Glimpses: My Strong Tower

Gladys Aylward lived one of the most inspiring lives I have ever heard of. She was never formally educated, and served as a maid in England. She was a physically tiny woman, and when she heard the voice of God calling her to China, no one believed she could make it. She faced more difficult on the road to China than I can even imagine. Her train had to pass through Soviet Russia on the way to China, and was lost in Siberia. She had to trek her way back through the frozen wilderness alone, when her train stopped in a war zone. When she reached an authority, officials forged her passport to make it look like she had come to work in a Soviet factory, not continue on to China. One of her most amazing stories in the USSR, however, was when she was alone in her hotel room, and a knock came on her door. It was a Soviet official.

"I told you I was coming tonight," he announced in a horrible voice, shutting the door behind him.

"You can't touch me. God will protect me."

"You forget, you are a woman alone in a strange country. I can do what I like," the official responded bemusedly.

"God will protect me."

The official raised his hand to strike her, but suddenly turned around, as if by some unseen force, and left the room.

That very night, God's hand led Gladys out of the USSR, and onto a Japanese ship to China. The truth spoken in Psalm 91 could not have been more clear:

1 

Whoever dwells in the shelter of the Most High

    will rest in the shadow of the Almighty.

2 

I will say of the Lord, “He is my refuge and my fortress,

    my God, in whom I trust.”

-Psalm 91:2       

Storms have a powerful impact. I've never personally witnessed a sea storm, but I know how terrible they can be. Near-tsunami sized waves rise in great pillars, and crash fiercely against the ocean surface, only to give birth to the next torrent. Ships can be easily lost in storms like these.... not because the lighthouse isn't there, but because the waves seem to hold a unique talent for hiding it.

How often does that describe our world?  We are lost in a storm. Ships sail in the night, but crash because they can't see the light. The light of the world is shining, but our eyes, like Peter's, are on the storm, and not on our savior. How easily the darkness can seem to stir up waves to distract us from the lighthouse, and blind our eyes to its beam.

Think about this picture:

(via pinterest)

The first time I saw this picture a couple years ago, I could only think about the waves..... how thunderous their crashing billows must be.... how impossible it would be to escape.... how they could drown you in an instant.... how terrified I would be. But then I looked at the man in the picture. He had found the lighthouse that few ships could see. He had a bulwark in the storm. He was not afraid. Look at him; his hands are in his pockets, for goodness sake!  And why would he be afraid?  After all, he had a strong tower to shelter him. 

In the shadow of the Almighty, there is rest from the storm. There is peace. Yes, there will still be trouble. Yes, storms will still rage around us. Yes, they will still strike us. The man in the photo isn't staying dry, as he stands in the shadow of his tower. But look deeper into the picture.... the lighthouse is taking the full blow of the storm. The storm cannot overtake the man, unless the lighthouse falls.

And our lighthouse never can.

He is the everlasting, eternal, immovable, victorious Lord of Hosts. He is the Light, the God of Ancient Days, the Forgiveness of Mankind, the Rebuilder of broken places, the Beloved, the Healer, the Strength of all who believe in Him. Nothing could ever take down our tower. The Enemy already tried 2,000 years ago. Even in the face of seeming defeat, our God raises up what has been lost. My Strong Tower cannot be moved!!!!  

The Enemy still has power in this world. He can attack us. He can send his largest storms against the warriors of Christ, and the storms may strike them. But ultimately, the Enemy can only destroy our physical bodies. In the Shelter of the Almighty, He cannot take our Joy. He cannot take our Peace. He cannot take of Hope. He cannot separate us from the Love of Christ. If we rest in Christ, He dwells in us, and will fortify us from all attack. Yes, we are weak. On our own, we are lost in the storm. The waves will drown us, and we will be lost. But in the shelter of the lighthouse, the storm, no matter how fierce, cannot have the final say.

Many ships sail out to their deaths having never seen the light. Storms can do a powerful job of hiding the tower. But waves cannot block the light forever. They can only rise up for a moment, before they are pulled back down to the ocean surface; the light keeps shining. Any ship that truly seeks for the light will find it. As Jeremiah 29:13 says, "You will seek me, and find me, when you seek me with all your heart."

My God is my refuge and my strength. The immovable rock of salvation is waiting to shelter you. How could we ever refuse?

You are my strong tower,

Shelter over me,

Beautiful and mighty,

Everlasting King.

You are my strong tower,

Fortress when I'm weak,

Your name is True and Holy,

And your face is all I seek.

Glimpses: The Beloved (Part 2)

34 Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. 35 One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: 36 “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”

37 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

-Matthew 22:34-40

Churches constantly talk about this commandment. We hear about it, and we sing about it all the time. But how can we actually live it?  Over the past couple weeks, God has been awakening my heart to the idea of loving Him, and I wanted to share some of what He's been teaching me in this area.

