Kept

“I am the LORD;

I have called you in righteousness;

I will take you by the hand and keep you;”

- Isaiah 42:6

I have this fear that every relationship will end. Every guy that shows interest will one day not.

God speaks straight to this fear.

He says he will take me. He will keep me. Keep me.

He will never get to the point in knowing me where he feels it’s not worth the effort to continue, that I’m not worth the effort to continue.

He will keep me. He will value me. He will pursue me. He will protect me. I will take shelter in His faithfulness. And I never have to fear that He will leave me.

“But now thus says the LORD,

he who created you, O Jacob,

he who formed you, O Israel;

Fear not, for I have redeemed you;

I have called you by name, you are mine.”

- Isaiah 43:1

“I have loved you with an everlasting love;

therefore, I have continued my faithfulness to you.”

- Jeremiah 31:3

Remember

When my life was fainting away,

I remembered the Lord

This does not say, "the Lord remembered me," because God never forgets us. But we often deny, turn away from, and ignore God. Jonah was running from God. He forgot God is all-powerful, all-knowing, loving and good. He needed to remember God.

In my sin, in my disobedience, I need to remember God.

Remember He is gracious and forgiving.

Remember He knows best and loves most.

Remember He will never leave me alone.

Remember He is Lord and Savior and deserves my obedience and worship.

Remember He is protecting and disciplining me.

And God was right there waiting, listening.

And my prayer came to you,

Into your holy temple.

Jonah 2:7

Not Like Man

Unreserved, unrestrained

Your love is wild
Your love is wild for me
It isn't shy, it's unashamed
Your love is proud

To be seen with me

You don't give Your heart in pieces

You don't hide Yourself to tease us

Uncontrolled, uncontained

Your love is a fire

Burning bright for me

It's not just a spark

It's not just a flame

Your love is a light

That all the world will see

All the world will see

You don't give Your heart in pieces

You don't hide Yourself to tease us

Your love's not fractured

It's not a troubled mind

It isn't anxious

It's not the restless kind

Your love's not passive

It's never disengaged

It's always present

It hangs on every word we say

Love keeps its promises

It keeps its word

It honors what's sacred

'Cause its vows are good

Your love's not broken

It's not insecure

Your love's not selfish

Your love is pure

You don't give Your heart in pieces

You don't hide Yourself to tease us 

As I listened to this song, my mind and heart remembered all the men that said they loved me and wanted to be with me. I remember, however, a face - with every phrase -  that did the opposite.


I am so glad God is not like man.


I've been reading Ruth lately and I was drawn to Boaz's complete compassion. When Boaz extended kindness and protection to Ruth, she responded this way: Then she fell on her face, bowing to the ground, and said to him, "Why have I found favor in your eyes, that you should take notice of me, since I am a foreigner?"  

Oh Lord, what is man that you are mindful of him,
and the son of man that you care for him?

Why, Lord, are you mindful of me? Why in heaven would you take notice of me? And then bestow upon me grace after grace? 

Boaz blessed Ruth indeed. But God, Jesus is the better redeemer! Jesus gives eternal provision, protection, peace and prosperity. He takes us as His own, on His own accord. He gives everything freely - we have nothing to offer Him in return. He kindly takes notice of us sinful orphans and gives us salvation and a home.

Listen to the way the Lord speaks of us, speaks to us.

Therefore, behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak tenderly to her. And there I will give her her vineyards and make the Valley of Achor a door of hope.
Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her
And in that day, you will call me "My Husband"
And I will abolish the bow, the sword, and war from the land, and I will make you lie down in safety.
And I will betroth you to me forever.
I will betroth you to me in justice, in steadfast love and in mercy.
I will betroth you to me in faithfulness.
And you shall know the Lord.
Then you will call upon Me, and come and pray to Me, and I will hear you. You will seek Me and find Me, when you seek Me with all your heart.
"I will be found by you," declares the Lord.
But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. 
Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people: once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.
He who created you, O Jacob, He who formed you, O Israel: "Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are Mine."
The Lord your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; 
He will rejoice over you with gladness;
He will quiet you by His love;
He will exult over you with loud singing.
For thus said the Lord of hosts... he who touches you touches the apple of his eye
For from the first day that you set your heart to understand and humbled yourself before your God, your words have been heard, and I have come because of your words.
I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore, I have continued my faithfulness to you.


