The Faith of Seeing Beyond

 

What's ahead? What awaits me around the bend? In the fog, I can't see far.  What's enshrouded in the mist?

Unknowns. Disappointments. Anxiety. Hard places.

These are the fertile soil where fears can take root in our hearts. The tender, worked up soil where faith can take root is also the place where fears can take root.

Without faith it is impossible to please God. So, if it's that important, what is faith?

Faith - Webster defines it as an unquestioning belief that does not require evidence; trust, confidence.

God defines faith in Hebrews 11:1.  It says, "Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. "

Assurance. Conviction. The assurance and conviction that God is for me.  So I then can choose to believe what is unseen above what I'm seeing in my circumstances and what they are screaming to me in the moment. 

It takes faith to see beyond, to learn the heartbeat of the One Who created us and to trust Him.

How do we catch a glimpse of eternity to stay engaged with Jesus in the middle of unanswered petitions, watching wrong choices being chosen by loved ones, relationships gone awry, and more? 

To see beyond, is the wrestling of faith and fear. It's the space of finding Jesus and choosing at times, to stay and believe Him and His words of truth, even if it doesn't make sense or all is so unclear. 

To see beyond gives us the strength to keep on, keeping on.

To see beyond is to know and find God in our stories. 

I get so embroiled in the happenings of my life and all the details playing out before me.  Some days I can see through it all, the joys, the sorrows, the lovely things and hard, the peace and the chaos.  But some days the negative and hard threaten to sink my ship with all its turbulent waters. 

How God, do I make sense of all this? How do I keep going?

May I hide? May I walk away?

Jesus whispers, "What did I do?" 

"I am the Way. I am the Truth. I am the Life. I came.  I came to be present, to show you the way through is the way with Me."

II Kings 6 tells us the story of an army that surrounds prophet Elisha and his servant.  The servant awoke just like any other day only to discover the army surrounding the mountain they were on.  All fear rose up within him and he cried out, "What shall we do?!?"

Elisha's response beckons us to remember who is with us.  His reply was, "Don't be afraid, for those who are with us are more than those who are with them".

Then he prays a prayer, "O LORD, please open his eyes that he may see".  And He did.  The servant saw the horses and chariots of fire surrounding Elisha.  God was with Elisha on that mountain, surrounding him with His presence.

Elisha was confident in God's provision.  (I really wonder what Elisha was seeing...)

Open our eyes to see... 

Yes, Lord, I get it just a little bit more. You are in our stories, just like You were a part of Elisha's story and many others.

You want us to see You. And when we see You, we get a glimpse of beyond. 

While all this is good and true, how do we live the way of seeing beyond??

I have found it's not an easy 1,2,3 to find God but there are a few things I have learned that helps make this tangible and ways that God has become visible in all the muck and mire, joys and successes of life.

1) Gratefulness - learning to view life through the lens of gratefulness is a powerful shift.  In every sorrow there is a gift or something we can say thanks for.  We don't have to be grateful for what is happening, but in every happening there is something to find and give thanks for.  Reframing sorrow is a step toward finding God and His healing love.

2) Acknowledge the both/and - in life we experience joy and sorrow; pain and healing.  It's not one or the other, but both.  When I learned to be okay with both and didn't need to choose one, I found life to be full, for the depth of pain or sorrow I was experiencing is the height of knowing God's love and His peace and joy beyond measure.

3) To live today - to wake up each day, claiming the grace of God and His new morning mercies. (Lamentations 3)  Learning to live with grace for today and sometimes only the moment that is right before me, was to live in rest from all the lies and frantic expectations.  To not let yesterday's choices affect today. Today is a new day, another beginning, a fresh start.  Living in God's new morning mercies is so freeing, it's grace.  Today is God's manna grace, just what is needed for today!

Elisha eyes - seeing beyond what is surrounding me because I am learning there is more with us than with them.

Seeing -

Beyond me to You. 

Beyond my strength to Yours.

Beyond my finite to glimpsing a bit of Your infinity.

Beyond my control to Your all-seeing eye. 

Beyond my workings to orchestrate plans to trusting Your working all things for good. 

Beyond my doubts, questions, confusions,  to see a choosing of staying with You because You hold us in Your everlasting arms.

Beyond temporal to get a glimpse of eternal.

So, LORD, as only You can do, untangle all the threads that threaten to ensnare us and keep us caught in the web of fear and unrest and guilt.

To see beyond is to find You present and rise on the  eagle's wings to soar in the confidence and belief of Your power, strength, and goodness, in spite of and because of.

To see beyond is to let God's love sink into our hearts and see others through that lens. 

One of many of my favorite quotes, "To love someone means to SEE them as God intended them." Fyodor Dostoyersky

To see beyond can only be seen when I allow His grace, love, and mercy to impact my heart deeper and deeper.  For God's vision is beyond and above ours. We are finite, He is infinite. 

He is here. He is present, with us.

Quote, "For the Author has written Himself into the Story and now walks with us until the Story is finished in His time, in His way, for His honour and His glory. All is well."  -Peretti 

And all is well with my soul for the Author of my story is the Finisher of my story and He'll keeps us all in the middle moments of our story. 

Faith, the vision of seeing beyond, shifting, so our heart's eyes can catch a glimpse of the Author who truly loves us deeply. 

Faith the vision of staying with Jesus, abiding in His presence when our flesh says, "Leave, God is not trustworthy".

Faith is seeing beyond.

The Very Breath of God Within

 

God breathed into man the breath of Life and man became a living soul. Genesis 3:7

We are the only creation that carries the very breath of God. 

