A turn

David in the Bible, will always be known as a shepherd and a king and man after God’s own heart.  What a glorious legacy to be known for. 

 

“Yet there was a time when David did not examine what was in his own heart, he did not examine his own fears of being loved enough, did not examine his fears of not being wanted enough, instead David examined what was outside his own window. Examined who was out bathing next door. When we only examine the ways of everyone around us instead of examining the ways of what is actually within us we can expect our hearts to eventually go wayward. If we don’t examine the ways our hearts turn, it is our very light that ends up not turning out well. David turned away from his responsibilities and draw closer to what he thought would satisfy him, comfort him, fulfill him. By living an unexamined life this is what ends up exploding David’s life”.  (Ann VosKamp) 

 

I have been captured by the haunting words of Ann VosKamp:

 

“Every time we turn from something, we turn to something”

 

How simple is a “turn”? Whether it is a 1 degree turn or a 90 degree turn it is still a ‘turn’. Often it is in the small turns that we suddenly find ourselves in a place we never expected. A slight turn in another direction, then another slight turn and then another. It’s a scary thought and yet we have all found ourselves in this situation.  And then we think we can no longer turn back so we carry on a path that we never wanted to be on. It only takes one bite, one look, one word, one thought, one action, one agreement, one lie, one moment. And then another and another. I have caught myself so many times, wondering how did I get here? How did my life come to this? This is not who I want to be?  

 

Repentance is not a word we like to speak about, but it means simply “to turn”. Easter is a key time to retell the story. It is a story we must continue to retell. As we have just come through this time we see the many ways the disciples turned from him, we see his enemies turn and hurt Him, we see the religious people and the crowd turn on him, all the while Jesus continued to turn toward His father. At every step He had a choice to turn away, to take another path, but He choose to turn toward the cross. He turned towards death that we might have life, grace, forgiveness and freedom from our own wrong turns. The story of Easter, shows us that there is no habit, no lie, no words, no actions, no agreement, no bad choice, no wrong path, no sin too far that we cannot not turn back to Him. 

 

David writes in Psalm 32: 3-5 (MSG)

 

“When I kept it all inside, my bones turned to powder, my words became daylong groans. The pressure never let up; all the juices of my life dried up. Then I let it all out; I said “I’ll make a clean breast of my failures to God”. Suddenly the pressure was gone – my guilt dissolved, my sin disappeared”

 

 

I am thankful for the men and woman in the Bible that share their pain and struggles so openly to show we are not alone in our failings to be who we long to be. David was not perfect, and his legacy remains because he knew that it was never too late to turn to God. Like David, we are only one turn away from freedom and love. I am reminded that no matter how far I turn from Him and who He made me to be, I only feel love and joy from Jesus whenever I turn toward Him. I pray there would more turning to and less turning from the love and freedom that Christ can bring this hurting, messed up world. 

 

 

 

 

When will I learn?

I have always gained great comfort from the Psalmists who wrote so many psalms beginning with a plea for help as they cry out to God:

 

Ps 57:1  Be good to me, God - and now! I’ve run to you for dear life. I’m hiding out under your wings until the hurricane blows over.

Ps 119:105-112. Everything’s falling apart on me, God, put me back together again with your word.

 

Ps 64: 1 “Listen and help, O God. I am reduced to a whine and a whimper, obsessed with feeling of doomsday”

 

Ps 86:1-2 Bend an ear, God: answer me. I’m one miserable wretch! Keep me safe – haven’t I lived a good life? Help your servant -I’m depending on you!

 

Ps 102:1-2 God, listen! Listen to my prayer, listen to the pain in my cries. Don’t turn your back on me just when I need you so desperately. Pay attention! This is the cry for help! And hurry – this can’t wait.

 

Ps 130:1-2. Help, God – the bottom has fallen out of my life! Master, hear my cry for help! Iisten hard! Open your ears! Listen to my cries for mercy.

