for the joy, first glimpse
I'm writing a book that I’ve been working on since the first of the year. I have felt hesitant to share it, but today I feel compelled, which is usually a good sign that God is in it. Bless you for being a precious reader of mine. It means so much to me that you keep coming back.
Hebrews 4:9 Therefore a Sabbath rest remains for God’s people.
With the endless "corona talks" circulating around here like fruit flies in summer, there has also been a lot of talk about end times, the rapture, the return of Jesus, and the apocalypse, whatever that means. For a few days my littles were saying, “Listen! I think I hear the Donald TRUMPets!” in reference to the trumpet blasts that will usher Jesus’s return to “pick us up”, as Moses explains. (They're a little confused about the whole scenario.) I think it’s pretty incredible to think of it that way. For decades I’ve lived with my hope of His return tucked into a dusty filing cabinet in my mind, trusting it to be true, but not living with it in my sights until a few years ago.
My precious Sunday School class read a book by Ann Voscamp called “The Broken Way.” Ann shares the story of a close friend who was in her last months of life in a battle with cancer. During a final phone call, the friend says to Ann, “Always keep eternity before you.” It hit me like a ton of bricks just fell from the sky and landed fully in my lap. I was keeping eternity in filing cabinet, with no eyes on it, whatsoever. No. This was not the way the people of God ought to live. Rather, we are to focus on eternity and what lies ahead, forgetting what’s behind, and PRESSING ON toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of Jesus Christ! It became my mantra. I said it as often as possible in conversation, in text messages, in letters and in Sunday school. I even made a hand-lettered wall hanging that displayed those words and hung it above the dresser in my bedroom, so that I would never forget to remember to always keep eternity before me. These days have brought a fountain of joy to my heart, as the possibility of the return of Christ comes into focus.
I’m not a seer. I don’t pretend to know when the end is coming. But I do know that there is worldwide sickness. There are tornados, earthquakes, and locust destroying crops in apocalyptic proportions in Africa. The cultural climate feels so weird… like things are shifting. Normal is fading and new is coming, but what that means, exactly, I can’t tell you. I just keep looking up. The sky has been extraordinary, by the way. Spectacular, really. The weather goes from 80 degrees to 40 in a day, and back to 70, then snow two days later. The Midwest is renowned for it’s bizarre weather patterns, but this is uncanny. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like it. Our yard work is sitting half done because it’s so dang cold all the sudden, I don’t want to go outside in the middle of springtime!
I will tell you this, my children are listening for trumpets for the first time in their lives. They are praying that Jesus would come back quickly. My big kids are considering their salvation in ways they never have before. It’s a remarkable shift from the everyday hustle to the present day-stand-still. I say stand-still like that’s what we do. We never do that. But for the rest of the world, not working or going to school or soccer or dance, it must feel like a stand-still. Again, I retract. I’ve seen the schedule of zoom calls it takes for a family of five to do their distance learning. Yikes! But you know what I mean… these are strange times, but they are OUR times. We MUST fix our eyes of Jesus and keep going in our work here.
The disciples… I can’t get this out of my head. They’re out fishing, right? And Jesus comes on the scene. They literally drop their nets and walk away from their normal lives. Just walk away, no questions asked. Yes. We want to follow You, whatever that means, which, none of them could have ever predicted what that would have looked like. They just went.
Fast forward three years, they’ve spent practically every waking hour with Him. I mean, I wonder if we actually see every time that they weren’t with Him, because they kept freaking out if He wasn’t there. I’ve recently come to notice how many times Jesus went away to pray. Good grief… I can so relate to His life on this level. Early in the quarantine I left the house to take the trash outside to the trash cans. It’s not far. I go out the kitchen door, through the garage, and half-way across the driveway, and I’m there. Boom. Done. On my way back into the house, I picked up a few things off the floor of the garage and could hear the little ones running through the house screaming for me. It wasn’t a casual, “Where’s Mom?” It was hysterical, “MOM! MOM!!!! MOOOOOOOM!!!!” I was out of the house for a total of four minutes. We’ve been together every single hour of every single day, I walk out of sight for four minutes, and pandemonium breaks out all over the house. I digress. It’s funny how I’ve never noticed Jesus getting away. Look it up. After the work is done or the message is given, he’s always trying to get away from the crowd.
