“Little Drummer Boy” is one of most humbling songs. It articulates a little boy’s desire to give a gift to the baby Jesus – but he has no gift “that’s fit to give a king.”
Most of the time, I don’t feel that I have a gift that’s fit to give a king. He gave me gifts, but they are so often tainted and limited by my own humanity – my own pride, selfishness, fear, doubt.
But he has given us specific gifts for a reason – to glorify him, to build up the body – and we are called to play our best for him. The first card my mom ever sent me at college had a quote from Max Lucado on the front: “In the great orchestra we call life, you have an instrument and a song, and you owe it to God to play them both sublimely.”
I long to be able to say, wholeheartedly and without any doubt, that I played my best for him, that He may say “Well done, good and faithful servant.”
He has given me a drum to play. As I struggle through the writing my writing sample for grad school apps (which are coming due very soon), I cling to such verses as Philippians 4:13: “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” And verse 19 follows, “And my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus.” And Romans 8:28: “And we know that in all things God works to the good of those who love Him, who are called according to His purpose.” He has hedged me behind and before (Psalm 139:4) and he has a plan to give me a future and a hope (Jeremiah 29:11).
The sermon this last Sunday exhorted us to guard our hearts – to plant those seeds of scripture in our hearts and nurture them, to zealously guard them and not allow doubt and attack to crowd out the harvest that is reaped when we believe on such verses as “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” Cling to the promise. Trust the promise. And live like you trust it.
“Then he smiled at me” – he loves us. When we use the gifts he has given us in a way that honors him, he is pleased. He is delighted when we rejoice in him! And he delights to bless the gifts he gives us. I have asked him for focus and strength today, and these he has provided bountifully; I have asked for breakthroughs in the paper and he has allowed me new insight. Matthew 7:11: “If you, then, being evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!”
When we are afraid that we cannot play our drum, or that our playing is not good enough, remember Psalm 34:1-10, and be assured of his goodness and strength… remember that he is worthy to be praised.
I will bless the LORD at all times;
His praise shall continually be in my mouth.
My soul shall make its boast in the LORD;
The humble shall hear of it and be glad.
Oh, magnify the LORD with me,
And let us exalt His name together.
I sought the LORD, and He heard me,
And delivered me from all my fears.
They looked to Him and were radiant,
And their faces were not ashamed.
This poor man cried out, and the LORD heard him,
And saved him out of all his troubles.
The angel of the LORD encamps all around those who fear Him,
And delivers them.
Oh, taste and see that the LORD is good;
Blessed is the man who trusts in Him!
Oh, fear the LORD, you His saints!
There is no want to those who fear Him.
The young lions lack and suffer hunger;
But those who seek the LORD shall not lack any good thing.
Discouragement can come out of nowhere. It’s a truly sneaky bastard. It can be a thought, a little thing, small and even funny from an outside perspective, but with what you’ve endured for the last few months, it can seem like the world is crumbling. Or it can be a shock that knocks you on your feet.
For me, it was realizing all the mistakes I made in two cover letters for jobs I want, for jobs that I have told God would be ideal. They’re teaching jobs, second semester replacements, and in light of a variety of things (including a one-line, incredibly rude response from an HR director at one of the schools), my confidence is in the toilet. And with it, my hope.
So often I lose hope the minute I doubt my own abilities or situation. And since I doubt my own abilities or situation a lot of the time, I seem to doubt my hope, as well.
I’m trying to figure out how to have hope and confidence in God while not having any in myself. I’m trying to figure out how people can survive ethnic genocide or sexual abuse or lose their husband while they’re pregnant or go through any number of horrific ordeals, and keep their hope in God. Or how my future in-laws, called to ministry in a dying church for 14 years, kept their hope. How my friend whose husband just lost his job is keeping her hope. How we keep our hope when life in all its ugly blackness happens.
One of my greatest abilities is to constantly be spinning possibilities. But it’s a double-edged sword, because sometimes, I get caught up in dwelling on the negative (“what if my fiancé died a few months into our marriage”, etc.). I lose sight of where I am, where God’s called me to be, and what he’s given me for today. I start doubting whether turning down that job was the right decision. I start wondering whether any plan I form for myself is a godly plan, since so few of them have worked out. I question whether God is just going to disregard everything I want and send me somewhere else.
Psalm 37:4 – “Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart” – is so tricky. I firmly believe that when we delight ourselves in the Lord, our desires become conformed to his heart and his desires for us. But that begs the question, how many of my desires are my own and how many are his? And what desires has he given us so that he can bring them about to his glory?
When I am lonely, when I am disappointed, when I think about the trials of others, my possibility-driven mind spins into a very human mode, pulling me deeper into the depths of sin, bringing me to doubt all of my choices, even the ones that were such good gifts from God (e.g. my relationship, my choice of college).
Today, my discouragement stems from both my job situation as well as worries about graduate school. But it is almost as if the Lord has surrounded me in memories of past mercies to comfort me – all day long, my thoughts have been turning to the Women of Faith “Over the Top” conference that the women’s bible study attended seven months ago in March.
Let me paint the scene for you: it was mid-March in the Midwest and I was barely two weeks away from finishing the last class of my undergraduate career. And the icing on the cake? I had received rejections from most grad programs by this point. Now, for those of you who are perhaps just tuning in to this blog now, that had been The Plan. (I hadn’t really talked to God about The Plan, which was to enroll in an English Ph.D. program). Well, by the time the conference rolled around, The Plan was crumbling before my eyes. This top of the class, triple major, summa cum laude, Honors in English academic all-star was officially plan-less.
