Perfection By Miscarriage

In a move of jaw-dropping love and pure genius, God’s actual word became flesh. Jesus went ahead of us so that we can cling to God in the first place. Because of the certainty of the access to the one and only Holy God, I can agree with the verses in James 1 and truly consider it a pure and worthy gift when tests and challenges come at me from all sides. When we face the heat of our fallen circumstances, when we are under immense pressure from whatever source, our hearts are forced open to show their true colors. Because of this, I plead with God to help me stand firm in trials because He promises that if I don’t try to get out of it prematurely, the trial will do what He promises it will do for me. I’ll be made perfect. I’ll be whole. I won’t lack anything good or anything I need, regardless of how I feel right now. I’ll be made mature and well equipped. Yes, it’s for my benefit, because that’s how He works. And in my head I hear many of you say, “but isn’t it for God’s glory?!”

Yes. And in his outrageously loving way, He created our lives so that His glory is intricately woven with our good. And my heart is made whole, no matter how much it aches today.

Having one miscarriage was hard. I naively handled it like a sad and disappointing speed bump. Having a second miscarriage only months later, quite frankly, feels like I’ve been raped by the Fall. And the thing is, I know lots of truth. I counsel people all the time through absurdly hard tragedies, heartbreaks and sin struggles. And I’m so thankful that God has given me truth and put me in a place where I can fiercely say, “I believe!” But believing in God’s perfect character and love for me doesn’t take the heartache away.

The difference is, believing in God's perfect character and love makes the heartache worth something.

The gratitude I have for my almost two-year-old is now without warrant. But in some ways, it makes enduring this so much harder. When I look at her, I’m given the picture of what those two other little babies would have looked like. The mannerisms they may have had. The curvature of her neck and the way she giggles when her daddy plays with her. I wonder if they would have had those same ringlets and button nose.

Daniel Bedingfield wrote a song called “Honest Questions” that always comes to mind in difficult seasons. He wrote, “Can you see honest questions in my heart this hour opening like a flower to the rain? And do you know the silent sorrow of a never-ending journey through the pain? Do you see a brighter day for me? Oh look down, see the tears I've cried, lives I've lived, the deaths I've died. You died them too. And all for me. And You say, ‘I will pour my water down upon a thirsty, barren land and streams will flow from the dust of your bruised and broken soul. You will grow like the grass upon the fertile plains of Asia by the sea. You will grow, You will grow. Do you know the story from the start? And do you know me like you've always told me? Do you see the whispers in my heart against your kindness, my eternal blindness?”

Do you see the whispers in my heart against your kindness (my eternal blindness)? It takes my breath away.

If I was never thirsty and barren, there’d be no kindness needed, but more . . . no Redeemer needed. Right now, though, it feels like this heartache isn’t going to ever leave me and I’m branded for life. When I think of countless friends who have gone through many more miscarriages or abuse or betrayal or death of loved ones, I’m so tempted to numb myself when I walk by the aisle of pregnancy tests and feminine products in the drugstore (no one warned me that would be hard!)

But there’s also another side to it . . .

It propels me to worship with my friends who do have healthy babies and are raising their children to be salt and light in a world ridden by the Fall that took mine away from me. It drives me to hate sin that was inducted into the world once God had created something good. It forces me to weep with those who weep over infertility, adultery, loneliness or death.

But God; He brought a certainty to hope that’s unwavering.

I realize a lot more can be said and there are many stones unturned when you bring up a subject like miscarriages. You can compare yourself to those you feel are better off and you’ll be embittered. You can compare yourself to those with what seems like worse stories and you’ be indicted with fear or shame. But for today, I just want to say that I’m incredibly grateful I get to hold firmly to Hope because I’m being made “perfect and complete, lacking in nothing” through the immense power of trial.

Isaiah 61:1b-3, "He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn, and provide for those who grieve in Zion—to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the Lord for the display of his splendor."

May this pile of ashes one day be among the oaks of righteousness.

Questions for reflection:

What are the whispers in your own heart towards God?
What are the pain and struggles in your life?
Have you sought to use those pains to look to Jesus, the Author and Perfector of your faith?
Have you become bitter about your story?
What are you wanting that you are not getting?
Whatever it is that you’re wanting, what do you think that one thing is going to get you?
Are those things that can only come from Jesus?
How are you looking to your circumstances to satisfy you?
What are 3 things you’ve learned about God in your personal hardships?
How can those 3 things propel you to worship?

This article was originally posted at Gospel Taboo.

God Uses Unlikely People

You and I are not omniscient. We can’t know each other’s hearts. We can never see the whole picture. We’re bound by earthly limitations. There’s no getting around it; human beings can’t make perfect judgments with unadulterated wisdom and absolute knowledge—only God can. The problem is we still try. Christians take character seriously because God does (1 Pet 1:16), but being a sinful human limits my ability to make judgments of others based on appearances.

When we expect Christians to look a certain way and do all the same things, when we have expectations for how children of God must appear, we’re functioning with a small view of God. When we have a small view of God, it handicaps us and those around us.

