Lost And Not Found- When Healing Doesn't Come

My friends, may we bloom in the pruning as that which is lost reveals that which has been found...

I have noticed something about my blogs which is becoming a trend that turns out to have been true since the very beginning- the pieces I write which are specifically about what God is doing in the present moment in my life have the most readers. It’s not the big and grandiose formulations of ideas, or the generalized concepts and emotions which pour forth in my writing that gather the most listeners- if this was the case then my personal favorite, the piece I wrote about Turbulent Faith last year during a tumultuous period of my wounded journey would be the highest read blog.

But instead, it’s the simple pieces about what God is doing here, today, in the mundane and routine chapters of my story that gleans a greater audience and seem to have the most impact. And while I am certainly not here to amass fame or popularity (else I would not disclose my brokenness and mistakes to all of you), I am here to honor God by contributing to His Kingdom in some small way through the gift of writing about my tiny faith.

And so today I will offer a simple look at what God is doing within me this week.

One realization has struck me and stuck with me since several days ago, on a rare occasion when I was truly praying out my heart to God from a place of complete honesty and dependence upon Him.

The realization was this- I like to finish everything I start. I am a perfectionist, INFJ-T personality who naturally leaves no margin for error. I solve problems, I clean up messes, I fix what’s broken- yes, I always finish everything I start. I don't let go of something until it's perfectly complete, even if that simply means I won't stop thinking about it.

And as I lay there asking God to please bring my healing journey to completion now, please let this work be perfected in me today, He said:

“No. You may always finish everything you start, but this unfinished work I am doing in you is MY work. It’s Mine. And I am not going to heal all the broken pieces in this lifetime because it is the incomplete nature of the struggle that draws you closer to Me. This unfinished work is Mine and if I choose to leave some places unhealed, trust me because I know what I am doing. I am not going to fully heal you in this lifetime, my daughter, and I need you to invite Me to sit with you in that tension until it transforms you to rise above it.”

Some pieces of our broken past will not be healed in this lifetime. That’s a promise we can count on.

So what to do with this painful reality?

Well first I must nuance this by saying that I do not have a Father who hurts His children or causes pain- of this He is not capable because He is perfect love. But I do serve a King who puts our spiritual growth above all else, and sometimes this does cause a conflict of interest. When this happens, IF we are willing to cooperate with His refining work in us, THEN He will choose our transformation over our comfort. Such is the hard and drawn-out life of a disciple.

So now the story:

 This week my daughter came running into the house from the backyard, the dog close on her heels, fur flying everywhere as she exclaimed that something amazing had happened. She was ecstatic and exuberant and out of breath with joy. We all piled through the doorway to see her discovery.

There in the rosebed we beheld a single red rose blooming among the white ones, all connected to the same root on the same plant that had always produced white flowers since the time we moved here four years ago. This was not a slight hue of red, but a deep, rich dark and velvety red color that popped out from the bright white blooms all around it.

As we observed this phenomenon with curiosity, my daughter declared “God made this for me because my feelings were hurting.”

A week before this she had a birthday where we celebrated her six years of life together, and one of her favorite party decorations was a giant metallic balloon of the rarest kind of the ridiculously rare LOL dolls. After the party she took it outside and played for all of ten minutes before the weight slipped off the bottom of the string and it took flight before she knew what had happened. 

The joys of the birthday had turned into tears, and she wailed “ITS GOOONE!!!” as I came to console her in her room. I hardly had the heart to bear it with her. I was somewhat angry at God for not stopping it from flying away from this little child with simple desires.

After a week of grief and repeated nighttime prayers that God would please bring it back to her, the balloon had not returned and the hole remained in her joy as she looked back on that special day. And yet, in the simplest forms of childlike trust, she determined that this strange red rose which bloomed from the white bush must be an answer.

No, God is not going to heal the pain of loss, but He can use it to turn our eyes towards Him and teach us to see other blessings that we might otherwise have missed. What is gone may not return to us, but we can apply our childlike faith towards a posture of receiving something new and much more magical.

