There is Life

Thomas said to him, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?” Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life.  No one comes to the Father except through me.  John 14:5-6

I’ve been looking for the way for months now.  I’ve been searching, praying, grieving, mourning, dreaming, trying and in all things searching out the truth about my life – why it was necessary, in God’s economy, to add me to the parts of His Body.  Feeling more like an appendix which apparently can be removed from a body without any consequence, I’ve wanted instead a clearly defined function which would determine to which things I answered “yes” and which things I answer “no”.  Basically, I’d like a guiding mission statement identifying my necessary purpose in God’s Kingdom and at the same time wanting it to be a purpose that keeps my energy flowing, my courage bubbling, my humor high and my joy complete.

The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us. We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ.  We write this to make our joy complete.  1 John 1:2-4

It doesn’t take a theologian to observe the reality that more Jesus is more life and less Jesus is less life.  Worrying about dying computers, broken printers, washing machines on their last legs, new shoes needed, tuition payments due not to mention landscaping dreams, interior decorating desires, personal space and rest and generally fighting for self-preservation all take up space better filled with Jesus.  But the Gospel doesn’t actually preach Gnosticism but instead did make us human, flesh, material in a material world.  I have been called to dwell with God in my physical state,  a condition that includes fatigue, hunger, nerve endings and the limitations of my not being omniscient.

In Uganda, God was near.  People were smaller and He was bigger.  Was it simply the lack of material comforts that made it so?  Was it the common experience of powerlessness?  I thought I would go there to find beautiful simplicity, but the poverty wasn’t beautiful at all, the unjust way those in power lived in the midst of those without power was as dehumanizing as our own culture of “Wall Street to the Hamptons” worship.  Life was really hard over there, but Keens didn’t seem to matter so much and a broken printer was more than most schools over there even have.  A washing machine?  Those are called hands.  I suppose each culture has its own tastes of freedom and experiences of oppression and each need fellowship with Jesus to live in complete joy.

Do you know why I get agitated so easily?  Its because my children have sin that I have to deal with all day and because I have neighbors who don’t know about social boundaries and there are people making decisions at our church and in my children’s schools and extra curricular programs that I don’t agree with and don’t like and can’t do anything about and…

Aware of their discussion, Jesus asked them: “Why are you talking about having no bread? Do you still not see or understand? Are your hearts hardened?  Do you have eyes but fail to see, and ears but fail to hear? And don’t you remember?  When I broke the five loaves for the five thousand, how many basketfuls of pieces did you pick up?”    “Twelve,” they replied.  Mark 8:17-19

I have been looking to myself as the way, the truth and the life.  I have been trying to white knuckle and clench jaw my way into more Life.  The way isn’t through our budget, more income (to be honest, my chest tightens as I write that truth that my heart does not yet embrace) or a definable personal mission statement.  Life is found in Jesus and where He is, it exists in undiminishable abundance.  This is why it is said that Life is found on our knees…not through the computer screen or cocktail glass or on the other side  of a particular career’s glass ceiling.  That Life is not in a particular place but in a particular person.  Where He is, there is Life.

Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life,  and that life was the light of all mankind.  The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.  John 1:3-5

God Fills

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.  Romans 15:13

“May God fill”, the God of hope, it is the God of HOPE who does the filling.  And HE fills with joy and peace…as I trust, the result is joy and peace filling me so that I then overflow with hope.

But here is the thing:  I have trusted.  I did trust.  Its not that I have abandoned trust, after all, what are the alternatives?  My theology is worthless if God is not actually sovereign, not actually fully in control of all things, not actually certain to accomplish every detail of His good, holy and perfect will.  But, I guess the best image I can think of right now is that its more like God and I are doing what 1-2 year olds do, “parallel playing”, rather than engaging one another.  And, my being “not God” means that I can’t force Him to engage with me on my terms but that I just have to keep waiting.  And, though all those “uplifting songs for the family” on the radio proclaim getting stronger in the waiting, well, lets just say waiting is doing very little for making me admirable or healthy in any way.  Then again, I suppose, “trust” means that even this season that seems to be causing me to waste away not just to invisibility but worse, decay and stench, is also part of His good, pleasing and perfect will?

