It’s been a week for prayer with Japan’s earthquake and tsunami, and a friend of our family’s dying suddenly in a motorcycle accident (Jim Maher – incredible worship leader with a firey passion for Christ. He played the beautiful song “Famous One” at our daughter Heather’s wedding. You can read a tribute to Jim at this blog post tribute by Tom Stuart.). Just now I got a text that a two-year-old girl with leukemia, who we’d been praying for, just passed away.

With tragic situations like this, it seems that things would come into clearer focus. And yet we’re such flawed human beings. We get distracted from what really matters.

The little frustrations each day drive us crazy. We fight with our spouse, get mad at the driver who’s tailing us, stress out over losing our debit card or cell phone (again!), and fret about the extra pounds on the scale.

Why don’t we just get a grip – knock it off? When are we ever going to grow up?

I’m thankful that God is so patient with me and extends grace as He watches me grow, like we do our own beautiful, precious children and grandchildren. I’m grateful that God holds me securely in His arms.

Please keep the people of Japan, our friend Jim’s family, and the little girl’s family in your prayers.

In memory of those in Japan who have died, our dear friend Jim Maher, and the two year old girl with leukemia, here is a video tribute with the song Held by Natalie Grant:

Video of Held - Natalie Grant

barley

Are you satisfied?

Yesterday our daughter Leah and I spent a little time reading from the book of Ruth Chapter 2, and two verses really stood out to me about this word. I wanted to share this encouragement with you today. 

First, though, just to give you a little background, Ruth’s mother-in-law Naomi had left Israel and gone with her husband Elimelech and their children to Moab because there was a famine in the land. While in Moab, Naomi’s sons had grown and married two Moabite (foreign) women, Orpah and Ruth. They were there about ten years when Naomi’s sons died, too. Naomi heard that the famine was over, and decided to go back home, and her daughters-in-law wanted to go back with her. But Naomi told them to go back to their own people and their own gods. Orpah left, but Ruth still begged to go with her, saying one of the most famous verses in the Bible (Ruth 1:16, NLT):

“But Ruth replied, “Don’t ask me to leave you and turn back. Wherever you go, I will go; wherever you live, I will live. Your people will be my people, and your God will be my God.”

Naomi and Ruth went back to Bethelehem at the beginning of barley harvest, and because the custom of the Law was to allow the widow or any resident foreigner to gather anywhere she pleased, and landowners weren’t to completely reap the corners of his fields, leaving some of the gleanings for the strangers and the poor, Ruth was able to glean in a field of a family relative, Boaz. 

 Boaz had noticed Ruth. He had heard the news of the kindness she had shown her mother-in-law and how she had come back with her. He spoke a blessing over her, and invited her at mealtime to dip her piece of bread in the vinegar. This next verse is what stood out to me.

“So she sat beside the reapers, and he passed parched grain to her; and she ate and was satisfied, and kept some back.”  Then in verse  18, “So she gleaned in the field until evening, and beat out what she had gleaned, and it was about an ephah of barley. Then she took it up and went into the city, and her mother-in-law saw what she had gleaned. So she brought out and gave to her what she had kept back after she had been satsified.”  (Ruth 1:14, 1:18)

Boaz is called the kinsman-redeemer because he had the right and the responsibility to redeem the forfeited inheritance of the family so that Elimelech’s property remained in the family. Boaz is a representation of Christ, our kinsman-redeemer, who has redeemed us from sin. Boaz’s eye was on Ruth, just as God’s loving eye is always on us.  Boaz fed Ruth the grain, like God gives us His good word to eat each day. Ruth took the parched grain and “was satisfied.” God’s presence, His word, is what truly satisfies us.

We were created with a God-void, an ache and a longing that only God’s love can fulfill.  People try to fill up the void and the emptiness with different things -relationships, food, sugar, drugs or alcohol, tobacco, career success, wealth, sports achievement, etc. But only God satisfies.

Ruth took just what she needed and kept some back, which she then gave to Naomi. God will not only fill us up with His presence and His word, but He will refresh and refill us so much that we will have an overflow in our lives, to give to others. We can share the good news of the gospel, heal the sick, prophecy a word of encouragement, teach the hungry, help the poor.

Are you satisfied or empty?  Come to God today, and let Him fill you up and satisfy you.

***Want to learn more about God’s presence and His word?  Click here for my 7-audio, quiet time series.

 Have you ever wondered where God was, if He had just forgotten about you or those you love? Have you ever wondered if He was truly good? 

The 16th Century Spanish monk, St. John of the Cross, wrote a poem called The Dark Night of the Soul.  “Dark night of the soul” is a metaphor used to describe a phase in a person’s spiritual life, marked by a sense of loneliness and desolation.The main idea of the poem is the painful experience that people endure as they seek to grow in spiritual maturity and union with God. (Reference: Wikipedia)

This “dark night of the soul” is described perfectly by Ann Voskamp in her new book, One Thousand Gifts. She begins the book sharing the story of her younger sister’s death. Ann’s 18-year-old sister Amy had toddled across the country road, wandering after a kitty cat, and was hit by a propane delivery truck driver – killed instantly. Their mother saw the whole thing from her kitchen window, washing dishes. It is Ann’s first childhood memory, and where her life’s story and her book begins.

In this book, Ann asks the same questions we ask, but often never voice. “Where is God, really? How can He be good when babies die, and marriages implode, and dreams blow away, dust in the wind?” (p. 12)

And on page 14, “No, God, we won’t take what you give. No, God, Your plans are a gutted, bleeding mess and I didn’t sign up for this and You really thought I’d go for this?  No, God, this is ugly and this is a mess and can’t You get anything right and just haul all this pain out of here and I’ll take it from here, thanks. And God? Thanks for nothing.”

Have you ever felt that way?  Some of you may read that and react with shock and outrage. How could someone talk to God, the Creator, like that? Yet God knows we think it and He loves us anyway.  He is big enough to handle our questions, our anger, our confusion, our hurt,  He knows exactly the pain we feel. He, too, experienced a dark night of the soul when His creation, Adam and Eve, chose death instead of the life He made them for with Him.  He, too, knew the pain and sorrow we feel in this life when HIs only son Jesus died on the cross to redeem humanity.

Yet as Ann writes, it’s only in darkness that we understand and finally see light.

“Even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you.” ~ Psalm 139:12

If you haven’t already bought One Thousand Gifts and joined the book club at (In)Courage, there’s still time. We just finished chapter one on Sunday. Below is a video on Chapter 1 from Sunday, with Ann. She will be there for each video session!

Thought for this week: has there been a time in your life where you wondered where God was? That you experienced a “dark night of the soul”?  Looking back, do you now realize God was there through it all, or do you still feel abandoned and wonder if He is really good?

Action step:  Journal about it today.

Video of Ann Voskamp, author of One Thousand Gifts

One Thousand Gifts: Chapter One from Bloom (in)courage on Vimeo.