Grace in Small Places

He also brought me out into a broad place;

He delivered me because He delighted in me.
Psalm 18:19

I'm learning that God's grace comes to us in surprising places . . . 

And many times that His grace comes in small places, in unexpected places, in places that the world looks over, but that the Lord sees as His stepping-stones to glory.

The manger, a small place, that held the glory of the Son of Righteousness, the Firstborn of creation. 

A small basket, whose five loaves and two fish fed 5000 and a small boy who offered the meager and the small. 

A small following - twelve disciples - whose testimony through the Lord's power shook nations. 

The Lord works through small things, so that His glory may shine greater through the impossibility of it all. 

And that all the glory is His alone. 

I'm in a small place right now. 

I didn't think of it as small when I first married, when my husband and I made our "home" in my Mom's home 5 years ago. 

It was cozy then, and we didn't need a lot of space; it was adequate, and we loved living with my Mom and still do. 

But then, the first baby came along, a little girl, and things got "cozier." 

It was still alright, though, and became a little easier when my Mom offered us the spare room for her to sleep in just before I gave birth to our second child.

A little boy. 

And I thought, how am I going to do this, fit all of our things, keep everything organized, stay sane? 

Add to this that my Mom has her house up for sale and most of my belongings are in storage. 

And that I am by nature an excessively organized person - for better, or for worse - and that I feel like I'm losing it when things are "out of place." 

I felt overwhelmed. And I looked at the clutter around me, the organized clutter, but clutter nonetheless, and I felt like it was closing in around me. 

And the space seemed so small  and I envied my friends who owned homes and even the ones who had apartments and I thought, if only I had more space. 

If only I had more space . . . 

If only I could organize my baby's toys and books . . . 

If only I could find Elisha's baby book - it must be packed away somewhere . . . 

If only, if only, if only. 

But the Lord constantly speaks to me in this small place, and though I still struggle with discontentment, I ultimately would not have it any other way.

Because this is His will for me right now. 

I know, I know, I know that He has placed me here for this time and that at the right time, He will bring me out into a spacious place. 

There are lessons that I have learned in this "small place" that I could never have learned anywhere else. 

So I would not change anything. 

And this small place holds blessings, hidden blessings, when I look beyond the "littleness" of my own thinking. 

My mother's constant loving influence on my children and the Godly advice that she offers me on a daily basis . . . 

Learning contentment in a "small place" so that by His grace, I may not take His provision for granted if He should choose to place me in a larger place . . .

My sister's help with my daughter when I was healing after giving birth to my second child . . .

My family's constantly stepping in to watch my babies for doctor's appointments, etc. 

So many blessings, countless blessings. 

And I'm reminded -

Reminded that the Lord works through the small, through the insignificant for
His glory.

And I believe that He will work through my small place, too. 

He's humbling me, teaching me to depend upon Him, softening my nit-pickiness into surrender. 

Sometimes we want great things, big things, when the Lord often works through the small. 

We want greatness, and then the Lord teaches us that to become great we must first learn to serve (Mark 10:35-45).

That He takes widows' mites, and poverty and our lack of ability so that He can work His glory and strength through our weakness. 

He works through small places . . . and then in His perfect timing, enlarges the pathway under us, so that our feet do not slip. 

So I hold onto this promise, and thank Him in the meantime for the grace to grow in this blessed small place:

“Enlarge the place of your tent,

And let them stretch out the curtains of your dwellings;

Do not spare;

Lengthen your cords,

And strengthen your stakes. 

For you shall expand to the right and to the left, 

And your descendants will inherit the nations, 

And make the desolate cities inhabited." 

Isaiah 52:2-3

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The Faith of Hannah and the Mercy of God

“With the merciful You will show Yourself merciful; With a blameless man You will show Yourself blameless; With the pure You will show Yourself pure; And with the devious You will show Yourself shrewd. For You will save the humble people, But will bring down haughty looks. For You will light my lamp; The Lord my God will enlighten my darkness. For by You I can run against a troop, By my God I can leap over a wall. As for God, His way is perfect; The word of the Lord is proven; He is a shield to all who trust in Him. For who is God, except the Lord? And who is a rock, except our God? It is God who arms me with strength, And makes my way perfect. He makes my feet like the feet of deer, And sets me on my high places. He teaches my hands to make war, So that my arms can bend a bow of bronze. You have also given me the shield of Your salvation; Your right hand has held me up, Your gentleness has made me great.
Psalms 18:24-35

Peninnah was a sour-hearted woman and Peninnah was a “show-off,” and Peninnah paraded her child-trophies before Hannah to provoke her. She had something that Hannah didn’t have and that Hannah wanted and that the Lord chose to withhold from Hannah.

