HIGH GROUND IN LOW PLACES

They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance, admitting that they were foreigners and strangers on earth.  Hebrews 11:13b
 
Karen and i just returned from Europe, visiting family in Spain for a couple of weeks in a bit of a whirlwind, then touring southern France for a few days at the end.  It sounds like a wonderful vacation, and in some ways it was, but it wasn’t quite the jewel we imagined it to be.
 
We spent six months putting our trip together, planning every day and detail to make it the best we could afford.  i used to work in the travel industry and we’ve spent a fair amount of time in Europe, so we carefully designed our itinerary and scheduled our trip to avoid most of the problems that tend to arise when large crowds mix with bad weather.
 
But stuff happens, right?  And it did, despite our best laid plans.  Our grandkids are young and are still settling into their new home and routines, which tempts them to wrestle with each other more than their faith.  We love them dearly and they also love us, so our time together was really precious, yet limited because they’re in school all day and there’s a lot going on in their lives that has little to do with us.
 
After that family time, Karen and i tacked several days onto the end of our trip for just the two of us to enjoy the last days of fall before we returned home.  But it didn’t prove to be as relaxing as we had hoped, because she got sick and mostly only took short jaunts away from our hotel room.  Then our wonderful flights home fell apart when morning fog socked in Madrid.  Every plane was delayed, the pilot of our first plane claimed, except our second plane, which somehow managed to depart half empty and ten minutes early, leaving many of us who’d ran a mile or more to the gate gasping in frustration.
 
We then discovered that one of the world’s largest airports was trying to funnel an entire terminal full of stranded travelers through a single help desk manned by just four people.  Because this wasn’t our first rodeo, we immediately tapped U.S.-based phone support to work around that bottleneck, but it still took a half dozen airline staff almost three hours, on the phone and at the gate, to make two simple changes to our reservations.
 
In the process of trying to help us, all those hard-working, highly skilled people failed to update our actual tickets, so at two different airports we were denied boarding while gate agents struggled to correct their mistakes.  Had our second plane in Madrid not been saddled with two hours of mechanical issues, we would have missed our replacement flights as well.  Yet we ended up praising God because we got through the ordeal relatively unscathed, spending only twelve extra hours at DFW one night, while many of our fellow travelers were rocketed around the U.S. like human pinballs, upending their plans and compounding their delays.
 
As i ponder it all now, God is reminding me of something He said to me four and a half years ago.
 
Do you seek great things for yourself?  Do not seek them, for behold I Am bringing adversity on all flesh, says the Lord.  But I will give you life as a prize of war, wherever you go.  Jeremiah 45:5 paraphrase
 
This verse, God said, applied not only to events occurring during Jeremiah’s lifetime, but to events still unfolding today.  We were only a month into the pandemic when He said that, so i thought He was talking about COVID.  Maybe He was, but that season has come and gone, yet lots of things haven’t gotten better.
 
That, in turn, reminds me of a t-shirt i saw, which said:
 
NORMAL ISN’T COMING BACK; JESUS IS
 
Perhaps what’s now unfolding is lot bigger than what’s covered in the news.  And perhaps what’s happening around me and what’s happening to me, and to my loved ones, isn’t really about us, no matter how personal it might seem to get at times.  It’s really about Jesus, as He prepares the world for His return.1
 
God isn’t tidying up the world, as some folks believe.  He’s stirring things up, to squeeze faith out of the very brokenness we all detest.  That shouldn’t be news, because it’s hidden in plain sight, all over the Bible.2
 
Jesus reassured His closest friends that He Himself was their life, and it’s as true for us today as it was for them back then.  Jesus was already living as the Christ, on His way to the cross, when He made it really clear that He also intended to live in highly challenging ways through us.  On His last night He promised love and joy and peace in the midst of hatred, death and discord.  But the blessings He promised us flow from His presence inside us, not from our outward circumstances.  Chaos is unavoidable, the inevitable result of a severely broken world.  The only way forward is to follow His lead and take up own crosses daily.
 
If instead we seek a work-around - like i tried to do with our recent vacation or as many Christians here in America hoped to do last week at the ballot-box - we may inadvertently build our lives on sand.  It’s not wrong to factor the world’s messiness into our personal and political decision-making, but insulating ourselves from chaos doesn’t work because it’s in shady places that Jesus tends to shine, and lots of His dearly beloved are still stumbling around in the dark.  Including me, at times!
 
