Tag Archives: God’s love

Ice

March 1, 2014UncategorizedChrist, God's grace, God's love, Godly perspective, heart, Jesus, peace, repentanceDarby Coss Williams

It’s another snowy day in New Hampshire. We’ve had a lot of these days this winter. And lots of unusually cold air to go with them. I am going through my wood pile that I use to supplement my central heat really fast. I will probably run out of wood before I run out of winter.

Even so, I love winter. Here, it is beautiful and exciting and challenging. I get a forecast of when the wintry weather is coming, about how much is coming, what form it will come in, how long it will last. Usually, the local forecasts are fairly reliable, and I can plan ahead for the inconveniences the snow causes. I have tools and a plan to take care of the demands. Not like a tornado or an earthquake. No dashing for shelter in a split second of panic. No unexpected moments of terror when the walls and floor start to shake and roll.

The snow and cold are inconvenient, though. Occasionally, I am unable to make it to church services because I can’t get out of my driveway. The mere decision to walk out my door requires five minutes of donning layers of coat, hat, scarf, gloves and boots. Clearing snow, even with the best of machines, is time consuming and energy draining. And, there are always places that have to be shoveled because I can’t reach them with the snow blower. Even when the storm is over, going anywhere requires more time because of potential hazards on the roads.

The bane of winter is ice, especially when it is two inches thick on my driveway. Or falling from the sky as sleet. Or freezing on contact when it falls as rain on a sub-freezing day. Chopping ice is my least favorite winter activity. It is hard work, and it is sometimes very dissatisfying work. I could order a load of sand-salt mix and have it spread on my driveway to make quicker work of eliminating the ice. One time my neighbor offered to share the sand-salt mix he had picked up from our town supply, but I declined. Once the ice melts, the mess of the sand is left behind. I’d rather chop.

Recently, when I was chopping ice on my driveway, I thought of how my heart can become encased in metaphorical ‘ice’ so that I can’t feel or hurt, and how the process of chopping away the ice on my driveway compares to the heavy work of chopping ‘ice’ away from my heart. Ice on my driveway becomes laminated after a few days of thawing and freezing. Laminated ice is difficult to remove becomes is comes off in layers. Snow that has been rained on and then freezes or slush that refreezes become the toughest ice to remove. Sometimes my handy chopper will glance off of the uneven surface. It seems like something so solid should crack like glass when struck with a heavy metal edge, but it often doesn’t.

Life is full of cold winter days–days of heartache, days of unearned pain, days of injustice, days of loss. I cannot escape them, but enduring them is often incomprehensible. So, I cover my heart with the nearest available insulator, the ice of indifference. I tell myself, “If I don’t care, then I won’t hurt.” Or, the ice of distraction–if I don’t think about it, then I won’t hurt. Or the ice of blame where my suffering is the the fault of someone else, anyone else, and I place all of my hurt at their doorstep, as if doing so makes a difference in how much I hurt.

“I am weary with my sighing; Every night I make my bed swim, I dissolve my couch with my tears. My eye has wasted away with grief; It has become old because of all my adversaries.” Psalm 6:6, 7

Each layer of ice I apply to my heart to insulate me from my hurts adds only burden to the one tool I have for surviving my suffering. Every attempt I make to keep from feeling my hurts constricts my heart from its normal function. It is only a healthy heart which can save me from myself and all of my hurt. If I feel and endure, my heart becomes stronger, more agile, better equipped to deal with living in a fallen world. I must use my heart to process my hurts and put them in their proper, Godly perspective to be able to thrive beyond my hurts.

Feel and endure, a messy situation, illogical at times, beyond my control at other times. I don’t like this process.

“Cast your burden upon the Lord and He will sustain you; He will never allow the righteous to be shaken.” Psalm 55:22

The ice on my driveway that is easiest to chop is the ice on top of asphalt that has been warmed with sunlight. Any exposed asphalt absorbs the radiant energy of the sun and warms up even under the ice. The ice sitting on the asphalt begins to melt underneath while what is on top may stay frozen solid. Even if what is on top refreezes, that process of refreezing for the underneath melting ice takes longer because the asphalt stores unused heat and the ice on top insulates the bottom layer from more cold. The ice is loosened from the pavement, and, when I chop, it comes apart in large, satisfying chunks.

“The foolishness of man ruins his way, And his heart rages against the Lord.” Proverbs 19:3

And so I think about my heart. About the events in life that create an atmosphere where it can easily freeze over. About the many kinds of hurt that cause me to add layer after layer of ice to my heart to protect it. About my sometimes defiant attitudes which only add more layers of ice. Then I think of Jesus and the sunshine His love for me brings, the warmth that my frigid and dying heart soaks up like black asphalt. I think about His word, how I may use it to chop at ice from the surface, breaking away layers of indifference, distraction and blame. I remember that my repentance of my arrogant and selfish ways is the only thing that will obliterate the hardest ice.

