Sara and I are going into stealth mode this week as we celebrate our 51st anniversary. Each one is more precious than the last, as we celebrate God’s goodness in all that he has done in us. As we go, I want to leave you with something that touched our lives last week.
This year, Sara and I are doing a daily reading from my devotional book, Live Loved Free Full. It’s weird to be encouraged by my own words, but we have enjoyed the daily nudges to lean into a life of love instead of being swept away by the challenges of life in this age. (And as a side note, I’ve also been amazed at how many times in this little book I link love and justice. It makes me smile to see the seeds planted long ago for what would become Just Love.)
As we read the May 3rd entry this year, I was particularly touched by the words and a desire to share this entry on my blog. The italicized sentences are the ones I thought those of you going through difficult or perplexing times might benefit from the reminder.
May 3: Keeping Reality Straight
Dreams are an intense experience for me. I’ve awoken from many a dream in sorrow over someone’s death or in anxiety over a challenging circumstance. So real do they seem that the emotions often linger long after realizing it was only a dream.
However, what we see and feel when we’re awake is not the real world either, at least not all of it. We so easily mistake the dictates of this world and our interpretation of them as reality itself. It isn’t. The real world is in Father’s heart, where what’s eternal has more weight than the things we see and touch here. He has invited us to be at home in him in everything we do and in every circumstance that confronts us.
We have to live in this world, but he invites us to see beyond it.
Behind every circumstance is a loving Father at work.
Through every disappointment is a greater truth yet to be explored.
Beyond every confusion is wisdom waiting to be discovered.
Instead of interpreting who God is through the things we see, we will be far wiser to interpret every event through that which God values. When we lose sight of that, the distractions and routines of living in this world will define our reality and diminish our awareness of him.
As this world is far more real than our dreams, so is God’s reality far more significant than what we experience in this one. I’m sure you’ve touched it in moments of prayer and reflection where fears vanished, and you could see possibilities beyond your strength and wisdom.
That’s the real world. Do your best not to awaken from that one as you go about your life in this one.
The things we see now are here today, gone tomorrow.
But the things we can’t see now will last forever.
2 CORINTHIANS 4:18 (MSG)
Do you see those bold sentences above? That reality is why I’m still standing after the last five years. How Jesus rescues us from “this present evil age” is by walking us through the challenges life throws at us. He is not the cause of every circumstance, but he is behind them, offering us a way through. He is not the source of our disappointments, but they can reveal the lies we believe and the joy he offers us. He does not want us to be consumed by confusion, but to seek the greater wisdom that will allow us to make our next steps with confidence.
I was with a friend yesterday who is traversing some painful circumstances. As we talked about them, I asked how God was being revealed in them. To my surprise, he started laughing. He shook his head, “I haven’t asked him.” I paused, and then he spoke again. “Why haven’t I asked him?”
It’s easy for any of us to put our heads down and keep plowing through the struggles that face us. We may even ask him to help us, without holding our concerns and worries in his presence, until his insight and strength give us his way through them. He not only wants to bring us freedom in our circumstances, but wholeness in his heart while he does so.
