Hidden Seeds and Anxieties

Whirl-pool: a body of swirling water formed when two opposing currents meet. //  The most powerful "natural" whirlpools are the result of tidal changes and the fast-flowing water through

narrow shallow straits 

   Anxiety: an emotion characterized by feelings of tension, worried thoughts, and physical changes like increased blood pressure 

     One year and a couple months ago, I was standing on top of a cliff, overlooking a raging sea. I was on the island of Malta, gazing at the same sea that had torn Paul's ship apart in Acts 27 (read the story, it's a good one).  

While gazing down at this water  (finally something louder than my thoughts),I remember seeing huge areas of white water surrounded by light blue, and then darker blue.  I eventually recognized that these white areas were made because of whirlpools that were stirring up the water under the surface. They were INTENSE. I remember thinking I could relate.  Now, a year and a few months later, I would consider those distressed pools as very close acquaintances  (kin, even!)--we understand each other.
   Whether anxiety is an old nemesis or a new foe for you,  this enemy is one to be reckoned with.  But how do we fight it? If you have been following Jesus for any length of time, you are 

probably quite familiar with this passage: 

" Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; 7 and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus."
            Sounds simple enough, right? Make your request with thanksgiving, and the peace of God will guard your heart and mind. This has held true through the ages, and is still true today. But what if  you have sent your request up with all the thankfulness you know how, and the peace somehow isn't coming down? (see Lk. 18:1-8) 

You have looked down at your troubled sea and proclaimed the  truth of Psalm 89:9--
"You rule the raging of the sea; when its waves rise, You still them." 

    These words of faith once left your mouth with great boldness, only to fall into the sea that caused them to be spoken. Now they leave with trepidation, as the waters become a flood.  He can calm the waves if He so desires, so why is this wind allowed to continue stirring our spirits into distress? He rules the raging of the sea, but every time we strain our eyes to see Him walking on water,  it is a mirage. 

Lord, don't You care that we are perishing?

(perish: to be lost, to be marred; to be destroyed)
   We are those who know the One who cares for our souls. We gaze upon the lilies of the field, and study the birds of the air. The wind carries the all too familiar question to our souls:
Where is your faith? 

   Is it not here, living within me? But this time it is different. We used to call out in the midst of our troubles, and anxieties would cease with His answer.  We heard His promise--
"My peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you.  Not as the world gives do I give you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid." 

And we believe!

                   So why does the anxiety stay? 

  Anxiety reaches a place inside of us that cannot be seen, only felt. This is also the place where faith is built. It is a battle ground. Our prayer then echoes the plea of the disciples in Luke 17--
Lord, increase our faith.  

      And what is the Lord's response to such a cry? 

   "If you have faith as a mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be pulled up by the roots and be planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you." 

   That's the kind of faith we all want to have--but what does it mean, to have faith as a mustard seed?

  For the past few weeks, I have begun gardening here at the Ranch. We grow our own cabbage, our own lettuce, and our own broccoli (we grow more than that but I can't think of anymore right now).

   My first experience with gardening  was placing the seeds inside of the little soil pellets.  The seeds were so small, it was hard to imagine anything would sprout from them.  I placed them gently inside the small depression and covered them up. They were now in a place that was dark.

They can't be seen.

  

  Two weeks later it was my turn for gardening again.  I went back to the greenhouse, and found that the tiny seeds had all become sprouts.  I had the general idea of how it came to be.  The little seed had the nutrients it needed from the soil and the water, and just the right amount of sun. 

  Somehow a transformation took place where it went from a hard seed to a soft plant, but I could not watch the exact process. It was done in the dark; in the same place the caterpillars transform into butterflies.  In the same place anxiety meets faith.

Jesus talks about this process in Mark 4:26-29:

  “And He said, “The kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed on the ground, 27 and should sleep by night and rise by day, and the seed should sprout and grow, and he himself does not know how. 28 For the earth yields crops by itself: first the blade, then the head, after that the full grain in the head. 29 But when the grain ripens, immediately he puts in the sickle, because the harvest has come.”