When my heart breaks free from the layers of ice, it relaxes. The tension is gone. It beats to the rhythm of God’s eternal grace. It feels God’s warmth easily. It beats freely in the light of renewal, strengthening itself with each exercise of muscle. My heart fills with God’s love and grace. I am at peace with God and at peace with myself.

“Take care, brethren, that there not be in any one of you an evil, unbelieving heart that falls away from the living God. But encourage one another day after day, as long as it is still called ‘Today,’ so that none of you will be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.” Hebrews 3:12, 13

Gifts

February 1, 2014UncategorizedChrist, faith, faithfulness, fear of God, God's love, God's wrath, persecution, relationship with godDarby Coss Williams

In recent weeks I have been posing this question to my Sunday morning ladies Bible class: Are you more afraid of being punished by God or of losing your relationship with God? It is a rhetorical question, very personal in its nature because the answer to it reveals the state of one’s relationship with God. If my fear of being punished by God is my reason for seeking Him, then I see God more as a judge than any other role He may play in my life. I can be a faithful follower of Christ and have this view of the God of the universe. I submit, though, that if this is my primary motivation for following Christ, then my motivation is incomplete, and I am at serious risk of losing my relationship with God and the reward of heaven.

“It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God.” Hebrews 10:31

I started as a young Christian with this avoidance motivation. I remember well the ‘fire and brimstone’ preachers I heard as a kid in church. They were successful in putting the fear of God in me. I wanted no part of hell or God’s wrath. This inspiration is still a part of my faith basis. Living with fear as my primary motivation for following Christ became very cumbersome, though. If all I am doing is avoiding the bad, when life gets hard, my faith falls apart. If I am already living some really bad scenarios, how much worse can hell be? I have my own personal hell on earth. Why should I follow a God who does not protect me from evil and brokenness and heartache here and now?

Looking through history I see a lot of bad stuff happening to Christians. They were fed to lions and other carnivores, cruelly crucified, beheaded, drawn and quartered (look it up if you don’t know what that is) and burned alive, among many other horrifying methods of torture and execution, for remaining faithful to Jesus, for refusing to renounce His name, for refusing to worship any other god than the one true God. Even today, in some parts of the world, Christians are tortured, maimed and killed only because they wear the name of Christ. In modern, civilized society, Christians are demeaned, ridiculed, even caricatured by the loftiest in government. Being a Christian puts a target on my back, and it is really hard to imagine a hell worse than one Christians already endure among their fellow humans. Why would I remain loyal to Christ in the face of such discomfort and even horror? And yet, multitudes of Christians remain faithful, even in the face of wretched torture and death.

” ‘The one on whom seed was sown on the rocky places, this is the man who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy; yet when he has no firm root in himself, but is only temporary, and when affliction or persecution arises because of the word, immediately he falls away.’ ” Matthew 13:20, 21

It seems faithfulness requires more than just the fear of God’s punishment to keep me rooted and grounded in Christ. Faith in Jesus must be deeply rooted in something that endures, that withstands the twists and turns of a broken world. It must be rooted in a heart that is soft and vulnerable and secure, a heart that knows it is deeply loved. Love survives this world into the next. It is the bridge that spans the divide between the carnal and spiritual.

“But now faith, hope, love, abide these three; but the greatest of these is love.” 1 Corinthians 13:13

In addition to learning about God’s wrath while growing up in church, I learned about God’s love. I do not know if it was my child mind or how it was taught to me, but God’s love seemed like a sentiment, a nice feeling I was told was important. It did not occur to me until later in life that God’s love was something I could sink my teeth into or grab like a life preserver. So God became my rescuer, the ever present Savior of my soul and my life on earth. This concept evolved into God being my supreme Bless-er, the One who gives good gifts to His children. None of these ideas is in error, but they are an incomplete picture of God on their own.

“Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow.” James 1:17

God indeed is the One who blesses, saves, disciplines and judges. God does all of these things because He loves me, hook, line and sinker. Doubtlessly, persistently, relentlessly, passionately. He desires a positive, healthy, fully functioning relationship with me. One that is mutual. A relationship He makes possible. A relationship He wants me to desire with all of my being.

Matt Hammitt, in his song “Without You”, includes this line: “I don’t want to love You for a blessing / I just want to know who You are / ‘Cause You could never give me something better / Than Your light in my heart.” This line convicts me. Do I want to know God for His blessings? Or, do I want to know who He is? Do I value His light in my life more than anything else He gives me? Do I cherish the light He has put in my heart so much that the idea of being without His light, without Him, is terrifying to me?

