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Away- Hebrews 10:8-10

⁸ When he said above, “You have neither desired nor taken pleasure in sacrifices and offerings and burnt offerings and sin offerings” (these are offered according to the law),⁹ then he added, “Behold, I have come to do your will.” He does away with the first in order to establish the second. ¹⁰ And by that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

My eyes strain to shut. I wrestle against sleep’s tug to pull me under and back down to my pillow. My eyes roll, unable to focus on my cell phone’s screen alight with my morning devotional. My brain starts spinning with a million reasons why I should go back to sleep. But my will and my spirit fight back. No, I need to write.

Some days getting up at 4:45am, while it’s still dark, and, now that California has decided to maybe try on the season of Fall, cool and tingly, it feels like the largest sacrifice in the world to leave my snug-as-a-bug bed. To force each step away from my bedroom and down the dark hallway to the kitchen. To brew my coffee and eat my bacon and eye my laptop with a measure of contempt. I want the words to flow this morning. If just for once this didn’t have to feel like a struggle—physically with exhaustion, mentally against all the loud voices that tell me I’m not up for this, emotionally as I start to believe them.

I know I don’t have to write, only that I really do. God loves me no less sleeping in my bed until 7am than getting up before the sun. And though He loves me no less, when I am up and writing and working and using my gifts I love Him more. I feel connected to Him as the thoughts finally begin to trickle and I watch the words join up; serving out of my desire to know Him more, not my need to try to keep Him happy as if He were constantly disappointed with my shortcomings.

He knows my weaknesses and has already taken care of the many ways I will fail Him. Jesus came not to do away with the high standard to which we’ve been called, but to fulfill it once and for all. By completing His Father’s will we now are equipped to do the same.

How are you called to serve? Do you ever feel God is disappointed with your efforts? Why does the motivation of our service matter?

I reach for the bathroom door, pulse pounding in my ears. I am surprised, and relieved, to find it is a private restroom, no stalls. I lock the door behind me with a click that echoes. Staring into my wide eyes in the mirror I attempt to smush my scattered thoughts and dissonant emotions into a more cohesive, manageable form like a multicolored lump of Play-Doh. I force focus on my breathing.

Deep breath in.

Lord, that it would bless them.

Slow exhale.

Father, that You would be glorified.

Deeper in.

That I would be made more like You in this process.

Blow back out, forcing myself to be fully present. My heart drums a call for flight. Sweaty palms, shaky fingers rest on the cool, solid granite. I straighten my spine and square my shoulders shifting the weight of the heavy new story that is settling on me, in me, enveloping me. I wiggle my toes in my brown riding boots. Mirror-me is confident, collected, but my dark eyes betray me staring back out swirling with old stories half told.

Please be here with me.

Fragmented scripture breaks the roiling surface of my thoughts, the same snippet has often over the past couple weeks, “…present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.” The words connect like a wooden bat and a fastball, cracking in my chest and reverberating through my limbs.

Above all, I am here to offer myself in worship and I am made to worship by using my gifts.

I close my eyes. Inhale. Exhale. I force my shoulders down and in doing so the tension slips and the new story settles into place. Now it fits like a loose-knit, slightly misshapen mantle; the pressure no longer a burden, but an embrace. My eyes pop open in surprise and I catch myself smiling in the mirror.

“Well there’s no running now,” I giggle at my dramatic reflection, “Either I’m going bomb or I’m not. Time to just do the thing.” My fear fizzles replaced by effervescent excitement. I walk out of the bathroom and follow my big crazy dreams down the empty hallway, boots clicking the laminate floor.

**********

My memory of giving the message is a blur of faces and page turning and a surprisingly clear internal monologue that ran concurrent to hearing my voice coming out of my mouth. I felt comfortable, strangely relaxed. The only concrete experience I can compare it to is when I lose myself writing and come up for air, then am shocked to discover I’ve been writing for hours that snuck past as minutes. Sometimes I muse that perhaps these moments are “pockets of eternity” where you feel so connected to your work or fellowship or whatever that time gives a glimpse of its irrelevance.

“Do you feel relieved?” A smiling friend asked as I awkwardly made my way back to my seat—back to reality—from the podium. It surprised me to find that the relief I, too, had been expecting wasn’t there. Instead I felt fire. “No, I’m pumped!” I attempt to elaborate, “I loved it! It was really fun…” I lamely trail off, my mind and attention buzzing to the next face. Women mill about me, smiling, patting, touching my sleeve, shockingly a couple with tears in their eyes. I’m carried on this surreal sea of affirmation, no time to process, next door to the chapel for the final conference session from the main speaker.

