Coming Back to Life

When we bought our home, we had an inspector go through the house. He went under the house to check the foundation and found that over the last 28 years, the beams that supported the floor of our house were not tied securely to the foundation’s piers. The house would stand, but in the event of an earthquake, it may not hold together. We should have it looked at.
 
When was the last time you inspected your foundation? Many of us have been building our spiritual houses for 10, 20, 30, 50 years, so it may be time to climb under our houses, so to speak, and make sure everything is still tied together. I learned this the hard way twenty years ago.
 
I was working full-time and also teaching English at the university on the side. Students turned in 75% of their work during the last three weeks of the semester, so I was buried grading essays after work. I barely had time to breathe to meet the deadlines. In June, we were getting ready to move into our new home, so I was packing. The renters had trashed the house, so we spent July putting 60 gallons of paint on the walls. The new carpet didn't arrive, so we moved in without carpet; all our stuff went in the garage or out on the patio. I went on a business trip for a week, came home for a week, went on a missions trip to Central Mexico and lived in incredibly poor conditions for 2 weeks, and came home to an absolute mess. We also learned people had spent the summer secretly campaigning to fire my pastor-husband. By the end of August, I knew I believed in Jesus in my mind, but my heart was strangely dead.
 
I don't think I have ever been so dead. I could not think of one reason why someone should believe in Jesus. The straps securing my house to its foundation had come loose. Two months of exhausting work had squeezed my devotional time. My new home was in chaos. Open antagonism and hostile opposition at church had worn me down. We came to serve this church knowing it would be hard…now we were experiencing it. But I pressed on. What choice did I have? I was the pastor’s wife, the AWANA leader, the Bible study teacher. I had no time for a spiritual meltdown.
 
After two months of trying to regain my footing, I read Paul's prayer for the Ephesians, "I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe" (Ephesians 1:18-21). It jumped off the page—I should pray that prayer for myself, "Open the eyes of my heart.” That’s what I needed, the eyes of my heart to be enlightened. Ever been there?
 
Providentially, I picked up Dallas Willard’s Divine Conspiracy and began reading where I left off two months earlier. It was a chapter on Theology. The truth of sound doctrine began reconnecting my spiritual foundation to its piers. The Holy Spirit used the words of Adam Clark (written in the 1800s) to breathe into my soul new life:
 
God is the eternal, independent, and self-existent Being;
the Being whose purposes and actions spring from himself, without foreign motive or influence;
he who is absolute in dominion;
the most pure, the most simple, the most spiritual of all essences; infinitely perfect;
and eternally self-sufficient, needing nothing that he has made;
illimitable in his immensity,
inconceivable in his mode of existence,
and indescribable in his essence;
known fully only by himself, because an infinite mind can only be fully comprehended by itself.
In a word, a Being who, from his infinite wisdom, cannot err or be deceived,
and from his infinite goodness, can do nothing but what is eternally just, and right, and kind.
 
THIS is my God. I needed to keep re-reading these truths until what I knew in my mind, I believed in my heart. Lord, open the eyes of my heart. Bring me back to life.
 
The Truth of sound doctrine tied my spiritual house back together. Amazingly, within a few days, the doubts I had struggled with for two months were gone, my faith was back, active and alive. I’m so grateful God had mercy on me, saw my struggle, and drew me back to himself through Adam Clark’s words. Graciously, he birthed in me a renewed passion, a new love for people, and a deep desire to share the good news. He answered my prayer.
 
I was struck recently as I read Jude’s word to believers in verse 22: "Be merciful to those who doubt." Often women in ministry don’t feel they’ll receive mercy if they are transparent about their doubts. It’s more likely we’ll be gossiped about or lose our job. If we find ourselves going through a season where our faith has been shaken off its piers, we shouldn’t have to hide. In fact, it’s dangerous to be all alone.
We need our sisters in Christ to come around us and show us mercy. If you don’t have a group of trustworthy sisters with whom you can be honest, get to know some of the women in NEWIM by coming to NEWIM ConnectsLive or reaching out for prayer. We’ll walk with you. We've been there.

The Old Rugged Cross

Have you heard the story of the Hill of Crosses? There's a small hill in Lithuania where crosses were placed in the 1800s symbolizing people's faith and hope in God. During the first half of the Soviet occupation (1940-1990) most of the people from that area were deported to Siberia and died. In 1956 some survivors returned. They erected new crosses, dedicated to those who perished in the camps or who had fought for their Homeland. In the spring of 1961, the Soviets demolished and burned all of their crosses, and guards were posted so nobody could erect another one. Nevertheless, risking their lives, people erected new crosses.