” ‘For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.’ ” John 3:16

The most profound gift ever given is God’s gift of His Son for the redemption of man. Do I want to know why He would do such a thing? John tells us it is because of the love He has for each and every one of us. What kind of love would sacrifice itself to save a worthless and selfish human like me, much less multiple generations of an entire planet of them?

God’s gifts in my life are many and varied and personal to me. Do I value the love and thought put into each one? Do I crave to be close to the heart that spends so much time and thought and energy on me to keep me safe in His arms for eternity? The best gifts given to me by another human being were from my husband when it was obvious he had spent time and thought to give me something I would value. I rarely remember the things he gave me, but I will forever remember the effort he put into selecting them. With those thoughtful gifts, he spoke to my heart, made me feel important and loved. Am I so intimately joined to God that His thoughtful, careful gifts to me speak love to my heart? Do I value knowing Him more than I value anything else?

” ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.’ ” Deuteronomy 6:5

Brokenness

January 23, 2014Uncategorizedbaptism, brokenness, faith, God, God's love, heaven, Jesus, obedience, Satan, sufferingDarby Coss Williams

On a recent Sunday morning I was struck with the brokenness that surrounded me. From the sisters sitting on my row to the families sitting across the aisle, from the song leader to the speaker, from the weeping daughter on the front row to her terminally ill dad who was baptized into Christ that day, from the man who led communion to the person in my own skin, every week I worship with a building full of people who are battered and worn by life’s storms. And we are winning. We are torn and broken down but we are not defeated by illness, betrayal, injustice, disappointment, grief, abuse or any of Satan’s schemes. We hobble into the church building on weakened legs carrying weary spirits, but we are a family and we are worshiping the one, true God. We are winning this race called life. And Satan is very unhappy.

But whatever things were gain to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ. More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ,… Philippians 3:7,8

Knowing Jesus as my Lord and Savior is worth whatever I put up with in the time before I join Him in heaven. Knowing He is near at any moment, knowing He loves me unconditionally, knowing He will lead me if I will follow, knowing He will work out whatever comes my way in this life into my eternal good, knowing He saves me with joy and thankfulness, these are the most precious gifts He has given to me. And they are worth much more than anything this life has to offer.

…and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith,… Philippians 3:9

Praise God! I don’t have to be good enough to know Jesus. I don’t have to pass a test. I don’t have to meet a certain metric to have Jesus as my Friend and Redeemer. My righteousness comes from God Himself! I just have to believe in Him and act like I believe in Him. What good is believing if I don’t act like I believe? (James 2:14-26) If I choose to accept His gift of salvation, would it not be foolish to try to accept it any other way than the way He offers it to me–through obedient baptism? To act like I believe Him means I yield to His will and obey Him.

For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. Galatians 3:26, 27

If God redeems me from the penalty of all of my sin, if He bestows on me the righteousness that identifies me as His child, should I not wear that righteousness proudly? Is there any thing in this life that matters more than wearing Jesus? Illness? Heartache? Chronic pain? Poverty? Drugs? Alcohol? Injustice? Pleasure of any kind? Abuse? Wealth? Accomplishment? Pride? There is nothing in this life, or any life, that is worth more, that is more precious, that is more worthy of my complete devotion than being a child of God. Nothing. Ever. No thing.

…that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death; in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead. Philippians 3:10, 11

He will not leave me behind to rot in an eternity without Him. Wearing His righteousness, relying on His guidance and His strength, I am secure in knowing He will come back for me to resurrect me from my decaying humanness. If He leaves me here to a ripe old age, each day I walk knowing He will come back to get me. If He returns tomorrow to claim His own, I have no fear. He is coming to get me!

Not that I have already obtained it or have already become perfect, but I press on so that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus. Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet; but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead,… Philippians 3:12, 13

I press on. I don’t give up. No matter how badly I mess up. No matter how much I hide the righteousness God gives me. No matter how far I have walked away from Him, over and over again. No matter how much injustice and abuse I endure. No matter how much heartache tears at my soul. I forget what is past. I cannot change it. I cannot wish it away. I cannot fix it. I forget what is past. I press on and reach for what lies ahead–resurrection, reward for enduring, the end to my suffering. I take off the rags of sin and selfishness, wash off the dirt of self-pity and again wear proudly the clothing that is Christ, and I press on.

…I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Philippians 3:14

Nothing is worth missing the prize of heaven. Of eternity with God. Of leaving behind all that is ugly and wretched and horrific about this world, forever. Nothing.

Blessed is a man who perseveres under trial; for once he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life which the Lord has promised to those who love Him. James 1:12

“Do not fear what you are about to suffer. Behold, the devil is about to cast some of you into prison, so that you will be tested, and you will have tribulation for ten days. Be faithful until death, and I will give you the crown of life.” Revelation 2:10

Endure to the end of suffering. It will end. My brokenness will be healed. And I win!