They’ve been together all this time, right? Almost constantly. Then Jesus is taken into custody. For the first time in three years, they are separated and everything changes. They don’t know what to do. Can you imagine, Jesus is on trial and about to be murdered?? Next, He is resurrected, they see Him for a little while, and He's gone again. He’s there somewhere, but they don’t know where. Without His constant presence, they don’t know what to do. Might as well go back to the boat. Toss out the nets. Stare listlessly into the wild blue yonder… and remember when He was theirs, and they weren’t alone in the world.
This is why. It’s exactly why I keep eternity in the filing cabinet, because it hurts that He’s here and not here. That probably sounds so strange. He’s never physically been here with me like He was with them, but He is mine. The promise that He’s coming for me makes the wait is unbearable sometimes. If I didn’t have purpose, I think I’d lock it up and never let out. But today is my real life, right now, and I have work to do. I’m actually doing it RIGHT NOW, reminding you to ALWAYS KEEP ETERNITY BEFORE YOU!! I brought it straight out of the filing cabinet and plastered it across my wall across from the bed so that the first words I see in the morning are ALWAYS KEEP ETERNITY BEFORE YOU.
He promised us this incredible rest with Him in eternity, starting in heaven and coming back to a new earth, just like Eden. That is what our future holds, but this? This broken-down old world? This is the FOR REAL work that is ours today for NOW.
I worked in a nursing home for several years while my husband was in school. I loved the work, but the position left little to be desired. It was, sadly, a bottom feeder's job. High pay, for work no one wanted to do. We were required to wear scrubs every day except for Casual Fridays, when we were allowed to wear jeans to work. I wore scrubs every single day. One day my nurse asked me, “Don’t you know you don’t have to wear a uniform on Fridays?”
“Yes, I know. But I need the clothes to differentiate between my real life and my work life, so I opt out of Casual Fridays.”
It probably sounded pretentious, I realize, but it was legit. At the time my husband was in seminary full-time and also worked two jobs while I was working nights full-time. We were homeschooling two of our four children when I got pregnant with our fifth child right in the middle of all of it. It felt like we were underwater upside-down most of the time, so I wasn’t exaggerating. My clothes told me what day it was.
This is life, right here, right now, this is work. This life, that feels like real life but not quite, this is our work. We have a job to do. God designed our humanity for something very, very specific. You have to figure out what it is. And by figure that out, I mean, seek first the Kingdom of GOD and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. He’ll show you what it is! He’ll put it in your path, if you are following Him.
Get up in the morning and open your Bible app before snapchat or Facebook or your bank app or the news headlines or even the weather. Read the Word of God, it will bring life to your bones. It will transform your mind. It will change you from the inside out. Close your eyes and give it all to Jesus. First thing, before you get out of bed. This is the beginning of following!! He makes us like Him, even though we live in this broken-down world in these bodies of death. He resides IN us and works THROUGH us for His glory.
This is work. Forget casual Fridays. Focus, darling, fix Your eyes on Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. He will give you what is yours to do. Whatever your hands find to do, do it to the glory of God! Do it with all your might until our rest comes. He will come back and get us, or we will pass into death, and therefore into life. Then we rest, and our real lives will begin.
Easter morning, I woke up without the usual scramble. I remembered Jesus and the resurrection, and my soul felt full, rich and satisfied.
I read about the disciples trudging back to the fishing boats, the only thing they knew before Jesus. I sensed how hopeless they must have felt, even after walking with Him every single day. Watching Him show them what to do. Teaching them with the words of eternal life, day in and day out. After He proved beyond all doubt, who He was with the resurrection, He was nowhere to be found. They didn’t know what else to do.
Take heart, dear one, your fears and doubts are not to bring you shame, but to sharpen your focus. Look for Him. The disciples found Him just past the water on the shore. Just past the night, at daybreak.
