When the Father told me to read my Bible more often, I didn’t know where to start. So I turned to The Lord’s Prayer. I figured it was a good spot.

So I read it over and over and over. I was especially drawn to this part:

And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.                 –Matthew 6:12

The more I thought of it, the more I started to think that this word,  “debt,” might extend to everything–including finances and relationships and stuff like that.  If it does, I realized, then the level of freedom I have in these other things is connected to whether or not I hold any unforgiveness in my heart. This is the part when I raise my hands in the air and sing, “ahhh-haaa!”

These kinds of realizations excite me because through them the Spirit shows me how I can have more and more freedom in Christ to be who I was created to be. And it ignites the same fervor in me that the word “repent” does because I feel like I’m on the brink of going into deeper and deeper connectivity with Christ. Ooh. Love it. Bring it on.

So the logical course from there? I asked the Father to reveal any unforgiveness in me. I repented (yesss!) of my unforgiveness and forgave those that came to mind.  I also asked if there was anyone I needed to ask forgiveness of. And then I called or had coffee or ate a meal with all the people that came to mind. The Spirit again led me to pray for the prospering of my spirit (as he did in the parking lot of Wal-Mart not too long before this), and I made my aim reconciliation, zealous for the freedom that I hoped hoped hoped would follow.

It’s not surprising, is it, that as I sit here writing this, watching my girls play in the wind together out on the deck, that I can think of several relationships that have sprung into new life since the Father’s been at work at this in my heart. I think of my own walk with the Lord that just a few months ago was distant and discouraged that now feels full of joy, refreshment, and rest. He does what he says he will, doesn’t he?

What stories do you have of forgiveness, refreshment, and joy? If you want, leave them in a comment and let us all be encouraged by your faith!

But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint. –Isaiah 40:31

I used to love the last part of this verse the most. The “they shall mount up” part, the “they shall run” part, and the “they shall walk” part. I always garnered alot of strength from it; it would help me gird myself up for the waiting part.

And then I would work at waiting.

But this morning on my run it occurred to me that working at waiting is weird.

To wait on the Lord means to hope in him, which means to trust him. And to trust in him means to believe that he is good and that he loves me. And if I believe that he is good and he loves me, I can relax and let go of my working, striving, and worrying. And then I can be patient.

And then waiting isn’t work. Waiting is rest.

I gave up on doing my daily devotional a long time ago. At the time, I was reading the Bible only because I was supposed to. I was ridden with guilt if I didn’t get to it, and I was constantly under condemnation that I wasn’t doing it right when I did get to it.

So, I stopped.

I think that I needed some space from the pressure I was putting on myself. It was making me tired, and I doubted whether or not I could hear from the Lord–I certainly wasn’t hearing him much through the Scriptures. But that was  probably because I was so consumed with the duty of fulfilling the “daily devotional” rule.  During that time, I learned that my standards for “doing it right” were human standards and not the Lord’s standards, and I’ve learned that I do, in fact, have good ears to hear the Lord speak–through Scripture and in other ways, too. So I have spent the past however long reading the Bible only when the Lord took me to it in prayer or when I was songwriting. It felt good to be released from the pressure and guilt I had been heaping onto myself. And it felt even better to get to rest and have fun with hearing from the Lord in different ways.

And I felt like the Father was okay with my choice.

But come December and January, I fell into such a funk that I was having a hard time hearing the voice of the Lord.  It was obscured by the judgments and offenses I had taken into my heart and we were not communicating well. The fact is, I just decided I didn’t really want to talk much anymore, but at the same time I was frustrated that I wasn’t hearing from him.

That’s when the Lord directed me back to the Bible. He said, if you hide my word in your heart, then you will always have something in your well to draw from.

There’s a Scripture that goes along with that, but true to my normal inability to remember things like that, I can’t remember what it is. So if reading this brings any passages up in your hearts, please comment with them, because it bugs me that I can’t remember it.

The point is: He was right. Now that I have started regularly reading my Bible again–this time out of obedience to what the Lord was requiring of me, not out of obligation to a rule or standard for a “good Christian”–it has been life-giving. When I don’t know what to pray, I can pray what I read. When I feel like I’m not hearing right, I can search the Word.

And that’s the goodness of the Lord right there. And it’s the freedom of living as a son and not as a slave. Now that my readings are directed by the Lord and not by my slave-ish thinking, they are fruitful in my heart and in my spirit. Now I look at my time in the Word with great anticipation and excitement.

Repent

It’s one of my new favorite words. It used to be one of those words that made me uneasy and uncomfortable, mostly because I didn’t know what it meant. Kind of like this next one:

Confess

Also a used-to-be-uncomfortable word. I’d hear it or read it in the Bible every once in a while, and I’d start to squirm a little bit. I think it made me feel uncomfortable because I didn’t want to let anyone–even God–in on the fact that I wasn’t perfect or that the plants in the garden of my soul needed any tending.

