summer '09 . . . and the faithfulness of God

Lately , I've been looking back over old writings and turning the pages of summer backwards to see what the Lord taught me through this season. And I've realized that even though it all felt a bit scattered and unsettled and perhaps almost random at times, that the Lord has taught me ever so much.

At the beginning of the summer, the Lord took away many familiarities and exchanged them for the unknown and the different. Ordinarily, I am a girl who is all about adventure and excitement and change. But this summer, for some reason, I wasn't. A new job, leaving my family behind for the summer, worries about the fall, and questions about the future plagued my mind. Life was stressful...and I allowed the outer pressures to be internalized into irrational fears and worries. In the midst of all this, the Lord comforted me with just a few words from a new song:

"His loving heart engaged to be / their everlasting surety"

&

"Twas love that took their cause in hand / and love maintains it till the end"

Thus, the surety of my salvation became a strong and sturdy ground upon which I could stand. But it wasn't really the assuredness of salvation that I clung to then, but simply the One who took on the burden of my sin.

With this lesson begun, God started opening up my heart for a little more surgery. Now that I knew who my confidence was, I had to relearn the gospel of grace. (And I'm still learning this lesson.) But this summer was a time full of obligations and deadlines and ways and places and relationships in which I wanted to excel. I started telling myself that I was going to be ever so diligent in those things because that was how I was going to serve God. I was going to out-work people around me and out-diligence my closest friends in an attempt to grow in the pursuit of excellence.

But it was all about me. And God, in His faithfulness, had to knock me out of my pride. About two weeks of fever and a sickness that wouldn't budge for all the vitamin C in the world has a way of doing that to you. Letting other people see that you can't go on like the Energizer Bunny can be frightening. But I was determined that I'd be ok--that I'd go to work and stay even when the whole office told me I needed to rest, or that I'd put in a extra long day traveling to D.C. and come home to crash that night. Right as I thought I was striving for such diligence I was forced to rest and let it all go.

So in it all, God showed me that yes, diligence is a good thing. But not when it becomes our driving force and motivator to such a degree that we forget what things are truly important. One of my weaknesses is thinking it comes back to what I can do for God as opposed to just how I can draw nearer to Him. Of course, the two aren't in opposition! But where are our priorities? God used all of this to remind me of the gospel, and that:

. . . the kingdom of God is not meat and drink; but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost. For he that in these things serveth Christ is acceptable to God, and approved of men.

Finally, after coming home and reflecting on things, the Lord showed me what I'd been striving for all summer long. I was trying to base my relationship with Him on the establishment of my earthly home, my earthly relationships, my earthly pursuits. But He gently reminded me that we are not home yet, and that life here is simply pilgrimage:

Blessed is the man whose strength is in You, whose heart is set on pilgrimage.

As the final days of a far-too-short-summer wane, may this heavenward prayer be my heartcry:

Lord of the cloud and fire,

I am a stranger, with a stranger's indifference;

My hands hold a pilgrim's staff,

My march is Zionward,My eyes are toward the coming of the Lord,

My heart is in Thy hands without reserve.

(from The Valley of Vision)