Do You Not Perceive It?
I started this newsletter with a few intentions in mind, all of which were quickly thwarted by life. I have the sneaky suspicion that I don't even have to divulge the details for most of you to understand what I mean. How much life have we lived these past couple of years? Enough for me to be longing for something entirely new.
January of 2020 seems like a literal lifetime ago. I know every generation has said this, but it feels like the walls are caving in around us at warp speed. We are learning a new way of life in almost every way in real-time. For a while, it seemed we generally ached for the way things used to be, and as a bit of a nostalgia seeker, I often long to hop on my bike and ride around a small-town neighborhood without a care in the world. I look at my five-year-old, still untouched by the troubles we are acutely attuned to. Everything is still new to her; the smallest of details excite her. She is quick to laugh, quick to forgive, and squeezes every ounce of life out of each day. What it means to become like a child plays out in front of me daily, yet that gap between her and me seems to widen with troubles we are inundated with.
I get the sense that there is a letting go of that sentiment that life will return to normal. Maybe we are learning that normal is relative, and perhaps that normal has been an aid to complacency. We live in entirely new times, and lately, I have been wrestling with the idea of how not just to accept it but to find and preserve what is still good, what is still noble, and what is still true. In the days, weeks, and months that I have resolved to see the world through this lens, I have found that the resounding promises of God are not only still true but coming to life in tangible ways.
We are on the brink of a new year and I talk to so many people who are holding their breath, and rightfully so. To varying degrees, we have all been carrying around a heavy load of grief and have more questions than answers. Like many of you, we have experienced loss in different forms, and there are some days that the fog just doesn't seem to lift. Instead of simply setting a bunch of lofty goals this year, which has never really sat well with my soul anyway, I am instead resolving to look continually for what is new, in doing so, to pay close attention to what is around me. That is to say; I am going to do the very best I can to stay in the present moment, the present day, asking for a kind of grace and mercy that is sufficient for now. Easier said than done, and better to be done together. The question is, how? I've run out of answers on my own, so lately, I have been searching the scriptures and surveying the land for, at the very least, a starting place.
Let us consider a portion of Matthew 6, the telling of Jesus' famous Sermon on the Mount. Instead of continuing to hold our collective breath, here we have a starting place, a place where I see an invitation into rest. I can vividly remember the very first deep breath I had taken in what seemed like a lifetime after years of battling the crippling effects of trauma and the various strongholds that had been suffocating me. I remember recalling it to my counselor as if it was a miracle. The farther removed from those days that I get, I know with certainty that it was a miracle. I wonder when the last time was that you took a breath deep enough that you exhaled with a holy kind of resolve?
"Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Therefore do not be anxious, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. "Therefore, do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble." Matthew 6:25-34 ESV
These verses are an invitation out of pain that we are holding onto from the past and the anxiety we are clinging to in the future. Amid an instruction to not be anxious, Jesus could have said anything. He could have said nothing at all. Instead, somewhat audaciously, He says this. "Look at the birds." "Consider the lilies." Oh, and while you're at it, what about that grass you're walking on. It's there underneath your feet right now, and that's all you need to know. If I care for these things so much that they need not worry, how much more do I care about you? It's all quite miraculous when we look at it this way.
I don't know how many times I have been stopped in my tracks by something beautiful experienced through the gift of our senses. The smell of a pine forest, the colors of a sunset, the taste of that meal that reminds me of home. The way my husband looks at me when he really sees me, the sound of my daughter's laugh or her footsteps dancing upstairs at Papi's house as he plays Amazing Grace to her before bed. The expanse of the sea, the majesty of a mountain range. The birds. The lilies. The grass.