Keep holding on. Morning will come, and He come for you.
“But when the day was now breaking, Jesus stood on the beach...”
John 21:4
Hebrews 4:9 Therefore a Sabbath rest remains for God’s people.
With the endless "corona talks" circulating around here like fruit flies in summer, there has also been a lot of talk about end times, the rapture, the return of Jesus, and the apocalypse, whatever that means. For a few days my littles were saying, “Listen! I think I hear the Donald TRUMPets!” in reference to the trumpet blasts that will usher Jesus’s return to “pick us up”, as Moses explains. (They're a little confused about the whole scenario.) I think it’s pretty incredible to think of it that way. For decades I’ve lived with my hope of His return tucked into a dusty filing cabinet in my mind, trusting it to be true, but not living with it in my sights until a few years ago.
My precious Sunday School class read a book by Ann Voscamp called “The Broken Way.” Ann shares the story of a close friend who was in her last months of life in a battle with cancer. During a final phone call, the friend says to Ann, “Always keep eternity before you.” It hit me like a ton of bricks just fell from the sky and landed fully in my lap. I was keeping eternity in filing cabinet, with no eyes on it, whatsoever. No. This was not the way the people of God ought to live. Rather, we are to focus on eternity and what lies ahead, forgetting what’s behind, and PRESSING ON toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of Jesus Christ! It became my mantra. I said it as often as possible in conversation, in text messages, in letters and in Sunday school. I even made a hand-lettered wall hanging that displayed those words and hung it above the dresser in my bedroom, so that I would never forget to remember to always keep eternity before me. These days have brought a fountain of joy to my heart, as the possibility of the return of Christ comes into focus.
I’m not a seer. I don’t pretend to know when the end is coming. But I do know that there is worldwide sickness. There are tornados, earthquakes, and locust destroying crops in apocalyptic proportions in Africa. The cultural climate feels so weird… like things are shifting. Normal is fading and new is coming, but what that means, exactly, I can’t tell you. I just keep looking up. The sky has been extraordinary, by the way. Spectacular, really. The weather goes from 80 degrees to 40 in a day, and back to 70, then snow two days later. The Midwest is renowned for it’s bizarre weather patterns, but this is uncanny. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like it. Our yard work is sitting half done because it’s so dang cold all the sudden, I don’t want to go outside in the middle of springtime!
I will tell you this, my children are listening for trumpets for the first time in their lives. They are praying that Jesus would come back quickly. My big kids are considering their salvation in ways they never have before. It’s a remarkable shift from the everyday hustle to the present day-stand-still. I say stand-still like that’s what we do. We never do that. But for the rest of the world, not working or going to school or soccer or dance, it must feel like a stand-still. Again, I retract. I’ve seen the schedule of zoom calls it takes for a family of five to do their distance learning. Yikes! But you know what I mean… these are strange times, but they are OUR times. We MUST fix our eyes of Jesus and keep going in our work here.
The disciples… I can’t get this out of my head. They’re out fishing, right? And Jesus comes on the scene. They literally drop their nets and walk away from their normal lives. Just walk away, no questions asked. Yes. We want to follow You, whatever that means, which, none of them could have ever predicted what that would have looked like. They just went.
Fast forward three years, they’ve spent practically every waking hour with Him. I mean, I wonder if we actually see every time that they weren’t with Him, because they kept freaking out if He wasn’t there. I’ve recently come to notice how many times Jesus went away to pray. Good grief… I can so relate to His life on this level. Early in the quarantine I left the house to take the trash outside to the trash cans. It’s not far. I go out the kitchen door, through the garage, and half-way across the driveway, and I’m there. Boom. Done. On my way back into the house, I picked up a few things off the floor of the garage and could hear the little ones running through the house screaming for me. It wasn’t a casual, “Where’s Mom?” It was hysterical, “MOM! MOM!!!! MOOOOOOOM!!!!” I was out of the house for a total of four minutes. We’ve been together every single hour of every single day, I walk out of sight for four minutes, and pandemonium breaks out all over the house. I digress. It’s funny how I’ve never noticed Jesus getting away. Look it up. After the work is done or the message is given, he’s always trying to get away from the crowd.