What Did She Say?

January 5, 2014UncategorizedAdam and Eve, communication, God, God's love, Holy Spirit, Jesus, pure in heart, spiritual growthDarby Coss Williams

Communication Miracles for Couples. It’s the Way You Say It. Strategic Management Communication for Leaders. Nonverbal Communication. What Every BODY is Saying. Communication Skills for Dummies. A quick search of Amazon on “communication” yields over 326,600 results. And that is just in “Books.” The titles promise me easy fixes to life’s problems, especially in my relationships. If I can only figure out how to make myself clear to others, assert my point of view in positive, relatable ways, and interpret others’ communication accurately, then I will be happy, successful in my endeavors and fulfilled. From home and family to work relationships, the world I live in struggles with communicating.

In the very beginning, Satan used this human conundrum to confuse Eve.

Now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, “Indeed, has God said, ‘You shall not eat from any tree of the garden’?” The woman said to the serpent, “From the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat; but from the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden, God has said, ‘You shall not eat from it or touch it, or you will die.’ ” The serpent said to the woman, “You surely will not die! For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” Genesis 3:1-5

Eve quickly and easily repeats God’s instructions about what they are allowed to eat. God tells them they should not touch the tree in the middle of the garden, much less eat of its fruit. So, Satan in all of his craftiness, couches his lie among truthful, but incomplete, logic. The lie: “You will not surely die!” The truths: “…your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” The omissions: They were already closer to God than they ever could be, more like God than they ever would know otherwise. He was their companion, walked with them in the Garden. To know good and evil meant they would have to commit evil and separate themselves from God. Eve’s mistake: taking God’s instruction out of its proper context–the context of God’s overwhelming love for her and Adam, the pinnacle of His creation. Because she chose not to trust God’s love but chose to entertain the serpent’s appeal to her lust and pride, she and Adam lost everything.

Communication for me is always a challenge. As an introvert, I mentally and emotionally process on an internal level before communicating about anything. Most of my blog posts are days in the writing and even more days in the formation before the writing. In high school, through a wonderful teacher I learned to enjoy the craft of writing. But it does not come easily.

I am learning the limitations of the written word. Writing is sometimes without an accurate context, two-dimensional in its presentation. As Eve found out, context makes a huge difference. So often in modern society, context is omitted from quotations, making a speaker seem to say one thing when they are really saying something else. As a writer I view what I see and read and experience through a lens built by my life experiences, my personal context. When I was younger, I had a very simple lens with narrow focus. As I grow older, my lens becomes multi-faceted, sometimes making my ‘sight’ prismatic, creating great difficulty for me to find any sort of focus. I write what I ‘see’ through my lens, or personal context, and anyone who reads my writings does so through their own lens.

I find it very interesting that God would choose to reveal Himself primarily through two-dimensional written words, knowing that man would fall because he forgot the context of his existence. Would man not continue to forget God’s overwhelming love in two dimensions, when in three dimensions he already proved this weakness? By His great wisdom, God also revealed Himself through His Son. Jesus is called The Word, the living, breathing incarnation of God’s will, a walking Bible.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being. John 1:1-3

So, God gives me His written word, the Bible, and He gives me the living example of His will, the Word–His will in both two and three dimensions.

When I write personal communications, I attempt to add texture to my writing. I use descriptive words and punctuation and the fashionable emoticons to relate my meaning in three dimensions, to give depth and breadth and feeling to my words. When I read a personal communication from someone, I find myself looking for the context, reading between the lines, to properly interpret their meaning. I am sometimes a frustrated reader, especially if the note is from someone I do not know well. The likelihood that I will misinterpret the writer’s meaning is high in such a circumstance.

When reading God’s Word, I sometimes feel a similar frustration. To know the context of words written thousands of years ago is daunting. Yet, God knows us well, knows what we need to properly ascertain His meaning and His will. In Exodus, He gives us a chronological account of His leading the Hebrews out of Egypt toward the Promised Land. Then, in Deuteronomy He includes Moses’ recounting of the journey (Deuteronomy 8-10) and how the memory of that odyssey is to be used as motivation to obey God. One of the psalmists gives another rendition of God’s leading Israel out of Egypt and through the wilderness in Psalm 106, adding more texture and more relevance to the already ancient story. In the Gospels, God gives us four accounts of Jesus’ life on earth, four perspectives written for four different purposes–depth, context and texture for comparison and proper interpretation.

I cannot approach God’s word frivolously and expect to understand it. He wants me to read it, study it, meditate on it, apply it.