Let me start at the beginning. A few months ago, Christine, my mom, Kate and I attended the Friday night opening of a digital streaming of Leslie Ludy's 2014 Set-Apart Girl Conference. It was an incredible evening in so many ways, but the moment that stood out to me the most was at the very end, about surrendering to Christ. My heart was so stirred that weekend, I wondered how I could have ever not loved God. I felt so full of life and love, I didn't think I could ever be emptied again.

But over the summer, things were not as beautiful as they had been that June weekend. There were moments of distance between me and God, in which even just a simple prayer was a challenge I felt unfit to meet. In those moments, I would go back to the recording of that Friday night message from the conference, about once a month. The tender love of my King would overwhelm my heart, and I would rest in Him...... until I was emptied again.

This cycle continued for several weeks. Its intensity increased markedly over the past month, as I encountered challenges with my first college course, and unexpected failures. I found myself drifting further and further away from the heart of my Savior. I would remember back to those moments of intimacy in June, put in my headphones, and turn on the conference recording. But my heart was never invested. I was just looking for a quick fix, and a short cut back into the arms of Christ. I started letting my mind wander, as I listened to the recording more and more often. I would drift off in the middle of it, and wake up hours later realizing in horror that I had not come any closer to Him.

Two weeks ago, He led me to a new perspective on loving Him, and following the first and greatest commandment, in each of these areas:

The Mind

Sleep was becoming more and more of a problem for me in late September. After receiving a C on my first college physics test, the pressure to study and maintain a solid GPA became huge. My family was behind me all the way..... Mom even let us drop Economics for a few weeks so I could focus on physics. I came to the point where I was studying three or four hours a day for this one class, and still being unable to solve all the problems. In the past, the couple hours before bed that I set aside for God, from around 9:00-11:00pm, had always been a source of strength and rest. But I found that they were no longer marked by peace and growth. I would be up at night for hours, running physics problems through my head, unable to escape my own thoughts.

And then I read an article, entitled "The Marathon of Love". It specifically addressed the idea of seeking God with only our emotions. Emotion is a way of expressing love, but it's not love in its fullest form. Seeking only emotional experiences with God will leave us missing so much!  I began to realize that that was exactly what I had been searching for this whole time...... I kept using that recording to seek out an experience that would stir my emotions, but not my mind.

I took up the challenge of this article, and began to seek a love for God in my intellectual, and not just my emotional, life. I've started reading and journaling Wayne Grudem's  Systematic Theology and C.S. Lewis' The Weight of Glory in my devotional time. Before that week, I had read through parts of both of these books, and not been thrilled about either. Wayne Grudem had seemed to dry, and although I enjoyed elements of what C.S. Lewis had written, his thoughts overall took more time and energy to process than I was ready to give. But in taking these books up again, the Holy Spirit has opened incredible doors in my heart. Even from the first night of reading, Systematic Theology has captured my interest, and given me a deeper understanding of God's Word. The Weight of Glory has taken more time, but is becoming a personal favorite, and continues to shatter my mind with the wonder of God's nature!!  Combining these books with worship music and prayer has been a source of strength to my spiritual life, and is taking me deeper than I ever thought it could.

Over the past week, my mind has experienced so much more peace and joy!  My thoughts at night are no longer captivated so often with physics problems and earthly concerns, but with the mysteries of God's nature. He is teaching me to love Him with my intellect, and not just my emotions, and it is truly beautiful!


The Soul

The soul of a human is a fascinating concept. It is the immaterial and ultimately immortal part of our being. The command to love God with our souls is a command to love Him with our lives themselves. Loving God with my soul has not been an easy process..... when you invite Him into your life, He will come in, and He will change you. In the words of Joanna Weaver, "God loves me where I am, but He loves me too much to leave me there." 

A year ago, I walked through a process that some of you may have heard me mention, called "Cleaning out the Sanctuary".  Last week, I decided it was time to walk through the process a second time, and allow the Holy Spirit to purge me of myself, and truly open my life to God's purposes. Cleaning the Sanctuary has been a huge part of my growing walk with Christ. He is leading me in different areas, asking for control, and teaching me to surrender, and love Him with the very way I lead my life. The most recent adventure is the "Humility Training" that He is walking me through. Through prayer and keeping a journal of His progress in this area, I am slowly learning to step with Him, and not outside of His plan. The Humility Training is only one area, and I can tell already that there are going to be a lot more in the near future. Christianity is the greatest adventure possible, and embarking with your King of Kings on a journey across His endless frontier is something you can never regret!