How long o Lord?  How LONG?

When our ancestors were in Egypt, they gave no thought to your miracles; they did not remember your many kindnesses, and they rebelled by the sea, the Red Sea. Yet he saved them for his name’s sake, to make his mighty power known.   He rebuked the Red Sea, and it dried up; he led them through the depths as through a desert.  He saved them from the hand of the foe; from the hand of the enemy he redeemed them.  The waters covered their adversaries;  not one of them survived.  Then they believed his promises and sang his praise.  But they soon forgot what he had done and did not wait for his plan to unfold.  Psalm 106:7-13

I am clearly one of His people, even to my quick forgetfulness and refusal to wait for Him.  I am an ancestor of Abraham, having received the promise, experienced captivity, experienced rescue and then going in search of a golden calf if that could bring relief to my waiting.  Moses was up on top of the mountain just too long to reasonably expect patience.  Hmmm…and that is where the Good News comes in.

But the fruit of the Spirit is love,  joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Gal. 5:22

Even patience is the work of God, accomplished by Jesus, applied to my heart by the Holy Spirit.  Even patience in the waiting is not mine to muster up, white knuckle or will of myself with a clenched jaw.  But what do I do then?  This dissonance is physically stressful, emotionally grueling and mentally disorienting.  How do I wait for His plan to unfold when we actually need tuition money from a job I can’t seem to acquire, when relationships feel strained in my heart in ways that I can’t resolve, when my vision is muddled but the days keep passing?

Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed. Mark 1:35

Have mercy on me, Lord, for I am faint; heal me, Lord, for my bones are in agony.  My soul is in deep anguish.  How long, Lord, how long?  Turn, Lord, and deliver me; save me because of your unfailing love.  Psalm 6:2-4

Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. John 6:68

Where else can I go?  When Jesus was in anguish, weary, exhausted, “on empty”, terrified, depleted and otherwise aware of the weakness of His humanity, He didn’t “dig deep” or “pull it together” or “snap out of it” or strain for a more positive perspective or make new resolutions.  He knew that His weakness could only be satisfied by the Father.  How much more so is this true for me?  The answers will not be found anywhere else.  Strength will not be gained anywhere else.  Love for others will not come from any other source.  Patience can’t be faked, at least not indefinitely.  He alone can handle my frustration, disappointment, wounds and confusion.  He alone can bring an end to this season that apparently, like Mr. Miyagi’s strange training techniques, is in fact working out His good purposes for me.  May He quiet me, settle me, gentle me and fill me with His righteousness.

The fruit of that righteousness will be peace; its effect will be quietness and confidence forever. Is. 32:17

The Toxic Nature of a Meritocracy

And the people of Beth Shemesh asked, “Who can stand in the presence of the Lord, this holy God? To whom will the ark go up from here?”  1 Sam. 6:20

Who can stand in the presence of the Lord, this holy God?  Who can be in front of Him naked and unashamed after Adam and Eve’s violation of His Law?  Only perfect, unwaivering, purely motivated obedience allows for life to be sustained in the presence of the Holy God.  Who then can stand?

Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done. They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy.  Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.  You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge another, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things.  Now we know that God’s judgment against those who do such things is based on truth.  So when you, a mere human being, pass judgment on them and yet do the same things, do you think you will escape God’s judgment?Romans 1:28-32, 2:1-3

The answer is that nobody, no not even one, can stand before a holy God by his or her own efforts or sense of self-righteousness.  Even our charity is tainted with selfishness, even our kindness to others can be motivated by what we get from that relationship.  We show favoritism toward those who offer us something we are lacking and either totally ignore or even detest those with whom we disagree or find offensive to our goals and purposes.  We, I, constantly pass judgment on others for the way they respond to a situation or do their jobs or don’t do their jobs or continue in bad habits that we ourselves don’t struggle with at this time.