   Sure, I put the two seeds into the soil pellet to grow (two in case one didn't sprout). Yes, I watered it. But I did not cause the transformation to take place. The miracle of new life is orchestrated only by the Creator.  "if you have faith as a mustard seed..." I used to understand that passage to mean if I only had faith as small as the size of a mustard seed. Now I read it differently. 

  The seed is put into a dark place that no one else can see.  Then he starts to come apart. As far as he can tell, he is being destroyed. Perhaps he is tempted to cry out--
"Lord, don't You care that I am perishing?" 

   But there, in the midst of the confusion, and darkness, and catastrophe--there LIFE is being produced.  The seed did not have to change himself. He had zero control. His Creator made him into a new, living thing. He was so small, but when he yielded to His Creator something new and something life-giving was produced. I think even little seeds know their Creator. 

     God does not stop the process of transforming the seed because (to one who does not know better) something is being lost. He does not set the caterpillar free from the cocoon because it struggles. He continues on, letting the old pass away and the new come. 

So what does this have to do with anxiety? 

  Life is filled with  things that we don't understand. This new wave of anxiety is one of them (for me, at least).  But when we are caught in a storm that is not ceasing, and every prayer has been spent, we no longer need to seek the calming of the storm. We need to seek the One who is allowing it. We do not deny our reality: the floods have come; we are helpless to stop them. 

 But we acknowledge the One over our storms, whether or not He chooses to still them. 

We can stand above our sea and cry out Psalm 93: 

"The floods have lifted up, O Lord,
The floods have lifted up their voice;
The floods lift up their waves.

4 The Lord on high is mightier

Than the noise of many waters,

Than the mighty waves of the sea."

   Is this not faith? 

The prayer is not one of peace, but of faith in the midst turmoil. 

   As we acknowledge that the One who is acquainted with all of our ways is still in control, somehow the distressed feelings do not overcome us as they once did. It does not mean they disappear, but the the whirlpool created by two opposing forces (fear vs. love) understands that it's time is short--"and the God of  peace will soon crush Satan underneath your feet(Rm. 16:19)."

            In the core of anxiety, there is fear. 

1 John 4:18 reads--

 " There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment. But he who fears has not been made perfect in love. 19 We love Him because He first loved us."

Why is anxiety so damaging?  Why is it so dangerous? It attacks love. 

  Our storms do not cause anxiety. Our inability to understand the love that covers our storms does.

              Jesus met His disciples in such a state: 

 " And He said to them, “Why are you troubled? And why do doubts arise in your hearts? 39 Behold My hands and My feet, that it is I Myself…"

troubled: stir up, cause great distress, cause a riot 

doubt: thought, reasoning 

   The disciples were in a situation they could not understand. This caused great distress, (anxiety) which led to them trying to come up with their own conclusions. If the mustard seed tries to understand what is taking place when he transforms, he will think he is dying. If the caterpillar tries to understand his transformation, he will think he is forever stuck in his own embalming. 

How do we fight anxiety? We look upon His love. Not glance. Not listen and nod. Study it.  Soak it in.  PUT IT ON. 

   Perhaps you are walking through this time so that your heart can be established not on calm waters, but on LOVE. Oh, how He wants us to know even more the depths of that which caused Him to give His own Son for us. 

  Perhaps He is teaching you how to keep a sober mind in the midst of troubled thoughts. 

"Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. Resist him, steadfast in the faith, knowing that the same sufferings are experienced by your brethren throughout the world.”

  The floods have lifted up their voices. The Lord on high is mightier. 

Fear has come to take its stand. The Lord on high is mightier. 

 Troubled thoughts plague our minds. The Lord on high is mightier. 

This is not forever. 

He is working on your behalf, even in the dark place. Anchor yourself to His love. 

"But may the God of all grace, who called us to His eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after you have suffered a while, perfect, establish, strengthen, and settle you."

    1 Peter 5:10

**sources: wikipedia ; whirl pools: spiral wishing well

Total Eclipse.

Eclipse: derived from the ancient Greek noun ékleipsis, meaning "the abandonment," or "the 

downfall"; derived from the verb ekleipō, which means "to darken" or "to cease to exist."  

