simple divorce. Then he and I loaded up a U-Haul truck with everything I owned, put my car on a trailer, and I left. He was the last person I saw in that town that day.

When I arrived in Nashville, I was welcomed with open arms by my loving parents who helped me put everything in storage while I stayed with them, paid off huge debts, and rebuilt my life enough to start back out on my own. All through the empowerment of Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit.

I often imagine my life as a glove and the Holy Spirit as the hand that slips inside and makes the glove come to life. Without the Spirit, I am nothing but a limp rag, worthless and immobile. But with his empowerment and enabling, I am able to accomplish whatever I am called to do.

Life happens. God handles.

Change Your Lens

Photography is amazing. I love to sit down with a National Geographic and admire the powerful images taken by some of the world’s most skilled photographers in some of the most varied and remote parts of the world. I enjoy taking pictures too, but I cannot call myself a “photographer” in comparison to the people who take the shots for N.G. and other beautiful magazines.

I use a little digital camera and rely on my computer to adjust lighting, color, and other aspects of a particular photograph. But with a more expensive camera, the beauty is in the lens. I’ve watched as a knowledgeable photographer has been shooting pictures and, in seeking a different image, has decided to change the lens. You get an entirely different picture when you change the lens.

Have you ever known someone who sees the world “through rose-colored glasses”? My sister is one of those. Christie sees the world filled with gorgeous light and she goes around filling the world with that light. It’s not that she doesn’t know about the dark corners of the world, but she’s chosen her rose-colored lens to view life and it has made her—and the many people who know her and her Rose Water Cottage industry—very happy.

By contrast, do you know people who see the world through a dark, gray lens—or whatever sort of lens would drain all the color from the world? They see every event as potentially hazardous and they view the people in their life as troublemakers and burdensome. They can drain all the energy and happiness out of a room just by walking into it.

They need to change their lens.

Life is hard sometimes. And that “sometimes” can stretch into a very long time. But we all choose with which lens we will view life. Will we view life through the “My parents / my siblings / my spouse never loved me” lens and allow that to color how we view everything else in the world? Will we choose the “I’m not as good-looking / wealthy / healthy / strong / popular / educated as so-and-so” lens and use that to excuse our lack of effort in every area? Will we use the “My heart was broken” lens to keep us from ever trusting to love again?

I know this may be messing too close to home…stepping on toes here. I know that because this is something I’ve had to deal with…many things I’ve had to let go of in my own life. Bitterness I held onto for way too long that began to eat away at the joy and the grace everywhere else in my life.

So consider the lens the psalmist was looking for when he wrote this:

My tears have been my food day and night,
while people say to me all day long,
    “Where is your God?”
These things I remember as I pour out my soul:
how I used to go to the house of God
    under the protection of the 

    Mighty One
with shouts of joy and praise
    among the festive throng.

Why, my soul, are you downcast?
    Why so disturbed within me?
Put your hope in God,
    for I will yet praise him,
    my Savior and my God. 

    (Ps. 42:3-5)

This is the sound of a lens being changed. This is the “hope” lens being put into place. And when we look through the lens of hope, everything looks better.

 

Running the Race in 2015

"And...they're off!!"

How many times have you heard the voice over the loudspeaker yell those words as the racers tear out from the starting line? I love to watch a race and see the runners all jump as one from their beginning stance to leap into action for the race they've been anxiously waiting for in the preceding hours.

At the beginning of the new year, do you feel a little bit of that excitement? Did you watch a ball drop to kick off the new year a few days ago? Here in Nashville, we dropped (or slowly lowered, actually) a musical note downtown to countdown to the first seconds of the new year.

Do you feel the fresh start of the new year? Do you have resolutions for change or goals for new accomplishments? 

I stopped making new year's resolutions years ago. Probably because I stopped achieving my new year's resolutions years ago! I just got tired of achieving all of those promises and ridiculous goals that I set for myself. But that doesn't stop me from taking a fresh look at my life and evaluating what things I might change or what areas I might be able to improve with a bit of discipline and effort.

We've been studying the book of 1 Corinthians in our Sunday school class at church and as it turned out, we reached the thirteenth chapter yesterday. You know...the chapter of the New Testament all about love. So we read these verses:

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but I do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith so that I can remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away everything I own, and if I give over my body in order to boast, but do not have love, I receive no benefit.

Those are just the first three verses. It took us a while to get through those, because we realized that those present a pretty tall order. The first two verses, or sentences, aren't so tough; I don't think that speaking in tongues of men and angels is going to get me very far. I'm a bit surprised that being able to move mountains (MOUNTAINS!!), knowing all mysteries and all knowledge (ALL KNOWLEDGE!!!) would seriously mean I am nothing. Really??? 

But let's talk about this third verse: Are you seriously telling me that if I give absolutely everything I own to charity--to feed starving children, to save animals, or something else that really matters--and donate all my organs for harvest...that's not a benefit on its own? Doesn't just DOING THAT count as love anyway???

Then what in the world am I supposed to set as my "goals"? How am I supposed to make plans to be better if none of this stuff is going to get me anywhere? Really??? If this isn't love, WHAT IS???

Love is patient, love is kind, it is not envious. Love does not brag, it is not puffed up. It is not rude, it is not self-serving, it is not easily angered or resentful. It is not glad about injustice, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. (vv. 4-7)

So I just have to do those things. I have to be patient. I have to be kind. I need to stop being envious. I'll stop bragging, stop being puffed up. I'll stop being rude, stop being self-serving. I won't get angry...

Okay, this isn't going to work. Unless...ummm...

The person who does not love does not know God, because God is love. (1 John 4:8)

God IS love. So in the new year, here is my resolution: More love. More God. In and all over everything. If I do anything, it is through and with God...love. 

For this is the way God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. (John 3:16)