It is evident when I have once again developed Gospel amnesia because my patience is thin and my intolerance is thick, my compassion is deteriorated and my condemnation is dominant, my affection for others is absent while my anger  places them on a fragile trip wire where at any moment I might punish them with my words, glares, silence or tantrum.  I return to living by merit when my heart is gripped by Gospel amnesia, forgetting that it is by grace alone I have been saved and not by any “good works” of my own, that it is by grace alone that I am secure in the love and affection and blessing of God regardless of my nasty attitude, poorly chosen words, unfulfilled obligations and other offensiveness.  And when I start riding the highs and lows, mostly lows, of living by the merit of my accomplishments, productivity, generosity toward others in action and attitude, talents and credits, I demand that others do as well.

You brood of vipers, how can you who are evil say anything good? For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of. Matt. 12:34

The Pharisees were called sons of their father, the Serpent.  In Genesis, when the promise of the work of Grace was announced, it was to the offspring of the woman and referenced the offspring of the serpent.  Gospel amnesia creates a strong pull toward the perspective of the Pharisees, disbelieving God’s word that only through the completed work of the seed of the woman, Jesus, could man be righteous and free from judgment.  My heart often just doesn’t agree and thinks my own work is praiseworthy.  Conversely, I have quite a lot to say about the shortcomings of others, how they aren’t doing it right/well/to my high standards…which are never as high as God’s.  Requiring others to attain a perfection that God has said is impossible offers only a death sentence.  When the nature of my conversation, words and attitudes is characterized by criticism of others, distrust of others, disdain for others and general judgement of others, what is being exposed is not my superiority as I have come to believe in that moment, but my viper’s heart.

Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus,  because through Christ Jesus  the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free  from the law of sin and death.  For what the law was powerless to do because it was weakened by the flesh, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh to be a sin offering.  And so he condemned sin in the flesh,  in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.  Romans 8:1-4

Even my viper’s heart is no match for His grace.  His grace is sufficient for me for His power is made perfect in my weakness.  And I must extend this same grace to others.  He has freed me from the just judgement of the Law so I cannot demand others meet standards that only Jesus can.  It is impossible for me to love generously until I realize I have been generously loved.  I cannot overflow with grace, mercy and love if it has not overcome me.  Where I recognize its absence, may I be drawn back into His embrace, drinking deeply of His unreasonable generosity towards me so that I may respond with unmerited generosity toward others.  Just as His kindness leads us to repentance, it is this life breathed in through Grace  that multiplies life in the place of death brought from judgment.

“A new command I give you: Love one another.  As I have loved you, so you must love one another.  By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” John 13:34-35

“In Repentance and Rest is Your Salvation, in Quietness and Trust is Your Strength”

“I, even I, am he who comforts you.  Who are you that you fear mere mortals, human beings who are but grass, that you forget  the Lord your Maker, who stretches out the heavens and who lays the foundations of the earth, that you live in constant terror every day because of the wrath of the oppressor, who is bent on destruction?  For where is the wrath of the oppressor?  The cowering prisoners will soon be set free; they will not die in their dungeon, nor will they lack bread.  For I am the Lord your God, who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar— the Lord Almighty is his name.  I have put my words in your mouth and covered you with the shadow of my hand — I who set the heavens in place, who laid the foundations of the earth, and who say to Zion, ‘You are my people.’”  Is. 51:12-16

Fearing “mere mortals who are but grass”…but the grass can be prickly and hurt, it can provoke allergic reactions, it can grow long and entangle and it can become infested with weeds.  The grass can become so demanding or overwhelming that it consumes time and energy, sucking out passion and imagination.  So yes, even the grass which is here today and tomorrow thrown into the fire has successfully caused me to forget my Maker and wonder if I really am “His people”.

People can be so delightful and hilarious, bringing laughter and lightness of heart.  People can be encouraging and inspiring, motivating new boldness and strength of purpose.  But people can also so be passive aggressive, bullies or simply so self-absorbed that those around them are reduced to utilitarian instruments, existing primarily to serve the will of the most committed to their own dominion.  There is something very dehumanizing that happens when individuals become the most important person in a group, stripping the reflection of God away from everyone in a desperate search for his or her own enthroned image.  Judge not that ye be not judged…and as I have felt this hollowing out I have been the one slashing and burning all who do not conform to my will.

“Seek His face not His hands” was an instructive quote I was told in college.  I am to worship HIM not simply adore what He can do for me or through me or around me.  I was made to image Him in character by loving, serving, sacrificing, nurturing, mending, restoring, gardening.  I was not made to BE Him in power, authority, position or glory.

