Trust and Obey

I used to be the pianist at a church.  Granted, the crowd never got larger than about fourteen members on a good day, but I played nevertheless.  Looking back now, I see a valuable lesson in one of the songs I played.  I remember the number and even the key (#447, F major).  The pastor had me play it every Sunday for nearly a month, which meant that I practiced it several times a day for the entirety of that month.  To this day, I can still remember the run that I added to the left hand in the second line of the piece.  I broke the rules.  I played what wasn't written.  I branched out from the safety of the ink on the page, and wrote new notes with a pencil.  Talk about being bad to the bone, huh?


Alas, I digress.  So this whole "trust" thing.  It's pretty much never been defined to me before.  Despite the several times it's mentioned in the Bible, all you ever hear in the church sermons is "Trust in the Lord," and "Put all your trust in God."  What you don't hear is how.  Reader, you probably know, but on the off-chance you didn't (or you just kinda sorta want to hear my take on it), then this is all I've got.

Let me start with faith.  I've heard plenty of Bible studies that touch on this teensy little four-letter word.  You can't have hope without faith, and without hope you can't trust.  These past few weeks have been rough--I'm not going to lie--but God is merciful.  Despite my shortcomings, He has given me faith, hope, and love (1 Corinthians 13:13).  It's kinda funny how these things seem to go hand-in-hand.  

"remembering before our God and Father your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ."

1 Thessalonians 1:3

Work of faith; labor of love; steadfastness of hope.  Those are some pretty heavy words when you really think about it.  

"So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead."
James 2:17


"Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant."
1 Corinthians 13:4


"For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees?"
Romans 8:24

Don't think that I'm preaching at you, Reader.  I've been struggling with these concepts lately, but there's something absolutely divine about getting a glimpse of them in the midst of a hardship.  

Oh, how glorious it is to actually use those gifts:  faith, hope, and love.  I am not perfect, and so I will freely admit that for me to even partially grasp the goodness that is found in them had to be brought about through a time of suffering...wow that sounds morbid...is trial a better word for this?  or maybe a bump in the road?  Just pretend it's an adjective I haven't used yet. 

I have faith that there's a purpose for this time in my life.  For the first time ever, I'm actually holding on to the hope that a week from now will not be filled with so many brief moments of caffeine induced happiness, but hours of joy brought about by the simple miracle of keeping a flower alive (cheesy much?).  And I love the Lord, who I know is sufficient.  

Reader, if you've hung in there this long, please bear with me for only a paragraph or two more.  All of these--faith, hope, and love--help build the trust I have in the Lord.  As I was bicycling the other day, a song began playing on my iPod.  I was not paying attention to the music at all, but out of nowhere, my focus was drawn to the words of the song that was playing, and it rang out, "Doesn't matter what comes crashing down/I'm still gonna stand my solid ground."  It means so much right now.  My Solid Rock is in control.  Even if everything around me crumbles, God is an unchanging God, and I trust Him for that.  

"When we walk with the Lord

 in the light of His word,

What a glory He sheds on our way.

Let us do his good will,

He abides with us still,

And to all who will trust and obey

Trust and obey, 

for there's no other way

to be happy in Jesus

but to trust and obey"

God is good, Reader.  If there's nothing else that you get out of this huge jumble of words (so much for the "conservation of language" method) then know that the Lord is sufficient.  In fact, He's more than enough.  

So that's my bit for the day.  Sorry for the length, but I've never been very good at getting an accurate point across with limited words.  

Like Ripping Off A Band-Aid

Ouch.  That's about the only word to describe it right now.  Ouchhh.
I will not go into nitty gritty details, other than to say that there is something absolutely horrid about feeling totally helpless.  Thank goodness even in my helplessness, the Lord assures me that I am not alone.

5:00 a.m. came much too early, Reader, but for some reason, my mind  began tracing and retracing the events of yesterday, and sleep drifted away from me like a cool breeze on a hot summer day.  There one moment, gone the next.  Don't worry; the event I'm talking about isn't uncommon.  You've probably felt this.  You've probably lived it, and learned from it.  Yet, despite knowing that so many others have felt what I am now, I cannot help but feel that utter and complete hopelessness.

So, as that glorious sleep left me, I began to wallow.  Yes, I will admit it.  I slipped into a pool of self-pity and wallowed there for a few minutes.  What can I say?  I'm human.  After marinading in that misery for a moment, I began to pray (I'm well aware that this is probably a bit choppy sounding, but at the present moment, I don't give a care).

I've prayed for understanding, for peace, for hope, for healing, for grace, for mercy.  I've prayed silently, and I've screamed prayers at the top of my lungs (gotta love the seclusion of a car drive).  Anyway, I've got to say, God has a pretty great way of reminding me that He has everything under control.  For at least the past month, I was fairly sure that this little bump in the road was going to come up (though it felt more like a boulder that refused to move a couple of hours ago), and a specific prayer of mine was this:  If this is really going to happen, Lord, please allow it to be sooner rather than later.  In all honesty, it really is better this way.  My current prayer is just to let me move past this.

