Space Between

“The energy you are looking for is found in the margins, in the space between.”
Loren Thornburg  

Having grown up in Southern California I am slowly learning how to drive in the snow.  One of the things I am learning is that you need a greater space between.  There is more space required between you and the car in front of you and before your stopping point.  More space is also needed before you make a turn, knowing that you now need more space to turn in front of the oncoming cars.  I am finding life is like that.  When things get a bit stormy and harder than before I need more space between.  This margin is referred to as the space between ourselves and our limits.  Like driving in the snow, my limits change during different seasons of life and different circumstances.  I have to give myself more space between the workings of my week otherwise I won’t be able to last through the season.    Space gives us energy to keep going.   We wouldn’t expect a car to keep running without stopping to put gas in it, yet we are surprised when our lives don’t function well without margin.  It’s in the space between that we can rest, regroup, and refresh for the next thing.  Do you have enough margin and space between?  

If God doesn’t build the house, the builders only build shacks. If God doesn’t guard the city, the night watchman might as well nap. It’s useless to rise early and go to bed late, and work your worried fingers to the bone. Don’t you know he enjoys giving rest to those he loves?
Psalm 127:1-2 Message

We see it over and over in scripture.  God designed life to have space, margin and rest.  He worked created the world and rested, He commands us to rest, He invites us to rest, and He shows us rest in the life of Jesus.  God is a god that “enjoys giving rest to those he loves.”  He loves to give you rest.  It’s not that most of us would disagree, yet somehow it still doesn’t happen in our lives.  We love the idea of it but often miss the reality of margin and rest.  There are so many good things calling for attention, there are so many lies telling us our significance is in our being busy, and there are so many fears on what might come up in the silence of the rest.  Thus, we have to be intentional about margin and fight for it.  For as the Psalms says if our schedule is not being led by the Lord then we are working in vain.  Let Him determine your day.  Hear His invitation to rest...and enjoy as He does.  

Affected

“We are all connected,  all affected.  No act is solo and no story goes alone.”

Loren Thornburg

I saw it with the glass that broke on the floor.  It wasn’t just the glass that was affected, but the broken pieces went all over the floor, much farther than you might have expected.  I was reminded again when the piece of trash blew onto my balcony:  What we do affects others.  Someone else’s trash blew into my life.  Somehow we think we are a stand alone, capable of operating independently of others.  What we miss is that even in our best attempts to function this way our actions are affecting far more people than we realize.  When we don’t deal with the hurts and pains of our lives they become junk blowing into other people.  We think that no one sees it.  It seems like it doesn’t matter, it’s our own life and we can do whatever we want.  The problem with that thinking is your life interacts with other lives and every one that interacts with you is affected by your choices one way or another.  You are affecting people.  What kind of affect are you having?

“The way God designed our bodies is a model for understanding our lives together as a church; every part dependent on every other part, the parts we mention and the parts we don’t, the parts we see and the parts we don’t.  If one part hurts, every other part is involved in the hurt, and in the healing.  If one part flourishes, every other part enters into the exuberance.”

1 Corinthians 12:25-26

I love and struggle with this design where every part is involved and dependent on the other parts.  I like the good part that we all flourish when one part flourishes, I just don’t like the hard part that when one part is hurt, every part is involved with it.  Our own bodies show this clearly.  If you have a bad stomach ache, it impacts more than just your stomach, but it becomes hard to think, function and enjoy life.  Our bodies, our community, the church was designed to function in dependency on one another.  It is a beautiful thing when lived out well.  This starts with knowing and accepting that we are need each other (whether we like it or not).  It continues in walking with others in their hurts and victories and letting others do the same.  Often times I think I am sparing people by not “burdening” them with my pain, but really I am “burdening” them by not letting them into that place.  Every part is affected.  Let’s live like it.    

Matters Most

“Don’t get lost in what matters little, spend your life in what matters most.”

Loren Thornburg

We are easily swayed and led off track.  I see it all the time.   It’s in our families, work, teams, politics, communities, churches, and hearts.  The little things keep us from seeing the big picture and what matters most.  We all have them.  We want to have things happen our way more than to reach the original goal, to be heard more than to do what’s best for the group, to be successful more than to grow, to have the quick fix more than to have it really fixed.  The list goes on and on.   There are thousands of “littles” begging for our attention, but what really matters most?  Step back from the chaos and look again.  See what is most important.  In the midst of all around you don’t miss what matters most.  

“But that matters little.  What matters most to me is to finish what God started: the job the Master Jesus gave me of letting everyone I meet know all about this incredibly extravagant generosity of God.”

