like the mornings

About a week ago I woke to the hum of Amanda Cook’s ‘House on a Hill’.

Another day.

I switched off the alarm and pulled myself from bed. Since getting married I’ve stopped using songs to rouse myself from sleep, instead relying on the iPhone’s siren alarm. (Sorry, A!) I made it out to the living room, to the chair now home to quiet times in the morning.

I hadn’t listened to that song in a while. As I tried to settle down, keep from falling back to sleep, it continued to play at the back of my mind.

-

The night was long. We turned in early but a lot was on my mind.

They were anxieties from the day, but as the hours inched toward midnight they grew into anxieties over life itself.

Does this sort of night come more frequently with the years? The kind where you pore over mistakes, failures, missed opportunities and the like, counting until your fingers run out and the list unfurls, parched, like a road you’d worn out treading?

It’s not that I've been unlucky. It’s a good, comfortable life I get to live. But some seasons are more difficult than others. Here the good things float away like mist, while the broken things stay, harden, like cement.

It was one of those nights. Hollowed, I dozed off.

-

Another day.

Another day to face everything that kept me up.

Still half-asleep, I looked up the lyrics to Cook’s ‘House on a Hill’, hoping to wake myself a little. If it were going to play at the back of my mind I might as well hum along.

All I wanted that morning was for God to fix things — me. My mind, my ways, everything that felt off. It wasn’t a desperate prayer so much as it was an exhausted one. None of the wrestling and waiting and hoping and expecting, I felt, were amounting to anything, and I wanted it to be done with.

I don’t know anymore what needs fixing, God. But I need you to do it. Please.

The song continued to play.

-

Some things you can't know till you're still

In the silence, where your spinning thoughts slow down

In the stillness, things have a way of working out

-

I read the rest of the lyrics ahead of Cook’s singing.

Allow me to introduce myself again.

-

It takes many words to describe my relationship with God these days. So much of it has been like looking through a window, at the weather. The sun’s out, branches sway. It’s a clear, breezy spring morning. God is good, yes. The weatherman says we’re going to have a week of sunshine. It’s not difficult to believe — I see it through the glass. You’re there, God, the Bible says so. You have a purpose for everything, so you say.

But it’s warmth I couldn’t feel. A velvet wind I was missing.

God had been distant, and that didn’t change who He is. But it was getting really difficult to live with the incongruence, straddling what I knew to be true and what I couldn’t deny I was experiencing.

Then, morning broke with a song.

-

Allow me to introduce myself again

I was with you every place you've ever been

If you're wondering

who can heal your brokenness

I can

The thing I get wrong the most, when it comes to following Jesus, is the idea that all will be well. 

This is true, but only partially. All will be well - though not entirely, not necessarily in this lifetime. In this lifetime, we have this, earthly bodies in a broken world, created by One with the power to make things right but who loves us too much to withhold free will.

So here we are, imperfect people making imperfect choices, living out one another’s consequences.

What I sense God trying to tell me lately, among many other things, is to stop letting an imperfect reality define Him, and to let what the Bible says about Him define my reality instead. To learn to truly believe that while my present circumstances are far from ideal, God is still good, and He is at work, and that He is trustworthy.

There are times I want to rationalise this. To reason that God has a purpose for pain, and therefore God is good. Or that this hardship will be explained away some day - that one day the dots will connect - and therefore God is good.

And while this is true and a sensible thing to do, I'm wondering if maybe God wants to take us a step further.

If the dots never connect, if we never discover the purpose for our sufferings; if, at the end of the day, what's broken remains broken, and things aren't resolved or restored, will we still believe that God is good?

For his new year’s eve sermon, Steven Furtick preached on Paul’s time in prison - where he ended up for sharing the Gospel (Acts 16). There, instead of getting angry at God, recounting the events leading up to this and wondering what they could’ve done differently, Paul sings hymns of worship. With his preaching companion, Silas, Paul rings them jail cells with praise.