If you are currently a living being, and are even slightly aware of  current events, you have heard of 

the upcoming solar eclipse. It seems this rare event has caught the attention of pretty much everyone, and for good cause. This astronomical event is rare indeed, and well-worth the attention. 

 As lovely as it is, I don't find this particular event worth writing words about. ( My eyes 

become tired so easily, and I still can’t figure out how to double space on this thing without doing it 

manually.)  I'm writing about something so much greater than that.  Something that, if you give it the chance, has more than a slight possibility of changing your life. 

Here it is. 

  These past few months, I haven't been sleeping. It's been hard to eat, too. Actually, it's been hard to take a breath without feeling such weight on my chest. You know those days when the battle is raging before you have even opened your eyes...the days when waking up to your own reality is worse than waking up to your alarm?  My heart has echoed  the words and demeanour of Anne of Green Gables, as she ascends those crickety stairs in her darkened, uncertain home: "I am in the  depths of despair.”

   I always hear Marilla's stern response: "To despair is to turn your back on God." Most of the time my  conscience is pricked, but even so the reprimand does not deter my spirit from sinking. (this story does get better, I promise). 

 If you haven't had a season like this, I pray that you would be spared. If you live in the same world as I, however, odds are you have had times such as this. Perhaps you are in that season right now. Life is HARD. It's harder when you choose to follow truth in a world seeping with lies. 

Harder still is when you lose sight of the goal, and you are left to battle with your deceitful heart to re-encounter truth. If you could see my soul, it would resemble a battle-weary being, knuckles bruised and bloodied from fighting with itself. There is a full on war for your soul. If you aren't aware of that yet, you will be. If you have chosen to follow Jesus, there will be battles that overwhelm you, body and soul. There will be trials that knock you to your knees and then kick you while you're down. If you give in to the deceitful desires of your flesh for what appears to be relief, the battle prolongs itself, and you almost forget how it feels to stand. I recently found myself in such a place. This raging war. 

"God, I can't do this. If it's this hard, I can't do this. Life is too long. This is too painful. I can't do 

this." 

  I was sitting at a small table in a little coffee shop, when I heard His answer to me. 

Let Me eclipse you. 

Now to be clear, I had not yet heard of the upcoming solar eclipse. I had no inkling of it's future existence. I had NO IDEA. Yet these words left me with no doubt that they had come from the God of the universe to my heart. I envisioned my soul as the sun, and His presence as the moon, engulfing all my thoughts and anguish and battles. So beautiful was the image to me I recorded this prayer in my notebook then  and there. 

From that moment, whenever I would  become paralyzed with my thoughts or weary in the battle, I would cry out for Him to eclipse me, One afternoon I entered my little apartment and heard: “hey, did you hear about the solar eclipse? They are super rare, like this might be the only one in our life time. Isn’t that crazy?” 

    Heart. Stop. What??? The mere picture God had given to my heart had been enough. There was going to be an actual solar eclipse? A total solar eclipse? Psalm 19: 2 says that 

“The heavens declare the glory of God;

And the firmament shows His handiwork.

Day unto day utters speech,  and night unto night reveals knowledge.”

This was not a coincidence. It was not a random event. The God who holds the universe is the same God who whispered to my heart. I was in awe. I began to research this beautiful event, and found that God had more yet to teach me. As written above, the word eclipse is derived from a Greek word meaning “to abandon” , “to darken”, or to “cease to exist.” 

In Philippians 3:8 Paul proclaims: 

“Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ.”

He goes on to say in verses 13-14: “; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” 

When you choose to make Jesus your Lord, radical decisions must be made. You cannot be partially in. He wants all of you. This requires an abandonment, the darkening, of everything else that used to hold your heart. It requires a total surrender of all that took His place, and allowing one’s soul to be totally eclipsed by something so much better.  God does not call us to abandon all only to leave us empty. He has something greater in mind. 

In a total solar eclipse, three celestial bodes are perfectly aligned. This straight-line configuration is knows as a syzygy, which in the ancient greek, means “yoked together.” 