All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work. 2 Timothy 3:16, 17

I know God wants me to understand His will. He goes to great effort to show me His context. He adds depth and breadth and feeling to two dimensional words, allowing me to know clearly what He wants me to know. His Son, by example, shows me how to find Him in my daily life. His Spirit guides me in my quest for knowing Him and His will. My job is to want to know Him. I need to come to His word with a pure heart and a mind open to learning what is true about Him–through a simple lens that does not distort–keeping paramount in my mind the context of God’s overwhelming love for me.

“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” Matthew 5:8

Oh, How He Loves Me!

December 13, 2013Uncategorizedbody of Christ, bride, Christ, God, God's love, Good Shepherd, grief, groom, heavenly Father, Jesus, marriage, The ChurchDarby Coss Williams

Two years ago, my husband of nearly thirty years died from brain cancer. He was fifty-two years old and otherwise healthy. The summer before his diagnosis he was hiking mountains with his work buddies, although he had been suffering for several years from the effects of the growing tumor in his brain that we didn’t know about. By God’s grace, he survived two and a half years after his diagnosis, giving us time to wrap our heads around the possibility that he and I were not going to grow old together. It was two and a half years of near constant trauma, though. Treatments, side effects, heartache and physical deterioration took a toll on him and me and our grown children. I had never before known the kind of heartache I felt from watching him suffer and from losing him in death. I hope I never experience it again, not that way, not that deeply. My heart broke and calcified as I watched him take his last breaths. I had no sense that angels were near, only utter devastation. God made sure I was not alone in that moment, but it was the loneliest moment I ever experienced.

The most difficult part of my healing process has been the spiritual part. I challenged every promise of God’s I knew. “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.” (Psalm 23:1) “God causes all things to work together for good, to those who love God…” (Romans 8:28) By God’s great grace, He wrestled with me through every challenge I threw at Him and showed me what were truths and what were lies. One challenge that persists in spite of my tremendous healing concerns His promise that He has endured every temptation that I endure.

“Therefore, He had to be made like His brethren in all things, so that He might become a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. For since He Himself was tempted in that which He has suffered, He is able to come to the aid of those who are tempted.” Hebrews 2:17, 18

In order for God’s great plan for my redemption to work, Jesus had to be made like me ‘in all things.’ But, Jesus lived life on this earth as a single man. He never married. He, as a human being, did not have a lifelong mate. He did not suffer the loss of a lifelong mate. He did not grow emotionally interconnected to the same degree as with a lifelong mate. He did not share in deep emotional intimacy more days with one specific human being than without. He had close friends, friends as close as or perhaps closer than brothers. He suffered the loss of family members. It is not the same. Anyone who has lost a lifelong mate knows that it just isn’t the same. How could He possibly know the temptations I have fought? How could He know the depth of my despair? How could He have felt the interminable loneliness, the feeling of being cheated out of the life I had built, the tragedy of having my dreams stolen from me?

He has. He does.

God uses several metaphors in the Bible to describe His relationship with me. The shepherd-sheep metaphor permeates every generation of God’s people.

“I am the good shepherd; the good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep.” John 10:11

The father-child metaphor is one of the most beloved.

“The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God,” Romans 8:16

The bride-groom-marriage metaphor is perhaps the most mysterious.

“So husbands ought also to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself; for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ also does the church, because we are members of His body.” Ephesians 5:28-30

These metaphors are more than literary devices. God describes in human terms His complex relationship with me which is much more than any one metaphor. He relates to me on multiple levels at any given moment. My interactions with Him are always as rich and multi-faceted as I allow them to be. He is at all times my Shepherd, my Father and my Groom. The images He evokes in the metaphors are mysteries revealed in language I can understand, yet I will use eternity to discern them fully.

In His metaphors, He gives accurate descriptions of His behavior toward me and His expectations of me. As His sheep, I am to trust Him and follow Him. As His child, I am to obey Him. As His bride, I am to be loyal to Him and cherish Him. As my Shepherd, He is always working in my best interests. As my Father, He protects, disciplines and guides me. As my Groom, He loves me and cares for me personally and passionately.

Back to Ephesians…chapter five, verses twenty-two through thirty-three are rightly used when discussing God’s plan for the marriage relationship between a man and a woman. Paul uses the relationship of Jesus with the church to teach men their responsibilities to their wives. Then Paul refers to the “mystery” in verse thirty-two, a previous unknown in the relationship of Jesus with the church. Just as a groom and his bride become “one flesh,” I also become united with Jesus, a literal member “of His body.” At my baptism, I receive the indwelling of His Spirit (Acts 2:38). My relationship with Him when I become His sheep, His child, His bride, becomes emotionally and spiritually intimate, personal, and interdependent.