All right, so enough about me, here's the real heart of why I'm writing this.  As wakefulness gripped it's claws around my mind, I was once again reminded of why something felt so wrong.  Reeling from a fresh flood of hurt, I found myself grabbing for my Bible.  Granted, I have never seen anything in there about how to handle this, but I suppose that's why I didn't write it.  It would probably sound like a corny, slightly depressing paperback novel that you find for twenty-five cents at garage sales.  So I began flipping.

Almost immediately, I opened to Philippians 4.  Verses 2-9 discuss elements included in allowing the peace of God to enter one's life.  Putting aside personal differences (v. 2-3), rejoicing in the Lord (v. 4), being kind to everyone (v. 5), meditating on "whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute"..."and worthy of praise" (v. 8); the last verse reads

The things you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you. (verse 9).

If that's not encouraging, I don't know what is.  You know this "peace" that's spoken of?  It's the spirit of peace.  The Holy Spirit, that the Lord gifted to His people, that they may never be alone in this world: 

Peter said to them, "Repent, and each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit."

Acts 2:38

Well, I suppose that's my soapbox of the day.  I'm not alone.  It makes me wonder, how often do I seriously sit back and wallow?  How often do any of us?  And in all sincerity, God has given me a piece of Himself.  A Spirit of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.  So, I'm letting go of why I hurt.  I mean, ultimately, my trust has to be in God--not myself.  

Hearts and Rainbows and Gummy Bears

I am going through a country music phase.  Reader, Arkansas has not been gentle on my current music obsession...
This ain't no place for the weary kind...
This ain't no place to loose your mind...
This ain't no place to fall behind...
pick up your crazy heart and give it one more try.
--Jeff Bridges, "The Weary Kind"

At least there's some sort of meaning behind my insanity.  Behind the car window shatteringly low base tones of the song, I find myself sifting through those words like a madwoman looking for an old family photo album in one of thousands of boxes in her attic.  She knows it's there, and until she finds it, it will feel like her sanity is being threatened.
Recently, an absolutely amazing friend of mine let me borrow a book.  Now, I will be quite honest, Reader.  I usually only read fiction books that involve some girl falling in love with some boy, and then there's some expectedly unexpected conflict, with some cheesy resolution that makes you either smile or cry, or some sappy combination of both.  When offered this book, I was immediately hesitant.  Captivating is a piece that talks about how the heart works; not just the work itself.  I was worried that knowing the mechanics behind why I am the way I am would make me feel more like a minuscule piece of something that could go on perfectly fine without me.  Yes, yes, I am selfish, but who wouldn't be a tad bit worried about something like that?
Either way, I decided that I had to go through the first couple of pages, just to say that I gave it a try, and now that I'm a chapter away from the back cover, I cannot believe this is not a required reading in our school systems (Ok, ok, so I'm exaggerating, but still...it's pretty eye-opening).
So my heart is more than a white sheet of paper that keeps getting crumpled and folded and marked on.  I mean, 1 Samuel says that "God sees not as man sees, for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart" (16:7), and Psalm 119:11 claims "Your word I have treasured in my heart, that I may not sin against You."  Take note of that last one--

Your word I have treasured in my heart that I may not sin against You.  
Psalm 119:11


The author does not claim that he's treasuring God's word in his scroll that he keeps on his belt loop.  It's not strictly a memorized line from the Scriptures that he says on Sunday mornings.  It is treasured in the heart:  this piece of ourselves that the Lord has so graciously blessed his people with that He offers to purify and cleanse when we mess it up.  Reader, my words are failing me.  From what I can tell, (and this is Thus Saith Sara) the heart is the essence of each and every person.  Sometimes we hide it from ourselves, because all of the sin that we have allowed to corrupt it gives us more shame than we can bear, and that hidden sin simply causes us to sin more and more because we're not facing what we've done!  It's like King David, back in 2 Samuel.  He had become callous to his own sin because he did not search his heart, until Nathan finally rebuked him.

So Reader, please do not think that I am sitting on a high-horse right now.  In fact, I am listening to a Pandora radio station set to endless country music, sipping on tea that I have only recently acquired a taste for, and worrying about senseless nonsense.  No--do not think that I have put myself on a pedestal, because this entire post is actually quite the contrary.  I am finally realizing that my faith cannot be a mechanical set of rituals that I follow through with day after day.  A demonstration of my love for the Lord is not, and cannot, be a run-down routine that I am not passionately carrying out for the God of the Universe.  My heart actually plays a vital role in it all.

All right, so I suppose that's the extent of my writing today.  God bless you, and I pray you have a wonderful rest of the week!