Acts 20:24 Message

Paul is in the midst of his journey to Jerusalem knowing that there will be hardships.  His response to that reality is to say “that matters little” in comparison with “what matters most to me,” which is to share Jesus.  It would have been easy for Paul to get lost in the fear of the unknown.  However, instead of seeing the weight of potential hardship he saw the weight of what he has been called to do.  When that is kept at the front of his focus whatever is to come no longer matters.  What matters most should matter most.  I wish I could say that were always true for me, but it’s not.  Often how I look, what people will think, my comfort, my fears, or my security becomes what matters most to me.  That’s why I need the Holy Spirit, I need time with the Father, I need time in the word, I need time with other believers.  Without these things I will get lost in all the littles and miss what matters most.  It’s Him.  It’s always Jesus and all that He is asking of me.  That always matters most.  Let’s help each other to walk that out.  Oh what it might look like if our hearts and lives said it as Paul did, “But that matters little.  What matters most to me is to finish what God started…” 

Blessing in the Wound

“Don’t give up or let hurting turn you away.  There is blessing in the wound.  If you are willing to push through the pain.”

Loren Thornburg

We get used to it...woundedness.  We don’t even know it’s there.  It becomes our way of life until something hits against it.  We cringe and and wonder what was so painful.  It seems the event didn’t warrant that amount of pain.  Although this may be true, there is something even more true.  It’s not the first time.  We’ve been wounded there before, only it never healed.  I find much hope in the African Proverb that says, “the blessing lies close to the wound,” because I’ve seen this to be true.   Looking back on my healing journey I can’t help but almost be thankful for some of my wounds because of what the healing journey has brought in and through me.  Wounds can be painful, especially when things in our life are pressing up against them.  Yet that’s the pain that tells me something isn’t right, it’s not healed. It's also this pain that points me to healing if I let it.  Healing seems impossible there in the face of the wound, but it is actually closer than ever before.  The freedom of healing is the blessing that lies so close to the wound you can’t even see it’s there.  It’s the blessing of healing, hope, endurance and faith found only when wounded.  Don’t stop with the pain, the blessing lies close.  

“He personally carried away our sins in his own body on the cross so we can be dead to sin and live for what is right. You have been healed by his wounds!”

1 Peter 2:24 NLT

His wounds became your healing.  We are healed because of the wounds that Jesus bore on the cross.  He did that for you.  So that you can live.  Not just live, but live abundantly in a personal relationship with Him.  This wound was very personal, with a greater weight than we will ever know. The blessing lied close to the wound.  Those wounds brought healing from our sins that we could be free to live for what is right and have new life.  If that weren’t enough through them we now have access to relationship with the Father.  In this relationship there is much healing.  We are blessed, healed, new, whole, free, and confident because of His wounds.  He loves to do the same with yours.  Let Him show you the blessing He has that lies close to your wound.  

Two Other Thoughts: A Quote and A Song

“Like Jacob, you must hold on to Him. And like Jacob, you will be wounded. Like Jacob, you must say, ‘I will not let You go unless you bless me,’ and then the wound, the tender hip thereafter, the blessing…when you plead to know He is here, and when He answers you, and helps you to meet Him here, you will be wounded by that meeting. The wound will help you know, and that is the blessing.”

Quote from a Father at a Monastery

Audrey Assad...Wherever You Go

There's a train leaving your heart tonight. 

There's a silence inside your head and you're running from it. 

Down the tracks on a midnight line. 

There's a red moon in the sky and you're running from it. 

But I'm coming for you wherever you go. 

Wrestling angels till dawn breaks through 

There's a blessing and a wound and you're running from it. 

When all your demons are at your door 

It's a soldier they're looking and you're running from it. 

But I'm coming for you wherever you go. 

Across the sea, the space between everything you think 

You know - the things you keep and bury deep underneath 

The melting snow - I'll follow. I'll follow. 

Fathers & mothers don't always come through 

But I'm never gonna stop following you 

Prophets and lovers don't always hold true 

But I'm never gonna stop falling for you 

So when your wine's all gone and your well runs dry, 

Open your hands and look into my eyes; all that you see here, 

You'll soon leave behind, so open your hands and look into my eyes

Broken Glass

“Sometimes things have to break to come together.”

Loren Thornburg

Sometimes things just do not go as you planned.  I had one of those where it seemed everything I did had a glitch in it.  One of the many things was that I broke a glass while cleaning, which only added to my cleaning work.  Yet, as I was on my hands and knees carefully cleaning glass pieces I couldn’t help but see truth in the broken glass.  My floor was getting cleaner because the glass had broken.  I has planned on cleaning the floor, but not to extent that I was in search of making sure that every spot was clean and clear of glass.   Also until it broke I didn’t know that the glass mattered to me.   The brokenness reveals something to us that we couldn’t have seen before.  So, no I didn’t put all the hundreds of pieces back together, but I found life put a little more back together.  I found I can be thankful when life feels like broken pieces knowing my heart is being cleaned and purified in ways that couldn't have happened otherwise.Things didn’t go as I thought and certainly not as I planned, but in the midst of my mess I found truth: Sometimes things have to break to come together.