“I’m not just trying to get out of a sad situation, I’m bringing in my joy. I’m not just trying to get out of a hard situation, I’m bringing in God’s strength.”  - Pastor Steven, on Paul

Come midnight, a miraculous thing happens: there is an earthquake, their prison chains loosen, the bars swing open. The prison guard, knowing the prisoners would take the opportunity to escape, decides to end his life, fearful of punishment from the authorities he serves.

Now free, all Paul has to do is run.

But he doesn’t. Instead, he walks over to the guard, stops the poor guy from killing himself, and tells him about Jesus. The man, and his entire household, become followers of Christ. 

“He didn’t see prison doors – he saw open doors for the Gospel,” pastor Steven puts it.

What a guy, Paul. What faith.

What a way to live, if indeed Jesus were truly one’s Lord and God and Saviour.

And what a good goal to work towards, this 2017. To be like Paul - hellbent on doing more than just enduring or surviving, insisting on living with a confidence in God’s goodness, trusting in God’s hands at work.

There’s a verse from the Psalms that I love: “I remain confident of this, that I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living” (Ps 27:13). I used to think it means that things will be resolved and made right in this lifetime. And indeed, that might happen.

But that might not altogether be the case…and I wonder if ‘the goodness of the Lord’ refers to more than improved circumstances. If it means, simply, that I am promised the Lord’s goodness, whatever the scenario - blessing on top of sunshine, refuge in a storm, both.

If this were truly my confidence, if Jesus Christ were the Lord and God and Saviour I claim Him to be, shouldn’t there be a difference in the way I weather storms and respond to trying seasons? Shouldn’t I be striving beyond merely enduring?

Shouldn’t I refuse to be crushed by difficult, sometimes even senseless, circumstances? And live out my purpose like a boss? And in doing so, demonstrate a conviction in God’s faithfulness to come through, whether or not it were evident to me?

It’s been four years since I decided to follow Christ, and this much I know about the Christian walk: all is not always well. Not in the world. Not in my personal life.

To be honest, I think it only gets harder. The further God brings us on this journey, the more He takes us out to deeper and deeper ends. Ironically, it’s exactly just as Jesus promised - in this world, we will have trouble.

The same way He promised us Himself. The presence of a God that, regardless of circumstances, is good and faithful to come through.

The answer was clear: a giant, neon ‘No’ from the Lord.

For months, I’d been praying to what felt like a wall. The non-response passed equally for a ‘no’ and a ‘wait’, leaving me guessing and swinging from one to the other. It was confusing and agonising, but finally it was over. No, said God. Not this one.

Earlier, I wondered why God didn’t just shut the door. The process would’ve been simpler, and I would’ve been spared the agony. It’s difficult to circle a slightly gaping doorway - sometimes it felt like a taunt from God. If it isn’t for me, why not just shut the door, Lord?

Around this time, I was going through the book of Romans, claiming verse 8:28 for the month of May. “For we know that in all things, God works for the good of those who love Him, those who have been called according to His purpose.” I started the month strong in prayer, confident in Christ and His promises. I was high on hope, finding comfort and even a sense of excitement over what God might have in store for me. Or at least, what I hoped He would have in store for me.

So when the weeks wore on and there was no sign of an answer, I started to wonder. Was this something I should continue praying about? I also struggled with squaring what the Bible says with the reality of my unanswered prayer. If the Bible is true and that in all things, God works for our good, perhaps His non-answer was for my benefit? The Bible also says that God does not withhold good things from His children (Psalm 84:11). So if He isn’t saying yes - yet - to this ‘good’ thing I was praying for, it could just be a matter of timing, right?

Eventually, as all unanswered prayers go, this one reached a point of exhaustion. I coped by rationalising - perhaps I was too pushy? Perhaps the request was framed wrongly. Perhaps God was waiting for the perfect time…

I tried not to think about it. Pretended to care less about it. I tried to convince God, or rather myself, that I was coming at this from a right heart. It felt tiresome, but…we’re taught to wrestle with God, aren’t we?