They’ve been together all this time, right? Almost constantly. Then Jesus is taken into custody. For the first time in three years, they are separated and everything changes. They don’t know what to do. Can you imagine, Jesus is on trial and about to be murdered?? Next, He is resurrected, they see Him for a little while, and He's gone again. He’s there somewhere, but they don’t know where. Without His constant presence, they don’t know what to do. Might as well go back to the boat. Toss out the nets. Stare listlessly into the wild blue yonder… and remember when He was theirs, and they weren’t alone in the world.
This is why. It’s exactly why I keep eternity in the filing cabinet, because it hurts that He’s here and not here. That probably sounds so strange. He’s never physically been here with me like He was with them, but He is mine. The promise that He’s coming for me makes the wait is unbearable sometimes. If I didn’t have purpose, I think I’d lock it up and never let out. But today is my real life, right now, and I have work to do. I’m actually doing it RIGHT NOW, reminding you to ALWAYS KEEP ETERNITY BEFORE YOU!! I brought it straight out of the filing cabinet and plastered it across my wall across from the bed so that the first words I see in the morning are ALWAYS KEEP ETERNITY BEFORE YOU.
He promised us this incredible rest with Him in eternity, starting in heaven and coming back to a new earth, just like Eden. That is what our future holds, but this? This broken-down old world? This is the FOR REAL work that is ours today for NOW.
I worked in a nursing home for several years while my husband was in school. I loved the work, but the position left little to be desired. It was, sadly, a bottom feeder's job. High pay, for work no one wanted to do. We were required to wear scrubs every day except for Casual Fridays, when we were allowed to wear jeans to work. I wore scrubs every single day. One day my nurse asked me, “Don’t you know you don’t have to wear a uniform on Fridays?”
“Yes, I know. But I need the clothes to differentiate between my real life and my work life, so I opt out of Casual Fridays.”
It probably sounded pretentious, I realize, but it was legit. At the time my husband was in seminary full-time and also worked two jobs while I was working nights full-time. We were homeschooling two of our four children when I got pregnant with our fifth child right in the middle of all of it. It felt like we were underwater upside-down most of the time, so I wasn’t exaggerating. My clothes told me what day it was.
This is life, right here, right now, this is work. This life, that feels like real life but not quite, this is our work. We have a job to do. God designed our humanity for something very, very specific. You have to figure out what it is. And by figure that out, I mean, seek first the Kingdom of GOD and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. He’ll show you what it is! He’ll put it in your path, if you are following Him.
Get up in the morning and open your Bible app before snapchat or Facebook or your bank app or the news headlines or even the weather. Read the Word of God, it will bring life to your bones. It will transform your mind. It will change you from the inside out. Close your eyes and give it all to Jesus. First thing, before you get out of bed. This is the beginning of following!! He makes us like Him, even though we live in this broken-down world in these bodies of death. He resides IN us and works THROUGH us for His glory.
This is work. Forget casual Fridays. Focus, darling, fix Your eyes on Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. He will give you what is yours to do. Whatever your hands find to do, do it to the glory of God! Do it with all your might until our rest comes. He will come back and get us, or we will pass into death, and therefore into life. Then we rest, and our real lives will begin.
Easter morning, I woke up without the usual scramble. I remembered Jesus and the resurrection, and my soul felt full, rich and satisfied.
I read about the disciples trudging back to the fishing boats, the only thing they knew before Jesus. I sensed how hopeless they must have felt, even after walking with Him every single day. Watching Him show them what to do. Teaching them with the words of eternal life, day in and day out. After He proved beyond all doubt, who He was with the resurrection, He was nowhere to be found. They didn’t know what else to do.
Take heart, dear one, your fears and doubts are not to bring you shame, but to sharpen your focus. Look for Him. The disciples found Him just past the water on the shore. Just past the night, at daybreak.
Keep holding on. Morning will come, and He come for you.
“But when the day was now breaking, Jesus stood on the beach...”
John 21:4
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