I know your deeds, your hard work and your perseverance. I know that you cannot tolerate wicked people, that you have tested those who claim to be apostles but are not, and have found them false.  You have persevered and have endured hardships for my name, and have not grown weary.  Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken the love you had at first.  Rev. 2:2-4

I like deeds and doing, knowing and identifying “the true Gospel from new laws and false gospels”.  I have returned to being my own first love, forgetting the Lord my Maker who set the heavens in place, laid the foundations of the earth and put His words in my mouth and wrote them on my heart.  I would quite prefer, it seems, to be like one of the desert fathers who found utmost holiness in solitude, because in solitude you don’t have to deal with people and their sin and their different perspectives and ideas and thoughts and preferences.  But Jesus came to dwell among His people, to wash the feet of His creation, to be accused and despised by those with the power and influence to convince others He was wrong and they were right.  I want to run away from people and He moves right into the heart of them.  He never  mistook the grass for His Lord and never replaced His own will for the will of the Father.

Seek the Lord, all you humble of the land, you who do what he commands.  Seek righteousness, seek humility;  perhaps you will be sheltered on the day of the Lord’s anger.  Zeph. 2:3

Jesus is the only One who is perfectly righteousness and absolutely humble.  In Him we may be sheltered from the Lord’s anger.  In Him I may find life in abundance, never possible by slashing and burning in a vain search for my own kingdom.

The fruit of that righteousness will be peace;  its effect will be quietness and confidence forever.  Is. 32:17

Do the Work

David also said to Solomon his son, “Be strong and courageous, and do the work. Do not be afraid or discouraged, for the Lord God, my God, is with you. He will not fail you or forsake you until all the work for the service of the temple of the Lord is finished.  1 Chron. 28:20

The Temple of the Lord, as we learn by seeing how this story plays out, is Jesus.  He is the temple that will be destroyed and rebuilt again in three days.  He is the One in whom all of God’s glory dwells and He is the One who has wrapped us in Himself so that we are part of His body, sharing in His life as we are swallowed up into it.  But as long as it takes to read from Chronicles to Matthew, it certainly takes longer for the events in and between each paragraph to transpire.  And for this reason, God must remind His people, us, me, over and over and over again not to get discouraged.  He will not forsake His Temple, His Body nor His glory. Be strong and courageous.  Do not be afraid.  “For I…”

It is not that I can be strong and courageous because I am never wrong, or coming with the wrong motives, or saying it with poorly chosen words or doing it clumsily or recklessly.  Because my heart will always have a strong pull toward self-preservation, self-glorification and self-justification, my courage isn’t based upon me at all, but in all cases it is based upon the “I Am” actor in the scene.  God will not fail to accomplish all of His good will.  God will not step away until His work has been completed, at which time rather than stepping away, He will dwell with man again, physically, in perfect harmony.

Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the Lord your God goes with you;  he will never leave you nor forsake you.  Deut. 31:6

“Because of them”.  Those are weighty words because “they” are so influential and quite honestly, kind of like playground bullies.  No matter what is said, its just hard to avoid fear of man.  The judgments and opinions of others are powerful.  I am not only easily terrified “of them”, I am willingly diminished by “them”, silenced by “them”.  A blank stare or a resistant response is all that it takes to turn my heart to water and my bones to ash.

But He comes to me, in my ashes, and says, “talitha koum”, little girl, wake up.  Be strong and courageous, and do the work. Do not be afraid or discouraged, for the Lord God, my God, is with you.

Formless and Empty

It has finally occurred to me that I need to acknowledge that I am not as mentally or emotionally respectable as I have always believed, not as positive and optimistic as I have always intended and, at the end of day, as I was reminded from Tolstoy’s quote about unhappy families being unhappy in their own way, I too am an individual deeply unhappy in my own way.  I don’t “keep on the sunny side, always on the sunny side” of life.  I don’t like everybody.  I don’t see the best or assume the best of other people’s motives and I am painfully aware of the wickedness of my own inclinations, motives and preferences.  I see the darkness in me in a way that seems to exclude the Gospel altogether.  As a matter of fact, my theology often gets in the way of my honesty.  I feel the darkness dropping heavily upon me, surrounding me and I succumb to it with sadness but not much resistance, anymore.