And then there were days I openly despaired. Fumbled for the words to articulate my disappointment, and basically told God I was exhausted. I was so tired of praying.

One Sunday morning, at a prayer meeting, we were asked to consider our grievances. At the time I’d been unable to pray for about a week and assumed it was just a phase. As I reflected on the grudges I held, I thought I’d be able to trade them in for some peace, but instead I continued to feel blocked. Later I realised why: there’s another grievance I’d been holding.

One against God, for being unresponsive.

See, wasn’t it Him who asked us to pray? Didn’t He instruct us to bring our requests to Him? Didn’t He teach that to those who knock, the door will be opened; to those who ask, it will be given (Matthew 7:7-8)? So why was He silent?

After sharing this with my discipleship group, one of our facilitators suggested I pray differently - to go from ‘May I have this, Lord?’ to ‘What does it mean to seek You first through this desire?’

Which, over the next two weeks, I would learn to do.

Prayer is humbling. Trusting that the Bible is true is humbling. In 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18, Paul reminds us to “rejoice always, to pray without ceasing, to give thanks in all circumstances for this is the will of God for you in Christ Jesus.”

To trust that this circumstance and its unanswered prayer is God’s will for me is humbling. It feels like surrender. And not in the idyllic, hands-raised-in-praise manner we often picture surrender to be. No, it’s more like squirming and writhing on the floor, stubbornly insisting and demanding until, weak from wrestling, we unclaw our fingers from what God chooses not to give us.

Yet nothing refines one’s belief in God’s goodness like an unanswered prayer that invites surrender.

The two weeks that followed were difficult…but God graciously met me where I was to help fight the idea that He is unkind or stingy. It didn’t always feel natural, and I couldn’t always fully believe in it. But slowly, God pried open my heart…revealed the truth of His goodness…and taught me that regardless of how I felt, and how my circumstances appeared, He is trustworthy.

If God had simply closed this door as I earlier wished, I later realised, I wouldn’t have encountered Him the way I did. Had He spared me of waiting and praying, He would’ve also spared me of drawing close and experiencing Him the way I now was.

When the answer finally did come, my heart was at a different place. I was sad by God’s denial, for sure. But I also felt peace.

It wasn’t for me. I could let go, and though it was going to be painful to uncurl my fingers from this prayer, I had in my hands something greater, deeper, sweeter: God.

Just…knowing God.

Those moments I despaired and laid my heart bare before Him? The times I agonised and wrestled in prayer? Those moments I got angry, displayed my disappointment on the table, let Him have a piece of my mind? These turned out to be encounters of intimacy I experienced with God thanks to a desire He told me to pray about - and every one of them was worth the ‘no’ in the end.

God doesn’t wilfully put us through pain and disappointment to prove a point, I think. Denial and rejection, whether through misplaced wants or the assumption that we know what’s best for us, will always hurt in a broken world. But our God is a redeemer. When He withholds, He draws us close; in Him, no unmet desire is wasted. 

Knowing myself, I’ll forget this at some point, the sweetness of His presence in the face of disappointment. But at this moment, there is nothing more I know to be truer.

We paddled 1,300 strokes today. Without break. I thought I would die, but that’s always how it feels like before you realise you won’t. You’ll do one more stroke, just one more stroke, and then another, and another. Before you know it you’ve done 500. I’m guessing that’s a good 15, 20 minutes of paddling; I could be wrong. Of course, it feels longer. But you press on because there isn’t another option, bar actually dying. Six hundred. Six hundred and thirty. Six hundred and seventy.

Seven hundred.

Eight hundred.

Nine.

A thousand.

And when you realise you’ve crossed your previous threshold with no knowledge of how many more you’re going to do, you tell yourself you’ll probably be paddling forever - if not to 2,000. Or three. You could very possibly be paddling up to 2,000, or 3,000; the funny thing is that at some point it ceases to matter. You find yourself at a place where you’re too tired to think about it, or too numb to feel anything, paddling on autopilot, mimicking the pacers. By that point, your focus is on one stroke.

