perfect peace

The View from Above

/ Jaimie / Leave a comment

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What’s the view like from up there? I often marvel at the way you can love us with such depth despite the messes we’ve made. The problem of pain exists only because we seek to blame you for the bad without crediting you for the good. You see us reeling from the consequences of sin. Destruction, pain, sickness, tragedy abounds casting shadow on the weary hearts you seek to save. You call to us with the answer, with comfort, with peace beyond description and we accuse. “How can a God of love allow such tragedy?”

“For I consider the sufferings of this present time not worthy to be compared with the coming glory to be revealed to us. (Romans 8:18)

squeezecrushed

We look at things so narrowly. All we see are the steep rocks around us and we fear we cannot make it through. We forget that you always clear a path. You never ask us to cross without making a way before us. Yet so often we turn back thinking it’s too hard so you must not be in it. There must be a wider opening that will lead us to the same destination. Still, you’re faithful to scoop us back up and lead us back where we belong. We must look so silly to you sometimes. Yet you love us immensely. You make a safe place for us in the cleft of the rock. You allow us to rest in your presence.

james

I can’t help but remember today how evil men caused our hearts so much sorrow. The problem with pain is that bad things still happen to good people. “For He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.” (Matthew 5:45 NKJV)

I don’t claim to have all the answers but I know this, God is still good even when we aren’t. God is still there even when we can’t see him. God still loves even when hate seems to win. Just as the towers falling couldn’t break the spirit of a people, circumstances cannot change the immutable goodness of God. As we remember this day, let us not forget the one who holds us and looks upon us with abundant love, abounding mercy and infinite greatness. He sees us lovely.

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What’s the view like from up there? Do you see us looking up? Lend us your smile and wrap us up in your peace today.

sunset

Need

/ Jaimie / 2 Comments

I watched a newborn baby snuggled tightly to her mother’s chest in perfect peace amidst the noise and chaos all around. I sang with all I had in worship to my father, the author of all I am, the one we so often forget to acknowledge. We pursue Him in word and song, praying He will meet us where we are. We pursue the strength of His arm to sweep in and lift our heads from the weight of the burdens we insist on carrying.

The baby before me needs her mother’s arms to carry her. She gains her sustenance from her mother. Without her parents or someone to care for her, she will not survive, let alone thrive. Yet we act and live as if we are somehow independent.

My prayers changed in that moment.

I don’t want to long for an encounter with God or for His strength to meet me and carry me through moments I cannot handle on my own. I want to NEED Him! I realized He is faithful to meet us in the place of our need. I pray that I will need Him in everything. I pray I will worship Him from a deep knowledge that without Him, I cannot hold my own head up. Without Him, I am thirsty and hungry. Without Him, I am bound by the impossible weight of this world. Without Him, I am weak and broken.

In Him, I am alive. In Him, I can breathe deep and inhale the wonder before me. In Him, color awakens to brilliance. In Him, shadows flee, questions have answers, light and hope fill the places once occupied by darkness. In Him, I love and am loved. In Him, there is joy unexplainable. In Him, I live and move and have my being. Everything I need, He has given. My desires become captured by beauty and purpose. Meaning takes on new meaning.

Lord, I pray that I would be consumed by a passion and a need for you. I pray that I would continue to decrease making more room for your glory in my life. There is no greater joy. I am enamoured and captivated by you. As I seek you and find you, I realize that I can’t get enough of you.