When Jesus became a part of the human context, He learned to feel in human emotion what He had been experiencing since the very beginning of time…love, betrayal and the loss of a great love every time one who belonged to Him left Him. Every time one of His own who has rejected Him dies physically that great love is lost to Him for eternity. They become dead to Him spiritually, forever severed from contact with Him. And He grieves personally and passionately. There is no other path, no other mechanism to forgive the sin that impedes humanity’s ability to spend eternity with Him than through the sacrifice He Himself provides. He loses all of the hopes, all of the dreams, all of the carefully laid plans, the companionship, the spiritual and emotional connection He has with each and every one who transcends beyond His reach when they die still accountable for their sin. He is cheated out of the relationships that were supposed to last for eternity.

Once He became fully human as well as fully divine in the earthly domain, He began to experience the same depth of any human loss, multiplied and intensified on a divine scale across millenial generations. And He carries that human and divine grief experience with Him even now.

“Therefore when Mary came where Jesus was, she saw Him, and fell at His feet, saying to Him, “Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died.” When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, He was deeply moved in spirit and was troubled, and said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to Him, “Lord, come and see.” Jesus wept. So the Jews were saying, “See how He loved him!” John 11:32-36

Jesus states to His disciples earlier in their journey to Bethany that He was going to raise Lazarus so that they would believe (John 11:14, 15). He delayed two days going to Bethany, even after He was told Lazarus was very ill, to give Lazarus time to die. Jesus does not weep at the awareness that His dear friend is dead. He weeps at the grief He sees in Mary and Martha and in those who accompany them. He understands their grief inside out, and it moves the Son of God to tears!

His love for me is personal, intimate, unrelenting, boundless, fearless. He knows what I know about grief and so much more. His losses far exceed my own. His sense of abandonment runs fathoms deeper. His loneliness outpaces mine by thousands of light-years. His despair envelops Him far beyond what suffocates me. His lost dreams and plans echo plaintively through eternity for each and every soul who becomes eternally lost to Him. What is the point of all of His work, of all of His agonizing sacrifice? I am the point. Each soul He redeems for Heaven is the point. Each soul He loves beyond human comprehension is the point.

Oh, how He loves me!

“But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.” Ephesians 2:4-7

Just Say Thank You

November 28, 2013UncategorizedChrist, Christian, Fear, God, God's love, Jesus, life choices, Lord, prayer, responsibility, spiritual growth, steward, thanks, thanksgivingDarby Coss Williams

When I was a teen, I observed an event on several occasions that brought me a tinge of embarrassment. My mother and my grandmother, my mother’s mother, whenever they would eat at a restaurant together, would regularly fight over the check. I witnessed these epic battles several times, and I still cringe when I think about them. These women were my primary role models. Parts of me were afraid of them, all of me respected them, except in these moments.

My mother and grandmother are not alive to defend themselves, and I have no doubt they would try if they could. They were both strong women of high moral character and normally very dignified in their behavior. My family is better for them having been a part of it, and I spend much of my life living up to their memories. I always wanted them to be proud of me, and I know that I made them proud. They were loving women with great fortitude who saw their families through very difficult times. They both suffered from debilitating, lifelong illnesses–my mother from rheumatoid arthritis and my grandmother from type one diabetes–and lived lives of grace and faith in spite of the toll disease ravaged on their bodies. One of my greatest sorrows is that my girls had precious little opportunity to know who they were. My younger daughter was only two years old when my grandmother passed, and she was five when my mother passed.

The stubbornness which buoyed my mother and grandmother through heartache and physical suffering also contributed to the battles over the checks. Each could match the other in determination and focus. Most of the time these battles ended with one grabbing the check from the waitress and the other letting out a huff of disapproval. My mother could also add an eloquent eye roll. What I learned from these skirmishes was to say, “Thank you.” Every time someone picks up a check for my meal, I think of my mother and grandmother and the battles of the checks. After the cringe, the memory brings me a smile. And, I just say, “Thank you.”

I wonder how many times when God blesses me does He wish I would say, “thank you,” instead of all of the other things I come out with. Sometimes, I think I deserve the blessing He bestows and pat myself on the back for a job well done. Ingratitude is never pretty and puts much too much distance between my heart and His. From time to time, I overlook His blessings completely because I’m not paying attention. Occasionally, I don’t recognize a blessing because it doesn’t look like I think it should. Amazingly, at times, I will fight with Him for the check.

“For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with gratitude; for it is sanctified by means of the word of God and prayer.” 1 Timothy 4:5, 6

Now and then, God bestows a blessing, the answer to a long held prayer, to which He has been saying, “not yet.” I am overwhelmed. I don’t believe it because it comes in a package I did not imagine. I wonder what the catch is, why it is so much more than I asked for, so different from what I thought it would be. “Why now?” I ask myself. I feel the burden of it, a steward’s responsibility, and I want to say, “no, thank you.” I don’t trust God to know me well enough to know the best timing and appropriate quality of His blessings for me. I look to either side of me and start to reach for something, anything, that feels like I deserve it or looks like I think it should. Mediocrity. Imperfection. Triviality. Surely I don’t deserve the blessings that belong to the child of a King!