 

Ps 142:1-2 I cry out loudly to God, loudly I plead with God for mercy. I spill out all my complaints before him, and spell out my troubles in details.

 

At first, I would keep reading them and take solace in that fact that I plead the same thing over and over again. Every day is a new challenge to get back up and try again. But in any given day that I feel like I am stronger and can move forward, something happens and pushes me back 2 or 3 steps again.  I would feel like a failure over and over again, wondering will I ever get there? I took comfort in the fact that many of the Psalms begin with a cry out for help, and it is not always a whimper, it is often a demand using words like “help”, “listen”, “pay attention”, “listen hard”, “plead”, “open your ears”.  They are often said with exclamation marks after them that feel very demanding and desperate. I was always taught to pray with respect and to begin with ‘thank you’ and “praise you God for…”.  I know it is the way Jesus taught his disciples to pray and I want to be respectful indeed, but if I am honest I do find joy in the Psalmist’s cries of desperation. It is real and raw and helps me feel less like a failure and more like a normal mortal, who is simply struggling. 

 

But today as I read more Psalms begging God to help, I was comforted by something different. For a while now I have judged myself for wondering how long will I take till I never waver from His love and grace?  How long will I sing this whining song?  How long will it take till I learn and move forward?  I don’t know if you have ever felt stuck, like you are in a holding pattern and you just want to stop going back to the same old pains and struggles over and over again. I know it is how I feel all the time lately. I just want it all to stop. I long for the renewing of the mind. These words feel like a broken record and yet I find comfort in them when I read another Psalm that says: 

 

Ps 70: 5 But I’ve lost it, I’m wasted God – quickly, quickly! Quick to me side, quick to my rescue! God, don’t lose a minute.

 

Ps 77:4-6 I’m awake all night -not a wink of sleep; I can’t even say what’s bothering me. I go over the days one by one, I ponder the years gone by. I strum my lute all through the night, wondering how to get my life together.”

 

So, there is a small comfort in the reminder that if it was so easy to move forward, there would simply be one Psalm and not over 100 of them. The reality is that just as much as our human nature needs to hear things over and over again, we often do need to keep realising it is a journey and it takes time for restoration and re-storying. 

 

I took small comfort in the fact that there is something powerful about not feeling alone. But today I was struck by the fear there is something dangerous about staying there.  Many of the Psalms start in pain, but they don’t stay there. I realised that I had to stop myself from quickly moving over the “hopeful positive” statements to seek another verse where the Psalmist was crying out for help. I was reminded that is it maybe more important where you end, rather than where you start. It Is okay to plead, whine, cry out, demand help, acknowledge pain and struggles as long as you don’t stay there. And this is where possibly when the learning occurs. I must stop berating myself about why I am I still sad and lonely and change the destructive self-talk of “when are you going to learn, Tammy?” to asking different questions like: 

 

Am I still in the same place I was three years ago?

Are my dark days as dark as they used to be? 

When I am struck by pain, do I stay in the darkness as long as I used to?

When it hurts deeply and I feel the pain, do I stay there, or do I move through it?

Is my focus on the pain or the promise of hope that comes on the other side?

 

When my answers to these questions are “no” then I am learning and growing and changing, be it ever more slowly than I would hope for. When my desire is to focus on the hope more than the pain, I am heading in the right direction and it is all He asks for. I am challenged to “be still” and ponder the way each Psalm ends rather than my focus staying on the way it begins. While many of the Psalms begin with pleading and begging for God to help, they always end with: 

 

Ps 57:11. “Soar high in the skies, O God! Cover the whole earth with your glory”

 

Ps 64:10 “Be glad, good people! Fly to God! Good-hearted people, make praise your habit”.

 

Ps 86:17. “As you, God gently and powerfully put me back on my feet”. 

 

Ps 102:28 “Your servants’ children will have a good place to live and their children will be at home with you”

 

Ps 130:7 “…With God’s arrival comes love, with God’s arrival comes generous redemption”

 

Ps 142:7. “….your people will form a circle around me and you’ll bring me showers of blessing!”

