my good & His glory

It seems my feet are muddy.

Some days, some weeks, some months or years can be muddy roads. I can’t seem to miss those dark puddles. I can’t seem to get the dirt off my clothes, the mud off my tired feet.

I write, and it looks messy. The letters and the life behind the words.

Everyday, I step into a roomful of strangers. These are moments when I wish I could be more like my friend who sees all strangers as friends yet to be had. But I have my own struggles, and strangers are strange and sometimes frightening. I talk loud and confident to them, but sometimes, inside, I am shaking, not saying what I wish to say. Only whatever rehearsed line escapes my lips first. Not all days, but enough.

Why here? Why has He called me here? Did I do something wrong? Should I have stayed near my college, tried to get a job there? Should I have shipped out to some foreign country? Is this a punishment? Did I miss something?

I have asked these questions. Because there are days when I don’t know.

Days when people from the past walk by, and I feel like the ghost. Days when nothing seems to go easily, let alone as planned. Days full of loud advice from those who don’t really listen to what you are saying. Days when I can’t seem to wake up—can’t seem to see the world blooming around me. Days when counting gifts is a heavy, strained exercise.

Days when I don’t seem to have answers.

But we don’t live on answers. If I have learned anything through the questions and the wondering and the doubt, it is that we will starve, if we live off of answers. And haven’t I been pondering manna? Thousands living on mystery alone. I read in in those pages of the devotional, and it struck anew, the way Ann said it.

“When we find ourselves groping along, famished for more, we can choose to live as Israelites gathering manna. For forty long years, God’s people daily eat manna—a substance whose name literally means “what is it?” Hungry, they choose to gather up that which is baffling. They fill on that which has no meaning. More than 14,600 days they take their daily nourishment from that which they don’t comprehend. They find soul-filling in the inexplicable. They eat the mystery.” Ann Voskamp.

What we need is not answers. It is mysterious. It is Him.

But he answered, “It is written,

“‘Man shall not live by bread alone,
    but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”

Matthew 4:4 (Jesus is quoting Deuteronomy 8:3, a reference to manna)

So the days come, and I think of Christ, my word for the year, and so much more importantly: my Savior, the only One who can clean my muddy feet. When I don’t know what else to do, I look for Him. The One who began in me what He has promised to finish. (Phil 1:6) 

And I don’t feel it right away, but there is sunlight, and the gentle sound of music, and thawing that is slow, and then sudden.

Perspective. And I remember this is for my good & His glory.

As autumn blooms and dies, I learn and grow.

Misplacement & Manna

Somewhere between all the goings and comings, in the spaces and plodding along, a seed is growing. Though autumn is in full bloom outside, inside of me there is this sprouting spring.

Being home instead of at college, being in a different school every day(substitute teaching), being in a big church, well, it can sometime feel a little like being lost. Displaced. Misplaced?

This isn't what I thought it would be. My life. I thought I would have a full time teaching position. I thought I would have made scads of friends at church by now. But it took two years to settle in at college—why would I expect this change to be slick and quick?

And why can't this slow be a good thing?

It is. 

As much as it drives me crazy sometimes—or makes me think I am crazy—there is something quietly lovely about here.

"redemption comes in strange places, 

small spaces
calling out the best of who we are
and I want to add to the beauty
to tell a better story
I want to shine with the light
that's burning up inside, oh..."
Sara Groves

Doesn't this change perspective? Instead of wishing, begging to be in a beautiful place—why not make the place we are more beautiful?

Here, there is humility to be learned, to be chosen, to be practiced. Adding to the beauty isn't about adding to our resumes, our followers, our likes. It often requires sacrifice—of time, of thought, of energy. And it begins small & strange. Two mushrooms in the forest. A brief text to be reminded I am not forgotten. A nice conversation with a new friend. A keeping track and counting of all that He gives.

A focus on noticing more than being noticed.

"Even among Christians — despite what we know in the depths of ourselves – there is great enthusiasm for being noticed, perhaps at the expense of the quiet acquisition of virtue." Jennifer Dukes Lee

These words pierce deep, and it begs the question—what is it I am after? While I walk the steps of each day, what am I chasing? (because we are always chasing something) Being noticed? Or the quiet acquisition of virtue? Because maybe this wilderness is for my good. Maybe where I am is no mistake, and I am not misplaced. Maybe sub jobs and unexpected reassurances, and His presence are my manna, coming day by day, so that I learn the habit of trust. Take a slow read through Exodus 16. Manna every morning because they looked for the source of life in their bread alone, and that way would only lead them to death. He responds, even to their grumbles, with grace.

I fail, but I learn to take my manna with a humble smile, and make the very most of that "what is it?" that comes in the quiet, the small, and the strange. In His ways that are mystery.
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Maybe I am the only one who likes quaint mushrooms on my desktop, but who knows? Click the image to download if so inspired!