the next generation

I have spent some time in Psalm 78 lately.
This call to tell the next generations of God has been dancing on my heart lately. With all the swirling and evil and sin in this world, with the increasing depravity our children have to see and hear about all around them. Where is there any stability and hope? What can we possibly offer the next generation as they embark on their quest to take up the baton of faith?

Children are the future. Cliché maybe, but true. Not just the ones we have personally birthed or adopted. But the children of our siblings, our neighbors, in our churches. the next generation is our responsibility. All of them. For us of us in the faith to pour into.

Psalm 78 says,

 "He [God] established a testimony in Jacob 

and appointed a law in Israel,

 which He commanded our fathers to teach to their children, 

that the next generation might know them, 

the children yet unborn, and arise and tell them to their children, 

so that they should set their hope in God and not forget the works of God, 

but keep His commandments; 

that they should not be like their fathers, 

a stubborn and rebellious generation, 

a generation whose heart was not steadfast."

God gave His word, works and wonders for one generation to tell the next and the next SO THAT they would set their hope in God. So they would have a place to securely set their hope. 

Then history doesn't repeat itself. Then revival comes. Then generations are marked by Christ, for Christ, and many are saved.

So as a generation how are we doing? Are we faithful to invest in the next generations? Or are we buried face deep into screens and selfish pursuits that we miss the very reason we are called to know His word, works and wonders? You and I are commanded to teach, tell and not forget! So who are you investing in this very week?

left to himself

God left him to himself, in order to test him and to know all that was in his heart. (2 Chronicles 32.31, ESV)

Some of the scariest words in Scripture. Left him to himself. To himself. 

What do we come to when we are left to ourselves? To our own wretched hearts. To our own decisions, our own strength, our own sinful lusts and desires. To ourselves.

Upon reading this, I instantly felt my heart leap with fear. 

Oh God, I have seen glimpses of the wretchedness of being left to myself. To remedy my own insecurity, my own emptiness. I have seen past the veil of my own heart and it is a dark place, Lord. Never. Never leave me to myself, Lord. I am so very desperate to cling to You. I have no other hope. No good lives in me. Jesus alone.

Hezekiah was left to himself, not after a season of trial and sin, but rather in a season of healing and prosperity.

pic by Lynn Clemson Fritzinger

Oh how vulnerable we are when we think we've got this all figured out. Pride creeps out of our wicked hearts and begins to make itself known in a fresh way. Look what I have, what I accomplished....Me. Me. Me.

Hezekiah had been so blessed, so healed. But not one bit of it his own doing. But where did he point when the envoys of Babylon came sniffing around? To the One who heals? The Blesser and Giver of all good and perfect gifts? Weak in his natural man, like me, when given the opportunity to point to God and glorify Him, instead points to self.

God misses nothing.
He saw Hezekiah's motive and his response. He knew in advance what it would be. Oh and still our gracious God healed and blessed. Such grace.

So, God left him to himself, in order to test him and to know all that was in his heart. Not for God to know, He already did. But rather for Hezekiah to know.

The God of all grace, and mercy, and love comes, at times, to test our hearts, to prove us genuine. Not for His own knowledge. He has all knowledge and intimately knows the heart of man.

No, God tests hearts so we will know. So, we can see the sin we are capable of apart from Him.

Had He never left him to himself, would ole' Hez have ever come to repentance? Would he have ever come to know and trust God in the same way? Depend on Him so desperately? Not likely.

Why not?

We are so good at tricking ourselves, though often no one else is buying it. Tricking ourselves into thinking we've got this, and we believe our own hype. Before we know it then, we come to the point of believing ourselves to be indestructible. We would never admit it. But one day, before we know it and while we are still seeped in the word, our pride throws a shovel full of dirt over us. We realize we dug this hole ourselves, wearing the blindfold of our own pride, hiding us from the reality of our own sin.

But when our eyes are opened to the reality of who we are and the sin we are capable of, suddenly we recognize our desperate need for Him. Our daily desperate need for Him. It's grace, really.

Sweet grace that brings us back to our Savior. Sweet grace that pours out over us to wash clean the wretched sinner. Sweet grace that reminds me constantly to press into His side because without Him, I am at a complete loss and only steps away from another ditch.

Never leave me to myself, sweet Jesus, lead me only ever near to Your side.

conversation with my heart

Above all else guard your heart. Proverbs 4:23

What is it you would say, dear heart? Weary and unstable heart. I will pour you a hot cup of creamy coffee and sit across from you as you watch the cream marry the steaming drink in the mug.
I think you would sit a long while before speaking, because you really are more introverted and quiet than the rest of me gives you credit for. You tend towards the deeper thoughts and slower responses, if only my mouth would fall in line behind you.

I would watch as you pensively look out the window, watching the sunlight caught on the leaves sway and dance. what are your thoughts, heart of mine? What do you fear? Oh, that is a locked door of darkness and deep unspoken fears and cries of "Please God, never."

What thoughts captivate you, dear heart? What do you have to say to me about where you are right now? Such a shaky battle ground lately. Nothing stable, steady or routine.

Dear heart, are you sad? Grieving still for the loss that came so suddenly. Grieving still over not enough time, not enough words spoken. The look in those blue eyes that I fear will one day fade. The last long hug where we both were standing side by side next to his chair as I said, "See you on the sand next time." In hopes of a vacation, the last one together that would actually not be. My arm around his middle, his arm over my shoulders in a squeeze. I love you, dad.

How I still grieve. and yet, I carry the weight of the pain that I see in the eyes of my loves who grieve too. How can a mother heart grieve alone? My two hearts grieve with me and the pain is intense at times. It comes like waves as I recall all the moments that made up the days from diagnosis to death. such few days. Such sudden days. Yet days that help hope that was unrealized.

Dear heart, when will you heal? How can you heal?
Time. Time does soften but it also fades the memories like the colors on a polaroid. Oh I don't want the colors to fade. But how else will the pain fade? I miss him. Those words are too small to hold the intensity of emotion that is within them.

Meanwhile I still carry the loss of familiarity and sameness. It was buried in the memories of that old house, those familiar roads, the voices and rhythms of that town. There is a sense of grief in that loss too. Memories that were all too quickly buried under the rubble of the most recent eruption. But memories that held such tenderness and sameness.

This heart carries not only the instability of the year for its own weight and pain and grief but it carries the weight of my two other hearts. Every emotion, fear, sadness, grief and instability they feel weighs on my own shoulders and burdens my own muscles with knots and twinges. How do I unload this, Lord? Where do I place this burden? How do I get to your feet from here? Don't you see all the burdens that weigh me down and keep me from being still? I fear being crushed if I am still too long, but then I fear being ripped apart if I don't sit for a spell and just soak in the air up here.

Help me meet with you, el Shaddai, until I begin to lose this weight. until my heart begins to feel again. Let this emotion lighten as I sit and pour out to you. you alone hold my hearts and carry those boys ahead into their futures. Be so big to them Lord and mend them where they are hurting and fill them where they lack as only you can. Then come and sit and fill me too. Mend me too. Draw me ever nearer to your precious bleeding side.