Living this Life – Page 3 – Our God is a consuming fire

Fortress of cards

Posted on May 9, 2025 by Sara

There is a turn on a long and lonely road that is imprinted on my soul.

It is exactly at the midway point of somewhere and the middle of nowhere – 48 miles from the middle of nowhere, to be precise.

This is the spot where I once heard God speak – perhaps the clearest in all my life.

I found myself on that road again recently, and as my eyes took in the vast miles of barenness, my heart remembered.

It was the most loudly whispered “no” I have ever heard. A “no” that still reverberates in my soul and echoes before me.

Let me back up. It had been a long, hard few years. My soul was as barren as the land it was planted in, and I didn’t know what had gone wrong. I mean, I could describe to you the litany of things that had been hard, but what had gone so wrong in my soul that had left me this dry and parched? What darkness had robbed my joy, and how had it gotten in? I needed to know…

After those long, hard few years, God uprooted me and me family, and our feet took us to a land of rolling hills and green. As we made our home in this new space, my soul began to heal. I found rest – I found myself again. The layers of pain and hard began to peel away and I began to feel alive again.

But I couldn’t shake the question that had been planted in my soul all those years: “what darkness had robbed my joy, and how had it gotten in?” I felt if I could only find the answer to that question, it would be the final key to my healing. The naked truth is – I wanted the control of knowing I could keep it from coming back. If I could only figure out what had gone wrong, I could formulate a life where the darkness could no longer get in, with walls of my own self-will keeping it out.

No matter how peaceful and beautiful life was, there was a constant nagging – like an itch in the back of my soul – that I wasn’t really safe until I knew the answer to that question. What if that darkness crept back in? How would I keep it out? I was desperate to protect myself.

Then that day arrived. The day I was to return to the place where my spirit had been held captive. It was just a visit – and yet the fear was overwhelming. Because God hadn’t answered my cry yet. And I didn’t feel like I could go back to that place – to walk those painful memories – without knowing the key to protecting my vulnerable heart.

The car slowed as it arrived at the town that was the midway point – and then we turned left. I stared out the window – at the flat, barren, red richness of that beautiful land, and my heart screamed at Him in silent desperation: “I need to know NOW! We are out of time. I can’t go back there without an answer…” And that is when He finally spoke.

It was a simple “NO”.

It was a “No” that set me free.

It was as clear to me as if Jesus was sitting next to me in that car. His next words that echoed loudly in my mind were this: “You don’t need to know why. What you need to know is: I was with you”. And that is all He spoke, on that day while we drove on that long and dusty road. Because that is all I needed to hear.

It was a “No” that set me free.

It was in that moment I saw the chains of control that had formed around my heart. He shone His light on the illusion that we can really protect ourselves, and showed me where true safety lies. True peace. True light. I had built a fortress of cards around my heart, thinking it would withstand the hurricane of life – and He needed me to know that the only safe harbor is Him. That in my darkest place, when I forgot who I was, HE never forgot. He never abandoned me. He didn’t expect me get it together and come back to Him when I was fixed … He was with me in it all. “Your walls are ever before me” (Isaiah 49:16) “ See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands” (Isaiah 49:16)

Let me be clear. It is one thing to acknowledge that our peace, our joy, or safety doesn’t come from our physical circumstances. But there is another distinction that must be made, and it is this: We say we trust Jesus – but what we mean is that we trust what Jesus will do for us. We ask Him for help – we say we trust Him to provide. But what if His provision is simply His presence?