So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. 

For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angles nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Considering my past, the lies and shortcomings of others, my impure heart... it is easy to despair. 
Considering the nature of God, His unending faithfulness and compassion... I am led, like Ruth, to the ground in wonder and thanksgiving because God is not like man.

Scripture references: Ruth 2:10; Psalms 8:4; Ephesians 5:25; Hosea 2:14-20; Jeremiah 29:12-14a; 1 Peter 2:9-10; Isaiah 43:1; Zephaniah 3:17; Zechariah 2:8; Daniel 10:12; Jeremiah 31:3; 1 John 4:16; Romans 8:38-39

When Waiting is Painful

"And shall I pray Thee change Thy will, my Father,
Until it be according unto mine?
But no, Lord, no; that never shall be, rather
I pray Thee, blend my human will with Thine.

I pray Thee hush the hurrying, eager longing,
I pray Thee, soothe the pangs of keen desire,
See in my quiet places wishes thronging - 
Forbid them, Lord, purge, though it be with fire.

And work in me to will and do Thy pleasure,
Let all within me, peaceful, reconciled,
Tarry content my Wellbeloved's leisure
At last, at last, even as a weaned child."

- Nathan Brown of Burma's prayer



"Let not our longing slay the appetite of our living!"

- Jim to Betty Elliot

Mercy - A Walk Through Hosea

"When the LORD first spoke through Hosea, the LORD said to Hosea, "Go take to yourself a wife of whoredom and have children of whoredom, for the land commits great whoredom by forsaking the LORD." 

"She conceived again and bore a daughter. And the LORD said to him, "Call her name No Mercy, for I will no more have mercy on the house of Israel, to forgive them at all" 

"When she had weaned No Mercy, she conceived and bore a son. And the LORD said, "Call his name Not My People, for you are not my people, and I am not your God."

Hosea 1:2, 6, 8

The Lord commands Hosea to marry a prostitute to demonstrate the covenant God has made with an unfaithful nation, a nation that, despite God's goodness and grace, has run to false gods of wood and stone, has chased after foreign peoples and unholy customs. 

He then tells Hosea to name his children symbolically as well. The second child was named No Mercy. We often forget we serve a holy God. A just God. A God who can do no wrong and will not stand to be connected with evil. The only reasonable reaction from a holy God to an unholy people is to give no mercy. God gave the Israelites (and us) this warning in Deuteronomy 8:

1“The whole commandment that I command you today you shall be careful to do, that you may live and multiply, and go in and possess the land that the Lord swore to give to your fathers... 11 “Take care lest you forget the Lord your God by not keeping his commandments and his rules and his statutes, which I command you today, 12 lest, when you have eaten and are full and have built good houses and live in them, 13 and when your herds and flocks multiply and your silver and gold is multiplied and all that you have is multiplied, 14 then your heart be lifted up, and you forget the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, 15 who led you through the great and terrifying wilderness, with its fiery serpents and scorpions and thirsty ground where there was no water, who brought you water out of the flinty rock, 16 who fed you in the wilderness with manna that your fathers did not know, that he might humble you and test you, to do you good in the end. 17 Beware lest you say in your heart, ‘My power and the might of my hand have gotten me this wealth.’ 18 You shall remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you power to get wealth, that he may confirm his covenant that he swore to your fathers, as it is this day. 19 And if you forget the Lord your God and go after other gods and serve them and worship them, I solemnly warn you today that you shall surely perish. 20 Like the nations that the Lord makes to perish before you, so shall you perish, because you would not obey the voice of the Lord your God.

Deuteronomy 8: 1, 11-20

This, sadly, is exactly what they did. The Lord caused them to prosper materially, to take possession of the promised land, to dispossess other people, to experience His favor and presence. And they forgot God. They intermarried with those of other faiths, worshipped foreign gods, and corrupted the temple of the Lord. They were not careful to keep God's commands. So just as He said He would, God pronounced their judgement, "No Mercy".


But that's not all. Hosea's third child was named "Not My People". God disowned them. Read what God had previously called them:

6 “For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth. 7 It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the Lord set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples, 8 but it is because the Lord loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers, that the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. 9 Know therefore that the Lord your God is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, to a thousand generations, 10 and repays to their face those who hate him, by destroying them. He will not be slack with one who hates him. He will repay him to his face. 11 You shall therefore be careful to do the commandment and the statutes and the rules that I command you today.
Deuteronomy 7:6-11


Being God's chosen people gave them worth. They are nothing without God possessing them. That is what set them apart. Without God, they are just like all the other peoples on the face of the earth doomed to perish, due to their unholiness.


But. Yet. The most beautiful words, when faced with the verdicts due to us.


"But I will have mercy on the house of Judah, and I will save them by the LORD their God. I will not save them by bow or by sword or by war or by horses or by horsemen." 1:7
"Yet the number of the children of Israel shall be like the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured or numbered. And in the place where it was said to them, "You are not my people," it shall be said to them, "Children of the living God." And the children of Judah and the children of Israel shall be gathered together, and they shall appoint for themselves one head." 1:10-11


What? God will have mercy? God will save them? And not by any common, earthly way. God will save them by a miraculous way that no one expected. God prophesies that He will claim them again. They will be "Children of the living God." They shall be unified and follow one leader - Christ.


"Therefore remember that... you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who were once far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ... For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father. So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God"
Ephesians 2:11-13, 18-19


Christ is literally the only way we can be accepted by God. We just keep sinning. We are faithfully unfaithful. The only way a holy and just God can call us "Children" is by a payment that appeases His wrath and pays our sin debt.


Outside of Christ, we get No Mercy and we are Not His People. We have no life. See 1 John 5:11-12.


This is what our collective faithlessness deserves, what my faithlessness deserves - No Mercy, to be disowned and discarded. To be abandoned.


This is what must be overcome to give mercy. Mercy costs.


In chapter 2 of Hosea, we see how God disciplines Israel for their unfaithfulness. And similarly how God disciplines us. God calls out to us to turn away from sin and turn to Him before He gives consequences for our actions.
Mercy.


We keep trying to run after worthless things. We seek death and destruction. I will go after my lovers. But God blocks us - hedge up her way... so that she cannot find her paths.
Mercy.


God reminds us of His love and goodness. I will go and return to my first husband, for it was better for me then than now.
Mercy.


And she did not know that it was I... Israel was using God's gifts to worship false gods, thanking objects for what God had given. Instead of seeing God's goodness and running back to God in thanksgiving, the material blessings and the deception they were in made them run to the false gods more. How do we do that now?
~ God blesses us with money and we work harder and longer to make more, serving the money/work gods rather than thanking and trusting God for provision.
~ God gives us a good friendship with someone of the opposite sex and we idolize the person and put our hope in a future relationship, instead of thanking God for the companionship and experiences that should point back to Him.
We should always know that it was God who (fill in the blank). It is always God. He sovereignly and mercifully gives every good gift.


Then God disciplines because He is just and we are due our wages. And also because He doesn't want us to easily forget where our sin leads us. He wants us to know that apart from Him we can do nothing and we are walking to our demise. We experience His discipline that wakes us up to the truth, peels back the deception that makes us believe there is life apart from God.
Mercy. Painful Mercy.


Types of discipline seen in this chapter: removal of provision and gifts, shame and embarrassment, abandonment, depression, lasting joy removed, sources of security taken away, punishment


God loves us too much to let us stray too long and stay in our sin.
Mercy.


Therefore. The punishment is meant to bring Israel (us) to repentance. God wants restoration and reunion. In all my failed pursuits, I am always reminded that God is faithful, God is there, and God is enough. He forces me back to Him, back to love and life. I will allure her, and speak tenderly to her.
God gives good gifts. God makes us fruitful. God turns curses into hope, mourning into gladness, depression into joy!
Mercy!


God welcomes us back in. God forgives us. God claims us - call me "My Husband". And He does it all.
For I will - And I will - And I will - And I will - I will - I will. He says it 12 times from verse 17 - 23.
He brings us back. He names us as His. He renews our minds and desires. He makes a covenant with us. He brings peace and safety. He marries us, does all the pursuing and the wooing. He makes us righteous. He commits for forever. He gives us mercy.
Mercy!

And I will make you lie down in safety.

And I will betroth you to me forever.

I will betroth you to me in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love and in mercy.

I will betroth you to me in faithfulness.

And you shall know the Lord.

And I will have mercy on No Mercy

and I will say to Not My People, "You are my people";

and he shall say, "You are my God."

Hosea 2:18b-20, 23

Have I an Object, Lord, Below

Have I an object, Lord, below
Which would divide my heart with Thee?
Which would divert its even flow
In answer to Thy constancy?
O teach me quickly to return,
And cause my heart afresh to burn.

Have I a hope, however dear,
Which would defer Thy coming, Lord-
Which would detain my spirit here
Where naught can lasting joy afford?
From it, my Savior, set me free
To look and long and wait for Thee.

Be Thou the object bright and fair
To fill and satisfy the heart,
My hope to meet Thee in the air,
And nevermore from Thee to part;
That I may undistracted be
To follow, serve, and wait for Thee."

-G. W. Frazer


"Fix your eyes on the rising Morning Star. Don't be disappointed at anything or over-elated, either. Live every day as if the Son of Man were at the door, and gear your thinking to the fleeting moment. Just how can it be redeemed? Walk as if the next step would carry you across the threshold of Heaven. Pray. That saint who advances on his knees never retreats."
-Jim Elliot

Repairing Joy

My car needed some repairs that would take basically all day. The shop is maybe a mile up the road from my apartment. So I resolved to walk to get my car when it was ready.

The walk took 15 minutes at a stroll pace. 
The sun was bright at 98 degrees.
The road was full at the height of rush hour on a Monday afternoon.
I grabbed my water and started out the door.

At first, my mind wandered to a current circumstance. I barely even noticed the road right in front of me. I fought the temptation to not be present, to let my thoughts carry me off to deal with something I clearly couldn't actually deal with at that time. I wanted to see and feel and be there in the walk.

So I looked around. Trees. Grass. Sunlight. Cars. Drivers' faces. Mostly looking at their phones. Or the road. Some even looking at me. Some trying not to. One man waved. Not in the Hey-girl-can-I-get-yo-numba kind of way. But in the I-want-to-encourage-you-in-your-journey kind of way. Another tried to let me cross in front of his car. I waited for the light, thank you very much!

I wondered what they thought. Did they feel pity because of the temperature outside of A/C-filled cars? Did they worry that I was too close to the road? How old did they perceive me to be?

I started to think how grateful I was that I did have a car, one I was just going to pick up. It was costing a lot of money, but it ran well. Even better, after the repairs. I did have air conditioning. I didn't have to walk around from place to place. I didn't really have to walk then. I surely could have called a friend if I thought it necessary.

Then I started to think how grateful I was for the walk. So many blessings and evidences of God's grace were visible in that walk. At the most basic, I could walk. It was no real hassle for me to carry my able body the 1-2 miles across the busy highway. The shop was so close. They fixed my car - did exactly what they said they would. The weather was beautiful. God kept me safe. God provided all the money needed to get the repairs and able eyes and hands that saw problems and addressed them. And when I picked my car up, the man blessed me, pointing my eyes right back to the God who was worthy and deserving of all the thanks.

It's easy for us to see circumstances like car trouble as frustrations come to steal our joy - and resources. But that's not how God sees them. God says that He works everything for our good, those that love Him and are called according to His purpose. That purpose is making us Christlike. The devil would like to deceive us into believing our only logical responses to difficulty and annoyance are complaining, worrying or anger. But God says something different. God says we should count our tests and trials as joy. Joy that will make us perfect and complete through a cultivation of steadfastness.

God is good, and His steadfast love endures forever. Forever doesn't stop when we need car repairs. 

What are you allowing to frustrate you? 
How can you take hold of the joy Jesus already purchased for us at the cross? 
What other truths of God's word are you allowing the devil to discount through difficulty?

Stand firm on the Word, Jesus Himself. And rejoice. Again, I say rejoice. We have the victory in Christ. He has overcome the world and through Him, we are more than conquerors.