**********

The powerful words of the final session, a call to Sabbath, wash over me. Then I bask in the silence of my first experience with lectio divina. “Endurance and patience,” I speak aloud the portion of the scripture that spoke most to me after the third reading. I say it feeling somewhat resigned, deflating from the high of speaking earlier, but settling into a better Peace.

This is not about me getting discovered. Forgive me for my pride. Father, You see me. You know the timing. You have a plan for me. Help me to be patient, to endure.

Another snippet of scripture floats into my meditating mind from Romans 15:5: “May the God of endurance and encouragement…” Oh Lord, thank you that you are both!

I breathe the scripture slowly, purposefully, reminiscing on my earlier near-freak-out in the bathroom. Thank you, Father, that you came! I feel his paternal pride for me swell in the pit of my stomach, an I-wouldn’t-miss-it-for-the-world flood of emotion that brings tears to my eyes.

**********

In the muddle of goodbyes and well-wishes and all-the-hugs after the conference something important happened and I almost missed it. It struck me like an electric shock as I pulled out onto the main road shifting gears manually and mentally. (I’m reminded of the moment in Madeline when Miss Clavel turns out the light and declares, “Something is not right!”) I pull onto a side street and shift into neutral in front of a tiny older home situated across from some sort of industrial yard.

I’m sitting in my old Civic not even a mile from the church. I pull my worn, purple journal from my bag and fish out a pen. What did she say?! I strain my memory to reach back to the moment.

Closing my eyes I will myself back into the quickly dimming memory in the church foyer. I was standing talking with some friends and family when she—Mary Hulst, main speaker, Calvin College chaplain, and ex-seminary professor that I had mentally been obsessing over since the moment I realized who I would be speaking with—had tapped me on the shoulder.

She had gone out of her way to encourage me earlier in the day. I was crackling with anxiety like static, trying to pull it off only to find it clinging. Twice she reminded me how she was for me. She told me to imagine her with face painted and shaking cowbells: my biggest fan in the room. I relaxed into her loving grace.

But there in the foyer, after all was said and done, what did she say…? I whisper a prayer into the dusty dashboard. Lord, I know that was important. What did she say?

Standing in the foyer, I turned away from the friends I was chatting with, momentarily distracted by the tap on my shoulder. I remember Mary smiling at me and a rib-cracking bear hug. Some words of affirmation and congratulations. I don’t remember those words, just feeling that they were very generous. I remember telling her she might make me cry; something I say when I feel like I should be crying, when I want to cry, but can never quite let myself do it in front of people.

Mary stepped back, away to leave, smiling. My eyes were wild with questions. I wonder what mixture of searching for answers and puppy dog longing she saw there. This is what I want to do. I think this is what I was made for. How do I do this? Silent questions coming so rapidly I could not have found the words nor the time had my tongue not failed me anywhow.

She meets my gaze directly. Sees my face momentarily naked, desire exposed.

With authority and warmth that I imagine wells up from the spring of her experience, she answers my unspoken questions, “Make small, faithful choices.”

I scribble the train of consciousness stream onto the page in blue ink. I close the journal and lean back against the soft gray headrest. I let the answer simmer.

Make small, faithful choices.

What does God want me to do next? Make small, faithful choices. What is the purpose of my life? Make small, faithful choices. How do I live a life of purpose, of fullness, of wholeness, of joy? Make small, faithful choices.

What if we aren’t meant to be geysers surging or great waves crashing only to be replaced by the next big thing? Each small decision drips faithfully into the pools of our lives, eventually overflowing the banks and rippling into eternity. The process of small and faithful is slow and the change is incremental, but the effect is reaching and the impact is lasting.

The answer to the question—the Pinterest-worthy Mary Oliver quote I see everywhere now—“Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” What if the answer is not as big or bold or radical as the question?

The answer is profoundly simple, humble and hard: Make small, faithful choices.

Trust in the Lord with all your heart
And do not lean on your own understanding.
 In all your ways acknowledge Him,
And He will make your paths straight.

Proverbs 3:5-6

Featured image: Owen Roberston via Flickr Creative Commons

Life—Acts 17:24-28a

²⁴ The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man,^[c] 25 nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything.²⁶ And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, ²⁷ that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us, ²⁸ for “‘In him we live and move and have our being’…”

Sometimes I get so caught up in my work that I become more than a little self-centered. I start to believe that my writing, my study, my service is the most important part of my life—of the peoples’ lives with whom I’m connected. I get so caught up in the work of my service that I forget what I am first and foremost called to do in my life is to serve. Any good work given to me is not only for my benefit, but the benefit of those the Lord has placed in my immediate sphere of influence.

