Our Word Keeping God

Have you ever had someone tell you they would do something for you and then fail to deliver? Perhaps it was a co-worker, whose work you depended on and when he didn’t follow through, it left you hanging with more work to do. Maybe it was a friend who many times in the past told you, “Let’s meet for coffee” yet every time you initiate a meet-up, she can never commit. Or maybe someone in your family promised multiple times to work with you on a project and it still lies there unfinished.

Whatever the commitment, when someone commits to something and doesn’t follow through—doesn’t keep their word—we are left disappointed. In some situations, it may leave us in a difficult situation. Or worse. When people let us down multiple times, we begin to question and distrust the things they say. Often we find ourselves depending on that person less and less.

In my own life, I’ve certainly experienced this. I’ve expected friends, family, or co-workers to follow through on something they promised and felt let down when they didn’t. I felt disappointed. I was left burdened. In some cases, it created a barrier in my relationship with that person. Trust was broken—one of the hardest things in life to rebuild.

Our Word Keeping God

For those who have been hurt or let down by those who have not kept their word, there is good news. There is One who will never fail to keep his word. There is One we can always trust to fulfill his promises: Our Word keeping God.

God only has to speak and worlds come into being (Gen. 1:1). His word is powerful; even the wind and rain respond to his command (Mark 4:39). His word never returns void; it always accomplishes his purposes for it (Isaiah 55:11). He makes promises and never fails to keep them. He commits and covenants with his people and always follows through. What he says is true (John 17:17). Unlike humans, who may intend to keep their word, but then something unforeseen happens to keep them from keeping it, because he is God, he controls all things, including the future; if he says he will do something, we know he will do it.

God’s written word is just as powerful: “For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart” (Hebrews 4:12). It teaches, trains, and corrects us: “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness” (2 Timothy 3:16).

Further, the word of God became flesh: Jesus Christ. In Christ, God’s words and promises are fulfilled. The promise of all promises —“I will be their God and they will be my people”—was met in Christ when he came to earth, lived a perfect life, and bore the punishment for our sins. Our Savior brought us back into right relationship and fellowship with God. His death on the cross is a reminder to us of God’s faithfulness to keep his word.

What this means is, we can trust our word keeping God.

Keeping Our Own Word

As Christians, as those who are redeemed by the blood of the Word made flesh, we should care about the words we say. Christ came to set us free from all sin, including our sinful speech. He paid a high price for our words so that God’s word would change and transform us. Even now, the Spirit is at work in us, making us into people whose speech is holy and sanctified.

Because of what Christ has done for us, we desire to image and reflect him in the words we say. We want to think before we speak, and consider the consequences of what would happen if we don’t keep our word (Proverbs 29:20, James 1:19) We desire to follow through on the words we say, and apologize when we let someone down. We hesitate to make commitments we know we can’t keep; if we know we can’t follow through on our promises, we refrain from making them. (This includes promises to pray for people!) And when other’s let us down, we forgive them because we know how hard it is to keep our own word.

Let us rejoice and give thanks to our faithful God for never failing us or letting us down. His word is trustworthy and true. And may our words to others reflect The Word made flesh, Jesus Christ, who spoke perfect words in our place and continues to speak on our behalf before the throne of grace.

A Prayer for the Work of Motherhood

Years ago, I spent months working on a book proposal. Various friends then spent weeks helping me to edit it. And then it was rejected by more publishers than I care to recount. Since then, it has remained tucked away in the depths of my computer files— and, if it were possible, collecting dust.

One of the hardest things about writing is when something that you write isn’t used. When I spend hours crafting just the right sentence, when I’ve woven my heart and soul into each paragraph of a work, and it is never read, it makes all the time, effort, and energy seem like a waste. It’s disheartening and discouraging.

But writing isn’t the only thing I put energy into that no one sees. Countless things that I work on throughout the day go unnoticed by those around me. The laundry that I fold and put away. The items that I pick up off the floor and return to their rightful places. The time and effort that I pour into my children’s hearts and spiritual growth. My intercessory prayers for God to be at work in them. Decisions and choices that I make for the benefit of those around me. The time and effort that I sacrifice in order to serve and provide. When I don’t see the fruit of that work, sometimes I grow weary and wonder, Is it worth it?