Let’s back up a few thousand years – to an old man in a desert, arguing with the God of the Universe over the disobedience of a throng of people that God has relentlessly saved. God has finally decided to send them on their way without Him; nonetheless, He wouldn’t abandon them alone in the desert. He promised to provide for them, to send an angel to walk with them and protect them … aren’t these the very things, the provision and safety, that our needy hearts yearn for? And yet Moses knew so much more than we do, and he pleaded with God, “If Your Presence does not go with us, do not send us up from here…” (Ex 33:15)

Let’s race forward 400 years, to David, the man after God’s own heart. The man who knew from experience that even in “the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me” (Ps 23) He had lived in fields with the sheep and in the palace of the king and his summary of it all that was, “My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my life and my portion forever” (Ps 73:26)

His presence – our portion. My friend, there are so many more I could tell you about, but the most important words rest in the very promises of God Himself. Read these – just a few of the innumerable verses that help us remember … and let them envelop you in a cloud of promise and strength. Whatever deep need you are facing, there is an answer, and the greatest answer He can give us is His presence. Rest in His embrace. Let Him be your portion and let your heart be free to rest in the only true safety we will ever find.

“God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble” (Ps 46:1)

“He will hide me in His shelter on the day of trouble” (Ps 27:5) “

“I will be a hiding place for you,” says the Lord, “a fortress in the day of trouble.” (Jer 17:17)

“For you, O Lord, are a refuge for the oppressed, a refuge in times of distress” (Ps 9:9)

“The Lord is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer; my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield and the horn of my salvation. He is my stronghold, my refuge, and my Savior” (2 Sam 22:2-3)

“As for God, his way is perfect: The Lord’s word is flawless; He shields all who take refuge in Him. For who is God besides the Lord? And who is the Rock except our God? It is God who arms me with strength and keeps my way secure.” (2 Sam 22:31-33)

“In peace I will lie down and sleep, for you alone, Lord, make me dwell in safety” (Ps 4:8)

“I keep my eyes always on the Lord. With him at my right hand, I will not be shaken. Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices; my body also will rest secure” (Ps 16:8-9)

So …what about that day last month when we took that left turn? My heart trembled once again – but this time in eagerness and joy. I longed to touch that red soil one more time and remember – like the Israelites of old who set monuments in places where they had encountered God. In the shadow of my hard memories, the faithfulness of God shines like a beacon. My heart remembers – and I am glad.

Living this Life

Dragons on the highway

Posted on April 12, 2025 by Sara

My husband grumbled about the semi blocking us on our journey today. I found myself quipping, “he’s just a great dragon set on thwarting the adventures that lie ahead of us”

You may laugh such things off as a touch of silliness to start the day. But it ties into so much more … so here we go.

Things I’ve been thinking about lately:
How we let the world grow dull around us because we stop SEEING the wonder and beauty that is sprinkled around us like the fingerprints of God.
I am grasping for ways to rediscover, to open my eyes, to let the wonder in.

So today, as I sit in a car for 7 hours, looking ahead at a week filled with a lot of responsibilities, distractions, burdens, some drudgery (we call that laundry), and many joys, I find myself thinking of the words we use to frame our days and the difference it makes on our perspective. On how we approach the hours we have.

If you’ve read this far, you’re probably feeling alot of the same. So read on… I feel like I’m sitting in the shadow of GK Chesterton as I write these words, so I shall share his words directly. Hopefully you get a good chuckle out of some of this and find yourself chuckling (and thinking in larger ways) at different mundane moments in your own day!

Chesterton wrote in the early 1900’s. He road a train to work and read a newspaper instead of scrolling on his phone. Otherwise his routine feels much like ours. This particular segment is taken from a letter to his fiancée describing a typical day in his life written from two different perspectives.

WHAT WE SAY HAPPENS EVERY DAY

What we all say happens every day is this:
I wake up
dress myself
eat bacon and bread and coffee for breakfast
walk up to High St. Station
take a fourpenny ticket for Blackfriars
read the Chronicle in the train
arrive at 11, read a manuscript…
[I] go out to lunch…
come back, work till six,
take my hat and walking-stick and come home
have dinner at home
write the novel till 11
then write to you and go to bed.
“That is what we, in our dreamy, deluded way, really imagine is the thing that happens.”