Of course my logical adult brain wanted to understand what was really going on with the roses, so I researched and found out that when a rose bush is pruned back “too far” it can bring a regrowth of the grafted root system from a heartier red rose plant which is sometimes used to produce stronger white roses. Normally you would not see any signs of the red rose plant which was grafted onto the white stalk, but cut too deep and it will bloom again and the truth will be told. These white roses could not survive without the hearty root system hidden at their base.

One article said: "The 'hue' of a rose may differ a tiny bit in extreme conditions (especially in searing heat), but roses don't completely change color. However, most roses are 'two plants in one'—the desired blooming variety on top, grafted to the rootstock of a very different and really tough rose below. If the top part of the graft dies, the rootstock takes over. Roses are much tougher plants in general than people seem to realize, and the varieties used for the rootstocks are almost indestructible."

I did not tell any of this to my daughter, because of course she was probably right and this red rose was not about facts or human logic but about the human soul and the divine Spirit. After all, you can explain away any miracle of God, even the Cross of Christ, as God will remain hidden in plain sight so that nobody is forced to know Him. 

But I contemplated this lesson for myself, in thinking about my prayer for emotional healing and asking God for deliverance from inner conflict. His response was "No", plain and simple. But what is He producing from that deep cutting in my soul? Well, as He prunes us down to the essence of who we really are, He reveals new growth that tells the truth about our origins. We are red royalty underneath, the hidden source of our purchased divinity.

We are really weak and broken human beings who have been grafted into the family of God so that we can flourish and grow and produce white and holy things.

But rest assured, our roots go deep down into the rich red of forgiveness and redemption. We would not be white if we did not adhere to the rosy hue of the Cross.

Cut deep enough into the depth of the human soul and you will find the truth. What was lost has not been found, and healing may not come, but there is a promise in the pruning.

Why won’t He bring that balloon back to my daughter down from the sky? The same reason He won’t take me up out of emotional tension and conflict- He is pruning us down to our essence, where the true power and strength is found. He is wicking away our false notions of independence and stubborn pride and revealing His Spirit working in us.

This unfinished work is His, and there is nothing we can do except allow the pruning and maintain the growing, up and up from the deep cuts which we thought might be our undoing.

The Savior is not found in the strength of human effort, but in the uplifted hands of a broken sinner.

And as we grow up from fear to relationship with Him, we will turn our hearts to the Son and open up to His Kingdom working in and through us in a way that accommodates the red blood of pain but also the bright white of victory.

Friends, I am so glad you have met with me here today. There is so much more I could try to say, but instead I will simply say this: If God is cutting away the things which you thought you needed to be a whole and happy human person, please know that you are not alone, and that from this pruning comes a harvest of blessings which our feeble human minds cannot fathom.

Some healing takes an entire lifetime and then an eternity after that, but keep your eyes out for ways that He is responding to your wants and meeting your needs.

Have faith like a child to say “God made this for me because He knows my feelings are hurt,” and rest in the place of tension with the assurance that He knows, He sees, and He is working in the pain as the source of all blessing.

When our resources are stripped away then we remember our humanity and realize that we are in fact rooted into Someone much stronger than ourselves.

Don’t be ashamed to let your red rose bloom out from among your white ones- it might just be that very thing which someone sees and then says, “God used you to acknowledge my pain today.”

Bloom bravely, my friends, and take pride in the broken places, because it is there where God is working to bring about divine revelation. The 'hue' of a person’s behaviors may differ a tiny bit in extreme conditions (especially in searing pain), but human beings don't completely change identity. However, all Christ followers are 'two identities in one'—the recognized blooming human being on top, grafted to the rootstock of a very different and really tough Being below. If the top part of the graft dies, the rootstock takes over. Jesus followers have much tougher faith in general than people seem to realize because the One used for their rootstocks is entirely indestructible.

This unfinished work is His, not yours. Turn your face up to the Son, let go and release it to Him, and watch your shame float away up, up, up into the sky, never to be seen again.

Then find that red rose which speaks of the foundation of all that is good even in the cutting and the pruning and the falling out and looking up- turn and see the red which mars the white and call yourself blessed. Because you are blessed. You are blessed. You are.