Motherhood is filled with repetitive duties: changing diapers, making lunches, teaching and re-teaching our children the same lessons. Not to mention taking our kids to the pediatrician, making sure they have clothes and shoes that fit for their first day back at school, and keeping track of who needs to go where and when. It’s hard to clean up a mess of toys and know that we’ll just have to do it again in a few hours. It’s often disheartening to know that the discussions we have with our children about kindness and sharing with others will have to be reviewed again and again before they sink in. Sometimes we get to the end of a day and feel like nothing of significance has been accomplished. We’ve worked hard—but what do we have to show for it?

Here’s an important truth to remember: God sees our labors on behalf of our children and family. He never misses our efforts or takes them for granted. He knows all the mundane tasks and repeated duties we have performed. And when we labor for him, he is glorified. That’s because we were created for a purpose: to glorify God and enjoy him forever, as the Westminster Catechisms tell us. This is what we are called to do, in all things big and small—in the important and the seemingly unimportant. “So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.” (1 Cor. 10:31)

All our work—whether we leave the house in the morning to go to work or work out of an office in our home or stay home to care for our children—is done for God’s glory and fame, not our own. It’s done not for the praise or accolades of our boss or our children but for the sake of our Savior. Our hearts’ posture is for Christ to be known—not ourselves. We want his name to be magnified throughout the earth—not our names. When our work goes unnoticed, when our children seem indifferent to our labors on their behalf, when we do the same mind-numbing tasks over and over and wonder why it even matters, we need to remember for whom we toil. We live to honor and magnify the One who made us and saved us.

All our work matters to God.

A Gospel Prayer for the Work of Motherhood

Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain. (1 Cor. 15:58)

Father in heaven,

I come to you, in prayer, exhausted from my labors. I don’t even know what I have accomplished. I know that I met my children’s needs. I know that I labored on behalf of my family. I know that I checked a few things off my to-do list—but then a few more things were added, too. But some days, my work for my children and family seems so monotonous. I repeat the same instructions over and over. I intervene in the same squabbles. I do the same task that I know I’ll have do again before the day is done. It’s hard to think that this work matters—that my efforts make a difference.

But then I remember that you see all things. You know all things. You see and know all my labors—the big and small. Forgive me for forgetting that. Forgive me for living as though I work for the praise and affirmation of others, rather than for you and your glory. Forgive me for wanting to be seen by others rather than rejoicing that I am known and seen by the Maker of the universe.

I thank you for the work that Jesus did on my behalf. I thank you that all his work redeems my work and makes it holy. I thank you that you look at me and see Jesus’s perfect life. I thank you for the Spirit’s work in me that makes me more like Christ.

Help me each day as I nurture, teach, disciple, and care for the eternal souls you have given me. Help me to work hard. Help me to labor for your honor and praise. Help me to reflect you in my labors to my children and to others who see me. Help me not to grow discouraged or to give up in my labors. I pray that you would use my work to bear rich fruit for your kingdom. Strengthen and sustain me by your grace.

In Jesus’s name, amen.

Note: This post is a modified excerpt from my forthcoming book: Sufficient Hope: Gospel Meditations and Prayers for Moms, available for pre-order now.

Want to join the launch team and get access to the book before it’s released? Click here to join the FB page for the launch team.

A Prayer for When Our Children Sin

Do you remember when you first learned you would have a child? You likely prayed over your little one day after day. Even though you'd never met him or her in person, you loved your child more than anything. You waited for months--and if you were an adoptive parent, sometimes years--anticipating the amazing moment when you would hold that precious gift of God in your arms.

As new parents, it can be hard to think of our sweet baby as a sinner--unless he or she cries all night, then we are convinced of it! It isn't until our precious little one starts to move around, gets into things, and even starts to talk back that the evidence of their sinfulness hits us. That first time they reach out to touch something right after we told them not to, or the first time they yelled "No!" in response to an instruction we give, the truth that we knew in our mind about their sinful state is fully realized. The doctrine of sin we learned in church hits us square in the face: our children inherited the same sinful state we all inherit from Adam (1 Cor. 15:22, Ps. 51:5).

Despite this theological knowledge, sometimes it's shocking to see our children's sin on full display: angry outbursts, lying, stealing, idolatry, bullying, defiance, to name a few. And all this can happen before a child enters kindergarten! As our children grow into their teen years, they will face greater temptations to sin. More than shocking, it's often disheartening to watch our children sin. It can break our heart when our children make choices that lead them farther and farther off the path of life. Many a parent has wept over a child's sinfulness.

Preach, Point, and Pray the Gospel

When we see our children sin, whether as a young toddler touching breakables on the shelf or as a first grader lying about a school assignment or as a teen watching a movie they were forbidden to watch, we need to remember the gospel. When we despair over our children's choices, we need to remember the gospel. When we fear the path our children are headed down, we need to remember the gospel…

To read the rest of this post, visit Reformation 21 where I am sharing a piece based on my forthcoming book, Sufficient Hope: Gospel Meditations and Prayers for Moms.

When You Need Hope: A Look at Psalm 119

Before my youngest was born, I bought him a pale blue blanket and had his name stitched on one corner. It was the softest blanket and he quickly attached to it. (Actually, I ended up buying two of them in case we ever lost one. If you are a parent, you know why!). When he was younger, whenever my son was sad or scared, I could find him curled up in his blanket. For the longest time, it went everywhere with us, a comfortable and reliable companion in an often confusing and frightening world.

We all have things we run to for comfort. We all have instinctive, go-to, automatic things we turn to for hope, encouragement, and strength when we are weakened by the cares of this life.  More than likely, it's not a blanket. But it might be food, drink, television, shopping, work, social media, or exercise. It might be a person. It might be an experience. We turn to such things when life is hard in the hopes that it will rescue us, give us strength, or somehow make things better.

Psalm 119

The longest psalm in the book of Psalms is 119. David wrote all 176 verses about God's word. Each verse references God's word in some way, highlighting God's wisdom and truth.

"My soul melts away for sorrow; strengthen me according to your word!" Psalm 119:28

This one little verse has a lot to tell us about strength and where to find it. First, the psalmist is crying out to the Lord, telling him of his sorrow. He turns to the only wise One, the King of the universe, the maker and sustainer of all things. He cries out to God in honesty, voicing the depths of his distress and trouble. 

Secondly, the psalmist asks for help. He asks for strength and seeks it from God in his word. The New Living Translation puts it, "encourage me by your word." The Psalmist is turning to God's word as his source of strength, hope, and encouragement during his time of sorrow. 

And what does the psalmist learn from God's word? Farther down, in verse 50 he wrote, "This is my comfort in my affliction, that your promise gives me life." And further he wrote, "Forever, O LORD, your word is firmly fixed in the heavens. Your faithfulness endures to all generations; you have established the earth, and it stands fast. By your appointment they stand this day, for all things are your servants. If your law had not been my delight, I would have perished in my affliction. I will never forget your precepts, for by them you have given me life." (89-93). God's word gave the psalmist life. 

Turn to God’s Word

When we are in the pit of sorrow, when we are frozen by fear, when we are weakened by the cares of this life, we need to turn to God's word. It is our strength. It's how God communicates with us. Through the Spirit at work in us, he uses his word to change us, correct us, comfort us, guide us, and equip us. 

As the author to the Hebrews wrote, "For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart" (4:12).  Paul wrote, "Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness,that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work" (2 Timothy 3:16-17). In John 17:17, Jesus said that the word sanctifies us. 

On this side of redemptive history, we have the complete word of God. All the promises that the psalmist hoped in have been fulfilled in Christ. Jesus is the Word made flesh. He is wisdom incarnate. He is the Word to whom the written word points. When we turn to God's word for strength, it reveals to us more of Christ, who he is and what he has done. It is in knowing Christ and being known by him that we find the only hope that matters.   

In our fallen nature, when the cares of this life weigh us down, we tend to turn to temporary comforts or solutions for help and strength rather than God. But they all pale in comparison. They fail to deliver or provide any lasting hope. But in reading, studying, and dwelling on God's word we find the Word, Immanuel, and in him is the source of all our hope and strength. 

These days, both of my son’s blankets sit on the shelf in his closet. He no longer needs them. Over time, he’s learned to turn to God when the cares of life overwhelm him, or he comes to my husband and I and asks us to pray for him. May we too cast aside the counterfeits, and turn instead to the real thing, our Savior, Jesus Christ.

“We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure…” (Hebrews 6:19 NIV).

A Prayer While Waiting

I often find myself in a place of waiting. I wait for the Lord to answer prayers for which I’ve long prayed. I wait for him to move in my life and in the life of others. I wait for wisdom to know what to do in particular circumstances. I wait for fruit to grow in ministries and relationships. I wait for dreams and hopes to finally come to fruition.

