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.

Grass Blades & His Ways

It came to me as I sat in a moment of frustrated rest. The strokes, greens pale and deep, and some golden, were so repetitive, over and over, up and up in thin, haphazard lines. I have never loved painting grass. Every ten minutes I would droop—arms crashing to bent knee, head hanging limp.

“I just want to be done.”

This was my frustrated whisper.

This is the frustration of my soul.

I didn’t know just what I wanted to be done with then, but I knew it was something important, something worth wrestling with in the night. 

Done, I wanted to be done—to be over that sin, to be through the waiting, to be healed completely, to fully forgive, to release it all, to know how to live a godly life where I am, to be right there at the end of the work begun in me.

 And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. (Philippians 1:6 ESV)

Can that day be today? My semblance of patience is but a thin mask; I am not patient. Not today, anyway.

Some days ago I read Psalm 85 in the fresh rays of morning. The words seemed fresh to me—I am not sure I ever read this particular Psalm before, or really let the words soak into my soul.

Let me hear what God the Lord will speak, 

for he will speak peace to his people, to his saints; but let them not turn back to folly.
Surely his salvation is near to those who fear him, that glory may dwell in our land.

Steadfast love and faithfulness meet; righteousness and peace kiss each other.

 Faithfulness springs up from the ground, and righteousness looks down from the sky.
Yes, the Lord will give what is good, and our land will yield its increase.

Righteousness will go before him and make his footsteps a way.( Psalm 85:8-13 ESV)

The end of the Psalm still tumbles about my mind; the words have been percolating, and the power of His Voice penetrating. And when I look at the way the words are put together, it pierces deep. I am no scholar (though I would very much like to be) but I like looking to the Strong’s Concordance for the deepening of understanding, the concentrating of the language.

The King James Version translates the last sentence as “Righteousness shall go before him; and shall set us in the way of his steps.” The word for steps, is also sometimes translated as time, a beat, an occurrence. And this settles over my soul the way this early autumnal sun settles over my shoulders: warmly. In the way of His time, His beat, His steps.

But I read it again, and again, look at more words: Make or set can be translated also as establish, or appoint. And way is sometimes translated as the course of life, a journey.

He will establish us in a life of His rhythm; a journey in His beat will be appointed to us. He will make his footsteps a way.  Behind and before us, His footsteps are a way to walk, a way to spend our lives. 

The connotations are coming together, the way becoming clearer.

My soul knows it not well enough yet: small strokes and steps make lives, set by the One who will give what is good. Will I ever remember? “Sometimes the great thing that heals us is doing a small thing again and again.” That is what Ann Voskamp said, and isn’t healing what I want? Maybe I don’t need some huge, flashy miracle, but small, gritty, everyday miracles, beautiful blessings He cannot help but give, everyday chipping away of what I must release. I need these brushstrokes of green, over and over, disciplining the heart to know what it forgets; I need to read the words over, over, to give thanks again, again in all the smallest of graces, to give the hurts and hardened parts to the One who sends them forever away. And I come to wonder if the journey is slow so that it can be filled with more of Him, that we may know Him more for all our weakness and suffering.

So I paint and paint and paint these blades of grass so that I won’t forget.

The Lord will give what is good.
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I traced the oak leaf from the lake, and would he ever have imagined that falling down and drying out would lead to beauty that might go on and on? Beauty to encourage, to remind us of His promises?
So here, have a printable poster in two sizes :)
And maybe make it your own, you know? Print on colored paper? Watercolor it? Or leave it simple, like mine. Click right on the images to download.

8.5" x 11"

11" x 17"