Pause for a moment. In this rare event known as a total solar eclipse, three celestial bodies align, and become yoked together. Jesus speaks of  us being yoked together with Him in Matthew 11:29, when He says “Take My yoke upon you, and learn from Me; for I am gentle and lowly in spirit, and you will find rest for your souls.” God desires to be ONE with us. This was the essence of Jesus’ prayer to His Father  throughout  John 17. 

Verse 22 reads:“And the glory which You gave Me I have given them, that they may be one just as We are one.”  A total eclipse. Three celestial bodies, in perfect alignment. Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit drawing us to Himself. Once we stand in the midst of this life-altering truth, everything else that once held onto our hearts ceases to exist. All of those loves we clung to, knuckles white, begin to be abandoned, and we enter into alignment with the One who gave His life so that we could yoked together with His soul. 

I don’t know what this eclipse means to you. Maybe you have obtained your special solar eclipse glasses, awaiting it with eager expectation—or maybe this whole thing hasn’t really meant much. Whatever the case, please, do not let  this moment pass you by without recognizing this truth: 

Life hasn’t shortened, the pain has not subsided, and the war still rages on. But our souls have been extended an invitation to be eclipsed by something greater. The God of the universe who holds the alignment of the sun and the moon is the same God who desires to speak to your heart—even if it means moving heaven and earth to do so. Let Him eclipse you. Abandon those things that have burdened your spirit and entangled your heart, and be yoked together with the One who holds the universe. Don’t let this moment pass you by. 

Be eclipsed. 

Go Deep.

“Deep calls unto deep at the noise of Your waterfalls; All your waves and billows have gone over me.” 

   I remember standing on the steps of the deep end of the pool. Perhaps it was the shallow end, but at the time I was a tiny thing, and it was all deep to me. I was there with my mom, my sister, and a friend who was taking swimming lessons. I had not yet learned to swim, but the water fascinated me. I had received strict instructions not to step down off that step. I looked around--my mom was no longer in sight. With no hesitation, I descended  the boring shallow steps and sunk below the waters. I kept my eyes open, I remember that. I looked around in awe of my new under-water world, enjoying it far too much to realize I could not take a breath. The next thing I remember was being lifted up out of the water by the lifeguard. I was disappointed. 

           I am very grateful now that someone noticed the tiny girl that slipped into the water that was too deep. For her, it would have meant death. But there is a different body of water that runs deep--and emerging in this water means life. 

"Then he brought me back to the door of the temple; and there was water, flowing from under the threshold of the temple..." Ezekiel 47:2

     Ezekiel the prophet was brought to encounter first-hand the living, healing water that flows into the sea from the sanctuary of God. According to verse 9, this water attracts life--  "every living thing that moves, wherever the rivers go, will live. There will be a very great multitude of fish, because these waters go there; for they will be healed, and everything will live wherever the river goes." 

      These waters were measured before Ezekiel at four different crossings.  At the first crossing, Ezekiel says that "he brought me through the waters; and the water came up to my ankles.  And again he measured...and the water came up to my knees. Again he measured and brought me through, and the water came up to my waist." Now we are to the fourth time--"Again he measured, and it was a river that I could not cross; for the water was too deep, water in which one must swim, a river that could not be crossed." 

             There are trees spoken of along the bank of this river, whose "leaves will not whither, and their fruit will not fail. They will bear fruit every month, because their water flows from the sanctuary. Their fruit will be for food, and their leaves for medicine." This beautiful river and the trees spoken of are not merely symbolical. This a real place, and one day we will see it!! But this is not the only place such a river is contained.

John 7:37-39

Now on the last day, the great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, "If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink. "He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, 'From his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.'" But this He spoke of the Spirit, whom those who believed in Him were to receive;"

    The Holy Spirit is that living water! That healing, powerful, deep, rushing river. This water is available for every believer. Yet not every one experiences the immersion into His presence. Many like the view from the bank. Some enter, but only to their ankles. Some go into their knees. Some are quite rash and go into their waist. But others, having seen the power and life and healing within, dive into the river that is too deep to be waded across. In over their heads, they seek to know the deep mysteries of God, and His love for them. This, my lovely friends, is the opportunity we have before us! God does not want us to be ankle-deep believers. He wants us to be all in! He wants us to be resolved to know Him and His Spirit. 