The Soviets bulldozed the hill, multiple times, and attempted to flood the area to make the hill inaccessible. For many years, all of the roads were guarded, all license plates coming in or out were registered. Even still, people defied their occupiers and placed crosses. In 1990, Lithuania was re-established; people added more crosses with inscriptions of personal gratitude to God and prayers, lots of prayers.

The number of crosses placed on that hill, they say, is now impossible to count, over 200,000. My friend went to Lithuania and brought home a photo book for me. As I look at the pictures of thousands upon thousands of crosses placed on that hill, I wonder, Why does the Cross, the crucifixion of Jesus, speaks so deeply to all of us? Brian Zahnd answers well:

The crucifixion means everything. Everything that can be known about God is in some way present at the cross.

It’s the pinnacle of divine self-disclosure, the eternal moment of forgiveness, divine solidarity with human suffering, the enduring model of discipleship, the supreme demonstration of divine love, the beauty that saves the world, the re-founding of the world around an axis of love, the overthrow of the satan, the shaming of the principalities and powers, the unmasking of mob violence, the condemnation of state violence, the exposé of political power, the abolition of war, the sacrifice to end sacrificing, the great divide of humankind, the healing center of the cosmos, the death by which death is conquered, the Lamb upon the throne, the tree of life recovered and revealed. And with this brief list of interpretations, I’ve come nowhere near exhausting the meaning of the cross, for indeed the crucifixion of Jesus Christ is an inexhaustible revelation of who God is (The Wood Between the World, pg 8-9).

Christ's crucifixion is at the heart of our faith. When Paul proclaimed the gospel to the people of Corinth, he resolved to know nothing "except Jesus Christ and him crucified" (1 Cor 1:18-2:5). There was a day, a Friday, when Jesus Christ hung on a Roman cross, beaten and mocked, for me, for us, for all of us. In the weeks leading up to Easter, we are invited to contemplate the wonder and mystery of the cross, foolishness to some but the power of God for us who believe.

An Unexpected Touch

It started out as my husband’s idea. Just an early morning adventure to view Los Angeles from the top of Mt. Wilson. We received much more than we had hoped for.

As we arrived at the top of Mt. Wilson, it was beginning to get light. We followed a path leading from the parking lot out to an overlook. Cedars grew out of the mountain’s rock, wrapping their thick, gnarled roots around boulders. The cedar’s characteristic bent top was often oddly missing. Occasionally, a pine or cedar tree would rise a hundred feet, but most of the trees had been cut off about three-quarters of the way up leaving odd-looking, wide-topped trees. All over the mountainside, silvery, shiny, tree-like spikes stood all alone, their branches arching to the ground without life, without bark, without needles, puzzling skeletons of former grandeur.

The sandy path led us to an overlook. The radiance of the new dawn washed the horizon in shades of golden pink fading into blue sky. Below, multiple layers of faraway ridges disappeared into lessening tones of blue. The mountain’s height reduced our enormous city into insignificance, while we, who normally are just a speck in the sprawl of the city, were watching as gods. Two hawks soared effortlessly up the mountain, circling slowly, rising and falling, riding an invisible tide. The clouds gently rolled far below, changing form, withdrawing for a while only to crawl slowly back up the canyon. We stood, watching in silence, experiencing the ridge, allowing it to touch us deep within our souls.

The rustle of dry leaves below the ridge whispered a reminder that lizards and chipmunks live up here. The Manzanita branch just below us quivered. Suddenly there was a flutter of hurried motion and a law warble broke the silence as a morning dove flew away. Off in the distance, long white flashes of light crackled through the morning.

Gradually the cloud cover darkened. More electric crackling We counted the seconds before we heard the thunder crash. The storm slowly approached downtown. Lightning flashed across the sky, seeming to strike the tallest skyscrapers rising above the blanket of clouds. For over an hour, we watched. Crackling flashes…Crashing thunder.

It wasn’t until we felt the first drops of rain that we realized the storm was over us. I caught Kevin’s eye as we both understood for the first time why many of the trees were mere silvery trunks. They were charred-evidence of previous storms. Lightning and thunder crashed as one all around us.

We sprinted through the downpour, holding hands, winding back through the pines and cedars as the crashing thunder shook our path. Breathing hard, tingling with adrenaline, and laughing at our own stupidity, we made it back to the parking lot, the safety of the concession stand, and a warm cup of coffee.

We experienced a glimpse of God.

We sensed his presence and power.

We heard his voice in the wind.

All we’d hoped for was a view.