She was a woman “blessed” with many children and Hannah had none—the curse of her time and the agony of her heart. And Peninnah rubbed it in, rubbed it in as much as she could, into the open, aching wound that Hannah bore.

And I read about Hannah, and Hannah didn’t lash out, but rather poured out the burning sorrow of her heart. Before her God, in humble, tearful agony, and her God heard. Heard Hannah’s wordless sobs and hushed throbbing prayers, her cries for mercy. And where she could see no mercy, no loving-kindness, only the gaping hole of an empty womb, the Lord planted a seed of promise. And his name was Samuel—God hears.

Did Hannah ever feel like heaping burning coals of words, bitter words against Peninnah? Feel like hurling insults and scourges of captious remarks against her tormentor? Probably. But she chose instead to cry out, to cry out to the only One who could, who would help her—her seemingly silent God of mercy, who ultimately spoke His will of love towards His child and granted her request.

We come up against situations sometimes, and the Lord allows these situations into our lives to test us and to teach us to put our hope in Him and to trust His merciful judgements.

Someone wounds us, perhaps over and over and over. Perhaps even someone who claims the name of Christ and appears “fruitful” and much-blessed. We are barren. The Lord has withheld something from us, for whatever reason He has deemed fit. Perhaps this person constantly provokes us, subtly delivers stinging remarks, snide insults, or carefully concealed digs. Maybe they try to ruin our reputation, try to hint that the Lord has withheld good from us because of something amiss in our character.

We cry. We pray. We wonder why the Lord doesn’t deal with this person immediately and put an end to such injustice.

Our prayers give way to sighings. We either become more fervent, seeking the Lord and hoping in His mercy, or we wilt under the pressure, growing bitter and depressed towards the person who is provoking us and ultimately towards the Lord who is allowing this thorn in our lives. We have a choice—to become frustrated, subdued, bitter and angry with God and with the one who is hurting us, to lash back and to bite back and to repay evil for evil. Or to put our trust in the God who hears.

We have to ask ourselves and be honest with ourselves before God--Do I want to be hard and cold and rocky? Or do I want the life of the Son of Jesus to shine through me? Do I treat others as I would have them treat me, am I poured out as a sweet spring of grace or a bitter mouthful of arsenic-tainted words and motives?

Someone has wounded me—do I openly or secretly try to wound them back? Someone has spitefully treated me—do I lash back in anger or carefully-concealed coldness? What does my heart speak towards the Father of glory? Am I reflecting the love of Jesus in the way that I am responding to pain and injustice? What does my heart speak towards God?

There are times, I think, when a safe distance can be maintained, if possible, with someone who continually seeks to cause pain and who becomes a distraction from your relationship with the Lord. If someone is trying to hit you on the head with a rock, you run—you don’t wait to negotiate. David found this course of action necessary with Saul (a so-called believer) and Elijah with Jezebel (a heartless pagan).

But there are times when we cannot run from a situation, when we must stand strong and pray and wait upon the Lord. He gives much grace in these situations. And they are hard, but the hardness comes so that we may learn to be soft. Not weak-willed, not passive, but moldable in God’s hand, the hand that will exalt us in due time, the hand that will lead us to the God who hears.

Hannah never strikes me as a spineless, woe-is-me-jellyfish kind of believer. Rather, she is incredibly strong through the strength of her God, steely-willed gazing towards her Maker. The spiritually barren are not those who wait upon the Lord, but rather, those who try to take things into their own hands, to manipulate their own destinies based upon a “practical” understanding of God’s ways, a surface faith in Him that has never dug deep into agonies and need and heart-sobbing and cries for mercy.

Hannah’s faith digs deep and in the end, she is able to look at her enemy, her persecutor and speak these words, words of faith and praise in the God who hears—not from a heart of bitterness, but from a heart of hope and praise:

“My heart rejoices in the Lord;

My horn is exalted in the Lord.

I smile at my enemies,

Because I rejoice in Your salvation.

No one is holy like the Lord,

For there is none besides You,

Nor is there any rock like our God.

Talk no more so very proudly;

Let no arrogance come from your mouth,

For the Lord is the God of knowledge;

And by Him actions are weighed.

The bows of the mighty men are broken,

And those who stumbled are girded with strength.

Those who were full have hired themselves out for bread,

And the hungry have ceased to hunger.

Even the barren has borne seven,

And she who has many children has become feeble.

The Lord kills and makes alive;

He brings down to the grave and brings up.

The Lord makes poor and makes rich;

He brings low and lifts up.

He raises the poor from the dust

And lifts the beggar from the ash heap,

To set them among princes

And make them inherit the throne of glory.

For the pillars of the earth are the Lord’s,

And He has set the world upon them.

He will guard the feet of His saints,

But the wicked shall be silent in darkness.