             Psalm 1 speaks of the righteous being like a tree "planted by the rivers of water, that brings forth  fruit in its season, whose leaf also shall not wither; and whatever he does shall prosper." God's Word is the water our roots must go deep into. We will stand like the trees by the rivers of water that flow from the sanctuary, and we shall not be moved--because the sustenance of our existence comes from God Himself. 

So don't be afraid. Be fascinated, be intrigued, be eclipsed by these waters.

Descend from the shallow step.

And go deep. 

I want to be a palm tree.

And here's why. 

   It was Friday morning. I was sleepy...(when am I not?) This day had a bit of sadness in the air....this feeling of unsteady had been present in the wind for awhile now.  If I closed my eyes and listened hard enough, I could almost hear  the sad melody in the shifting of the leaves…(goodness, I'm being dramatic).

I decided I need to fix this feeling...so I set out for an adventure. I grabbed all my things, and began to walk...and I ended up where most of my adventures take me. Lying on a patch of green grass looking up at big beautiful blue sky, and being surrounded with the presence of Jesus. As I was lying down, I looked at the palm tree above me. It was swaying pretty hard in the wind. I started looking around at all the other palm trees, and they were all bendy too! 

What if it just falls down and collapses on me?

I decided that wouldn't be the worst way to die. 

       I also decided I felt a lot like that tree. The wind is blowing pretty hard these days. I'm not able to stay steady and still; it's swaying me. I can't stop it. ...I started remembering all the other Palm trees I've seen...and I realized how incredibly tall they become! I couldn't help but wonder how they don't fall over. I decided to do some research. It turns out, Palm trees are monocots. My brain isn't good at explaining sciency-stuff, but I'm going to try.  By quoting someone who  explains it better. hehe.

 "Monocots have embryos that sprout straight up in a single shoot, instead of up and out with branches, as dicots do. A palm grows straight up, gaining its height on overlapping leaf bases. Palm trees have  bundles of vascular strands that carry nutrients up and down the tree. It’s like a thick steel cable woven from a lot of smaller steel wires. each strand in these vascular bundles is connected to the root system. Dicots have woody roots, and in most dicots, 80 percent of the root system is within the top two feet of soil. (I don't want to be a dicot!)

Anyone who has ever tried to dig up a palm can tell you it has fibrous roots that not only fan out to great distances,  but also go down deep. Like to somewhere down around the tectonic plates. So all this combines to give a palm tree a very solid base in the ground and a very supple trunk that will bend in the wind without breaking." 

Aah!! This literally makes me do a happy dance.  Did you catch all that he said?? Palm trees shoot STRAIGHT UP. They don't have  branches sticking  out like other trees, that could catch the wind and fall. How often do I reach out instead of up to steady myself in the wind, and fall because of it? They have vascular bundles directly connected to the roots, and they grow layer by layer. They bend, but they don't break. They are SOLID, because they have a stable foundation. And they are only focused on going one  direction. 

Luke 21:31-32 says 

"Simon, Simon! Indeed, Satan has asked for you, that he may sift you as wheat.But I have prayed for you, that your faith should not fail; and when you have returned to Me, strengthen your brethren.”

I feel like a little wheat kernel.  I'm being tossed up and down, up and down. But do you know what happens when wheat is sifted? All the chaff is blown away, and only the good and pure remains. 

Maybe you feel like this. But remember what Jesus says--"I have prayed for you, that  your faith should  not fail." Jesus prays for you. Maybe you feel like you're in a windy storm, and you're being bent and swayed all over the place. Remember your roots. Look to your foundation. No matter how hard the wind blows and threatens, it cannot reach what's underneath--the foundation. If Jesus and His Word is your root system, then you will survive the tsunami, just like those Palm trees do. And Jesus is a much stronger foundation than monocot roots!!!! 

1 Peter 5:10:

"But may the God of all grace, who called us to His eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after you have suffered a while, perfect, establish, strengthen, and settle you."

Hang on, little wheat kernel!  Don't be shaken, little Palm tree. The wind will cease, the storm will end, and you will come out  all the more strengthened and all the more secure.

(also, here's the source about the cool Palm tree stuff. Cause I'm pretty sure plagiarism is punishable by death...)http://arizonaoddities.com/2010/07/why-dont-palm-trees-blow-down-in-the-wind)

The Fallen Toothbrush

"Hey Liel..?" I heard my dad's concerned tone and immediately got a sinking feeling in my chest. "Come here".. He walked towards the bathroom. I followed. He pointed at my toothbrush. "I was just washing my hands and your toothbrush fell in the sink. I wanted to go ahead and tell you so you could wash it and wouldn't forget." I heard a laugh from my sisters. "You actually told her..."
"What?"
"Her tooth brush falls all of the time in the apartment! Oh Liel if only you knew the places your tooth brush has been."

Ew. Bleh. Gross. I knew my toothbrush had issues with falling, but I thought it had only fallen around me, and each time I had washed it off. Who knows what germs I have in my mouth now??? 😳
I picked up my toothbrush, and began to wash it off.....

   Unfortunately, my tooth brush hasn't been the only thing that fallen one too many times as of late.
  This past year was a hurricane   for me. I entered a world I wasn't prepared for, and fights I wasn't armed enough to win. I failed again...and again....and again. Have you been there? I asked Jesus to forgive me and wash me clean--and He did! And then, yet again, I would fail Him. I felt like my heart was a stone, and that this time for sure I had ruined my chances. There is no way God could really cleanse me again. I had messed up too much this time. Okay, okay. Maybe God could forgive me, but there is no way He will speak to me like He did before. He will never share that intimacy with me again. He will forgive me perhaps, but He won't be close with me anymore. My heart is too wicked.

Those  were my exact words I spoke aloud this morning, while I was getting ready for the day. I had just finished narrating my life (I do that kind of often...it's too hard for me to keep my thoughts all sealed up in my head) when I set my toothbrush down, and ran to get Bobby pins. I came back to the bathroom to see my sneaky little toothbrush fallen prostrate in the sink. Gross. (We aren't just in our own apartment, by the way, we are in a beach condo we rented--so double gross)😣. I picked it up and said  "How is it humanly possible for something to fall so many times???" My heart stopped. Well, it more like fluttered. Or...beat a little faster. Was that not what I had just said about myself? Now here I was, holding my toothbrush, knowing full well I was going to wash it again without hesitation. Now of course, there was always the option to just throw it away and never use it again, but that would be crazy! why on earth would I do that when I could just wash it off? It was MY toothbrush. I definitely didn't like that it had a thing for falling, but it was in my power to make it clean and ready for use again.

You know what's coming, don't you?

God spoke to my heart. "Liel, you are mine. It doesn't matter how many times you fall. I'm always going to pick you up, and wash you off again. I will make you clean every single time, and I won't stop using you."

Ezekiel 11:19-20 says

"I will give them an undivided heart and put a new spirit in them; I will remove from them their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh. Then they will follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws. They will be my people, and I will be their God."

Did you read what I just read?? Did you let the words sink into your heart and soul? This verse is PROMISE. Have you let your heart become divided? hardened? Have you been struggling with condemnation, because, like my toothbrush, you just keep falling --and you know that you know that this time, God isn't going to pick you up? You're sure it's too much for Him to wash you off again.. you've fallen too many times. If this is how your little heart is feeling, YOU ARE WRONG. God is so much bigger, and so much greater than our hearts. He can  remove the hardness of our hearts, and  give us soft ones again! If we  call on Him, and still desire to be used, then He isn't about to throw us in the trash. He will pick you up, wash you off, and use you in greater ways than you ever thought possible. And He will do it again....and again...and again. So the next time you feel condemned, remember that "if our heart condemns us, God is greater than our hearts, and knows all things." (1 John 3:20). And, if it will help, maybe  remember the story of the fallen toothbrush...that will always be picked up, washed off, and used again.