God doesn’t just show up when I am feeling accomplished. As if He is somehow summoned by my checking off my writing to-do list. He doesn’t need anything from me. Instead He pours out everything I need to accomplish His will for me. Do you see the difference there? It’s not that I am giving Him the gift of my service, but that His loving provision for me inspires me to respond in gratitude through service.

As I grope my way through this life, often looking for the next step as I’m in the process of taking it, I am comforted knowing that it is not my own efforts that propel me forward, but the One who is near to me is constantly drawing me to Himself. He is the giver of life—of life in abundance.

Do you ever feel tempted to serve out of your own strength? How can you live a life marked by serving out of God’s abundant provision this week? Who has the Lord placed in your immediate sphere of influence that you can serve with the gifts you’ve been given?

 

Go- Matthew 28:19

Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.

I grew up in a cul-de-sac in a new development that was bursting with kids. Nearly every track home on the block boasted at least a couple and we all attended the same the elementary school. From what I remember the parents would take turns picking up and dropping off groups of us. I remember a friend’s dad would give us the same benediction every morning. One of those things that was repeated so often it rubs a deep groove in your brain, something you could never forget. Every morning as we tumbled out of the carpool he would say, “Study hard, get good grades, make us proud.”

Now, in what still feels like a strange turn of events in the timeline of my life, I am the parent with a car full of kids. All four are mine, but as of this present school year three of them are in school full day. I too have a morning benediction: a blessing and a commission for my littles as they tumble pell-mel out the door of my dirty white SUV and into the wide world.

As we pull into the carpool drop-off formation, this is what I say: Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. Love others as yourselves, for this sums up the law and the prophets. For you Emma Grace Marsden, and you Logan Vance Marsden, and you Lucy Joy Marsden, have been called to make disciples of all people—teaching them everything Jesus has taught you. And truly, He is with us always, even to the end of the age. And I am sure of this, that He who began a good work in you will see it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. And remember: Mommy loves you!

It’s a bit longer than what I was raised with, and more times than not they are vibrating with impatience as I begin reciting it, daily, as we pull in past the gate into the parking lot. But I understand the power of words to shape lives and have experienced their formation in my own life. I recognize that my great commission to go and make disciples begins in my home with the tiny God-image-bearers I have been tasked to steward.

What words have shaped your life? How can you bestow words of blessing and purpose to those around you? How are you living out the call to go and make disciples?

Know- Psalm 34:8

Oh, taste and see that the LORD is good! Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him!

I love to study. Nothing on this earth makes me happier than being seated at a table surrounded by mountains of research materials. Just another sign pointing toward my calling utilizing the gifts the Lord has specifically given me.

I love research because I love learning. I have a somewhat obsessive need to understand everything. This can prove a challenge for my focus. I tend to chase rabbit trails constantly because each time I come across a new concept I want  need to explore it, which can pull me away from the actual task-at-hand. I don’t want to just be aware of a term, I want to know it.

This need to know can be a struggle for me in my faith-walk. I long to have a strong foundation of faith, but I am also wired to want a lot more understanding than I’m typically given. I’ve wrestled with God in prayer that if I could just know where He was leading me it would be much easier for me to follow. But faith that is seen isn’t actually faith, is it?

I so appreciate this passage of scripture. Yes, we are called to faith whether or not we fully understand what the Lord is working in our lives. But, we also get to catch glimpses of His good work in a multitude of ways throughout His creation daily. We can look back on our lives and see how He has been faithful before and trust that He will be faithful again. We may not know the future details, but He consistently demonstrates His character: He is trustworthy.

Where is He leading you? Can you taste and see His goodness in the process, even if you don’t know exactly where He’s taking you?

My youngest child is, what we have come to assume must be, the outcome of all of our recessive genetics coming out in one kid. Where his siblings all have dark hair and eyes and a similar Marsden-ish look to them, he is blonde and blue eyed with a look all his own. He has been by far my most active child at the earliest age. He climbed before he crawled, constantly astounding—and terrifying—us with his death-defying feats.