Thank you, dear reader, for meeting here with me. May we bloom in the pruning as what is irreparably lost reveals that we have been found by love.

With Gratitude,

Rebecca

~*~

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Welcome Worry, Invite Jesus {A Margin Of Surrender}

This egg has been abandoned because of fear. It lies cold and dead, a memorial to all that could have been. It will never live to its potential because its mother fled away in fear from territorial attackers.

The enemy is always looking for ways to squelch our best intentions- this is why the Universe is always sending us countering messages of hope. But we must actively listen, because the opposition is loud and demanding while the gentle inner Voice will never squabble for our attention.

Who knew that hopes and dreams were such targets for oppression?

To run away from fear is to abandon your hopes and dreams to the clutches of a hard and broken world.

When you deny your emotions, it is like fleeing the nest egg of your hearts desires.

So now is the time to sit and be silent.

Listen. Take inventory of the emotion inside yourself.

What do you feel? What resides there in the hidden places of your soul?

Yes, there it is inside, deep down beneath the busy of the day- worry.

I see you, fear. I see you anxiety. Sit with me.

Perhaps this worry is an unwelcome guest, or maybe it is an old roommate. No matter- welcome it anyways.

It brings a whole host of cohorts- anxiety, fear, bitterness, anger, doubt.

Welcome worry?

Yes. Welcome it.

Allow worry to enter in and sit beside you. Say,

“Welcome, worry, please take a seat.

Thank you for being here, I acknowledge what you bring.

Although you cannot stay here for long, I invite you to dwell with me here.

Please, tell me what it is that you need.”

Always ask worry what it needs, because there is always a deeper longing that drove it to knock on your door.

I was once opposed to worry, and I denied it, stuffed it down and shut it out.

I said to myself, “No worry! Just stop worrying!”

But when I do this, worry finds other ways to get in- it sneaks in a window and surprises me from behind or haunts me from the shadows. It ruins my life if I don’t make space for it.

Worry takes many forms, which is why our very own Pastor Swamidass spoke about it from the pulpit-

How To Free Myself From The Weight Of Worry- Living On A Margin – Part 6.

This week I was worried about what would happen next on my journey to becoming a counselor. I was searching for validation from my Father as to what my next step should be.

I wanted to start in the Fall semester but I was worried about a confliction with an already-committed family trip. It would cause me to miss class for a full week of vacation, which is rather unacceptable when you are working with a committed attitude towards your M.Div. I debated pushing my start date out another 9 months, which seemed so very far away considering the fire burning in my heart.

And I worried.

“God,” I prayed, “I come before you with a new desire in my heart- I believe You put it there in Your loving kindness towards me. I want to go back to school for my Masters degree. I will not be afraid to trust You- I sense that this dream is not only in line with Your plan, it is what You have wanted for me for a long time.  You simply had to wait  for me to arrive at it in my own way, in my own time. Please, Father, can I have Your provision for this dream?”

Welcome, worry. 

Welcome, Jesus.

Sit with me here. Let’s all meet together.

I have made margin for both of you at the table of my soul.

“Father, I usually don’t ask for big picture items, but You put this desire within me for a reason. I thank You for bringing attention to the dream in my heart, to become a counselor and life-coach so that I can talk others through hard seasons and the worries of their own lives. Someday I want to have a little office somewhere, maybe in a church or a freedom center, where I can make this vocation a reality. God, I humbly ask for Your provision and support to move ahead into this dream for my life.”

Now Jesus is leaning over the table, meeting with my worry and communing with it. It won’t be long before my worry can let go of me, so that I can surrender it up to Him.

“I have never had a great aspiration that was all just for myself, so this feels foreign. I don’t know how to ask You this, Jesus, but here goes: Please send me affirmation with every step I take, so that I have the internal conviction that I am not alone and that You are working beside me. I need You at the center of this vision for my future. I want to do this work in Your name, for Your glory and for my joy. Amen.”

The Admissions Counselor smiles kindly and nods when I ask about my week vacation- she turns to look at her computer screen, clicks and scrolls while I wait, and then turns to me with these words which I will never forget-

“Well, it looks like the date of your upcoming vacation will coincide with the week when the entire school shuts down for a conference. There should not be a problem with those dates at all.”

