June 2018 – rhythms of grace

choice II

June 26, 2018June 26, 2018 alyssapebbles

In October I wrote about a choice we all have to make at some point in our lives when things get hard:

I find myself in that place again; the place where I feel stuck and stagnant in my circumstances and my thinking, and I can either continue in bitterness and resentment, which is the most natural and fleshly inclination, or I can choose to go forward in a different way:

Do all things without complaining and disputing, that you may become blameless and harmless, children of God without fault in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, holding fast the word of life, so that I may rejoice in the day of Christ that I have not run in vain or labored in vain.

~Philippians 2:14

I so quickly fall out of a mindset of gratitude when the climate around me isn’t just as I’d like it to be. When things aren’t going my way I become a spoiled child- I throw temper tantrums in my heart and lash out with my thoughts and tongue. My vision becomes narrow and self-focused; self-pity overtakes me and I’m zeroed in on everything that’s wrong.

It’s black-and-white thinking, and it’s a spiraling downward cycle.

But Christ gives us His mind, if we’ll ask for it:

For, “Who can know the LORD’s thoughts? Who knows enough to teach him?” But we understand these things, for we have the mind of Christ.

~1 Corinthians 2:16

In fact, Paul says we already have it. Our minds are so important, and it’s imperative that we protect and guard them from the evil one, who is constantly trying to sabotage our thinking. God knows this, which is why He wants us to have His mind, and think His thoughts:

Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable- if anything is excellent or praiseworthy- think about such things. Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me- put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you.

~Philippians 4:8-9

The best way to guard our minds is to not even entertain negative thoughts, but to focus on the eternal. To focus on Christ and what He is doing through each situation we come across, instead of how that situation makes us feel. And the second piece of that is the action we take- putting it into practice. That’s where the choice comes in; when we decide what kind of thoughts we will engage and which ones we will not give attention to. Sometimes we like to indulge our negative, self-pitying, resentful thoughts because that feels better in the moment. It feels better to allow ourselves to sulk instead of taking responsibility for our own minds.

These negative patterns of thinking go way back, and the more we have indulged them in the past, the harder it will be to find freedom from them now. But it is not impossible, because He helps us when He sees that we are willing and want to be free.

It takes intention and effort. It requires that we shift our focus the second we start to catch ourselves going down that path, and remember the truth about ourselves, others, and our God. This kind of intentionality requires effort and active participation- Christ will be faithful to change our hearts when we ask Him but we must be willing to lay down the thoughts and feelings that we allow to hold us captive.

My prayer is that I can see my circumstances with fresh hope and joy- to find Him in the midst of the moments that I dread. To recognize that He is already here and now is the best time of my life; a time to grow and mature in even deeper ways, to grow closer to Him than ever before through the difficulties.

thoughts

covered

June 13, 2018 alyssapebbles

When I live in the tension of being a flawed human, I am always relieved to remember His abounding grace. I am relieved to remember I am not the sum of my mistakes, but rather a culmination of the new works He is doing in me.

I know my own capacity for sin and selfishness.

I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature…For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me.

~Romans 7:15-23

I can torment myself with the ways I fall short. I can fall into a pit of despair over the ways I fail Him, others, and myself. I can sink deeper and deeper into the lamentation of my own humanity.

But there is another way- He offers something new.

See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.

~Isaiah 43:19

Somehow, someway, He restores all things to Himself. Somehow His relentless grace covers all that we are and all that we do, so that we become less and less like the deadness inside of us and more like Life. His power is so far-reaching that even the things we have done that the enemy hoped to destroy us with can actually transform us into who we were created to be. When I’m in the trenches of guilt and condemnation, I can remember this: that it’s not the end.

Our consciences are effective tools that God has given us to help avoid making decisions that He knows will bring harm to ourselves or others. He implanted us with his Spirit to guide us in the ways that are righteous and holy, and we can walk in these ways the more we listen to His voice. We will stumble and fall, but that is no longer the point. It’s not a journey about us anymore- it’s not our story. Our own strengths and weaknesses are not determinate of our success on this path; they are opportunities for God to come close and be our strength, to remind us that He is building something bigger and using our failures to display His majesty. When we acknowledge that we are weak in our flesh, He can finally show up and prove Himself strong. And others will see that and realize it is not us, but Him. Our shortcomings allow us and others to give Him all the glory.

I am convicted by my follies, but the pain of my mistakes allows His grace to come in. I receive it and go forward in renewed hope in the One who will never fail me.

Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.

~Philippians 3:12-14

Peurto Rico 2018

conclusion

June 2, 2018June 2, 2018 alyssapebbles

I am grateful for the time of restoration that God has provided this past week… although it took time to settle into it, He was faithful to meet me when my heart finally opened to Him.

He has reminded me once again that He doesn’t measure me the same way I measure myself- by the world’s standards of success, power, and beauty. His system is completely different, wholly foreign to our ignorant human minds. He doesn’t work in the ways we think He should, but He gives us moments of clarity where He allows us to see as He does.

On the plane ride home, I was struck by C.S. Lewis’ words in the Four Loves:

The humblest of us, in a state of Grace, can have some ‘knowledge-by-acquaintance,’ some ‘tasting,’ of Love Himself; but man even at his highest sanctity and intelligence has no direct ‘knowledge about’ the ultimate Being- only analogies. We cannot see light, though by light we can see things. Statements about God are extrapolations from the knowledge of other things which the divine illumination enables us to know.

His thoughts and ways are higher than ours (Isaiah 55). We cannot begin to imagine the gloriousness of the ways He can expand our thinking if only we would let Him. While my mind is stuck on worldly affairs and centered around myself and my own circumstances, He is crafting something much larger, and He invites me to be a part of it. If only I can stop looking inward and see Him, who has been there all along helping me: