guest post: a God who gives

My schedule is crazy this week. I have two sessions to process today (I don’t know if I will finish) and a newborn shoot tomorrow. I will be glad when things slow down a little after these free sessions are done. People aren’t quite so ready to pay for my work as they are to come running for free, which means I should get some time between sessions to breathe!

I’m still here, in the midst of the busy, but I’ve not had so much time to write as I have wanted. You may remember this post, one I managed to scribble a few weeks ago, in which I engaged a few God-questions. Karen caught my post, read my heart, and emailed a listening sort of email. When I responded in further detail about my struggle, she rambled back a heart-gift that made me cry – in the check-out line at Walmart.

Here is her gift to me – I hope it might be for you too.

Kelly, dear, God is a giver. I know you know and live the knowing; I’m just telling you how I have come to wrap around those nagging fears of loss–just as I have discovered anew what gain there is in him, and glimpse the enough that he would be in a place more terrible than I ever would wish to be–in hopes that it will add dimension to the thought you already know.

Job’s assessment of God as “the one who gives and the one who takes away” was merely his view, just as his friends viewed God as the ever-looming punisher of sin. I see the taking away as an element of this general separation from God that affects every facet of this world, partially that which we call free will, though it is only misused free will that made this extreme a reality … this place apart is a portion of what must be in order for sin to exist without being immediately destroyed. Why do you think hell is so terrible? Would a complete removal of the goodness of life not burn?

It isn’t that God destroys sin because he hates sinners, it’s because sin is a lack … of his presence. Just like light destroys darkness by its very presence, so God’s presence destroys the lack of himself that is sin. Christ is our sunscreen (Oh, for a better illustration, but remember the cleft of the rock in which Moses was protected.) and takes the sudden destruction that holiness is to sin, and eradicates sin from us in such a way that there is time to grow holy, because he is also the structure of the new living that he grows in us as the decaying death is burned away. (Hmm… I got off the main point a little, since so many diverse and unexpected influences have come forward to ferment these thoughts for the last few months, and I’ve been trying to find the shape of them.)

But the thing is, God gives. He gives holiness. He gives beauty and creativity. He gives life. He gives joy, peace, gentleness;… whatever things are good, honest, just, of good report, virtuous and praiseworthy, that is what is of him, which is why we are to think of these things. And if your children or your husband become victims of the ongoing death and suffering that is a symptom of this world’s break from God’s presence, he will give then, too.

But he gives you the strength to endure only what comes your way, not the imagined possible. The only thing we can do with the imagined and the what if, is to say, “Even so, I will trust you, Lord, and there will be great good because that is your way.” But do not think him capable of waiting to pull the rug from beneath you. He is the source of good, not of evil. And he is the redeemer of evil that brings good even when it seems an impossibility; yet death is swallowed up in victory. He is never taken by surprise nor overwhelmed by any evil, and he already is shaping a good result, though evil must be permitted to exist until he brings his presence wholly in contact with us once again. These are the rules he set out, after all, and he knows that even if we destroy what was designed good and beautiful, he will still be able to shape good and beauty. Why do you think it is so evident?–He is that creative!

You can rescue a photograph, crop and edit to find beauty.

I can draw beauty even when my elbow is jogged mid-line.

Generous love heals acid-washed wounds that bleed deeper than the heart.

People grow in character and glorify God even when they suffer.

All of these, and many more, are evidences of God’s creative ability. Do you think we even come close to knowing what he can do? He holds the molecules to their order and pattern, creates cities of life in our cells, and directs the planets and galaxies in their great sweep through the heavens. And even while he consciously manages all this, he counts the hairs on our heads and notices every time a sparrow falls; he even clothes the lilies of the field and promises to do the same for us. He isn’t your crutch and you needn’t fear turning him into one. He is the pattern that holds every molecule of you in place, plus the soul that can’t be defined. And you can trust him.

Somehow you brought out the words I’ve been trying to shape for … a long time. Do you think this is just for you? It might be, and if so it will remain here between us, and I’ll write a new pattern from this for my blog eventually. A while ago you asked if I wanted to guest post. I’ll let you decide, because these words are yours now.

I love you, hon. Thank you for giving me a place to discover the shape of the trust that I’m learning from our Redeemer. Don’t worry. I can see Christ holding you together and bringing you into the good works he planned for you since the beginning of time, even if all I seem to know is your blog and photos. I can see it because his Spirit is working in me, too, and it’s beautiful to see his handiwork.

Karen