So I’d stick with the easy confessions. I’d stick with things like not helping the old lady across the street or taking a harsh tone with a friend.

But a little while ago, I read this verse:

Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord.  Acts 3:19

I hadn’t ever felt refreshed and rested in the depths of my spirit after confessing something to someone or to God. What was I not getting about confession and repentance that it didn’t seem to work for me?

As I spent some time talking this through with trusted friends and with the Father, I realized that I was thinking of confession and repentance all wrong.

I was thinking of confession and repentance as a burden, something that would show I wasn’t the awesome Christian I tried so hard to make myself into. But that’s thinking like a slave, not like a daughter. That’s thinking like someone who has something to prove, instead of like someone who is at rest in Christ.

It dawned on me that confession and repentance are much more fun than I initially thought they were; they are a gift of the Father that brings me closer to the fullness of who I am in Christ. These two words speak to the working out of my salvation that gets me living into the abundant life that Jesus promised.

So now I’m much more interested in confessing the big stuff. I catch myself telling the Lord: Bring it on. Bring on the roots of things. The vows and agreements I’ve made in my life that work against me and against others. The judgments I’ve made against myself, God, and others. The unforgiveness that may be lurking in my heart.

Make no mistake, he does bring it on. And sometimes I feel like that poor tree in Christmas Vacation that Clark Griswold and family had to pull up by the roots and strap to the roof of their station wagon. Totally exposed.

But then I confess. I repent. I stop the reaping of that thing in my life. And then, because it’s all in the light now, the miracle happens. Those roots get chopped up and thrown in the chipper, and my spirit feels lighter, and, you guessed it, so refreshed and full of life.

So now repentance and confession are two of my favorite things to do–because when I confess and repent, I get freer and freer to be the woman God created me to be in Christ. My relationships are stronger. I am way more fun to be around. I can hear the Lord clearer. Everything is better.

A little while ago, maybe a year even, Tim and I were driving home from Costco.  We pulled up next to this awesome blue mini-van.  A Honda Odyssey, to be exact.  The precise mini-van I have been coveting for about 6 months or more.  Anyway, we pulled up beside it and my eyes fixated on the beautiful hubcaps with the “H” on them–a little slanted, a little raised, and oh so sexy.  I stared at those hubcaps; I imagined myself putting Ellie’s travel snacks into the secret compartment under the floor instead of in a bulky tote bag at my feet on the passenger side.  I imagined Tim neatly placing all our instruments, luggage, pack n’ plays, and strollers in the back, and thought about what it would look like if I couldn’t see the headstock of the guitar case climbing out from behind the backseat.  And then I started talking to the Lord.  “This is the right time for this for us, you know,” I told him as I looked back at Ellie, squished in her car seat between her stroller and the boxes of Costco veggies piled three-high.  She had already broken in to the mushrooms and was happily munching away.  I griped to him about our lack of space, and how, with one more kid, we weren’t going to fit AT ALL.

“Don’t be like the Israelites, who so quickly forget,”  I heard in return,  “who so quickly forget.”

The Israelites, I remember, were the ones who were miraculously taken out of slavery in Egypt, and they were the ones who, as soon as the going got rough, forgot the miracle of the Lord and tried to convince him to let them return to slavery.  I mean, they had seen God turn the Nile river into blood for goodness’ sake, but as soon as they started the work of having to redefine themselves not as slaves but as sons, they begged to return to what they knew best.  They begged to be returned to slavery!  They seemed to have forgotten the Father’s provision for them. They had forgotten his show of power. They had forgotten who he said they were–not slaves, but heirs. All they needed to do was to remember the favor the Lord had shown them, the miraculous ways he had provided for them in the past, and trust the Lord to continue to love them and provide for them.

I face the same temptation. I know that the working out of my salvation in this life means to be working out what it means to find my identity as a daughter…a son, a co-heir with Christ…and to discover how that plays out in my daily life as a mommy, a wife, a worker. It means I have to become a ruler and not a reactor. I have to be someone who takes every thought, every feeling, captive and tests it against what I know the Father says about who I am. But the minute I feel like I’m wandering through the wilderness, the minute I feel like I need something I’m not getting, the temptation is to forget the ways the Lord had provided for me before, to forget the stories of his faithfulness in the past and revert back to old ways of thinking and believing.  Like believing the Lord doesn’t care, has forgotten me, or has filled up his miracle-quota for the month.

Whether or not we ever end up with an awesome Honda Odyssey doesn’t matter. I frankly don’t know if the Father even really cares that much what kind of car I drive. I think he was and is more concerned with where my trust is, with how I see him, and with how I see myself. I don’t want to be like the Israelites, who so quickly forget.  I want to be someone who can trust the Lord’s goodness for tomorrow because I can see how he’s loved me today and in the past. I want to be someone who can face temporary trials and needs and messes and gripes with the deep residing rest in my spirit that comes with a steadfast understanding of who I am to God.