beholding

Randi gave me this book a while ago.  She is my bookiest friend and always shares the best with me and I thank the Lord for her when they come and stick them somewhere until (usually) years later, it is time.

It's time for 'Beholding and Becoming'.

I'm trying, trying so hard it's convincing, maybe. I'm trying hard in a valley of shadows I've never navigated. But all my trying is just coming up short, and I know you've been there, too.

I know valleys are for walking through, trudging through, persevering through...not "exit stage lefting". I know this is no quick-fix-and-done-tomorrow trial.

Like absolutely everyone else on earth, I love the sunshine and clarity and challenges on the mountains and I love working and sweating my way over them.

Plowing through the valley lately feels a lot more like stuck in the mud.

And where I cannot see a way out, there He is...but in the shadow. He's in the shadow right now. With me.

I begin to realize that the work that needs done isn't doable by me.

He's going to have to dawn this for me, and for now, there is just Beholding.

Learning to love what must be done--what is assigned for you to do, what circumstances you have to traverse--is not a form of self-help, attitude adjustment, or esteem building. Rather, it's choosing to do what Peter saw believers doing--preach to ourselves the truth of how we've been rescued, and then respond with rejoicing in the here and now.

When the Scriptures tell us that we can do all things to the glory of God, including the things we don't desire to do, the things not according to plan, the harder-than-we-can-stand things, the unwelcome pain...when they tell us 'whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God,' we CAN...and are empowered in Christ to do just that. 

Those who live a story they weren't expecting--in the mundane or in pain--can "rejoice, with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith," as Peter says, and learn to love what must be done. 

So I'm sitting.

I hope it's ok to be so small right now.

I'm sitting and clinging and preaching to myself His truth and beholding Him, with awe and desperation, and I hope in this season I have so little to offer that my small, stuck self will draw so pale that He might grow far more vibrant...that others might ses Him through my own transparency.  I've got no aim but to be faithful, faithful in the shadow.

Paul challenged the Colossians not to find motivation for diligence in approval or acknowledgement from others, but to find it from continually beholding, in their hearts, their true Master and the eternal treasure waiting for them as children of God. Paul could have encouraged the believers to replace their ordinary labors with more spiritual work, more significant acts of service, or better positions of influence, but he didn't. He simply encouraged them to be faithful--right where they were--in the work before them, powered by their desire to serve God alone.