bible

Just One Thread

/ shawnheather96 / Leave a comment

I’ve been watching through The Chosen. Unlike most TV shows, it is not something I can binge in a few days. Every single episode gets me teary, and sometimes I find myself gulping in air and trying not to sob. There’s just something about seeing these stories that I know so well, and have read a hundred times, play out on screen. I know this is not completely from the Bible. It does not replace my devotional time. It is man’s depiction of what could have been happening – but wow, it just makes it come alive for me.

Yesterday I got to the episode where Jesus heals the woman that had been bleeding for 12 years. The thing I love about how these stories play out in this show is that we get a glimpse into what life might have been like for each character in the “before Jesus.” This woman had spent 12 years going to doctors, trying many things. She had spent all her money, was unmarried, and considered unclean. I don’t know if we can really comprehend what that meant for her in our context today. She had no way of caring for herself, no community – even cast off by her family, and was not allowed to go to the temple. Her life was already hard enough being born a woman at that time, but this made her the lowest of low.

In desperation she seeks out Jesus. We know from the story in Luke and Matthew that she touched the fringe of his clothes and immediately her bleeding stopped. What we don’t think about is how hard it would have been for her to get that close to him. In the show she says, “Just one thread…just the fringe…just his garment.” She pushes her way through the crowd – a crowd that she makes ceremonially unclean by allowing her body to come into contact with theirs – and barely touches his garment. Instantly she is healed. Jesus stops in the middle of it all and says, “Who touched me?”

She must have been terrified to admit what she had done. Her desperation had driven her to touch Jesus at any cost – when she was not supposed to be touching anyone. She knew there was nothing else that was going to heal her. You can almost hear her thoughts of, “What have I done?” We know that Jesus responds to her in love and praises her faith. When we see this in Luke and Matthew, we are reading the story after the whole thing has happened. We start the story knowing she will be healed and praised for her faith. But she didn’t. She’s in it real time.

She started it with a history of being taken advantage of, of having hope dashed on every level, in loneliness and abandonment, and with the ever present label of unlovable. She had reached a point where she would risk anything and everything to touch “just one thread,” knowing the severe punishment if it all went wrong.

Just one thread.

I have access to Jesus every day, every hour, every moment. Not just one thread, but all of him. Ephesians 3:12 tells us we have boldness and access to Jesus with confidence by faith in him. In John 14 Jesus tells us he will not leave us as orphans, he sends the Holy Spirit, who lives in us and gives us access to God at all times. In Matthew 28 he says, “I am with you always.” At at any point I can call on the name of Jesus, commune with him, hear him, know him. I can ask for healing, for peace, for joy, for strength. He comes alongside and never leaves.

Yet I live my life, often, as though I am that woman before she knows about Jesus. Lonely, feeling hopeless, like I must rely on myself because no one else will help. This is not true in any way in my life – I am surrounded with family and friends who love me. But sometimes the enemy worms his way in and I start to believe those lies.

Sometimes there are things that no one here on earth could actually help with or change – things that need the miraculous. Those are the times when my faith gives me the ability to ask my Father face to face. I do not need to lower my gaze – he will raise my head and look me in the eye, with no shame, and remind me of who he is. I am not limited to forcing my way to him and risking it all to touch just one thread. I have the invitation to climb into his lap and ask for exactly what I need, and I can do it all without fear of rejection, punishment, condemnation, or reproach. I am his, He sees me.

Sometimes I need to reach that stage of desperation, where there is no one or nothing else I can rely on, to come back to the place where I really belong – at the foot of Jesus, reaching up in awe to touch him, knowing he is the only real hope. I am thankful for a Father who knows what I need in each moment to bring me back to him so that I can live in abundance and joy in what he has for me.

A Prayer to Remind Us

/ shawnheather96 / 2 Comments

Your mercies are new every morning, Lord. 
Today I come, worshiping you.
The creator, the One who has no beginning and no end,
Who made me and knows my inmost thoughts,
Who equips me for the calling you give me each day,
Who holds my tears and heals my wounds,
Who sings over me with love-
May I hear that song today. 
With a joyful heart I worship you.

I come to you confessing that my heart is deceitful above all things
I often want to take on your role in the lives of those I love. 
I want to fix the problem, solve it.
Cause the situation to cease to exist.
Carry the whole burden and relieve them from the hard story.
I want to be their Savior.
But that is not my part.
I am NOT God – Amen and amen
And as you give me your strength to walk with them, I am aware of your goodness,
Your redemptive acts in the middle of the valley,
Your strength being more than sufficient in my weakness,
Your hand turning the ashes into beauty – beauty that is eternal, holy, and full.
Not temporary.
Not man made.

I come to you with a humble heart, reminded that I can give no more than I am willing to receive.
So, on my knees in a posture of humility and profound gratefulness I accept 
Your love.
Your gifts of the Spirit.
Your love song over me that renews and refills my soul.
Your love that never ceases.
Your invitation to climb up into your lap and rest.
Your hope that is the cornerstone of my faith.

I come with a thankful heart that I am not alone on this path. That I sojourn with friends, with colleagues, with family. 
With you. You go before and behind. You are not caught up in the dimensional restrictions that I am. You are with me and there is nowhere I can go to escape you. 