For by strength no man shall prevail.

The adversaries of the Lord shall be broken in pieces;

From heaven He will thunder against them.

The Lord will judge the ends of the earth.

He will give strength to His king,

And exalt the horn of His anointed."

I Samuel 2:1-10

Photo Credit: VinothChandar / Foter.com / CC BY

Humility

He was right, dead right, as he sped along

But he was just as dead as if he’d been wrong.

Frustration stiffens my neck and I fume inside. A pasty smile on my thin lips, thin pursed lips and the inside of my soul is burning. Again and again they flogged me, flogged my weary, worried body, bit into my soft skin with adder-venom and I bled. “Their words were like drawn spears . . . the poison of asps was under their tongue . . .” And it was so subtle, so “innocent,” so glassily beautiful, like a spider’s weaving in the placid night. 

The spider wove, threw her lacey fingers into her work and fastened strand upon sticky strand together. A masterpiece of sticky threads, perfect and deadly, the poison waiting, the jaws immaculately poised. The poison of words, the thrashing of a moment, and the still shell of the victim after it all. 

Unless . . . I do not fall into the web, into the web of deceit and distraction. Unless I thrust my body into the wind of truth and fly into the gust that drives me away from the woven prison. 

Sometimes there is a choice—sometimes the spider seeks to pull us in, to distract us with her garish beauty, and we become so caught up, so entangled in the fight that we end up powerless in a web of sorts, frustrated and empty. 

Often we fall prey to this attack. The enemy of our souls throws out his fiery dart, in the form of an argument, a misunderstanding, a blatant lie against us, a smearing of our reputation-unwarranted, unfounded, ungodly. The spider spins her web in the cover of darkness. The damage done, the adversary crouches in hiding. 

We see the web and we want to fight. We think that if only we can get in close enough, we can do battle with the perpetrator, with the one who authored our pain. 

Yet, if we enter into the web, our limbs become fastened, our hands tied, useless, the life sucked from our being—dead, cold, and still.  

Years ago, I learned a valuable lesson, one that I find I must continually re-learn . . . 

It was a lesson in humility. 

And I faced two options, so I thought, vascilating between them both, at a loss for clarity and direction. 

I found myself surrounded, as it were, on every side, and there was no respite, no reprieve in sight. 

And the two options that seemed the most obvious to me were to either valiantly attempt to outsmart/outwit the adversary—I could do it graciously; I could do it in a godly fashion, so I thought—Or, to try to reason with my “offender;” maybe I would not slip and get entangled in the web that was laid like a death-trap before me. 

I struggled and I fumbled and I failed until I learned that the answer was not to outsmart, to outwit. The answer was not to try to jump in and reason and then to pull myself out of the web that was intended for me. 

The answer was humility. 

There are times when another person, even another believer may set their will against yours, may seek to cause you harm, to wound your spirit, to render you powerless. Despite all of their best words, their intentions towards you are not peaceable; their words are smoother than oil, but are really a “drawn sword.” (Psalm 55:21) They do not wish you good; they intend evil toward you and would be very happy to see you fall into trouble or gain a bad reputation.  

I remember so clearly a certain situation in which I had been misunderstood by some and deeply wounded by others. I sought my mother’s advice and what she said took me back and frustrated me at the moment, until I learned that it was freedom for me and the only way that I could keep my conscience clear before God and men. 

She said, in essence, “Humble yourself, even if you are right, even if you have been done a great injustice. Humble yourself and pray that the Lord would enable you to sincerely love the person who is hurting you. Humble yourself and He will lift you up in due time. Do whatever it takes to show humility and grace towards those who have hurt you, for the sake of the Lord Jesus who bought you at a great price.” 

She wasn’t talking about cowering before an unjust attack, but instead, holding one’s head up in the confidence of Jesus, forgiving as one who has also been forgiven much. 

And if they accept it, good. May the Lord’s peace and grace and forgiveness reign in that situation. But if not, your conscience is set free to serve the Lord with fear and to continue in the path that the Lord has led you, to the glory of the Father. 

Satan would have us become distracted—distracted by our own frustrations, distracted by the way that those around us are hurting us, distracted by our own emotions. It is foolish to become distracted and doesn’t bring glory to God nor do us or anyone else any good. 

Humility keeps us from distraction, keeps our eyes fixed on Jesus, because they are no longer on ourselves. Humility emboldens and humility starves the pride that will maim the soul. 

The forms that humility may take will differ, and the reactions to it will be different as well. But there will be freedom and joy at the root of humility, a freedom and joy that cannot be snuffed out by the one who antagonizes us, by the spite or the sarcasm or the ridicule of the one who does us harm. 

