New Zealand - Reaching

It's funny how there are some things that take on a new meaning after becoming a parent.  I don't subscribe to the idea that people who aren't parents do not have these same revelations, but I certainly have gained some interesting insight into spiritual things in this process of parenting.

A recent revelation I had was about my posture during worship.

I haven't always been comfortable being expressive in worship - I worry about if people are watching, if I'm doing something "right" or "wrong," if I've pitted out my shirt, if my face looks weird if I close my eyes, what to DO with my hands, etc.  For some people, worshiping expressively seems to be so natural, but for me, I don't feel natural!

So for a lot of my life, either from church culture background or those fear-of-man/insecurity thoughts, or just passivity, I have worshipped with my hands in my pockets or clasped in front of me.

But I had this thought the other day when I bent over to pick up Mara.  She was sitting on the floor, and as I leaned down to pick her up, her little arms came up and her hands started clasping and unclasping like she was trying to grab me.  She reached for me as I was reaching for her - and it wasn't just a floppy arms in the air kind of reach, it was with eagerness and yearning.

Something about her gesture - and realizing how often that happens - caused me to have this moment of recognizing a parallel between my daughter's response to me and my response to the Lord.

Mara reaches for me when she sees me.  Sometimes she reaches out to me to fulfill a need, but she also reaches for me simply because she wants me.

In fact, throughout her day, my daughter repeatedly reaches out to me.  And her desire or need for me is not a passive, self-conscious, afraid-of-what-people-will-think-of-her expression toward me.  She is open and public about her desire for my touch.

And I realized that I want to respond to God like Mara responds to me.  When I worship,  I don't want God to have any doubts about whether he is desired.  I want my body, which he has made and given for me to use, to express to him - in as clear of a manner as I can express - that I want him, I need him.

I am reaching for him.

New Zealand - Today's Whisper

Gabe and I have been thinking a lot and talking a lot and praying (maybe not a LOT but certainly we've had several different occasions) about the future.  Our commitment to staffing DTS's is up in December, and we plan to be home for Christmas, but at this point 2019 has a great big question mark over it.

We have several options we are considering and seeking more information about and asking the Lord to speak about and give clear direction.

But this has been a bit heavy on my heart for a few months now.  As the weeks tick by getting closer to outreach, closer to the end of this school, closer to our plane tickets home (which God provided a good deal on - thank you, Father!), I find myself feeling like something is a getting strung a bit tighter inside my spirit, and that tightness is increasing and the tension is mounting.

This morning I was having my quiet time and, although I started out intending to ask the Lord to speak into our future, I ended up repenting my fears to the Lord.  I realize I have a lot of them:

- I've been afraid that God won't speak to us at all about what comes next;
- I've been afraid that God will speak something but it'll be undesirable to hear;
- I've been afraid that God will speak something but we'll miss it;
- I've been afraid that God will speak something that makes us look foolish to obey it;
- I've been afraid that God will speak and give us direction, but then his goodness will run out - he won't help us follow through on what he says - and with that comes a spiraling fear that Gabe and I will end up homeless, job-less, being a burden to our families or living in a cardboard box with our baby and stuck in a circumstance that we didn't choose.

As I brought these fears to the Lord, repented for them, received his forgiveness for entertaining them, and started replacing them with truth (He says, "My sheep hear my voice" - God is a communicating God, and he DOES speak; He never leaves us or forsakes us; His eyes are on the righteous; He inclines his ear toward our prayers; He looks out of the children of the righteous; it is WISDOM to obey the Lord, etc), I felt like the Lord just whispered to me:

"What about if the best is yet to come, Dani?"

I had to repeat it to myself a couple times:

What about if THE BEST is YET to COME?

Last night Gabe and I were just recounting fondly memories from our early years of marriage - memories from living in our little white apartment on 21st Ave - opening the door and walking into our home, arranging our space to accommodate our desires, working on our little projects stemming from passions within us - for me, spending hours sitting in our comfy chair editing wedding photos, and for Gabe, spending hours with all kinds of crazy contraptions acid etching knives and ionizing titanium and stone tumbling his creations.

And we were saying how good and sweet those memories are, and how we treasure them, but we wouldn't go back because our life has just gotten richer and richer since them - going to Thailand and meeting all our precious students and growing and partnering together to teach, traveling into Burma and through Europe and seeing things and doing things we only dreamed of doing, coming to DTS and being so well loved and supported and invested into this community and gaining so many dear, sweet friendships in our lives, and welcoming sweet Mara into our family and getting to sit in the front row of watching her learn and grow and seeking to invest the best of what we have into her.

I wouldn't go back - God has truly brought us from a glorious place into subsequently more glorious places!

So what makes me think that such a growth and development is going to stop?!  I think that's the challenge God gave me this morning - His character is the same, his promises hold true, his faithfulness endures through a thousand generations.  And just as I am reading about in Deuteronomy and Joshua right now, God sent his people up into a land flowing with milk and honey, to possess houses they didn't build and eat fruit from vineyards they didn't plant - he is a GENEROUS God who loves to lavish abundantly on his children.

What if the best is yet to come, Dani?

I want to live believing he's capable of that.