The Bible shows us God uses suspicious outward appearances to accomplish the spiritually miraculous. Take the Book of Esther, for example. God isn’t even mentioned. Instead of blazing, outright force to save his people, he works among the seemingly immoral and questionable to bring about his purposes. Esther, by visible accounts, is in an identity crisis. Going by two different names, living amongst Gentiles, spending time partying with haters, this Jewish woman faced critical decisions for the sake of God’s entire people.

Will she do the right thing or not?

She does the right thing, but through festivals and parties. She does it hidden in the quiet providence of God as he accomplishes his will through means we naturally would be critical of. Between a drunk, a bigot and a woman keeping her ethnicity a secret, God arranges what he wants. He’s not preoccupied with what upstanding Christians might think about this later. He’s busy doing what he wants for his own glory; no signs and wonders, just a beautiful woman lying about her identity for God’s good purposes.

While we prefer good appearances to build ourselves up or condemn bad appearances to tear others down, God turns human ideals upside down to display his wisdom and glory. God cares about appearances differently than both worldly and Christian cultures.

Throughout scripture, he’s left a trail warning us that while appearances are important, they serve him in different ways than we might imagine.

Jesus hung out with morally corrupt people.

Jesus didn’t rub shoulders with royalty. He made kings angry and defied the status quo. He didn’t play to the expectations of “holy” people either (Matt 16). He welcomed harlots and washed feet (Lk 7; Jn 13). He ate with reprobates and healed people that didn’t matter to the world around him. He didn’t trend his gifts among the popular; he spent his gifts on sickly road-side lepers who could barely grab the hem of his dirty cloak (Matt 8).

Jesus pursued fishermen as his disciples, not the rich and famous.

There’s nothing worse than a fish smell, but this is where Jesus went. He chose men who spent their day catching food for others (Lk 5:1-11). They didn’t have academics or money, they weren’t beautiful or worldly. Jesus chose to give himself to men who, by all appearances, lived meager existences with no influence or social platform.

God turns the unlikely into heroines.

Rahab may take the cake as an indiscreet heroine (Joshua 2). She was a whore who, again, saved God’s entire people group and her family. She trusted God when no one else did. Maybe even more shocking, God’s men listened to her. God tells us through Rahab that all are welcome. Not only are prostitutes embraced, but he’ll do glorious, unexpected and astounding things through them to reveal himself.

God uses Paul to teach us.

Then of course, there’s Paul. Rough around the edges—fights with his friends, Apostle Paul. Paul who doesn’t take no for an answer and opposes powerful, religious leaders. Paul, the king of killing God’s people. Paul, who admitted being the worst of all sinners, equipped with thorns he couldn’t get away from (1 Tim 1:15; 2 Cor 12:7). This is who God chose to speak to and through. He chose Paul to show what kind of God he is: he chooses the weak, he loves the ungodly (Rom 5:6-7), he is kind to those who don’t deserve it (Lk 19:1-10).

Jesus came as a peasant baby.

Jesus arriving as a defenseless baby to a poor family is perhaps the most profound example. He didn’t choose a palace. Born in a stable around animals and dirt, the Savior King Jesus came as a baby to humble parents. He didn’t come with obvious majesty; he came with a shocking lack of dignity. Jesus came purposefully weak (Heb 4:14-16). His very entrance displays with persistent intent: God uses appearances to turn our fleshly hearts upside down.

God’s Unlikely Appearance

With meticulous intent, organizing the opposite of what our hearts naturally expect, God uses what appears scandalous to accomplish the good and glorious. He uses the shocking and sinful to show glory and redemption. He chooses the unlikely and unassuming to achieve greatness. Why? So that through the failing appearances of others, God’s glory astounds.

But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. 2 Corinthians 4:7

You and I are scandalous jars of clay that must be broken to display “the light of the knowledge of God’s glory” (2 Cor 4:6). To assume we are better is to miss God’s grace that saves us. God doesn’t require perfection, beauty, popularity, or success and certainly not the acceptance of other people—no matter who they are. God requires a confession of weakness and need.

When we get blinded by our earthly cultures and demand certain appearances or insist on being right in any given situation, we miss a big God.

God doesn’t triumph his purposes in the Bible through upstanding, morally right men and women who wear, eat and say all the right things. He accomplishes kingdom work through God-fearing people who look nothing like we’d expect. Will we trust him enough to see it?

Questions for Reflection:

Do we get self-righteously angry when people sin instead of being slow to anger, full of compassion, remembering we’re all jars of clay?
In what ways do you care about appearances?
Do you have expectations of other’s appearances?
When people fail these expectations do you trust God or condemn the person?
How can you be more unassuming of others in order to see God’s work in the unlikely?
Do you trust your culture more than God?
Do you trust your church traditions more than God?
What is your motivation in appearing a certain way to others?
If your motivation is to be “all things to all people” does that include the hurting, the wounded, the lost, the weak, those who we tend not to listen to?

This article was originally posted at Gospel Taboo.