I come to You with all I am – 
The ugly, messy, and broken pieces
As well as the beautiful, redeemed, and victorious parts.
Knowing your story for me is good. Joyfully accepting your plan in all areas.
Believing you are who you say you are.
And that is more than enough. 

Listen and Receive

/ shawnheather96 / Leave a comment

I want to be the person God created me to be, not just a shell of that person.  Before I surrendered my life to Jesus and asked the Holy Spirit to live within me I was but a shadow of the person that God created me to be.  I know that I am still being sanctified, and the finished work of that will not come to fruition until I standing face to face with Him one day in Heaven – how glorious that will be!  But I believe that He has a good plan and purpose for me here on this earth, too, and often I am just “doing life” without remembering this.

My Bible is old, beat up, underlined, and highlighted.  I have had it for many years, so there are prayer requests and answers to those prayers written beside verses and on the inside of the cover.  While I love this because it is a good reminder of the way He truly does answer prayer, sometimes it makes it hard to read things with fresh, new eyes.  My mind almost thinks that if it is not already highlighted there must not be anything there that applies to me.  This week I opened my Bible up to read the Psalms and was on chapter 81. I started skimming through it since it was not highlight already, but my heart caught when I read the last few verses.  “But my people would not listen to me; Israel would not submit to me.  So I gave them over to their stubborn hearts to follow their own devices.  If my people would only listen to me, if Israel would only follow my ways, how quickly I would subdue their enemies and turn my hand against their foes!  Those who hate the Lord would cringe before him, and their punishment would last forever.  But you would be fed with the finest of wheat; with honey from the rock I would satisfy you.”  (Verses 11-16)

I read and re-read this part of the passage again trying to figure out why my heart was catching each time.  What did the Spirit want me to get from this?  The Israelites were in outright rebellion- worshipping foreign gods and refusing to listen.  I am not in that place.  I have been in my life before, but in this time there is a lot of peace in my heart.

Like the hug of a parent reassuring a child that she is not in trouble, I felt the presence of God.  I knew this was not a rebuke so much as a reminder and encouragement that He knew something about me that I had forgotten – I am His and He is mine.  In that he desires to give me good things.  Often I miss out because I am simply not listening.

One of the things I had to do with my kids when they were younger (and still sometimes) is to cup my hand under their chin and make them look me in the eye and repeat to me what I just said.  We humans don’t tend to be good listeners.  We are looking at other things, thinking about a response, getting distracted by things of this world.  Sometimes we just plain rebel and say, “No!” and stick out fingers in our ears to prove that we are not listening.

My issue wasn’t outright rebellion this time, but I realized that my heart and mind are often distracted and looking for answers and peace in places other than Him.  The beginning of this lockdown phase was a welcome relief for me in some ways.  I love hosting people for dinner and having people stay in our home.  I am an extrovert, and I am really missing my people right now.  But the slower pace of the first week, and having our daughter back in country made me take a deep breath, sleep more, bake some delicious, homemade food, and have more conversations as a family. It also allowed for my heart to be still for longer periods of time (as much as possible with this ADHA brain) and dig into His word.  My prayer times were meaningful and my heart was full.

Then life started happening again.  Like all of you, I started adapting to my “new normal.”  Suddenly, as I was immersed in trying to make it all come together – work from home, school, family, church, learning new technology, etc, – I found my heart crazy and panicked.  When I had free time all I could think about was doing something that didn’t require learning something new or thinking too hard.  So Netflix became my new god, sitting in my room with headphones to block out the world became my new temple, and snacking on easy, sugar filled things became my new sacrifice.  With this practice the peace I had known was eventually used up and gone and I was doing nothing to refill it in a way that truly life-giving.  I was listening to too much noise all around around me and not able to filter out the still, small voice that was the true answer.

That the first week or two of quarantine was a gift, but it is not what real life can look like forever.  However, the peace that I had those days is also real, and a glimpse of what is to be mine forever.  When I wake up each morning and surrender my heart to him; when I get done with a stressful zoom meeting and take just a moment to surrender that stress to him; when I am frazzled because everyone needs my attention at the same time but I pause to take a breath and say, “Father, help!” – these are holy moments.  They are the times that take my ear back to listening for His voice.  When I stop and surrender my anxieties and stress to Him, He carries the load and suddenly I am lighter and able to keep doing whatever it is He has called me to do in the moment.  Everything doesn’t become perfect or sorted out, but my ability to do look at it in peace, calmness, and   (yes!) even joy becomes a reality as the Spirit flows in and through me.  Then, and only then – when my ear is poised to hear Him and my heart is ready to respond- that is when I am satisfied with the “finest of wheat and honey from the rock.”

So I ask you today – what altar have you been worshipping on?  Many of these things are not bad- I can enjoy my favorite TV show and have a chocolate chip cookie once in a while.  But when when they become my go-to and I stop listening for Him then I can’t see the amazing and miraculous things He has prepared for me.  Brothers and sisters, He wants to give you so much more than you can even imagine.  We just need to make space to hear Him and receive.