Walter, named after my husband’s friend and mentor, is also my most defiant child. No is his automatic first response to any question. Although I like to point out that I have raised three other children to varying levels of maturity and respect, and that statistically this should prove it’s his fault and not mine, I believe this dear, destructive boy is a gift of humility to me. I have now become that parent with the kid in his underwear at a birthday party because he flatly refuses to wear pants. This would never have been an option for the other kids.

Maybe I’m going soft, maybe I’m worn out, or maybe I’m learning to choose my battles. I’m certainly learning something about grace, about letting go of measuring myself by someone else’s yardstick.

I’m also learning more about the character of God as our Father.

Tuesday morning I woke up as usual, while it was still dark, and stumbled down the hallway to collapse into my favorite chair and start writing. Much, much too soon I hear the undeniable creak of the door of my boys’ room opening. The lid on my emotional-pressure cooker rattles with simmering fury. I wake up early so that I can do this uninterrupted! Don’t they know that?! I can’t wake up earlier than I already do, so to get a couple solid hours of writing time I am banking on them sleeping in until seven. Thus, I have come to cringe at the sound of their door breaking the early silence of my monastic morning.

My older son is the type of kid where it does not matter what time he goes to bed, he will always be an early riser. This has been exacerbated by our recent acquisition of an iPad. Somehow the kids now attempt to set their internal alarm clocks to be the first out of bed so they can claim the coveted pre-school screen time. I have rules against this sort of thing. You know you are not allowed to play iPad until the sun is up, the rule trembling in anticipation on tip of my tongue as the steps on the hardwood floor echo closer.

I am surprised, and not a little disappointed, to find that it is not my older son, but Walter. Though his sweet bed head and sleep-bleary eyes quickly disarm my frustration, I feel a pang of longing for my sacred space as I shift my laptop to accommodate him and his quilt he has dragged from his bed.

Want to watch Mickey Mouse? I coo into the top of his shaggy blonde head, his cheek pressed against my chest. I reach for the remote with one hand, feeling-out the correct buttons by instinct while simultaneously attempting to read a post opened on the laptop screen.

NO!

Of course not.

Breakfast. Me. Now!

Ugh. I try to explain to him that he’s about an hour and a half early for breakfast. To reason that it’s still dark and his siblings are sleeping. I bribe him with movies and iPad and toys and whatever-it-takes.

NO! Breakfast. Me. Noooooooowwwww.

Fine. Clicking down the laptop screen and dropping this morning’s dreams of productivity, I walk to the kitchen to grab the Cheerios.

Carry meeeeee. Walter whines.

No, Buddy. I will not carry you the twenty feet to your messy booster seat at the table in our tiny kitchen. You’ve decided to get up. I will accommodate your unreasonably early breakfast request, but you can get yourself there.

Cereal tip-taps into the plastic bowl, I pour milk and a grab a spoon. Walter is now lying on the floor wailing. Meeeeee. Up. Carryyyyy meeeeee.

Frustration flickers in my chest. I have obeyed the demanding terms of this toddler-terrorist. The least he can do is take himself ten steps to the table.

Isn’t that just like you? Just like us? Speaks a different voice, silently to my heart, yet louder than Walt’s increasingly desperate cries. My mind begins to spin. Me, crying out to God for what I want. Begging Him to get me there. God: providing what I need and knowing He has equipped me to get there. Waiting for me to step toward it. Yes, Lord. I see the parallels.

I came across a Dallas Willard quote years ago that clicked into place and settled in my soul: “Grace is opposed to earning, not effort.” We are called to lean hard into the Lord and to know that ultimately it is He who accomplishes His will in us. We are also called to go and make and do the good work He has set before us. We do this through relationship with Him. He calls us and provides for us. We respond to His provision with obedience. He opens the doors, ultimately He is the door, and we walk through them—to Him.

I sense Walter is wearing himself out, careful not to make eye contact and exacerbate the issue. He calms and drags his quilt to the table, draping it over his chair. He climbs up, I push him in, and he eats. I walk back across the room and fire up my laptop again. I glance to the kitchen, and he catches my eye and smiles his lopsided, mischievous grin.

Lord, you are so good to me.

 

*professional images taken by Wurzbach Fisher. We had a fabulous experience with them and highly recommend them!

Move—Deuteronomy 2:1-3

 “Then we turned and journeyed into the wilderness in the direction of the Red Sea, as the Lord told me. And for many days we traveled around Mount Seir. ² Then the Lord said to me, ³ ‘You have been traveling around this mountain country long enough. Turn northward…”

At a certain point it’s just enough. You’ve been working hard enough, wandering long enough.