The Heart

"Jesus lives inside my heart."  I think I had always heard, but never truly understood this statement. The heart holds a massive importance throughout scripture. It is the center of our longings and desires. In the weeks during my struggle with physics, I noticed more and more that my spiritual life was coming to the point where it was only a part of my life; it didn't define the essence of my being. It was just another box on the checklist. I wasn't seeking God with all that I was. I was not fighting to make Him the chief desire of my heart. To love God means to long for Him, and to seek Him.

Loving God with your heart is the center of everything else. Unless you desire Him, you are not going to seek Him with your mind and intellect. You are not going to surrender to Him with your life. When you start this journey, He may not be your first desire. But if you are willing, He will take you there. God delights to bring His children near to His heart. One line in the Set-Apart Girl Conference recording that has stayed with me specifically is: "If you long for Him, it's because He longs for you."  My life has been a testimony to the need for grace. And no matter how many times I fall, He reaches down, and teaches me how to walk again. He loves you. You are the desire of His heart. He cherished you to the point of death. And He is willing to teach us to love Him. I am realizing more and more deeply throughout this process that I do not know how to love God. I can't know, in my own strength. But He has proven faithful to show me.


I am not reaching blindly for a Light. The Light is guiding me to its source.

Glimpses: The Beloved (Part 1)

"When I was little, I used to be so embarrassed when we sang Jesus, I am so in love with You in church. It just seemed so strange!"

Kate was right, when she told me this... I had struggled with the exact same thing for so long when I was younger. Until just about a year and a half ago, I couldn't even begin to wrap my mind around people actually, truly, meaningfully loving God. How could they?  They never saw Him, I reasoned, and all they had was a book to tell them what He wanted them to do. I used to lay there in bed for long hours praying in those years..... just simple requests, rambled off.  Looking back, many of them were shallow, but some of them held a marked sense of depth. "Please let me meet an atheist, and let me talk to them about apologetics. Let me win them over for you!"  "Lord, don't let NCFCA be an idol for me."

I remember staring up at my ceiling, wrestling. "God.... I don't love you. I can't!  Please let me love you. Why can't I love you?!?!" 

If I was honest, in those years, I didn't truly want to love Him. I didn't even think it was possible to. I was convinced the only lifestyle that kind of existence could hold was one of drudging obedience to a God I couldn't see. "Jesus, I am so in love with you."  No one really meant it, did they?

God did. From Exodus, to Matthew, to now, the command has been simple: "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength."  Not just to love, but to love Him with everything. Holding no part of your being back.

34 Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. 35 One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: 36 “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”

37 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’[c] 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

-Matthew 22:34-40

For me, these crucial words debunk the common myth of Christianity that Jesus was a new idea in the New Testament, and that the Old Testament is just a list of rules that no longer matters. Jesus' point is clear: this is the commandment. It always has been. It was there in Exodus. It was there in His day. It is here in ours. My God cannot change.

Look at the order of these commands. Love God first, then love your neighbor. Unless we love God, we can never truly love our neighbor to the fullest. It is not until we have been filled with Christ that we can shine His love to those around us. God is the first priority. Looking back, I'm so thankful God never gave me the opportunity to talk to an atheist in those years.... I would never have truly reached them. The battle for a soul is not in the intellect, but in the heart. It comes down to loving that person; the second commandment. But that is impossible to truly fill if we don't love God. Our Christianity rises or falls based on this commandment.

Jesus is the Beloved. Before Him, there was a gap between man and God. The Israelites were on the other side of the veil; they had no open communion with God. But Jesus tore the veil. On this side of the cross, we have a direct relationship with the very Creator of the Universe Himself. He made us; He designed us, and crafted every aspect of our being. He sees every thought, motive, mistake. He knows everything we've done, and everything we've failed to do....... and loves us more deeply than we could even begin to wrap our minds around.

He is perfect, whole, and unchanging. He is not some far-off, strange Deity who doesn't understand our longings. He knows them intimately; He even gave us many of them.

Think about that mental list of things you would want in your future husband. I've been so blessed to be able to talk to many of you about those kinds of things, and it's beautiful to hear all the things you have in mind. We want someone who will hold us, cherish us, and love us regardless of our appearance. Someone who is gentle, but strong; who will love tenderly, and defend firmly.

Have you ever thought about the fact that Jesus fills all of those longings, and more, perfectly?  No man can ever love us perfectly.... but He can. The love between man and woman is just a reflection of that greater love, between the heart of God and the hearts of humanity.

There is nothing more beautiful than the moment your heart begins to awaken to His love. When you find that the greatest love of all is being poured out upon you. Individually. "We love, because He first loved us."

All the love we could give Him could never be enough to truly praise Him. The least we can do is give everything to the One who gave everything for us. He is worthy.