Jesus.

Truly, I must be His favorite, because He shut down the entire campus just so I could take my vacation and also start school in the Fall. This is affirmation, not coincidence. Thank you, Jesus.

Worry has fled the room, and I breathe deep. It is just Jesus sitting beside me now, the sound of grace bouncing off the empty furniture. I will remember this moment in the days to come, when I doubt my motives and question my ambitions. I will remember how He affirms me.

Welcome worry so that you can give it what it needs and then release it away from yourself.

And when I get home I remember what our Pastor Swamidass said from the screen on Sunday- 

“Walk in the peace He provides. The difference between terror and excitement is trusting who is in control.”

If I am not careful, the excitement of my journey can become terror- only when I welcome Jesus into my worry can I reset my intentions.

Only when I make margin for the worry to be acknowledged, welcomed, and fully felt can it  then be fully released to Jesus because I remember that the outcome of each fear can be freely surrendered to Him.

If you long for the three fundamental needs of human existence, love, safety, and control, then you must first meet with yourself on the level of your emotions.

Take stock of your emotions, meet with them, greet them with respect and hear their needs without judgement. Then invite Jesus into each piece of insecurity and watch how He begins a healing work in those hurting places.

When I worry, I have begun to welcome the worry as a friend in need of guidance. “Welcome, worry, you are invited to be here for a little while. Tell me what you need.”

When worry is triggered in a relationship, I say “Welcome, Jesus. You are here with me.”

When worry is activated inside my body as anxiety, I say “Welcome, Jesus, welcome inside this part of me that feels fear.”

When worry rises up with hurtful memories, I say “Welcome, Jesus, I invite you into my past because only You know how to heal it.”

This welcoming prayer is a tool that I use to heal my emotional wounds and insecurities- I need it daily, especially since beginning this unexpected journey towards something new.

Our emotions like to present themselves as complicated, but usually they are not so. Often, at the center of an emotional reaction is a wound, plain and simple, and inviting the professional Counselor of our souls is exactly what we need to begin the healing process.

Friends, allow me this one last thing before I conclude-

Before my intention to attend school and return to studies, my husband had the inclination to build me an office space. It was supposed to be for my creative writing, which I do on the side. He ordered the furniture and drew up the plans.

Turns out he was creating a space for my studies before either of us realized.

But there was certainly Someone who knew exactly what would be needed, and He was one step ahead of me lighting the way.

Reader, I invite you to say this when you feel your own worry rising-

The Welcoming Prayer (by Father Thomas Keating)
Welcome, welcome, welcome.
I welcome everything that comes to me today
because I know it's for my healing.
I welcome all thoughts, feelings, emotions, persons,
situations, and conditions.
I let go of my desire for power and control.
I let go of my desire for affection, esteem,
approval and pleasure.
I let go of my desire for survival and security.
I let go of my desire to change any situation,
condition, person or myself.
I open to the love and presence of God and
God's action within. Amen.

Friends, combat your worry with contemplative prayer- invite Jesus into the dark places, the hurting places, the doubt and the fear. Let Him abide with you in anxiety and begin His healing work in your soul.

The tiny egg of our desires will be abandoned because of fear if we do not actively fight for a place in the margin where we can sit and nurse our frightened inner child.

Who knew that hopes and dreams were such targets for emotional violence?

To run away from fear is to abandon your hopes and dreams to the clutches of a hard and broken world.

So when worry comes in to attack your territory, do not flee- welcome it in and open up a conversation with it. Find out what it needs.

Contemplate your fears without criticizing them- invite Jesus to abide in them with you, find out what you need, and trust Him to meet that need.

He may just build you a desk or cancel a week of school just to affirm His love for you.

And if not that, at the very least He will bring the peace that passes understanding, because He cares about what happens to you.

Trust your emotions to the One who made them and gave them to you.

Trust your desires to the One who put them in your heart.

Welcome your worry, invite your Savior, and abide in the margin of surrender and healing.

