Hope's Target

I've got February 15 marked on my calendar. In fact, I was tempted to circle it in bright red and add as many gold star stickers as I could fit on the square, because that's the day the last of the puppies goes to its new home. Puppies are cute, yes. But unless you've had a few in your home at one time, I don't think you can begin to imagine the amount of mess and smell generated by 6 (I'll bet you that Roger and Anita weren't singing any happy songs about dalmatian plantations after a week of 99 little pups in the house!) So you can be sure that I'm counting the days! Now there's nothing inherently wrong with looking forward to a particular day or event, whether it be the known end of a trial, or something exciting that you've been planning and working toward for a while. And there's a place for remembering that most of our trials are really relatively short-lived. But if February 15 is my ultimate hope, or even my main one, I've put my hope in the wrong spot. I can look forward to that day with all my might, and daydream about the freedom that will be mine on February 16, but that is only the end of the "puppy trial" season. There is bound to be something else lying in wait just behind it. In fact, I can already see some crazy weather gathering speed in the distance.

I think we all have a tendancy to place an inordinate amount of hope in the end point of a trial. We start young--we don't like being told what to do as kids, and all we can think about is how great it must be to be an adult and be allowed to eat ice cream for breakfast if you want to. We think everything will be better once those 4 years of school are over and we've got a degree under our belt. We do it all the way through an agonizing 9 months of pregnancy and don't stop once we become parents. "Oh, I can't wait until I don't have to change another diaper!" you've said, not realizing of course, that you'll only trade in the Huggies for regular mad-dashes to filthy restrooms everytime you leave the house. The grass is always greener on the other side of this, isn't it?

But placing all our hope in the end of a particular trial often only leads to discouragement and hopelessness. For one thing, trials are often followed by trials. You get to the end of one just to jump into another--out of the frying pan, into the fire, as the saying goes. Yes, most of us have periods of relative peacefulness and ease along the way. But no one goes all the way through life that way. We are promised trials in this life. And they often seem to cluster, or come in waves. For another thing, sometimes trials are inordinately long and the end is nowhere to be seen. You cry out with the psalmist, "How long, O LORD?" and there seems to be no answer. If you are used to just looking forward to getting through "this thing", what do you hope in when there's no promise of getting through it at all?

No, February 15 is not the end of all my troubles. Not in the least. So if the grass isn't guaranteeed to be any greener on the 16th, where is my hope?

1) My hope is in the finished work of the cross. Regardless of how long or trying this difficulty is (and I'm well aware that 8 weeks of puppy care is a very small and short trial!), I can rejoice in the fact that it is not an expression of God's wrath toward me, because I have a sure hope that Christ took all that wrath on my behalf at the cross. And "if God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us." (Romans 8:31-34)

2) My hope is in God's very present steadfast love toward us. Our hope is not merely in something that happened in the past, or in something that will happen sometime in the future, but in God's current, never-ending, steadfast love toward us that sustains us in all our trials. The cross is the proof of it; the hope of heaven the promise of it. But we need the hope that even now in THESE difficult circumstances, God's steadfast love and faithfulness are toward us, upholding us, and able to carry us to the end. One of the reasons I find the Psalms so helpful in times of trial is that over and over again, the steadfast love of God is called to mind and extolled. "Whoever is wise, let him attend to these things; let them consider the steadfast love of the Lord." (Psalm 107:43) "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, "For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Romans 8:35-39)

3) My hope is in the future of heaven, and ultimately the new heavens and the new earth. There IS an end to the trials of this life, and it will come at a definitive point in time (though no one knows the hour). And that will be an end to all trials of all kinds for all eternity. That will be the point when hope is no longer merely hope, but actual sight! (Romans 8:18-25) "Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” Also he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.” (Revelation 7:1-5)

February 15 may well be Freedom From Puppies Day (barring any unexpected hold-ups), but if my hope is not in that certain date, or the vague ending of some other trial, but rather in the finished, ongoing and future character and work of God, then every day can be Freedom Day, and my hope is in a sure and unwavering target. And that is a hope worth having!

Ordinary Life, And Then Some

Well, the sun came up this morning, my feet hit the floor instead of the ceiling, the coffee was good for some perking up, the egg yolks weren't purple and... the basement was flooded :)

The LORD reigns; he is robed in majesty;

the LORD is robed; he has put on strength as his belt.

Yes, the world is established; it shall never be moved.

Your throne is established from of old;

you are from everlasting.

 

The floods have lifted up, O LORD,

the floods have lifted up their voice;

the floods lift up their roaring.

Mightier than the thunder of many waters,

mightier than the waves of the sea,

the LORD on high is mighty!

 

Your decrees are very trustworthy;

holiness befits your house,

O LORD, forevermore.

(Psalm 93)

Ordinary Life

Today was a balmy January day. I didn't see that coming (though I confess that I didn't check the weather). I also didn't expect the after-dinner chaos of trying to feed puppies, at the same time as cleaning up one mess while the kids and the dog were busy making new ones in other spots. If I have to pull out the vacuum or a Lysol wipe one more time tonight, I may lose my mind!

But on a day when I've had unpredictabilities to deal with, I've been thinking a lot about how constant and dependable our lives actually are. We only think of warm January days and dog accidents as unusual because we have an orderly "normal" to compare these things to. January in Canada is cold. As in BITTER cold. House-trained pets can normally be relied upon to go outside when necessary. And fort-building at bedtime is generally known to be off-limits.