Just one more stroke.

Oh, if you could only do just one more stroke.

I woke with a heavy heart this morning, the result of a week’s worth of news and revelations. ‘You’re catching me in a ball of crazy emotions,’ I described to my best friend the night before, gracious at the other end of the line. I was worn, frayed with anxiety. Things were comparable to past scenarios that cued one thing: time to bolt.

It’s been a long week. It has, also, been a long month - a long 2016, thus far. I’ve no regrets for the commitments I made at the beginning of the year, for the meaningful items to date on the calendar, save for one: recalling that I’m not quite wired for this.

You could say I’m pretty non-committal. I avoid staying for too long. I haven’t, in a long while, haven’t waded in far and deep into the thick of things, haven’t lingered long enough to weather storms when they come. To see murk when it seeps in, to see the ideal cede into the real. I commit to relatively few, select things past the point that they start to hurt; everything else, I hold quite loosely, the knob of an Exit door at bay. 

Until recently.

And now, as I toe that threshold, confronted with the growing pains eventually encountered when one sticks around long enough, I’m beginning to feel alarm. Claustrophobic, in a sense. I’m also beginning to sense what I fear - what I try to avoid most - and it’s making me anxious.

Friction. Conflict. Dissatisfaction. Hurt. The messiness of relationships.

Us humans, we try. We strive for kindness. We muster what grace we can. We flounder through love. Yet, try as we do to bear with one another, the truth remains that the world is broken - and we’re always going to be part of that disrepair. We’re going to feel offence, experience pain, be rubbed the wrong way. We’re going to be resisted, challenged, provoked. And in that we’ll want to hold our ground, to assert ourselves, to fight back. We’ll want to vent grievances, air disdain, flush out toxic we’ve picked up as a result of someone else’s brokenness - even as we bring others pain. Broken shards cutting other broken shards. It’s a bit of a bloody affair, however bloodless on the surface.

But is it really bloodless?

Over two thousand years ago, a Man walked amongst men, undaunted by their mess. The perfect vessel, uncut and whole, mingling with a nation of broken shards.

He knew their hearts. Saw the bruises and wounds through their hard defences, and loved those walls down, brick after stone-cold brick. Friction, conflict, dissatisfaction: all these He recognised in His people, among His own friends. They pricked His heart, but that didn’t send Him away. In fact it drove Him deeper into their midst. And hurt? He experienced the worst of it on perpendicular wooden beams, and it wasn’t only physically. 

Still, He stayed.

Willingly.

Even as blood run down his temples in agony. Even as blood spattered onto concrete from a whip. Even as it gushed from thorny punctures; as it poured with water at the stab of a spear.

He stayed, through it all.

Out of love He stayed. With His own blood He covered the blades with which we are capable of regarding one another; covered us whole, that we might live not out of the brokenness we come from, but out of the same love with which He stayed for us.

Even as it broke Him.

It’s the truth of this that greeted me quietly, not long after I woke this morning.

You are loving, You are wise. There is nothing in my life You cannot revive.

I couldn’t put a finger on the song, but the lyrics hummed in mind as I went about my morning routine.

There is nothing too hard for our God.

I didn’t understand it - why this, of all songs - but the words brought comfort and a peace that assured me He’s got this.

That what feels dreadful for me to encounter once again, what alerts me to the impending discomfort of staying, do not surprise God. He knows we’re prone to mess. He knows we’re bound to come at each other from polar ends in the spectrum of opinions, and create our own friction.

He knows, and on the cross He went and redeemed these dysfunctions, as He redeems them in our lives today.

The song, it turns out, is Elevation Worship’s ‘Nothing Is Wasted’.

Nothing is wasted You work all things for good Your promise remains Forever You reign

As terrifying as the thick of things get - for me especially, fretfully non-confrontational and easily affected by conflict - I am reminded that it always goes down for our good. Not without pain, but with assurance that our God is a God who redeems and lets no heartache go to waste. I can stay and find rest in the storms of commitment - in the face of brokenness - because Jesus first stayed and died for that brokenness.