Sit there with your dreams, keep them warm, and do not abandon the nest which holds the desires of your heart.

Beneath those worries you will find a treasure. Don't be afraid to dig deep to find it. Don't be afraid to sit with yourself in the pit even when it's scary.

Extend empathy and compassion to yourself because this keeps your spirit warm.

Remain diligent, my friends. Sit in the margin even when worry comes, and never abandon the God-given needs of your soul.

With Love,

Rebecca

~*~

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Designed To Desire {A Margin Of Contentment}

Today I taught my Saddleback Kids about the temptation of Jesus, and I also had the opportunity to preach this lesson to myself:

I am designed to desire contentment, 

and it can be found in the margin of Grace.

But this is hard.

My favorite author Dallas Willard puts the struggle this way: “Almost all of us are acutely aware of how the incessant clamorings of our bodies defeat our intentions to ‘be spiritual’”.

But what does it mean to be truly content?

Today this human question makes sense to me in a new way, and I have a bit more hope about the answer than I did the day before.

And so I am here cooking dinner and contemplating this with a heart full of gratitude on a Sunday evening.

Contentment is as much a spiritual posture as it is a physical discipline. It means coming before God as an empty vessel and receiving His declaration that we are beautifully made and eternally loved even if we remain empty forever- and THEN allowing Him to fill us up with whatever He deems best.

Contentment requires deep trust, both in ourselves as we remain vulnerable and open, and in our God as He determines what to pour into our lives as He meets our needs.

We were all born brimming with desire- we are creatures of deep need and longing, filled with a gaping emptiness that we ourselves cannot fill. From birth we are screaming for fulfillment and are helpless to achieve it on our own- no, we must look to our Provider as he meets our needs through His created things.

We desire to desire.

And then we want our desires to be met quickly. And then we desire to desire again.

It is a vicious cycle.

BUT we WERE designed to desire- except in a whole and healthy Kingdom, not in this broken wounded one full of scarcity and fear.

So we must lean into the vulnerability of desire and abide in the full awareness of the deep hunger in our souls.

This week we gathered as a church family to hear about “Learning To Be Content”, part four of the Living on a Margin series.

Though this week’s topic might seems to be surface level, in actuality it plumbs down into the depths of our beings and can reveal some critical components about who we are and where we are going, both as individuals and as a human race.

To learn to be content is to begin the practice of soul care.

Because our souls are crying out for permission to abide with God in this, the present moment, without rushing on in haste for satisfaction of something more, which in actuality is something less.

To be discontent is to disparage the value of who you have already become.

As Pastor Dave Page said on Sunday, “Contentment is margin for your soul.” Indeed, it is the place where we sit with our needs without pushing them away or strangling them close- resting in the desire without squelching it.

Each week I have the joy of teaching elementary students about Jesus- this week we covered the topic of Jesus being tempted by Satan in the wilderness. I would like to correlate what Pastor Page said about contentment with what I taught my Saddleback Kids about the temptation of Jesus. I think it pieces together nicely, and I thank the Spirit for the correlating of these different ideas.

Pastor Dave gave three truths about contentment which line up quite nicely with the three tests that Christ experienced in my Sunday school lesson from Matthew 4:1-13.

~*~

IDEA ONE:

One of the points on our Sunday morning outline was the idea that “Contentment isn’t found in what happens to me”.

Perhaps I can rephrase this to fit my own flawed thinking, the seed of so many of my mistakes-

LIE #1: I AM WHAT I DO.

This misconception will lead to a great deal of discontent in the lives of all of us, and it is a lie that most people, including myself, believe on a regular basis. To wage war against this tragedy we must wield our contentment with mindfulness and gratitude for each present moment.

We must fight against the lie that we are what we do, whether that action is good or bad.

As the adults were learning this in the auditorium, here is what I was learning with my Saddleback Kids-

4 Then Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan River. He was led by the Spirit in the wilderness,^[a] 2 where he was tempted by the devil for forty days. Jesus ate nothing all that time and became very hungry.

³ Then the devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become a loaf of bread.”

⁴ But Jesus told him, “No! The Scriptures say, ‘People do not live by bread alone.’^[b]”

Can’t you hear the voice of the enemy here?