“Therefore, since we receive a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us show gratitude, by which we may offer to God an acceptable service with reverence and awe; for our God is a consuming fire.” Hebrews 12:28, 29

But, I am the child of a King! A gracious and glorious King who loves me. I am a joint heir with the Savior of all humanity, entitled to every blessing in Heaven, even though I have not earned them. If I don’t know how to handle a blessing, I have only to look to Him for guidance and strength. If it doesn’t look like the blessing I was expecting, His package is much better for me. If the burden of the responsibility of the gift is heavy, He will help me carry it.

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ,” Ephesians 1:3

Every blessing from God comes with some kind of responsibility. Every holy gift is to be treasured and used for His glory. Every godly endowment is to be nurtured and grown and shared for the benefit of His reputation. Every good thing from God is to be accepted and opened with a gratitude that never fades. Refusing a blessing from God or settling for anything less than what He deems I deserve is like spitting in His face, an affront to His great and glorious generosity.

“Do not be deceived, my beloved brethren. Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow.” James 1:16, 17

On this day of thanksgiving, I try to remember as many blessings as I can and thank God for each one. I remember the times I almost did not accept a gift God provided, and I am deeply thankful He gave me the wisdom to walk past my fears into His gracious blessings. My life would be much less full, much less happy, much less abounding in love if I had given in to my fears and trepidations.

I accept His gifts and, with all my heart, just say, “Thank You!”

“Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good; For His lovingkindness is everlasting.” Psalm 118:1

Liar, Liar…

September 20, 2013Uncategorizedbody of Christ, false witness, God, God's love, honesty, JesusDarby Coss Williams

I am much too trusting of people. Yet again, it is proven to me that someone will lie to me over an extended period of time without batting an eyelash, and I will be clueless. I extend the benefit of the doubt, ignoring the questions that circle in my head. I expect trickery from the car salesman. I assume fraud will come from a thief or a manipulator. From someone who wears the name of Christ, lying shocks me every time.

I know ‘Christian’ doesn’t mean perfect. I posted something to that effect on my Facebook wall this week. We are all very flawed. And we means me. I make mistakes, I say things I shouldn’t, I hurt people. But, I don’t string them along. I don’t intentionally misrepresent myself to them. I don’t take advantage of their good nature or their kindness, especially not for my own benefit. To wear the name of Christ, to proudly make claim to the redemption He provides and still treat another of His family with such contempt–I can only imagine the heartache it creates in Heaven. And it makes me feel like I have a target on my back.

I know how God feels about liars.

“You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.” Exodus 20:19

“There are six things the Lord hates, Yes, seven which are an abomination to Him:…Haughty eyes, a lying tongue and hands that shed innocent blood,…A false witness who utters lies, and one who spreads strife among brothers.” Proverbs 6:16, 17, 19

“What is desirable in a man is his kindness, and it is better to be a poor man than a liar.” Proverbs 19:22

I know the blood of Christ covers the sin of lying if I live in a repentant state, if I ‘walk in the Light,’ 1 John 1:7-9. I know the one who lied to me has the opportunity to make things right with God, and I am most thankful. Not one of us deserves His mercy or His grace, but He lovingly and in hopeful anticipation makes them available to us. I pray all offenders take advantage of His great gifts.

I wonder, though, do we consider the damage we do to the body of Christ when we engage in deception of any kind? Once discovered, my lies wound, if not destroy, my credibility. Why would anyone believe my words or actions without questioning their veracity? Even the little ‘white lies’ I utter in order to protect someone else or myself are injurious to my relationships. Any flavor of deception is inherently disrespectful. Withholding pertinent information, reframing the truth, presenting partial truths as if they are complete, or any false pretense, whether intended or not, expresses an attitude of condescension–I am better / smarter / wiser / more deserving than you, and I will decide what information I let you have. Lying of any kind comes from evil in my heart, and it should set off a million alarms in my spirit.

“But the things that proceed out of the mouth come from the heart, and those defile the man. For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, slanders.” Matthew 15:18, 19

I am certain I will be lied to again in very hurtful contexts. I’m not happy about that, but when dealing with humans, even Christians, lying is part of the package. I could let it create bitterness in my heart. I could become closed off and reluctant to let anyone into my circle of acquaintances. Believe me, the temptation to walk that road is great. However, doing so would impair my ability to continue the work in the Kingdom which God wants me to do. Doing so would thwart my efforts to be honest and transparent in a world that needs more honesty and more transparency. Doing so would make me less like my loving, generous, straightforward Father who calls me to be like Him. Doing so hands Satan a victory.

