i declare...

someone (that i love dearly) posted this on facebook a while ago. and it kind of made me throw up in my mouth a little bit... & so i snapped a photo of it & let it sit in my photos to see if it was just that day that made me so weirded out by this "declaration" or if it truly was as nauseating over time as it was on that first sighting... & the answer was that it really made me feel a little bit sick every time i kept seeing it. so here is the "declaration"...

We would never imagine that getting our heart's deepest desires might be the worst thing that can ever happen to us. {tim keller}

so i tweaked the declaration a bit... 

I DECLARE that God will take His own perfect timing in accomplishing His plan for my life as I put my trust in Him. And maybe the waiting IS the most important part of learning to trust in Him. I will accomplish my dreams ONLY if they are His higher and better dreams for my life. And they will be accomplished in the perfect timing that He ordained from the beginning of time. Because the goal isn't the accomplishment of the dream, it is the faith that each step takes me further away from my own self, and closer to the REAL lea that He has known and fashioned from the beginning of time.  It may take years to overcome an obstacle, and maybe that very obstacle is the thorn in my flesh that is His strength perfected in my weakness and dependance on Him. And maybe that obstacle is the BEST DAMN THING THAT EVER HAPPENED TO ME but i live in an upside down kingdom and can't tell north from south. and i will never get out of my ultimate debt that was totally paid by His Work on the cross which means that ALL things (even the things that look like horrible things) can work for my good and His glory. God is doing things faster and slower than i could ask or imagine. And His clock is eternal and actually exists outside of time itself. He will give me victory in the strangest of ways and some of the GREATEST victories will most likely look like abject defeats. He has blessings that will last through eternity and may not show up until then. and i will be grateful for it all. this is MY declaration.

i wish i could DECLARE things and they would happen. but usually it is the LORD who declares things... and i am learning to trust His declarations over mine.

Isaiah 30:1-3  “Ah, stubborn children,” declares the Lord,
“who carry out a plan, but not mine...

Isaiah 55:8 For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD.

eucastatrophes...

“Anxiety is the result of a collapsing false god.”          tim keller

ugh. no wonder i have continual anxiety. lots of collapsing false gods over here. i guess that is a good thing. the sooner they collapse and let me down, the sooner i am left with ONLY the One who will never disappoint...

Philippians 4:6
Don’t fret or worry. Instead of worrying, pray. Let petitions and praises shape your worries into prayers, letting God know your concerns. Before you know it, a sense of God’s wholeness, everything coming together for good, will come and settle you down. It’s wonderful what happens when Christ displaces worry at the center of your life. 

what the gospel is and what it is not...

i have a more than slight obsession with tim keller. he is so c.s. lewis-like that i can't help but have a bit of a spiritual crush on him. ​

especially when he puts HUGE concepts into such SIMPLE words...​

The gospel is not that Jesus Christ comes to earth, tells us how to live, we live a good life, and then God owes us blessing. The gospel is that Jesus Christ came to earth, lived the life we should have lived and died the death we should have died. {tim keller}

​we are going to NYC for spring break. and as excited as i am about what we are going to see on broadway (and that i will tell you later) i am also excited about a chance to hear my man timmy preach again at redeemer. we have attended 4 services at various redeemer locations throughout the city. and we have heard sermons by every lead pastor they have. they alternate locations and it is kind of a big secret which on tim keller will be at each sunday. but one time we got "lucky" (though timmy and i wouldn't call it "luck", we would call it predestined to be in the same service at the same time. oh, me and my presbyterian pals. we love our words.)

i listened to this sermon on justification from dr. keller today whilst i was cooking dinner for my family and some neighbors who just had a new baby (and they have twin boy toddlers. enough said. they need dinner. and valium baked in it)...​ actually maxx and i listened to the sermon. maxx is home sick and he likes tim keller. we both smiled at each other when timmy mentioned c.s. lewis. because he mentions c.s. lewis in almost every sermon. once he mentioned the movie the iron giant in a sermon. which was maxx and millie's FAVORITE movie when they were little and we had all forgotten about that movie till i heard it a month ago in a tim keller sermon. i sent the link to maxx and he is now a tim keller fan. because timmy like c.s. lewis AND the iron giant. and Jesus. maybe in that order. of maybe not.

i think tim keller and the iron giant kind of resemble each other. strange? or predestined? ​

when you are submerged...

some recent thoughts on marriage that i have read. and tried to absorb. and read again. heady stuff. good stuff. stuff that i don't think i would understand had i not been in a marriage that has lasted (by the grace of God alone) over 2 decades. i have to say that in all honesty, i am not submerged right now. but don't ask me next week... or about last week... ha. but i know that i might have a blog reader (or two) who could use these good words. and i may need them myself again soon. 