Make bread, Jesus, you need to do something or you will die! God cannot provide!

That voice tells us to be discontented with our circumstances, DO SOMETHING, take action to fix the problem, the contentment will be found within our abilities as an individual apart from God. You must react NOW.

This voice gets me in trouble.

I have reacted in foolish ways to what I thought I needed to do. I believed that I needed to perform for love.

This is why Jesus said NO, I am not “what I do”, because the human body needs to rely on God in order to nourish the soul.

No, I am not what I do, because my identity and worth as a child of God is not founded on my actions (thank God!) but upon His.

No, I am not what I do, and if I believe that, I will always be discontented, because I will always fall short.

If I am what I do, then I am a sinner, a failure, a reject, a prodigal, homeless, churchless, an orphan.

But this is not true of me, because-

Contentment is found

in what He lovingly does

to nourish my faith

in the margins of each day.

Thank you Jesus.

~*~

IDEA TWO:

 We also heard this statement from the pulpit on Sunday- “Contentment isn’t found in what I have.”

Put another way-

Lie #2: I AM WHAT I HAVE.

And my Saddleback kids and I learned the next part of the story from Luke-

⁵ Then the devil took him up and revealed to him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. ⁶ “I will give you the glory of these kingdoms and authority over them,” the devil said, “because they are mine to give to anyone I please. ⁷ I will give it all to you if you will worship me.”

⁸ Jesus replied, “The Scriptures say,

‘You must worship the Lord your God
    and serve only him.’^[c]”

Do you recognize the voice of the enemy on this one?

You are what you have. Collect as much as you can, keep a list, make a chart, compare yourself. 

Keep track, hold on to your hurts because they define you, possess and own every offense done to you because it empowers you. If you identify yourself with what you have then you will be abundant with wealth, riches, power, safety.

This is a scarcity mindset- keep everything for yourself, because there is not enough to go around.

No, friends, this is not the Kingdom economy. I have learned the hard way (and continue to learn) that the Kingdom currency has turned the competition of the world upside down.

There is no scarcity in Jesus, only abundance.

If I am what I have, then I am in great trouble because I have regret, grief, shame, fear, anxiety, hurts, grievances, grudges, and offense, just to name a few. I could never be content with this lot. When I identity myself with the feelings and thoughts that I have, I identify myself with internal chaos and rampant discontentment.

Alternately, when I judge the value of my person based on my material possessions, then the value of my life is time-stamped and perishable at best, old and useless at its worst, and is always based on an endless desire for more, more, more.

Scarcity is the death of contentment.

I am surely glad to know that I am not what I have. Rather-

Contentment is found

in what He provides

to grow my trust in Him

in the margins of every hour.

Thank you Jesus.

~*~

Finally, the greatest temptation of all is presented to us. Church, we must hear this one for all it’s worth, because to miss this is to fail to heed a major warning.

IDEA THREE:

This is the hardest lesson of all, the one we have all believed again and again. It’s the area of desire which is the most tempting, which is why Satan saved the best for last with Jesus.

It is the lie that we need the approval of others to be called a child of God.

It’s the lie that says we are only worthy of love and belonging if we are liked by everyone around us.

It’s the lie that says we might not be safe to belong in this world as we truly are.

LIE #3: I AM WHAT PEOPLE SAY ABOUT ME.

Oh this one is powerful, dreadfully so. Which is why we were reminded by our teaching Pastor on Sunday- “Contentment isn’t found in comparing myself with others.”

We are all bent towards a desire for validation from other humans- it is perhaps one of our greatest weaknesses. We want to be well liked, well respected, spoken highly of. When we are not, what are we?

We desire prestige, respect, admiration. We are not content if we don’t have it.

We want to know that when we jump, we will be caught and raised up, lifted high by the praises of our peers, friends, church and family.

We want to know that we are safe to belong, and that if we fall our community will be there to catch us.