“Pray for us. We have no doubts about what we’re doing or why, but it’s hard going and we need your prayers. All we care about is living well before God. Pray that we may be together soon. May God, who puts all things together, makes all things whole, Who made a lasting mark through the sacrifice of Jesus, the sacrifice of blood that sealed the eternal covenant, Who led Jesus, our Great Shepherd, up and alive from the dead, Now put you together, provide you with everything you need to please him, Make us into what gives him most pleasure, by means of the sacrifice of Jesus, the Messiah. All glory to Jesus forever and always! Oh, yes, yes, yes.”
Hebrews 13:18-21 Message

God is a god who puts all things together.  The thing is, He often breaks them apart in order to put them together.  It’s not quite how I would think is the best approach yet it’s the only way to make it whole.  As I was on the floor picking up the glass pieces I saw how good God is at putting broken things together.  The problem is I see it as Him breaking it and wondering why He is doing it that way.  When in reality it was already broken.  It isn’t like the glass I broke.  He doesn’t take things that are whole and break them to make it more difficult.  He takes things that are already broken or cracked and breaks them so He can put them back together.  It won't be like putting the glass back together that will always reveal the cracks even if you glued it.  It’s all together different.  He is all together different.  He makes things whole, new, and alive.  He gives you everything you need.  He puts you together, even if it means breaking.  So when you feel like you’re heart and life are in pieces all over the floor, don’t forget He is in the business of putting you back together and making you whole.  Yes, Yes Yes!

Stay the Course

“Patiently endure, no matter how long.

Continually persevere, no matter how hard.  

Bravely remain, no matter how it looks.

The goal is worth it, stay the course.”

Loren Thornburg

Often in traffic I get impatient and take a detour to try to avoid waiting.  Yet, what I find is if I had stayed the course I would have gotten there faster than my detour.  You see there is a reason I was going that way in the first place; it’s the best way to go.  Stay the course is an idiom that means to persevere in the midst of difficulty because the desired outcome is worth the obstacles met along the way.  It is thought to have originated with sailors having to endure harsh weather knowing they needed to stay the course otherwise they would get lost at sea.  Arriving safely meant they had to endure no matter how difficult.  Even with all of our technological advances and navigational systems there are still storms we can’t avoid.  I am talking about much more than traffic or rain now.  Life brings all kinds of hardships.  Rather than try to find a way around it let’s “stay the course” and go through them.  The goal is worth it...stay the course.  

“What a gift to those who stay the course! You’ve heard, of course, of Job’s staying power, and you know how God brought it all together for him at the end.  That’s because God cares, cares right down to the last detail.”

James 5:11 MSG

James was writing to encourage believers to persevere.  With patient endurance he calls them to follow as Job did.  It is important to know why.  Not why the storm is happening, but why He is calling them to stay the course.  James calls it a gift.  It’s a gift because of what God does when you patiently endure.  You can have staying power (as the Message calls it) here knowing that God cares down to the last detail.  The detail that you think doesn’t matter, the little thing that doesn’t seem a big deal, it all matters to Him.  He cares about the little things, He cares about your details, He cares about you.  So patiently endure, stay the course, and look to Him for staying power.  It’s worth it!  It’s always worth it...right down to the last detail.  

It Matters

"There is purpose; there is value; it matters; you’re worth it.”

Loren Thornburg

Ever had one of those moments where someone you didn’t think was impacted at all by what you did or said comes back and shares how much it meant to them?  In the surprise and shock of it I find myself encouraged by more than just the one.  I am encouraged in knowing that there are likely to be more.  The same is true for you.  There may even be one right now that you are impacting that you don’t know.  Their faces and responses don’t always give it away.  Often, they don’t even know the ways  you are influencing them.  Don’t miss what these moments reveal to us: Keep on keeping on because you never know who you are impacting.  Let these moments encourage us to do the same: To tell those who have made a difference in our life.  Even when you least expect it or feel it, it really does matter.  There is a purpose and great value for right here.  We can’t forget that. 

“So, my dear brothers and sisters, be strong and steady, always enthusiastic about the Lord’s work, for you know that nothing you do for the Lord is ever useless.”

I Corinthians 15:58 NLT

Nothing you do for the Lord is ever useless….NOTHING.  That means that EVERYTHING you do for the Lord is useful.  The problem is that we determine what is useful and what is useless by what we can see and by our perception of the immediate results.  There are many flaws within this determination.  Our perception is not the same as His and our timing is not the same as His.  One key factor I often miss in evaluating the usefulness of what I am doing is what He is doing in me.  Often I am looking at the outside and miss the inside job.  So you see, this is why we can be strong and steady, always enthusiastic about the Lord’s work because we know He is at work in all of it, using every last bit.  He is at work in you because you’re worth it.  It all matters!