Let me say the same thing in a different way.  Jesus longs to fill us with Himself, and with all the boundless love, joy and peace that entails, but the abundant life He offers us is a resurrected one.  There’s no resurrection without death, so all of our plans - for ourselves, our loved ones and yes, even our country - must be laid on His altar.  Before we surrender, our hopes and dreams mostly tend to be about us.  But after He works out our surrender - and as we bear our crosses - what remains of our plans tends to become much more about Him.
 
i’m seeing that play out these days in the life of one of my friends, who’s had a rough go of it lately and is currently living on the streets.  Here’s snippets of our recent texts:
 
Kurt:  Hope and perseverance are key.  Rough but good here.  Two of my street friends have redirected their hearts to Christ; one is sober three days and the other, though not as far along, is coming to church.  Praying this morning.
 
me:  When i asked God what He is teaching you, He showed me that He is leading you to exchange your knowledge about Him for intimacy with Jesus as the Christ.  The more you embrace Him, the more your soul becomes welded to His.  ❤️🙂
 
Kurt:  Awesome!  I am also learning about the time we live in - how to trust Him in spite of my circumstances and find the value He has placed in people, especially in the broken, addicted, downcast and orphaned.  It is amazing how much of our troubles and wounding come from our core families and how much our healing and restoration to Christ’s love and promises must come through community and family.  Also, when sleeping on the street, use cardboard.  And pray in tongues before bed, when you awake and whenever you see His faithfulness in yet another amazing sunrise!!
 
Although i’ve been asking God to help my friend overcome his trials with wisdom and discernment, maybe he is already operating in more of that than i am.  For better or worse, he has given up trying to work his way around life’s troubles, and is now routinely encountering Christ in the midst of them.  It’s pretty ugly because his is a sizable cross, but there’s no higher ground than calvary!
 
i’m also seeing it play out in a different way through other faithful young friends of mine, whose marriages are under attack.  Here is my message to one of them, today:
 
i’ve got a lot of tears in my eyes right now, buddy, just thinking about you.  They’re sweet because you’re sweet!  Jesus is so pleased with how you’re walking out this battle!!  It’s quite a stronghold you are bumping up against, and the only way to get freedom, for you and your wife and for your whole family, is the way you are doing it, trusting in Jesus, one step at a time.
 
The enemy wants to make what’s going on in your marriage about you, and in some ways it is, but mostly it’s not.  It’s about Jesus.  There are powerful spirits at work that oppose Him and want to take you out, take your marriage out, and we, the modern church, aren’t very well equipped to help you stand firm because we’ve let these spirits that are operating in the world confuse us about who we are as sons and daughters.  You are one of many in your generation that God has led to the front lines to resist these spirits and rest in Biblical truth and lay hold of it in your marriages and your lives.
 
We can talk about that truth in terms of identity, in terms of gender, in terms of power and control vs. love and surrender, in terms of mercy vs. judgment, and there is light in all those ways of thinking about it, but in the end the light and truth is Jesus and He is your only dependable way forward.  He is working to strengthen and deepen your faith in Him, and as you walk that out the freedom you will experience in the Spirit is available to your wife, and as she taps into it and is likewise strengthened in her faith in Him, the two of you will be drawn back together in a new way, sharing a faith more solidly rooted in Jesus than ever before, because He is fully living as the Christ in you, especially in your marriage.  Then the hope each of you still hold for intimacy with each other and with Him will be fulfilled.
 
Jesus is working powerfully in both of you right now, in radically different ways by His Spirit, to free each of you from fear.  As you abide in Him, at first individually but eventually together, He is offering you freedom from that stronghold that is so prevalent right now in the world and unfortunately in us His body and church, and ushering you into a purer, simpler and deeper trust in Him rooted in your love for Him that will serve you and Him well for the rest of your lives here on earth. 
 
Your hope and your victory is Christ, and through Him the two of you living as one will strengthen others.  Through you and many others He is working to prepare His bride for His return.  When He returns the world will be a total mess but she will be faithful, a worthy bride for God’s one and only begotten Son, and that’s the main goal the Father is working toward in these last days.  You and your own bride are part of His awesome plan to wring love and faithfulness out of doubt and fear, and He will not relent until it is accomplished to His complete satisfaction!
 
Because your hope is in Him, you can rest assured that your future is bright.  Were your hope in your own abilities to navigate this trial, you would have much to fear.  But Jesus is not afraid and is determined to fully live that way in you.
 
Love you man!  So much!!  ❤️  And i love the way Jesus is working right now in you and your wife’s lives.  It’s not easy to watch because it’s a cross, but Jesus knows all about that, and as you start to get the hang of how to let Him carry yours, He will lighten your loads.  He’s not intending for this trial to take you out, or destroy your marriage, but to strengthen you both to live together as one for what lies ahead.  More trials lie ahead, but He intends for you to navigate those future trials together, for your good and His glory.
 
May the God of infinite grace and endless patience strengthen you and your loved ones today, for whatever trials you are enduring.  May each of you rest assured that because of His lovingkindness, you won’t be consumed, for great is His faithfulness.  His compassions never fail, and His mercies are new every morning! 3
 
1 Luke 18:8
2 Matthew 10:34-39
3 Lamentations 3:22-23