But I know this is not always the case, and from Jesus’ example we can all see how it is dangerous to make a blind leap onto the opinions of others-

⁹ Then the devil took him to Jerusalem, to the highest point of the Temple, and said, “If you are the Son of God, jump off! ¹⁰ For the Scriptures say,

‘He will order his angels to protect and guard you.
¹¹ And they will hold you up with their hands
    so you won’t even hurt your foot on a stone.’^[d]”

¹² Jesus responded, “The Scriptures also say, ‘You must not test the Lord your God.’^[e]”

Instead of looking to people for validation, we are called by God to look to Him and Him alone. All else is secondary.

But we desire human praises, which is why we become co-dependent, anxious and fearful of rejection.

It hurts to be let down, and it hurts to let down others. I have experienced both, very deeply. Which is why I can appreciate this final temptation of Jesus on a personal level.

Jump and test if they will catch you.

What happens when they don’t?

You are wounded deeply and you will never be the same.

So we must get up, regroup, attend therapy and hear what God is teaching us-

Contentment is found

in what He says about me

in the margins of each moment.

Thank you Jesus.

~*~

Yes, teaching my Saddleback Kids about the temptation of Jesus was really about preaching a lesson to myself, a lesson which was reinforced by the Sunday sermon later that morning.

And it is a good lesson to be reminded of, because discontent is a human problem and a human being who lives a contented life is a rare thing indeed.

The enemy wants for nothing more than to keep us restless, unhappy, unsatisfied and looking in the wrong places for answers. This has been the war tactic for ages.

¹³ When the devil had finished tempting Jesus, he left him until the next opportunity came.

Because rest assured, my friends, the feelings of discontent will come. We will desire things we think we need, things which we mistakenly assume shape our identity: to HAVE, to DO, to BE in ways that do not involve the Kingdom economy of our God.

But God is in the business of refining our desires to make them look like His- holy and good and blessed, nourishing and full of freedom to claim our true identity as a child of the King.

Remember, His Kingdom is upside-down community, and the only thing you have for sure is Him, the only thing you do is receive His love, and the only thing spoken over you is beloved.

If you recognize any of my ideas here from the vastly underrated, late, great Henri Nouwen, that’s because he has been my inspiration for much of my thought process these past few months. In his beautiful sermon called “The Life Of The Beloved”, Nouwen teaches lessons about contentment through the same scripture I shared with you here.

Can we be content with the love of our Creator? If all we have is Jesus, is that enough? Even if we are alone in our contentment sometimes?

If He said you are worth dying and rising for, what does that mean for your identity?

We don’t need to HAVE, to DO, or to BE anything before the throne of God in order to belong and to be loved. We simply need to be content with His forgiveness and His grace.

Contentment is a process and a journey, and so I have a very long road ahead of me. But if we keep our eyes set firmly on Him and submerge ourselves in His Word, then we will come out victorious because God is in the business of redeeming our desires so that He can fulfill them with His love.

May you go into your day with an awareness that God is working in the margins to take action for you, to provide for you, and to speak words of adoration over you.

Meet Him in the margin and surrender your desires to Him while they still feel unmet, because He welcomes us just as we are, here and now.

Contentment is a spiritual posture- it means coming before God as an empty vessel and receiving His declaration that we are beautifully made and eternally loved even if we remain empty forever- and THEN allowing Him to fill us up with whatever He deems best.

Contentment requires deep trust, both in ourselves as we remain vulnerable and open, and in our God as He determines what is best to pour into our lives as He meets our needs.

What do you desire? Though your desires might seem to be surface level, in actuality they plumb down into the depths of your being and can reveal some critical components about who you are and where you are going, both as an individual and within your greater community.

To learn to be content is to begin the practice of soul care. So it is here in the margin of your daily activity that you will find true contentment and lasting fulfillment, even in the midst of momentary or even prolonged dissatisfaction.

Be blessed, Saddleback family. May the incessant clamorings of our minds and bodies propel us to rest more deeply in His arms.

I love you, church, and I thank God for you.

I am so thankful that Jesus is using you to teach me these important lessons.

May we grow together in the margin of His Grace, because we are designed to desire contentment in Him, and the sooner we acknowledge this the closer we move towards victory.

With Gratitude~

Rebecca

~*~

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