He has driven me away and made me walk in darkness rather than light;
indeed, he has turned his hand against me again and again, all day long.                                                                                                 He has made my skin and my flesh grow old and has broken my bones.                                                                                                   He has besieged me and surrounded me with bitterness and hardship.                                                                                                     He has made me dwell in darkness like those long dead.  He has walled me in so I cannot escape;                                                he has weighed me down with chains.  Even when I call out or cry for help, he shuts out my prayer.                                         He has barred my way with blocks of stone;   he has made my paths crooked. Like a bear lying in wait, like a lion in hiding, he dragged me from the path and angled me and left me without help.  He drew his bow and made me the target for his arrows.  He pierced my heart with arrows from his quiver.  Lam. 3:2-13

His love for me does not mean that I get whatever I want, that I get to be the exception to the rules or the statistics, that He will open for me doors that men have shut.  His intentional creation of me as a purposeful body part does not mean that I get to know what that purpose is or that the intention is apparent to me.

One of you will say to me: “Then why does God still blame us? For who is able to resist his will?” But who are you, a human being, to talk back to God? “Shall what is formed say to the one who formed it, ‘Why did you make me like this?’” Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for special purposes and some for common use?  Rom. 9:19-21

Maybe my biggest problem is that I never dreamed, as a little girl, of growing up to become “common use”.  I always wanted to become a special purpose.  My Wonder Woman Underoos were only the beginning.  My lasso of truth and invisible jet were just the icing on the cake.  It doesn’t matter that theologically I know the “special purpose” is Jesus and not me.  I thought maybe we’d make a great team, co-leaders if you will, better yet, the new inhabitants of the League of Justice.  But Jesus is fully complete with the Father and the Spirit.  And it turns out, I’m not quite the match for the bad guys that I imagined as a little girl in costume.

  Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.  Gen. 1:2

Perhaps I am now like that first earth, formless and empty with darkness covering the surface of my depths.  He makes me dwell here like those long dead, holding me down with chains, walling me in, shutting out my prayers and piercing my heart with his arrows.  Yet like that first darkness, the Spirit of God is in fact hovering, yet unseen and unheard and still, to my experience, unnoticed.  What creation will follow, and when Light might break forth, I do not know.

Stuck in Traffic

Theologically, I embrace mess as the reality of a life truly being transformed by Grace.  But practically, I don’t care for it at all.  If I get in the car, for example, I like to know where I am headed and the most efficient way to get there, which means minimal traffic and shortest route.  I really don’t want to get lost or take the road with only one lane opened because of construction or be sent on a detour.  Such delays are frustrating and not only add to the soreness in my seat but grow the anxiety in my chest.

Now, take that image and set my car on practically empty in one of those small towns on the way to the beach, but remove the “on the way to the beach” part.  That is the setting of my internal life these days.  And my internal response?  It is perhaps like one plagued with severe anemia.  There is still some anger as an indicator of life within, but the will to fight – or even the object of my fury – is unclear and almost imperceptible.

Yet you brought me out of the womb; you made me trust  in you, even at my mother’s breast.  From birth I was cast on you;  from my mother’s womb you have been my God.   Do not be far from me, for trouble is near and there is no one to help.  Many bulls surround me;  strong bulls of Bashan encircle me.  Roaring lions that tear their prey open their mouths wide against me.  I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint.  My heart has turned to wax;  it has melted within me.  My mouth is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth; you lay me in the dust of death.  Psalm 22:9-15

I suppose the Psalmist are more honest in admitting that my only real foe is God.  He is the One who created me, drew me to Himself, caused me to trust Him and has told me what to believe about Him.  Had I never known Him, had I never believed in the wild possibilities of His Kingdom and His reign, I would never have felt the dissonance of a world in need of all He promises.  Had I never believed, His silence and absence wouldn’t feel so utterly empty.