I’ve always sought comfort in an Exit sign, and God, in His loving grace, is working on my heart to replace that emergency door with Him. Him, in whom we find all we need to pull through with love for one another. The perfect God who wades with us into our mess, an uncut vessel undaunted by the edges of little broken shards.

Then invites us to do the same.

The pitcher stung and I snatched my hand away in reflex, switching off the steam wand. Never a morning at Coffee Corner without burning myself, I thought, quickly wrapping a damp towel around the spout and pressing the switch for a shot of steam. Setting the pitcher on the counter, I tapped, swished, lifted, poured. “No-froth latte for Sue?”

It’s 15 minutes past nine on a Sunday morning, and the 2nd floor of 633 King’s Road is coming to life, slowly. A handful of congregants have found seats just across the counter, as the main sanctuary sparsely fill with early comers.

I can’t remember when I started volunteering at Coffee Corner – a year ago? Two? It’s been fun; I love that I get to serve while learning to make coffee. There’s also a nice rush to pulling espresso after espresso with the portafilter. The hum of grinding coffee beans, the gurgle of the steam wand. The way milk looks after it’s been frothed, and when you know you’ve done it right. The pour. Sealing the container, handing out the cup to the face that matches the name.

Then there’s the worship ministry, rehearsing. They’re always a joy to watch – to listen to – and even better when it’s a song that means something to you. Every now and then one of them drops by for a coffee. Usually a regular brew, rarely anything milk-based. Same for the pastors. It’s the attendees that often look for something more special, like a cappuccino or a mocha.

Funny how this place has become more familiar than I realise. It’s beginning to feel more like home.

I wonder if this is how it’s meant to be. Church, I mean. I wonder if that’s all Jesus asks of us, believers, in relation to the bigger church and the world it’s called to serve – to be home to others. Not so much in offering a sense of familiarity, but in knowing and letting others be known…in seeing, and letting others be seen.

Might that have been how it was, for the woman at the well? With her secrets undone before the Man who was thirsty. I imagine them in awkward silence, her panic slowly taking over – and then being washed out by wave after wave of Jesus’ grace and mercy.

Might that have been how it was for John, at rest in the chest of his beloved Friend? That no matter the chatter and chaos unfolding all around them – and possibly in his heart – there was always immeasurable peace in Jesus?

Might that have been how it was for Peter? Back at the dinner table post-resurrection. Invited to dine, still, three denials be damned.

How incredible it must have been to encounter Christ in the flesh.

And while I don’t think that we, as broken human beings, are meant to be pillars and roofs for the brokenness of other people – only God alone is meant to do that, I think – I do believe He has given us all we need to be shelters of grace to one another. To ably live with arms extended, and hearts wide open, grace at the ready for those who come wandering in. Not out of our own strength, but out of everything He has already done for us – He who walked among us, who came down and bore flesh to perish for our sake.

Jesus was essentially heaven on earth to those who loved Him. And the more I get to know Him, the more I am convinced that He invites us to be the same for others, believers and otherwise – whether that looks like withholding judgment, or offering a place of rest, or pulling out an extra seat at the table in the spirit of forgiveness.

Or handing out double espressos over the counter.

A steady flow of churchgoers enter the auditorium, and for the first time, I welcome the odd but warm idea of home – in Hong Kong, at Island ECC, and all the elsewheres He has placed me – without flinching. If there is a way I could also make it so for others, I am slowly discovering it, but not before I am in full brim with gratitude, for all the ways He is first home for me.

*

This was written in creative response to the ‘Day 16: God Made Flesh‘ prompt, by Marienne, as part of Hazel’s 30 Days to the Cross project. 30 Days is:

a journey to explore the beauty of the Cross and the power of Christ’s resurrection through any means necessary – art, literature, photography, music, etc.