I've shared this video in a previous devotional but, even for those of you who have seen it, I would encourage you to watch it again. It's an eleven-minute video, reflecting all that God is as revealed throughout scripture. Watch it when you have time to set all other things aside, and come away with Him, without interruption.

HE IS (The Names of God)

{Click here for a larger view on the Ellerslie website}

He alone is worthy of the love that we can give!!  More perspective on the ways He has taught me to love Him, and the awakening to Heavenly affection, next week. :)

Glimpses: The Revelation of God

"On a hot September day in 1918, some happy Indian children set out to trace their mountain river to its source. After the rains in June and October, the river is a glory of rushing water pouring down 

a deep ravine; but in dry, burnt-up September, it is shallow and, from below, bare boulders as big as cottages looked like the steps of a giant staircase.

It would be easy, we thought, to find the source......

The children found new delights - fairy falls, and pools and caves and dear growing things...

but the source they did not find. 

A tree had crashed through the forest just where the banks were too steep to climb...

The children knew that, far beyond...the real source must lie out under the sky in a lonely loveliness, with only the wind and the whispering rushes and the marsh flowers to tell it of the ways of the world below. 

But they could not go up there."

~ Amy Carmichael, The Gold Cord

The temple was a place of massive importance in the Old Testament. It was the holiest place in all of Israel, and only the chief Levites were allowed to enter on certain days. Common men could not approach God. There was a veil of separation, that they could never break.

How often do we feel that veil in our own lives?  Maybe we can see the place where God is. We can see His hand in our midst. We can see others, who have experienced Him. But we ourselves can never seem to taste His presence. There's something in our way. Maybe we've found beautiful things along our faith journey. We can see the outpouring of His rivers. But we can't find the source, or remove the veil, any more than some tiny children in India could remove a massive fallen tree from their path.

The great men and women of the Old Testament longed to see God. They lived their lives pursuing the source of the river. But they could never remove the veil from their midst.

Only one man saw the source in its glory. Moses pursued the source with such a passion that, one day, He was allowed to rest His eyes on its beauty. But it was so glorious that he could only see its back, and even then, he had to hide in a cave with his face covered, lest the glory he beheld would take his very life.

The river's source is glorious beyond imagination. He is before and beyond all things.... Elohim; God, Judge, Creator. El Elyon; The Most High God. El Shaddai; Lord God Almighty. El Olam; The God of the Universe, and of Ancient Days. Jehovah Rapha; The Lord that Heals. Jehovah Nissi; The Lord my Miracle. Jehovah M'Kaddesh; The Lord who makes Holy.

The New Testament reveals a new name. He is Immanuel; God with us. Jesus Christ, God Himself, came down in the most humble form imaginable..... to tear the veil. To break the separation. To show us the way to the Father, and into righteousness. Imagine the impact His words must have had to those living under the Old Testament covenant... "He who has seen me has seen the Father."  He who has seen me as seen the source that was hidden for ages and generations.

On this side of the cross, we are living in the new covenant. Paul said it best in 2 Corinthians 3:

"The Greater Glory of the New Covenant

7 Now if the ministry that brought death, which was engraved in letters on stone, came with glory, so that the Israelites could not look steadily at the face of Moses because of its glory, transitory though it was, 8 will not the ministry of the Spirit be even more glorious?9 If the ministry that brought condemnation was glorious, how much more glorious is the ministry that brings righteousness! 10 For what was glorious has no glory now in comparison with the surpassing glory. 11 And if what was transitory came with glory, how much greater is the glory of that which lasts!"

Jesus Christ was the revelation of the Father. He came down, to be flesh that would be torn as the veil, that we might behold the glory of the new covenant. He left His place of authority at the right hand of the Father, and became helpless. He associated with humanity, and was called a fraud, a law-breaker, an outcast, a stranger in his own home, one who served the prince of demons, and a blasphemer. He was killed as a common criminal..... that we might see. He removed the fallen tree from the path. He cleared the way to the Father. The path to the river's source is open. A path marked by His own precious blood.

Jesus reveals. God does not try to hide Himself from us. As Jeremiah 29:13 says,

"You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart."

He longs for His children to see Him. He is not removed from us. He died to give us an intimate covenant with Him. To show us the way to His heart.

Are we searching?  Are we like those Indian children, willing to follow the stream to its source and search for it, instead of just wondering where it might be?  Are we ready to trek up the mountain, and follow the path, however difficult it may be, to see Him?  Because He has made the way. It's open, however rocky the path. He spilled His blood to remove the veil. How deeply do we cheapen His sacrifice, when we refuse to even embark on the path to find Him here on earth, and are content to remain comfortably in the village below, just wondering what the source might be like, or worse, ignoring its existence at all?

Does your life trample His sacrifice, or treasure it?  Are you living in the light of His revelation?

Jesus reveals. Is your life ready to see what He longs to show you?