For my local church family and my earthly family, the offender is no one you know. I ask for your prayers that I find the ability to forgive and move forward.

“But as for me, I will watch expectantly for the Lord; I will wait for the God of my salvation. My God will hear me. Do not rejoice over me, O my enemy. Though I fall I will rise; Though I dwell in darkness, the Lord is a light for me.” Micah 7:7, 8

Is it Love?

September 5, 2013Uncategorizedchristianity, God's love, loveDarby Coss Williams

If it doesn’t cost me anything, it isn’t really love.

During the most recent Bible class I taught, I challenged my class with the above statement. It is my restatement of this quote from Phillip Keller’s book, A Shepherd Looks at the 23rd Psalm:

“The moment I deliberately do something definite either for God or others that costs me something, I am expressing love.”

I am still pondering if my restatement is true to Mr. Keller’s intent. I know I find his statement very challenging. More importantly, I am examining whether my statement and Mr. Keller’s are true to who God is.

I have learned a lot about loving people. I nurture, support and give of myself unconditionally to my children. In thirty years of marriage, I learned that love was a choice and not a feeling. I learned to put someone else before myself, to respect another person’s needs, feelings and preferences above my own. In two and a half years of caring for my husband through cancer treatment, I learned how to pour myself out for another human being with no expectation of reciprocation. Through friendship and sisterhood, I learned to accept people as they are, mostly, and to be a light in their lives that points to God. In thirty-eight years of walking with God, I am learning God’s love is unsearchable and unmatched.

“We know love by this, that He laid down His life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.” 1 John 3:16

To express love, according to Mr. Keller,

I must be deliberate,

I must act,

I must do it for God or for someone other than myself,

and

it must cost me something.

I must be deliberate. Love is, indeed, a choice. It must be intentional. There is no such thing as accidental love; accidental affection, generosity, or compassion, perhaps. To choose to love another person is to decide actively that I will provide for another person’s need or desire or best interest, freely, without reluctance or resentment. If my will is not involved, then I am not expressing love, no matter how much the recipient of my haphazard activity feels blessed, no matter how much God may use my accidental endeavor to bless another. Crumbs falling from the table that the beggar may grab before the dogs get to them do not come from love.

God gave me free will for this purpose–that I would choose to love Him and follow His example in love.

“Beloved , if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.” 1 John 4:11

I must act. Love is an action, not a feeling. In fact, I can love another and not feel affectionate towards them. My heart must be willing to act in another person’s best interest, but I can love another and have difficulty with how they behave toward me. I can love another and still my relationship with them is broken. However, I cannot love a person and continue to harbor ill will towards them. (Matthew 5:43-48) God’s perfect law of liberty is love. It frees me to love the unlovable, to do what is best for them in spite of how I feel about them, just as He loves me.

“But one who looks intently at the perfect law, the law of liberty, and abides by it, not having become a forgetful hearer but an effectual doer, this man will be blessed in what he does.” James 1:25

I must do it for God, or someone other than myself. When I act in the best interest of another by my choice, if it serves my interest in any way, it is not love. I may be acting with affection, I may be sharing with kindness, I may be giving to satisfy a need, I even may be blessed because I act with the desire to serve another, but if I accept a benefit from it, if I gain from it in any way, it isn’t really love. It may not be a bad thing, it may be a very good thing, but it is not an act of love if I gain anything from it–self-esteem, financial or material gain, social stature, or good will. This is the place where I get stuck. I want human credit for the good deeds I perform. I want the feel-good experience and the pat on the back. True love, though, is truly selfless. True love knows its only reward comes from God Himself, and knows His recognition is more than enough.

“…it [love] does not seek its own,…” 1 Corinthians 13:5b

“Let no one seek his own good, but that of his neighbor.” 1 Corinthians 10:24

It must cost me something. Love is sacrifice. It requires that I be ‘worth’ less after than before I give it away. When I truly love, I pour out on another what I would have given to myself. And I feel the loss. I know that I am less in some way. Whether it be time or energy or money or affection or patience or kindness or food or clothing or shelter or discipline or example, whatever I give selflessly, if I know what it costs me and I do it anyway for the benefit of God or for the benefit of another human being, it is an act of real love. If I give out of my surplus, out of what I don’t really need, out of my wealth, if my serving does not challenge me in some way, it is not an act of love.

I need only to look to God Himself for the example of true love:

“Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.” Philippians 2:5-8

“But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” Romans 5:8

Deliberate–“emptied Himself”

Action–“humbled Himself”

Selfless–“while we were yet sinners”

Sacrificial–“died for us”

God is good. God is love!

“Whom have I in heaven but You? And besides You, I desire nothing on earth.” Psalm 73:25

“The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love.” 1 John 4:8

In the Land of the Living

Faith in the Real World