Every day the sun rises, and the sun sets, and there are very real worries in the gaps between the two. Every day is a new day with new mercies and new ways to pay attention to what is happening around us. In April of 2020, we were freshly into this way of life we are learning in the midst of a global pandemic. It was the spring in Nashville, and as the world was quite literally shutting down, the trees were blooming in an act of rebellion. Every day I would load my daughter in the stroller, and every day we took a picture of the same tree to track the progress of its coming back to life. As we were entering a winter season in the world, this tree was being made new in front of our eyes. Something that just seems to happen overnight became something that we looked forward to noticing the intricate details of. Those branches that sat empty for months formed buds that opened up into bright pink flowers that eventually were knocked down by a storm, only to be replaced by the leaves that would adorn us with their green leaves until fall. We oohed and awed over that one single tree. Every day amid a thousand worries, I took not only a picture of that very same tree but a long deep breath. If the trees are still blooming, how much more does that God of the universe care about you and me?
Look at the birds. Consider the lilies.
I love the book of Isaiah so much that I am writing an entire book on Chapter 55. More on that later, but the central theme of the chapter is the overwhelming compassion of the Lord in the face of genuine repentance. The chapter doesn't begin with a scalding rebuke but rather a loving invitation. "Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters." I can't think of a time that we have been more collectively thirsty. To recognize this in ourselves and see it in each other levels the playing field. We are all tired, worn out, confused. We are all bone dry thirsty. The more that I have accepted that we will never go back to the way things used to be, and the more that I have grown weary of worrying about the future, the more I have recognized my desperate thirst to be a part of what God is doing in the here and now.
"Thus says the Lord, who makes a way in the sea, a path in the mighty waters, who brings forth chariot and horse, army and warrior; they lie down, they cannot rise, they are extinguished, quenched like a wick: "Remember not the former things, nor consider the things of old. Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert. The wild beasts will honor me, the jackals and the ostriches, for I give water in the wilderness, rivers in the desert, to give drink to my chosen people, the people whom I formed for myself that they might declare my praise." Isaiah 43:16-21
Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?
That is a loaded question. One that has had me thinking more so than ever about the power of the million present moments that work to build a future. Most people who know me likely wouldn't say that I'm the girl who is calling for revival, but I am a girl who is honest about undeniable thirst. Instead of quenching that thirst by the Spirit, I tend to get stuck remembering the former things so much that I call my present moments back to my greatest places of shame. I find myself escaping the present, longing for the good old days, but those days are gone. Remember not those things. We may be in what seems like an endless wilderness, but that's not the end of the story.
I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert. The wild beasts will honor me, the jackals and the ostriches, for I give water in the wilderness, rivers in the desert, to give drink to my chosen people, the people whom I formed for myself that they might declare my praise."
I often get stuck worrying about the future, completely negating the potential of the present moment. I remember the instructions of Jesus. Look at the birds. Consider the lilies. Recognize your thirst and position yourself by the living waters that have been forged in the desert. These are the things we humbly ask God, will you do it again? What if we gathered our collective tears, our undeniable grief, and our fear of the future and rested it on the shoulders of this God who makes a river in the desert? There is no denying that outwardly the world seems to be wasting away. But I believe now more than ever that there is a God who is making all things new.
Do we not perceive it?
That is what I am resolving to do in the new year. To perceive, to pay attention to the new thing that God is doing on earth as it is in heaven. Ask yourself these three questions. Am I weary? Am I thirsty? Am I desperate to perceive what God is doing in a world that is hurting?
You are in good company if you answer yes to any or all of these questions. As I have been praying about the start of a new year, after the last couple we have had, I have felt a not so gentle nudge to look for the new things that God is doing. He is always at work; the missing piece is that we may not perceive it. This year, I am resolving to pay attention to the present moment. To ask God to show me what He is doing and how I can participate in the work that is good and noble and true. To even be so bold to ask that His Spirit would be enlarged in a way that would be undeniable.
Maybe you're not quite there yet. Maybe God feels so distant you have nearly stopped believing. Perhaps the worries of the future find you crippled in the present. I still struggle with those moments, so know you're not alone. Over the next few months, I'll be walking with you on how we can orient ourselves to this present moment. To perceive what God is doing. Simply put, to practice paying attention. Let's look at the birds and consider the lilies. Let's do it together, and just maybe we will see something entirely new.
Beautifully said. Love you.