I walked into that weekend knowing I wanted to meet God but also knowing that I didn’t really feel like a woman of great faith. I had the faith of a mustard seed… maybe half of a mustard seed. Suffice to say, I was definitely not in the mountain-moving mood.
Saturday morning, the girls and I headed to the convention center, coffee in hand, ready to worship and learn and laugh. And I had my game face on – “Okay, God. I’m here. What do you want from me?”
Sandi Patty was one of the morning speakers, and she came on stage and started singing the song “A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes” from Disney’s Cinderella. And I started to cry. My dream, I felt, was being crushed right before my eyes, and there was nothing I could do about it.
A dream is a wish your heart makes
When you’re fast asleep
In dreams, you will lose your heartaches
Whatever you wish for, you keep
Have faith in your dreams, and someday
Your rainbow will come smiling through
No matter how your heart is grieving,
If you keep on believing,
The dream that you wish will come true
As it turns out, her story of God’s “over the top” love was one of a dream denied and then a dream given. Her dream as a little girl was to sing at Disneyland. Once she was of age, she auditioned, and she waited for weeks to hear back. When she finally did hear back, it was that, while they had been impressed with her voice, they were unable to offer her a job because of her size. To say she was crushed was an understatement (her struggle with weight and body image is an enormous part of her testimony). She ended up going to college in the Midwest, and she gave music lessons on the side. As it turns out, some of her students were the children of Bill and Gloria Gaither (big gospel singers particularly famous during the ‘60s and ‘70s), and one day, Bill Gaither invited her to tour with them – and God used that start to take her dream further than she ever anticipated.
I just went and looked for my notes from the conference, and I didn’t write much down during her talk, except that she stressed how we are not enough… our abilities, our dreams are never enough – but He is enough. And sometimes, he says no to our dreams in order to say “yes” to the dream he has for us. “‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you. Plans to give you a hope and a future'” (Jeremiah 29:11).
That was a wonderful conference, but it is Sandi’s message that I’ve taken with me in my heart and treasured as a reminder of the Hope and Future he has for us.
She also performed this song at the conference, and today, it is renewing my hope and reminding me of the greatness of our God. I hope it encourages you, too.
(I love how you can see Mandisa praising and raising her hands along with Sandi!)
Praise to the Lord, the almighty
The King of Creation
O my soul, praise him, for he is thy help and salvation
All ye who hear, now to his temple draw near
Joining in glad adoration!
Praise to the Lord,
Who o’er all things so wondrously reigneth
Shelters thee under his wings
Yea, so gently sustaineth
Hast thou not seen?
How thy desires all have been
Granted in what he ordaineth
Praise to the Lord,
Who doth prosper thy work and defend thee
Surely his goodness and mercy daily attend thee
Ponder anew what the almighty can do
If with his love he befriend thee
Hallelujah, we will sing hallelujah!
Hallelujah, we will sing hallelujah!
Praise to the Lord,
O let all that is in me adore him!
All that hath life and breath,
Come now with praises before him!
Let the amen sound from his people again
Gladly forever adore him
We adore him
Gladly forever adore him
Gladly forever adore him
Praise to the Lord!
“The Lord is good to those who hope in him, to the one who seeks him.” – Lamentations 3:25
“Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that you will abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.” – Romans 15:13
And the foundational verse of the “Over the Top” theme: “Have you ever come on anything quite like this extravagant generosity of God?” – Romans 11:3 (MSG)
Some days, you have to trust God because there’s nothing else you can do. I was at church with my dad this morning, and the pastor talked about placing our trust and hope in God, how placing it in other people or institutions is a lost cause. Fact is, there is no savior on Capitol Hill. There’s no savior on TV or in a book or in an institution or even in ourselves.
Faith gets me by most days, but sometimes, I shake a fist at God, asking him why he’s given me a certain situation to deal with. Others, I trudge along, making my way through the muck of apathy, trying to ignore him. It’d be nice if I could say that I didn’t have those doubt days, those tough days, those I don’t feel like faith will cut it days. But I do.
The good news is, he loves me through ‘em.
A few weeks back, I was sitting at one of my favorite cafes in town munching on a hot hoagie sandwich, listening to my iPod. This song came up. It’s from the soundtrack of a movie that I’ve never seen; my dad’s had the soundtrack since I was a kid. While the movie Falling From Grace is apparently nothing to write home about, the soundtrack is a solid collection of rock, alternative country, and Americana – John Mellencamp, Lisa Germano, Nanci Griffith, Dwight Yoakam. And this song, which describes where I’m at right now.
“Days Like These” by Janis Ian
On days like these
When the rain won’t fall
And the sky is so dry
That even birds can’t call
I can feel your tears
Disappearing in the air
Carried on the breeze
On days like these
It’s years like these
That make a young man old
Bend his back against the promises
That life should hold
They can make him wise
They can drive him to his knees
Nothing comes for free
On days like these
But you can’t reap what you don’t sow
And you can’t plant in fallow ground
So let us fill this empty earth with hope
Until the rains come down
In lives like these
Where every moment counts
I add up all the things
That I can live without
When the one thing left
Is the blessing of my dreams
I can make my peace
In days like these
I can make my peace
In days like these…
The one thing I have is the blessing of my dreams, and that is because my dreams are blessed by an awesome lover who holds all my fears and hopes in the palm of his hand. His promises are written not only in the word but also on my heart. While I have my fits, my doubts, and my bouts of disappointment, ultimately, I have his promises to return to at the end of the day.
Jeremiah 29:11: “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”
These days, I’m learning that trust is a choice worth choosing.
From the Basement 