Life. Full life. Living Life. God's breath. 

I don't know about you but for me, that is exciting. We were created for life and to nurture Life and to give life. 

We were created for Life. And as much as we sometimes want to end life, we often pause and fight to hang on.  Life is in our DNA.

So the scene of Satan, the entering of Satan in the garden is very profound and very very intentional.

He targeted God by targeting His creation of life. He targeted the very breath of God.

He targeted it with questioning the goodness of God and His truth, therefore causing Eve to doubt, to second guess the truth of God.

The result of Adam and Eve's choice is God's very breath of life in us now knows the sting of death and brokenness. We now question God's goodness and reach for what we think is better.

Also, Adam and Eve's connection was altered... they hid, they blamed each other, and the first recorded fight between brothers ended in the first death, the first ending of life itself. We still bear the mark of these consequences.  

Today we do well to pay attention... our fighting, our dissension is really Satan's inroad to continuing to destroy the breath of Life, God Himself. 

We all have heard the painful cry of someone, and have even uttered them ourselves, whose view of God was marred and tainted because one of us whether unintentionally or intentionality, caused someone pain. We forget a day that's important to a friend. We miss how they want to be cared for. There's selfishness and abuse.  There's pain and death.

Satan delights in destroying life in any way and through any means he can. 

Ephesians 6:12 tells us that we don't flesh and blood but principalities and the power of darkness. 

That day in the garden began with light and ended with the presence of darkness. 

And from that moment on, God promised to redeem, to restore brokenness and a connection with Him, as He promised a Saviour would come. 

One of the repercussions of Adam and Eve's choice was that woman would desire man. What was meant for God to fill and be enough, we would now desire it from each other in ways that were not meant to be.  God now has competition for our hearts.

This brokenness is not the final reality. Life is not destroyed. Yes, it's targeted. It's tainted with darkness and death but it's not a victim, it's a VICTOR!

John 10:10 tells us one of Jesus desires for us... He came to give us life and wants to give it abundantly.

Jesus' last words as He took His final breath were "It's is finished!"

Conqueror. Victor.

And three days later it became obvious to the world... His tomb was opened and all could see He wasn't in the grave.

 

He defeated death. He was the final sacrifice and has made a way for each of us to choose the power of life. 

In the depth of your pain and darkness, the life Jesus wants to give, is still triumphant and He wants to breathe life back into your wounded soul. Romans 8:37 reminds us that we are more than conquerors because of Jesus.

He wants us to find Him in those depths, to turn our heart's eyes to Him in desperation to know Him. 

And just as desperately that God wants us to choose Him, Satan doesn't want us to know God.

He takes the hard and uses it turn our hearts away from God and Life itself. 

There is nothing that delights Satan more than when we choose to stay in the hard and blame and even accuse God with it.

The first step of turning our hearts toward God is the hardest. It's letting go of what we think works and learning to trust the heart of our Heavenly Father who breathed into us the breath of Life. 

The One who created us is still breathing life into our damaged and broken souls.  He is still the Breath of Life.  He is Redeemer, restoring what the locusts have eaten and makes beauty out of the ashes.

We all carry pain and aches and hard deep within.  May I come alongside, and with gentleness take your hand and breathe a prayer.  For no matter where we find ourselves, whether it's in the depth of pain or healing or rising above the hard, we do it as a victor. Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Life and in Him we can know rest and learn of Him.

Lord Jesus,

  We come.  As we are.  To You. The Giver of Life and the only Way to life.  We come because You are the only One who can give us the strength, and power to be a conqueror and to choose You and life.  In this present world, we hurt and ache.  We wrestle to believe Your truths and stay with You.  Guide us, help our unbelief and give us the strength to stay with You.  Open our eyes to know You and to taste of Your goodness.  Thank you, for Your faithful love and the daily manna grace to keep choosing life, to keep choosing You.

                                                                                               In Jesus' name,

                                                                                               Amen.

PS. 

Day 29 - Travelling to Our O-H-I-O Home

 Tuesday, July 11, 2023

Minnesota ➡️ Wisconsin ➡️ Illinois ➡️ Indiana ➡️ Ohio

Today, and it was our only day, that we had no specific spot we were going to stop and see, it was only drive the many miles to our Ohio home.  I say our Ohio home because the camper truly became our home. Home was where we parked it and where we have each other.

Our last campsite

And seeing in the morning what we couldn't last night because it was dark, it is a very pretty campground!

And the last tearing down and packing up

All hooked up and ready to move on... towards home.

The Mississippi River 

Minnesota has acres and acres of corn fields and there are still acres and acres of corn fields as we cross into Wisconsin. Landscape is only green, I miss the rock formations etc.

Stopped to get gas for the truck and these Cinnabons smelled delicious... Titus yielded. Carlin asked who they are for and I replied, "Not for you!"

His face fell, then lit up when I said,  "just kidding!"

I finally had internet that didn't go in and out and so I worked on our journey on my blog most of the day as the miles sped by. 

Quite the bumpy roads!! And lots of construction in this state. 

And miles and miles of windmills 

Indianapolis skyline

Starting to see signs of home!

O-H-I-O

we've crossed the line back to our home state and the roads became significantly smoother.

And back just a bit we made our full circle and the road meets where we veered westward and now we continue eastward.

Columbus lights

Destination - arrival - home!

Thank you, Jesus, for the safety granted as we traveled those many miles and hiked all those trails.

It was also dark when we left 4 weeks ago at 4:57 in the morning and 48°.

10,650.2 miles

All the states were found except Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Hawaii.