There comes a point when you reach a crossroads. A splintered, sun-baked signpost sticks out of the cracked ground. One arrow points to Safe the other, Risk. Now, safe looks safe. Actually, it looks exactly like the terrain you’ve been travelling for a long while. Maybe safe isn’t the best word, but comfortable. You have travelled safe with it’s mostly unvarying flat ground. Now, that route hasn’t actually taken you on any incredible adventures, but it also hasn’t led you anywhere you couldn’t handle.

Then there’s risk. Who knows where risk leads? From what you can see the trail splits off in disjointed directions. When you strain your eyes against the enormous desert sun you can make out the faint wavy outlines of a space that appears to be green and flourishing in the distance—or is it just a mirage? It is impossible to know for sure from the foot of the signpost.

So what will you choose today? The trails you’ve already blazed, that you know you could walk eyes-closed? Or will you strike out down a new path? Hoist up that baggage, hitch up your courage and turn northward. You’ve been wandering long enough.

How can you step out in faith this week? Where is the Lord calling you to change directions and follow Him? Will you follow faithfully, even if you’re not sure where He’s taking you?

Hey friends! I’ve been participating in a writing challenge and thought I would share some of my work with you. The challenge is to write daily for five minutes, for 31 days. There are daily prompts or you can choose a topic of your own.

I’m the type of person who goes to a restaurant and modifies an entree to the point it almost becomes something else. No x or y, cooked to medium-well, dressing on the side, extra z please. I have taken a somewhat similar approach to this challenge. I write for 5ish minutes. I am a really really slow writer. If I were to just click publish after five minutes, you would pretty much have five sentences and no idea where I was going with them (because I wouldn’t have had any idea where I was going with them yet either).

Though I’m writing daily, I’m not posting daily. I thought it might overwhelm some of my lovely blog subscribers if I went from posting twice a month to posting everyday. I’m not about filling your inbox with “content.” I don’t know about you, but I don’t have time to just waste on filler.

Because I like to think of Depth of the Riches as a place where we sit down and tell stories and look at scripture, I’ve connected all of the one word prompts to the first verse in the Word that popped into my head when I read the word. Hence, there’s a double meaning to Word Wednesdays.

Finally, I’m trying not to over-edit. I’m reading once through to check for any glaring grammar or spelling mistakes, but attempting to leave most of the piece intact. I’m taking a step in my struggle with perfectionism here, friends. If I can’t post something I don’t think is perfect, then I’m not going to post often, which means I’m going to be too scared to write often. So this challenge is helping me work through some fear of inadequacy.

Thanks for joining me on this journey! I’m hoping these short devotionals will be a blessing to you and a time to stop and reflect with me on how God is moving in our lives. Your presence here blesses me!

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View- 1 Corinthians 2:7-10

“What no eye has seen, nor ear heard,

nor the heart of man imagined,

what God has ^mprepared ⁿfor those who love him”—

¹⁰ these things ^oGod has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even ^pthe depths of God. ¹¹ For who knows a person’s thoughts ^qexcept the spirit of that person, which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. ¹² Now ^rwe have received not ^sthe spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God.

I remember being in elementary school and my mom asking one evening if any of us wanted to go to a Saturday evening church service with her. I decided to go. I don’t remember much of the evening, nothing of the actual sermon, but I do remember a specific moment in worship. During one of the songs I felt a strong presence within me telling me this is where I am supposed to be. It’s not that I heard any sort of audible voice, but it was something that I suddenly just knew.

I did my own thing for most of junior high and high school. We didn’t attend church. While dealing with the fallout of some broken relationships and feeling disoriented and alone in life, a friend invited me to a Bible study that her youth leader hosted in her home weekly. It was a warm evening in late spring and we all sat on a blanket on the front lawn. I was surprised to find peace there. In all of the chaos where I had been fighting to keep afloat, in that place I felt the presence again. This is where I am supposed to be. Again, I just knew it.

What are the hinge moments in your story? Have there been moments you couldn’t ignore for their profound significance? The Lord sees us. He has a greater view for our lives than we can comprehend. He speaks to us by His Spirit and reveals bits and pieces, breadcrumbs for us to pick up as we follow. Pay attention to your life. Listen for the Spirit speaking. God does not keep secrets from us to confuse or frustrate us, He wants us to understand the purpose of our gifts and gives us glimpses of His purposes for us on His timing. Have you experienced this?

May He open our eyes and enlarge our view of our calling.