for those who feel like God doesn't care
an invitation
Dear friends,
Trying something a bit different this week. Pardon me if it doesn't resonate. I know many of you are walking well with Jesus—keep going! It could be that, in this season, I've had the privilege of hearing folks share their hearts, where the sentiment skews toward: God loves other people, but not me. God cares about many things, but not this thing in my life.
I was asking Jesus about it the other day. I jotted some notes. And a doodle. Thought it might be helpful and hopeful.
There's a strange thing about being a Christian.
We claim psalm 23.
The Lord is my shepherd.
I lack nothing.
Yet also psalm 90.
Our lives last seventy years...even the best of them are struggle and sorrow.
How do we hold these two tensions?
These two truths?
How can we embrace that there is both suffering and the fullest joy?
How can we hold God to his word in psalm 68 that he sets the lonely in families?
In deuteronomy 31 that he will never leave you nor forsake you?
Yet also be brutally honest about how we feel?
What we see tangibly lacking in reality?
No spouse.
No children.
No justice.
No healing.
Barrenness.
Brokenness.
Loneliness.
Loss.
An ache for more.
A yearning for what ought to be, but isn’t.
I don't actually know.
This is one of those mysteries of life.
That I have found either dark and troubling that can lead to cynicism and despair, and possibly a double-downed resolution that I will do this life on my own then.
Or.
It's a mystery that can open us into a reverent silence and childlike awe.
To surrender,
to submit,
to humbly admit:
that God is God, and I am not.
When it doesn't make sense,
when I don't understand,
when I wish things were another way...
Will I trust Him?
Will I let Him hold my hand?
Will I follow His lead?
Will I fall into His everlasting embrace?
Will I ask for more of Him?
Will I seek and knock?
Will I receive His affection and delight?
Will I let Him pursue me and woo me?
Will I allow the personal love of the death-defying, sin-crushing, creation-rescuing Christ who makes all things new to wash over me like fresh rain?
Will I rsvp yes
to the invitation in psalm 34
to taste and see that the Lord is good?
Will I pray like
the desperate parent in mark 9
Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!
Will I cry specifics to Him
entrusting psalm 56 that He gently
gathers my tears in his bottle?
Will I choose to respond to affliction like in john 6?
Jesus: “Do you want to go away as well?”
Simon Peter: “Lord, to whom will we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.”
Will I whisper new narratives to renew my mind, to counter any lies that shape my current perspective? Truths like:
The Lord is my shepherd. I lack nothing.
The Lord is my shepherd. I lack nothing.
The Lord is my shepherd. I lack nothing.
The Lord is my shepherd. I lack nothing.
The Lord is my shepherd. I lack nothing.
Will I take one step towards Him, no matter how small?
Will I heed his voice in matthew 11 that beckons me?
“Come to me…and I will give you rest.”
smol nephew has been genre-bending between the Bluey intro, Foo Fighters, and Jesus, Strong and Kind.
From the mouth of babes 🥹
Jesus said that if I thirst
🎶I should come to him
No one else can satisfy
I should come to him
be well, friends.
love,
reb🐑