This man was handed over to you by God’s deliberate plan and foreknowledge; and you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross.  Acts. 2:23

The wicked men did a wicked thing, and yet they and their actions were ordained deliberately by God to accomplish His GOOD will.  So, on one hand, I suppose that is comforting in the fact that even wicked people can’t thwart God’s redemptive purposes.  The bad news, particularly for Jesus in the case mentioned above, is that for God’s good and redemptive plan, they accomplished their cruel and painful punishment of Jesus.  So can we be angry at the instruments of God’s work, may we be angry at God for choosing to redeem through suffering, or do we respond in some totally other manner?  Delight?  I don’t think so because that would be tantamount to denial.  Not my will but yours be done?  I guess.

Then he said to them, “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death.  Matt. 26:38a

Take this cup from me, Jesus prayed with a sorrowfully overwhelmed soul.  Few people know that kind of anguish, yet most of us ask for “this cup” to be taken away.  How do we continue walking through the valley of the shadow of death, even when the shadows are entirely confined to our inner-experience?

But now, this is what the Lord says— he who created you, Jacob, he who formed you, Israel:
“Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name; you are mine.
When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;                                                                                                      and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you.                                                                   When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze.                          For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior;  Is. 43:1-3a

 

Beloved Prostitutes

We “met” another “neighbor” last night on a family walk around the block.  But let me back up just a little bit.  We had just finished dinner with a friend and as we sat on the front porch, enjoying what finally felt like spring weather in mid-May, I commented on the peacefulness of our neighborhood and the frustration that everyone perceives it as so scary.  Armed with roller blades, skateboard and the dog on her leash, we decided to enjoy the lovely evening with a family stroll.  As we got to the end of our short part of the street, a BMW SUV blaring music (not unusual) drove past with a white college boy and an Auburn license plate (unusual).  The reality is, though I hate to admit it, you can still identify those who “don’t live here” and worse, the reason most of those outsiders have made a stop in the neighborhood.  It isn’t usually to plant flowers or to visit a shut in.

As we continued on down the street, we had some invigorating short visits with neighbors we know and love.  Then, we passed the ominous two houses that everybody seems to know as the drug and prostitute houses.  Sure enough, cars were pulling in and out even in our short walk.  When a white girl, with messy hair and clearly crack abused teeth passed us on the way to those houses, all parties were a little surprised.  She affectionately acknowledged Ellie with a “hey chica” just before cussing out the guy we’d just passed in front of said houses for being late.  She could also be overheard (because she was yelling) telling him not worry about us but to deal with her.  Hmmm.  There was another dramatic exchange between the two in front of our house an hour later and then, this morning as I ran down the busier street around the corner, sure enough there she was again, and there he was waiting in a parking lot for her.

Yet the Israelites will be like the sand on the seashore, which cannot be measured or counted.  In the place where it was said to them, ‘You are not my people,’ they will be called ‘children of the living God.’  The people of Judah and the people of Israel will come together; they will appoint one leader and will come up out of the land, for great will be the day of Jezreel.  Hosea 1:10-11

The “yet” is that Hosea was to marry a prostitute, Gomer, who was certain to be unfaithful and grossly adulterous.  Her wickedness made her justly identified as “not my people”.  But God was telling a more extraordinary story.  He calls her, and Rahab, and me, “children of the living God”.  Teeth yellowed by crack abuse, a body trashed by dirty and hateful men, and choices not to escape but to settle in to this lifestyle because on some level, its just easier.  To God, these women, and ultimately the rest of us as we see ourselves in them, are His Beloved.  He sees past the teeth and hair, past the dead eyes and the bitter words, past the mismatched and ill fitting attire to the heart of the one he loves.

But now listen, Jacob, my servant, Israel, whom I have chosen.  This is what the Lord says—
    he who made you, who formed you in the womb, and who will help you:                                                                      Do not be afraid, Jacob, my servant, Jeshurun, whom I have chosen.                                                                        For I will pour water on the thirsty land, and streams on the dry ground;                                                                     I will pour out my Spirit on your offspring, and my blessing on your descendants.                                              They will spring up like grass in a meadow, like poplar trees by flowing streams.  Some will say, ‘I belong to the Lord’; others will call themselves by the name of Jacob; still others will write on their hand,          ‘The Lord’s,’ and will take the name Israel.  Is. 44:1-5