WHAT REALLY HAPPENS EVERY DAY
The Wonder of Waking Up
“Out of the starless night of the Uncreated, that was before the stars, a soul begins to grope back to light. It gropes its way through strange, half-lighted chambers of Dreams, where in a brown and gold twilight, it sees many things that are dimly significant, true stories twisted into new and amazing shapes, human beings whom it knew long ago, sitting at the windows by dark sunsets, or talking in dim meadows.
“But the awful invading Light grows stronger in the dreams, till the soul in one last struggle, plunges into a body, as into a house and wakes up within it.”

Getting Out of Bed
“Then he rises and finds himself in a wonderful vast world of white light and clear, frankly colored shapes, an inheritor of a million stars. On enquiry he is informed that his name is Gilbert Keith Chesterton. This amuses him.”

Dressing
“He goes through a number of extraordinary and fantastic rituals; which the pompous elfland he has entered demands.
“The first is that he shall get inside a house of clothing, a tower of wool and flax; that he shall put on this foolish armor solemnly, one piece after another and each in its right place. The things called sleevelinks he attends to minutely. His hair he beats angrily with a bristly tool. For this is the Law.

Eating
“Downstairs a more monstrous ceremony attends him. He has to put things inside himself. He does so, being naturally polite. Nor can it be denied that a weird satisfaction follows.”

Buying a Train Ticket
“He takes a sword in his hand (for what may not befall him in so strange a country!) and goes forth. He finds a hole in the wall, a little cave wherein sits One who can give him the charm that rules the horse of water and fire.”
Getting On the Underground Train
“He finds an opening and descends into the bowels of the earth. Down, among the roots of the Eternal hills, he finds a sunless temple wherein he prays. And in the center of it he finds a lighted temple in which he enters.
“Then there are noises as of an earthquake and smoke and fire in the darkness: and when he opens the door again he is in another temple, out of which he climbs into another world, leagues and leagues away. And when he asks the meaning of the vision, they talk gibberish and say, ‘It is a train’.”

Work and Dinner
“So the day goes, full of eerie publishers and elfin clerks, till he returns and again puts things inside him, and then sits down and makes men in his own head and writes down all that they said and did. And last of all comes the real life itself.”

Writing Out His Thoughts
“For half-an-hour he writes words upon a scrap of paper, words that are not picked and chosen like those that he has used to parry the strange talk of the fold all day, but words in which the soul’s blood pours out, like the body’s blood from a wound.
“He writes secretly this mad diary,
all his passion and longing,
all his queer religion,
his dark and dreadful gratitude to God,
his idle allegories,
the tales that tell themselves in his head;
the joy that comes on him sometimes (he cannot help it) at the sacred intoxication of existence:
the million faults of idleness and recklessness and the one virtue of the unconquered adoration of goodness,
that dark virtue that every man has, and hides deeper than all his vices!”

Mailing the Letter
“He writes all this down as he is writing it now. And he knows that if he sticks it down and puts a stamp on it and drops it into the mouth of a little red goblin at the corner of the street – he knows that all this world soliloquy will be poured into the soul of one wise and beautiful lady sitting far away beyond seas and rivers and cities.

Living this Life

Rain, rain

Posted on April 11, 2025 by Sara

“on a dismal day to find the most dismal and dripping wood…” this seems counter-intuitive to those of us who like to duck our heads and dash between dry, warm places.

It’s been nothing but rain for days.
And in the last 24 hours it went from warm and blustery to cold and drippy … creeks are flooding and the sky is grey.
On “duck and run” days like this, I like to re-read this quote from Lewis that has helped me develop my perspective on how I see the world – especially on drippy, cold, dreary days.

I pray that God will give me the strength to lift my face, feel the dripping cold glory, and thank God for being so magnificently all that He is!
“Jenkins seemed to be able to enjoy everything, even ugliness. I learned from him that we should attempt a total surrender to whatever atmosphere was offering itself at the moment; in a squalid town, seek out those very places where its squalor rose to grimness and almost grandeur, on a dismal day to find the most dismal and dripping wood, on a windy day to seek the windiest ridge. There was not Betjemannic irony about it; only a serious, yet gleeful, determination to rub one’s nose in the very quiddity of each thing, to rejoice in its being (so magnificently) what it was”