 

Lord, I continue to pray for your strength daily, to keep my focus on your message of hope, love and grace. Help me to learn more about that each day and to learn that "to sing your praises is enough".

Do you know you can never be UNCHOSEN?

There is a powerful TV series called “The Chosen”, which follows the life of Jesus, but in a way that I believe has never done before. While I am happy to unashamedly plug this series as a must for everyone to watch, I was struck by the power of the title for me today.  While this series is all about the life of Jesus, it is woven through stories of the many who walked with Him and those He had chosen.  The title of this series invites us into the story rather than being just a spectator and asks us to consider what it means to be ‘chosen’. To be chosen is a very intentional invitation. It tells us that we always belonged, that you are pursued, seen and wanted.

 

The opposite is to be Unchosen. We all know the pain of not being chosen for something. Life soon teaches us that painful lesson. But there is a deeper pain of being Unchosen. It is worse than ever being chosen in the first place. It is like being given the seat of honour and then being told it was a mistake and you must move. It is like making the team and then being ousted soon after. It is like being awarded a leadership role or certain job you have always wanted and then being sacked. Maybe you have experienced having a special relationship, romantic or otherwise, and then watch them un-choose to be with you. Maybe you have been kicked out of your family or friend’s circle. It can be as thoughtless as to be unfriended on social media or as deep as choosing to sever a long term, lifelong friendship and commitment. We see it all the time in divorce and family breakdown. We have tried to make it normal, or common or just a part of life. And while it is a big part of this broken life, we want to minimize or not talk about how deeply it hurts and changes us from the inside. It is an intentional decision to NOT be connected and it is very painful to have something and then watch it be taken away. Sometimes we have done something to deserve this loss and sometimes it is just pure rejection and the cruelty of life. It is hard not to take it personally, not to see it connected to your worth and feel the constant feelings of rejection and failure that make you feel unpursued, unseen and unwanted. In this life we will all experience it at some point, it will cut deep to the core of who we are and many never truly recover. 

 

Then I watch “The Chosen”. This powerful account of people who met Jesus in all levels of being unchosen. Whether their choices got them there or not, whether they were worthy or not, Jesus calls them CHOSEN. He calls them each by name, sees them, pursues them, loves them and transformation happens.  With Jesus they can NEVER be unchosen. We can NEVER be unchosen. I can NEVER be unchosen. This is not a simple statement to say, isn’t it wonderful that “Jesus loves us, this I know for the Bible tells me so”. If we truly get the depth of being CHOSEN, it is actually the answer to the deep pain we carry from being UNCHOSEN. 

 

“For I am convinced [and continue to be convinced—beyond any doubt] that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present and threatening, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the [unlimited] love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”   (Romans 8:38-39 AMP)

 

I needed to hear that today. I wonder if you need to hear that as well.   We need to hear it above the voices in our life and more so in our head that constantly tell us we are unchosen, unwanted, unloved, unseen. That is the voice the enemy wants us to hear the loudest. As you venture through the series “The Chosen” you see the human struggle of many who find it so hard to believe it as well, and I am thankful that I am not the only one. They had the privilege of walking with Jesus side by side and yet they still struggled. But though they struggle, it doesn’t change the truth.  With Jesus they can never be UNCHOSEN, we can never be UNCHOSEN, I can never be UNCHOSEN. 

 

Lord, help me to know that the only hope I have is to let those words heal me. Help me  to lean into your truth daily, sometimes hourly, sometimes as each minute passes, until I know that I know that you CHOOSE me, call me by name, save me, see me and pursue me with your unending love. Then one day I may believe that it is enough to be CHOSEN by you, and nothing that happens to me, or no amount of UNCHOOSING by the world around me will matter. 

 

At the very least I challenge you to watch “The chosen”, it will definitely be worth your time. 

https://watch.angelstudios.com/thechosen