We are so quick to complain when things don't go as expected, when unusual trials meet us during the day, when our life is turned upside down by some unanticipated news. But how often do we praise our wise Creator for the orderliness of His creation? How often do we thank God that the majority of the moments of our day pass in a rather predictable way? A meteorologist can tell me exactly what time the sun will come up tomorrow morning, and I don't have to wonder if it will happen (unless the Lord returns). When I climb out of bed, my feet will hit the floor. There is no chance that I'll float to the ceiling instead. Coffee will give an me an (albeit temporary) energy boost, not cause me to drag my body back to bed. When I crack open some eggs for breakfast, the yolks won't be purple. The orderliness of creation is what allows for scientific study to exist. Experiments are repeatable because God made the world to work like a fine-tuned organic machine. 

Children grow in fairly dependable stages, too. Parenting involves a decent amount of the unforeseen, but if you think about it, even most of our dealings with the kids in our household are not wildly out of the ordinary. (Note that I said "most"!) That's why there is such a thing as parenting wisdom, handed down from generation to generation (and why the relational wisdom from the Bible still applies to us today in our modern age). 

And dogs will be always be dogs!

The next time something happens to me that I didn't see coming, and I'm tempted to focus on that one thing that is slightly (or even majorly) out of line, I want to remember that the God of order not only holds that one thing in His sovereign, organized hands, but that in the kindness of His character, He foreordained my world to spend the vast majority of time spinning in the same dependable direction. Can you imagine what life would be like in a world without order? We think this life we live is chaotic enough! So may we be thankful that:

He set the earth on its foundations, 

  so that it should never be moved. 

You covered it with the deep as with a garment; 

  the waters stood above the mountains. 

At your rebuke they fled; 

  at the sound of your thunder they took to flight. 

The mountains rose, the valleys sank down 

  to the place that you appointed for them. 

You set a boundary that they may not pass, 

  so that they might not again cover the earth. 

He made the moon to mark the seasons; 

  the sun knows its time for setting. 

You make darkness, and it is night, 

  when all the beasts of the forest creep about.

The young lions roar for their prey, 

  seeking their food from God. 

When the sun rises, they steal away 

  and lie down in their dens. 

Man goes out to his work 

  and to his labor until the evening.

O Lord, how manifold are your works. 

  In wisdom have you made them all!

(Psalm 104) 

Oh, and the sun rises in Toronto at 7:49 a.m. tomorrow. And you can quote me on that.

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Update: Here's what happened the next morning.

No Vacations

Life rarely takes a vacation.

Take the past little while in our house. It was Christmas vacation around here: no school, no work (of the official sort), nothing to do except... care for 6 newborn puppies? Yes, it appears our dog decided this December was a good time to add to our household an extra pile of little bodies with hungry mouths. She, of course, didn't know that this Christmas was supposed to be quiet. Just the 6 of us, plus ONE dog. And these little guys are very cute, and not as much work as they could possibly be, but they weren't part of my original plan for vacation. Not that much of Christmas vacation turned out the way I had originally envisioned it, anyway. We ended up enjoying the company of several different family members from out of town. At one point, we had 5 adults, 8 children and 7 dogs in our house at one time (and our house is not tiny, but it's not that big, either). It was fun and great to see everyone and I'm truly glad they all came, but it could hardly be described as a "quiet" vacation. Then there was the moodiness that comes from kids off of their normal routine--they were actually begging me to start them back to school early. Add to these circumstances the fact that I am an introvert, and recharge by having time alone to think and read and write, something that was not available to me over the past few weeks (with the one blessed exception of Christmas Day itself, when it was just us here alone and I managed to get 50 pages into a novel)... and by last week I was ready for a vacation from vacation! And all these things seem rather trivial compared to the news we received over Christmas that a friend was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumour.

We took a vacation, but life didn't.

How good it is then, that God also doesn't take vacations! He didn't take any vacations in 2012, and He won't be taking any in 2013, either. In the midst of the unexpected, the difficult, the chaotic, the heart-breaking, He is always there. When I feel like things are so busy that I don't even have time to think, He never stops thinking. When my devotion times are short or distracted (or both), He never ceases to offer grace. When hard trials come in the midst of what is supposed to be a peaceful, joyous time, He never refrains from being a refuge and strength. And even when things are actually quiet and calm, He never takes a few moments to doze off.

I lift up my eyes to the hills.
From where does my help come?
My help comes from the Lord,

who made heaven and earth.

 

He will not let your foot be moved;
he who keeps you will not slumber.
Behold, he who keeps Israel
will neither slumber nor sleep.

The Lord is your keeper;
the Lord is your shade on your right hand.

The sun shall not strike you by day,
nor the moon by night.

 

The Lord will keep you from all evil;
he will keep your life.

The Lord will keep
your going out and your coming in
from this time forth and forevermore.

(Psalm 121)

 

This morning, we headed back into the "normal" routine. And guess what? Life didn't stop happening then, either. I finished my morning workout, only to discover that those children who had been playing so pleasantly together were pretending to be puppies, complete with milk all over the kitchen floor (because you know, of course, that puppies drink out of bowls on the ground). School got off to a later, rougher start than I had hoped. And one particular real puppy has become quite adept at climbing out of the puppy box, so I've spent some time today cleaning up after him and trying to keep him relatively confined. At times like these, the temptation to want a vacation from real life can become very strong. But that's when I need to remember that God hasn't left the wheel. He is firmly in control of all the stuff of life, working in little trials when I need to remember that life is not mine to control and plan as I wish, giving grace to keep serving when I don't think I can handle any more, and granting little oases of calm in the middle of what seems like unrelenting motion.

 

Life doesn't take vacations. But neither does the God of all grace.