“No long-term marriage is made easily, and there have been times when I've been so angry or so hurt that I thought my love would never recover. And then, in the midst of near despair, something has happened beneath the surface. A bright little flashing fish of hope has flicked silver fins and the water is bright and suddenly I am returned to a state of love again — till next time. I've learned that there will always be a next time, and that I will submerge in darkness and misery, but that I won't stay submerged. And each time something has been learned under the waters; something has been gained; and a new kind of love has grown. The best I can ask for is that this love, which has been built on countless failures, will continue to grow. I can say no more than that this is mystery, and gift, and that somehow or other, through grace, our failures can be redeemed and blessed.” 

― Madeleine L'Engle

c.s. lewis wasn’t married at the time he wrote mere christianity, he described oneness and love of a long term marriage with amazing insight (of course, which is why he will be my neighbor for eternity)...

The Christian idea of marriage is based on Christ’s words that a man and wife are to be regarded as a single organism—for that is what the words “one flesh” would be in modern English. And the Christians believe that when He said this He was not expressing a sentiment but stating a fact—just as one is stating a fact when one says that a lock and its key are one mechanism, or that a violin and a bow are one musical instrument. The inventor of the human machine was telling us that its two halves, the male and the female, were made to be combined together in pairs, not simply on the sexual level, but totally combined.…

What we call “being in love” is a glorious state, and, in several ways, good for us … It is a noble feeling, but it is still a feeling. Now no feeling can be relied on to last in its full intensity, or even to last at all. Knowledge can last; principles can last; habits can last, but feelings come and go. And in fact, whatever people say, the state called “being in love” usually does not last. If the old fairy-tale ending “They lived happily ever after” is taken to mean “They felt for the next fifty years exactly as they felt the day before they were married,” then it says what probably never was nor ever could be true, and would be highly undesirable if it were. Who could bear to live in that excitement for even five years? What would become of your work, your appetite, your sleep, your friendships? But, of course, ceasing to be “in love” need not mean ceasing to love. Love in this second sense—love as distinct from “being in love” is not merely a feeling. It is a deep unity, maintained by the will and deliberately strengthened by habit, reinforced by (in Christian marriages) the grace which both parties ask, and receive, from God. They can have this love for each other even at those moments when they do not like each other, as you love yourself even when you do not like yourself. They can retain this love even when each would easily, if they allowed themselves, be “in love” with someone else. “Being in love” first moved them to promise fidelity: this quieter love enables them to keep the promise. It is on this love that the engine of marriage is run: being in love was the explosion that started it.*

and then from a guy who literally wrote a book on marriage (a book that i highly recommend, the meaning of marriage)...

‎"Wedding vows are not a declaration of present love but a mutually binding promise of future love." {tim keller}

praying our fears...

i listened to the sermon, praying our fears by tim keller (you can get the podcast on itunes by clicking here),  on my walk this morning. beautiful words that soothed my soul after yesterday's horrific news...

tim keller talks about two kinds of fear in this sermon based on psalm 3 - fear of an immediate threat, and persistent anxiety - 

he says there are two different kind of fear...

fear (like a car heading toward you and you run out of the way): a healthy response to danger, which drives us to fight or flight, and then is gone.

anxiety (the feeling the rest of the day after the car almost hit you that you are fragile, that anything could happen at any moment): a lingering, generalised, undefined sense of fear which paralyses us.

if fear is a thunderstorm, anxiety is a constant, cold drizzle. the thunderstorm produces green growth and replenishes the earth, the second constant drizzle produces mildew. fear can be good for us - it forces us to react and can save our lives - but anxiety just makes us agitated, nervous and upset. and constant anxiety can permanently turn on our autonomic nervous system, which is meant to respond to crises events only, and so lead to all kinds of health issues.

and what causes this debilitating kind of anxiety driven constant fear is not a threat to life or safety, but a threat to our identity: when something that makes us feel in control is threatened or taken away...

i have never read george macdonald's fairy tale "the princess and the goblin" but i have to after hearing this sermon. dr. keller uses part of the story to remind us to "follow the thread of faith..."

in the story the princess' fairy grandmother gives her a magical thread and these instructions...

" 'If ever you find yourself in any danger – such, for example, as you were in this same evening – you must take off your ring and put it under the pillow of your bed. Then you must lay your finger, the same that wore the ring, upon the thread, and follow the thread wherever it leads you.’
‘Oh, how delightful! It will lead me to you, grandmother, I know!’

‘Yes. But, remember, it may seem to you a very roundabout way indeed, and you must not doubt the thread. Of one thing you may be sure, that while you hold it, I hold it too.’"

however later when the princess uses the thread it doesn't take her directly back to her grandmother. it seems to take her deeper and deeper into danger. she becomes more and more afraid. dr. keller uses the story as an illustration of obedience especially in the face of fear. the princess realizes that the thread only goes forward. if she tries to go back the way she came, it disappears.

when God calls us to obey, there are only 2 possible responses: obedience, which is hard; and disobedience, which my seem easier in the moment but in the long run is even harder. obedience may seem to take us into danger, but backwards lies disaster. so we face our fear and go forward. knowing that we have a Commander-In-Chief who has already won the battle and who is our sword and shield in the midst of the battle.

you can read the story for freezies online! or even listen to it online or watch a cartoon version also! isn't the interweb amazing...