Performance

This little stanza from The Cloud of Witness speaks exactly what I was feeling when I awoke this morning. Lately I've struggled with "not messing up." I relate it to how my children and I sometimes play tennis; rather than playing to win, we play "not to lose." Our minds and eyes are focused on not making mistakes rather than trusting what we know. 

God did not give us a spirit of fear, but of power, and love, and a sound mind (2 Timothy 1:7). When I focus on what seems formidable to me, I allow the "strength of the foe," as John Henry Newman puts it in his poem, to eclipse the Lord's strength, sovereignty, and power. When I act in my own feeble strength, I miss Christ's rescuing and help. Our Creator doesn't want us to live life dodging traps all day, but to seek first His kingdom (Matthew 6:33)!

The Lord is revealing to me places where I have this "performance" mindset. When I go through life "playing not to lose," rather than "playing to win," I count on my own weak performance rather than what I've said I've trusted Christ to do. When I say I trust Him, I choose to believe that He is good. It's not my performance that leads me in His design, but rather my belief in Him. Lord, help my unbelief!

Lamentations 3:22

"Through the Lord's mercies we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not." Lamentations 3:22

"Through the Lord's checed we are not tamam, because His racham fail not."

"Through the Lord's "goodness, kindness, faithfulness, and favor extended to the lowly, His lovingkindness in redemption from trouble, His preservation of life from death, His keeping of His covenants," we are not "at an end, finished, destroyed, 'summed up,'" because His "mercies, tender love, and His womb, as cherishing the fetus" fail not."

Thank You, Lord, for Your Word and Your love. 

Heart Prayer of Repentance

It's been a week of the Lord speaking to me in so many ways, they get fuzzy and jumbled. I feel the weight of sin, and the hope of truth and repentance. There's the dilemma of my head and heart not meeting, and old lies resurfacing. There are also "spiritual two-by-fours," as my husband calls them, that lovingly level me with ways God wants to change and shape me. 

I listened to a John Piper sermon called "Neither Do I Condemn You" at least four times late last week. The text was the end of John 7, and the beginning of John 8, where the Pharisees are nitpicking parts of the law, ready to stone the woman caught in adultery. Piper says that with circumcision on the Sabbath vs. healing a whole man, Jesus is drawing out the question, "What kind of a crazy use of the law is that?" 

I took notes on the last nine minutes of the sermon. Here are some points that stood out to me. Although my story isn't the same as this woman's, Piper's words to Christ's grace in all situations: 

• "In saying, 'Go and sin no more,' Jesus is saying, "I am re-establishing your holy life, my friend. I'm building it again...Here's the difference, woman: I have just put it on a new foundation, my grace. Do you hear this, woman? I'm not lessening the command to you ("Don't do it again"), but now, I have just forgiven you totally...Woman, I am rebuilding justice, I am rebuilding righteousness, I am rebuilding holiness, and I'm building it on grace." 
• "You have to have an experience of grace in your life before you can pursue not sinning. If you try to pursue not sinning without the experience of amazing grace, what do you get? Pharisaism...heartless misuses of the law."
• "'Be holy as I am holy,' but don't pursue this holiness until you've heard the words, 'Neither do I condemn you'...that's the point of the Bible...Come to Jesus for grace, and set your face to sin no more.

My head, heart, and journal have been so full of the fires of refining this week, I wondered how I'd be able to bathe it all in prayer and cover everything. There seem to be so many needs, so many areas in which to grow, that I have trouble remembering all there is to cry out with. I wrote a prayer and made several copies: one in my journal, one for my bathroom mirror, one to keep in my purse, and one tucked in the Bible by my bed. 

Holy Spirit, please work in my heart and mind. Let the words and actions of others not dictate who I am. Enable me to respond with truth and grace. Let me not be rash with my mouth. Let me draw near to hear, and not utter anything hastily. Lord, You are in heaven, and I am on earth, so let my words be few. Make me to love purity of heart, and have grace on my lips.

Jesus, show me my own plank before I examine another’s speck. Let my heart be centered on You rather on myself. Take me to Your feet at the cross, and enable me to lay my sin and troubles there. Transform the black clouds of my heart with the sunshine of Your redemption, enabling me to stand fast in the liberty by which Your blood has made me free. Change my heart to believe that my righteousness is by Your grace, not by my works. Enable me to receive the white robe of Your newness and protection.

Lord, let Your discretion preserve me, and Your understanding keep me. Enfold me with the ability to discern what to do, and to possess cautious reserve in my speech, for Your glory and my good. Remind me that I am joined to my Bridegroom, Who was raised from the dead, that I should bear fruit to Him. Help my heart to remember and trust in the fact that I have died to the things that once held me, and that I serve in the newness of the Spirit. Enable me to grow in constant repentance, holding on to renewal, and believing that there is no condemnation for those in You, Jesus. Lord, help my unbelief, in Jesus’s name. Amen. 

I heard Tim Keller say this week, "The cycle that you must be growing in daily is moving from repentance to faith." Daily. Repentance to faith, all day long, till the sun goes down...then repeat in a new and different way, for a lifetime. Martin Luther's first of his Ninety-five Theses is, "When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said, 'Repent,' (Mt. 4:17), He willed the entire life of believers to be one of repentance." We are on a journey, and only arrive when we reach the destination of our heavenly home. I am constantly reminding myself that there's no point at which I'll lean back, fold my arms, and say, "Well, now I've arrived! I can stop growing spiritually." 

Donec iterum...