And ultimately, the Lord, not I, is the one who can judge the utter motives of another’s heart. Perhaps you are surrounded by, as John Proctor described the lying witnesses in The Crucible, “marvelous pretenders.” The Lord knows the depths of each one’s inner being. 

But we do not need to be bound by pretense—instead, by the power of the Holy Spirit we may walk in the light, as He is in the light, loving sincerely from the heart, walking in the grace of humility—“slow to speak, slow to become angry, quick to forgive.” (James 1:19)

And ultimately trusting that in the last day all pretense and pride will be swallowed up by the fire of His awesome, all-revealing truth—

“For I know of nothing against myself, yet I am not justified by this; but He who judges me is the Lord. Therefore judge nothing before the time, until the Lord comes, who will both bring to light the hidden things of darkness and reveal the counsels of the hearts. Then each one’s praise will come from God.”   I Corinthians 4:4-5

A Birth Experience

When all Thy mercies, O my God,
My rising soul surveys,
Transported with the view, I’m lost
In wonder, love and praise. 

Unnumbered comforts to my soul
Thy tender care bestowed,
Before my infant heart conceived
From Whom those comforts flowed.

--Joseph Addison

Two births took place in my life over the course of this past Autumn and Winter, and these births have altered my physical and spiritual being.

No one can prepare you for both the beauty and the pain of having a baby. And no one but the Holy Spirit can prepare you for some truth of the Living Word to penetrate your heart in an area that has been closed to Him before.

My little Debbie-lamb, sheep of my pasture, sheep of His, came physically from my swollen body into my carefully-organized life on November 1^st, 2012. I didn’t know what to expect while I was expecting, but God did, and placed in my arms a warm, wet slippery person before it even registered that the agony of pushing and pain had quieted. My body tore. Through three layers of tissue. Maybe the doctor should have given me an epistiomy, but she didn’t, and the baby’s heart rate was slowing, and so she came.

I wouldn’t ask for it to have happened differently, maybe because I believe that the Lord orders all things, maybe because of the heart-softening lessons that came. At any rate, it happened as it did.

I remember the night in the hospital, the long, sleepless night. I remember the helplessness and the searing pain in the morning, and the nurses helping, and the humbling. I remember how it felt not to be able to pull myself out of the bed to pick up my crying baby. It was too much for me, me with the working arms and the organized, picky nature.

So I cried. And my body ached and the nurses packed me with ice and my Mama comforted in her usual “God will work it out” way.

And I went home and the healing of weeks and then months eventually came, but in that time, the Lord spoke. Through His Word, through His Spirit to my heart, and I was forced through my own physical limitations, to slow down and listen.

I remember holding my baby in the sunlight in my room, the warm heater chasing away the chill and spilling coziness. A baby pressed to my wounded body, I could not busy myself with “doing.” I had to be still and listen, to sing hymns in the quietness of the small place, and thank the Lord for His Father-grace, for His chesed-His lovingkindness. And gratitude spilled out of my heart, gratitude that merely knowing the right theology cannot manufacture. It was His grace. To me, undeserving, to me, the self-sufficient one.

And I began to hear voices around me, voices of sisters and husband and friend and mother and neighbor, and to realize that I was not the only one, my only concern. So He taught me. So He teaches me still, through pain to be sensitive towards those beside me with flesh and feelings and bone.

Another lesson came. Someone asked me what I thought of the writer Ann Voskamp. I had heard her name but never read anything of hers. So I googled her name and found controversy. She was accused of being a mystic, a panentheist, a heretic. I looked at her facebook page and wasn’t convinced one way or the other. So I decided to read her book, One Thousand Gifts.

I have never been so moved or challenged by a modern writer. Mystical; yes, if you call it that, but sound, careful doctrine beautifully dressed in poetical language and sensitivity.

I began to read the book in a quest to challenge her theological accuracy. I came away questioning the authenticity of my own heart, and the extent to which I live out the Word in my own life. Because it is a living Word; He is the living Word, and He dwells within me, His temple, transforming me, enlarging my heart to the extent that I yield to Him. Not merely know about Him, but know Him, in spirit and in truth.

Something had become lost to me through the busy-ness of life, the quiet joy of yielding and listening and waiting upon God. Something of anxiety and fear and of worrying about tomorrow had wreaked havoc on my soul, and I realized that I missed the simplicity of living by faith alone, trusting in the promises, yielding to Him.

And so the Lord shook me, quieted me, turned my eyes to the cross and then handed me a book that opened my hungry soul to the loveliness of Jesus Christ, revealed through creation, manifested in His beloved people.

And I thank Him, Him alone:

At that time Jesus, full of joy through the Holy Spirit, said, "I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for this was your good pleasure." (Luke 10:21).

Two births, a sweet baby to me, and another, the fresh birth of a childlike heart . . . for so it pleased Him.