Audience of One

(First posted in March 2014 before our move to Waco, Texas.)

The number one idol is self. Why do we “lay up treasures where moth and rust destroy and thieves break in and steal” (Matthew 6:19)?  Do we really love our stuff that much? I don’t think so. We love the perception that it makes us okay, because if it all disappeared, we would be left with just ourselves, and that is a scary thought. Unconsciously, perhaps, we often see ourselves as valuable because of the lives we have built for ourselves.

I see a stage being set for a play. People are working to put all the props in place as they set the scene and adjust the lighting, sound, etcetera. When everything is ready and it’s time to begin the play, the actors then enter the stage. They deliver their scripted lines before the audience who, if they perform well, give their applause in approval. To a lesser or greater extent, that’s what we do. Much of our lives are spent performing. Without realizing it, we work on our “props” continually: our homes, our jobs, our appearance, even our children. And we feel okay about ourselves when the “audience” approves. These props serve as our self-protection, and when we protect ourselves, we become our own gods.

Jesus told the rich young ruler, “Go, sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me,” (Mark 10:21). He wasn’t making a general statement that everyone should sell everything they own. He was looking into the young man’s heart, and he saw the idolatry. The young man believed he had kept all the commandments from youth (performance), but he still needed his “props” (self-protection), and he wasn’t willing to give them up.

I experienced a lot of change during my years as a widow. I sold the home where I had raised my children and bought a smaller house. Then I moved out of it and into an apartment in the city where I commuted to work. A few months later, I was homesick and moved back home. I sold that house when Mark and I got married and moved in with him. It took some time to make Mark’s home my own. Now after almost four years, every room is decorated and furnished to suit us as a couple. It meets our needs for ministry, for family gatherings, and for grandchildren to come and play. Now the Lord may be asking us to leave it all.

Mark and I are walking a narrow path in the ministry calling God has given us. We are waiting on him for direction as we have to make some huge decisions in the near future, mainly how we are to live as we wait for his promise for provision. We are praying about a less expensive living arrangement and maybe even a geographical move if that’s his will. My questions are “Can I do it joyfully? Will I be okay without all my props?”

Now I see an empty stage. You walk out to give your performance, but there is nothing on the stage–no props, no other actors, no scene. You feel exposed and vulnerable. What are you supposed to do without them? You look at the audience, and you see only one person, Jesus. Instead of giving a performance for him, with one look into his eyes, he fills you completely. It’s you and God alone. As he satisfies your soul and refreshes your spirit, then he sets the stage, all that you need to live out His will for you.

I’ve seen death up close and personal, and I know there are no more opportunities to trust him once we are in the grave. There will be no reason for exercising one’s faith in heaven.  Jesus, I can’t make myself ready for such a big change. But I have experienced your faithfulness in the biggest storms of my life. I’ve seen how you’ve gone before me and prepared me. I know you are preparing me now. By your grace and mercy, help me to lay down my idol of self, of making myself okay. I trust you to meet me here. I want only your will. Amen.

“He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose,” Jim Elliott.

Standing in the Temporary

(This post was written in 2017 when we lived in Waco, Texas.)

I see the crack in the wall of this 70-year-old house, and in my mind I can visualize the cracks on my face, the deepening crows’ feet around my eyes, and the wrinkles on my neck. And I think about the cracks in my soul, the parts of me that hold pain that had to break off so I could survive so long ago.

The pictures on the shelves of our grandchildren are dated soon after they are displayed. They grow so quickly. You think it will be a long time, the baby stages, but it’s temporary. Wasn’t it just yesterday that their parents were babies too?

The neighborhood where we live is old, with broken sidewalks and broken people, some of them living in rundown houses. They too are trying to survive. Once it was a great area, our subdivision, with remnants of its heyday still in place, but it too is temporary.

What if real life is standing in the broken places, the cracks, the temporary, instead of running to the new and shiny? Do we think if we run away from what is broken that we will somehow save ourselves? That if we ignore the pain that wells up in us and medicate it with the new and shiny, it will somehow go away? But to live in denial is to miss the beauty of living in what is real.

When I stand in my broken places, I can ask Jesus to come and stand with me. I can hear him speak life and truth and feel him suture up the wounds with his nail-scarred hands. I don’t have to search out the new and the shiny because his glory becomes my glory. Then it no longer hurts when that wound is touched because the scar tissue is pain-free and strong. My whole being gains strength because I’m not bleeding out of that place anymore. I can now actually love that part of me because Jesus filled it with his love.

I look again at the crack in the wall. “I won’t abandon you, old house. You are still good enough. You serve your purpose well.” I look at my aging face in the mirror and become soft.  “Thank you for serving me well. I love you just the way you are.”

All that has been is a part of who I am now, thousands of temporary moments that are stored in my being. They have been happy, joyous, sad, lonely, painful. Some have made me stronger.  All have ultimately led me closer to God. As I give him the broken parts that still feel pain and let him heal them one by one, they are reconciled back to the whole of me, and I can be fully present. Because they were meant to be temporary too.

Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. 2 Corinthians 4:16-18