It’s easy to grow weary in waiting. I am often impatient. Sometimes my heart fills with worry and doubt. I may even begin to wonder if God has forgotten about me. That’s why the Psalms are an important book for those of us who wait. It shows us how to wait well. It shows us to turn to the Lord with all that is on our heart and cry out to him. In Psalm 13:1, he wrote, "How long, O LORD? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me?”

For all of us who wait, let us turn to the Lord in prayer.

A Prayer While Waiting

Father in Heaven,

I come before you with my heart filled with so many different thoughts and feelings. I am tense and uncertain about what I should be doing and where I should go. I feel weak and helpless. Powerless. I am worried about what happens next and whether I have the strength to handle it. Deep down I wonder, how long will I be here? Will I be stuck in this place of waiting forever? And why am I here to begin with? What's happening, Lord? But most of all, I wonder, where are you? Why haven't you responded to my cries for help?

But even as I pray that, I know you are right where you've always said you would be. You've never left me and you will never forsake me. You hear all my cries. In fact as David wrote in Psalm 139, you know my thoughts before I even think them. You know exactly what is happening in my life and what will happen next. All things are in your control and nothing can happen apart from your will. Not a sparrow falls to earth without your willing it to and you know the number of hairs on my head. You are never surprised. Even about this issue in my life today. You know why this is happening and will use it for your glory and my good.

Forgive me for how I have worried about this situation. Forgive me for doubting your love and care in my life. Forgive me for my discontentment as I wait for what happens next. Forgive me for being impatient. Forgive me for not seeking after you and for allowing these circumstances in my life to seem greater than your grace and goodness. Create in me a clean heart. Help me to see the counterfeit loves and idols in my heart. Help me to see all the things I cling to that I think will make my life happy and complete apart from you. Help me to repent and turn back to you, my one true love. 

As the prophet wrote in Lamentations, "It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord" (3:26). Help me to remember that it is good to wait for you. In this place of waiting, help me to remember all that you have done for me through Jesus Christ. Help me to remember that your grace is sufficient to not only save me from sin, but to sustain me each and every day. Your grace is at work in me right now, transforming me and making me more like your Son. Nothing can separate me from you. I am safe in your love. 

Help me to know more of the joy that comes from knowing you. Grant me joy in Jesus, joy in being your child, and joy in knowing that you are always with me. May I find hope in your word for as the psalmist wrote, "I wait for the LORD, my soul waits, and in his word I hope" (Psalm 130:5).

May I live for you even while I wait. Help me to obey and remain faithful, no matter how long I am in this place of waiting. 

In Jesus' name I pray, amen.

On Psalm 88 and Jesus's Final Night

Some people refer to a visit to Israel as the fifth gospel. I guess it’s because everything you read about in the Bible comes to life when you walk where Jesus walked. Visiting the Holy Land engages not only one’s thoughts and emotions, but also the senses. Seeing the cities and towns where narratives in Scripture took place, hearing the bleating sheep on the hills outside Jerusalem, sitting on the same hillside where Jesus preached, and smelling the sea where he calmed the storm, makes those passages you’ve read countless times come to life.

With Good Friday and Easter on its way, I can’t help but think back to our trip to Israel last year. I recently read the account in Matthew when Jesus was arrested and could see the Garden of Gethsemane in my mind, with its gnarled olive trees and quiet solitude. After his arrest, Jesus was first taken to Annas’s home and then on to the home of Caiaphas, the high priest. Caiaphas was one of those behind the plot to have Jesus killed (John 18:14, Matthew 26:3-4). Peter stood out in the courtyard and waited to see what would happen.

On our trip to Israel, we went to that courtyard where a statue of a rooster now stands. We then went to an underground prison beneath Caiaphas’s home where Jesus was likely held the night of his arrest. It was a deep, dark pit. There was one light dimly illuminating the room for us, but I could easily imagine what it would have been like turned off. I thought about the time our family went on a tour of a cave in the mountains of Tennessee. At one point on the tour, the guide turned out the lights so we could experience what it was like for gold miners when their lights were extinguished. It was the darkest place I’d ever been. Complete darkness. That’s what I imagine the pit in Caiaphas’s dungeon would be like without electricity. With two dozen of us crowded inside, we read Psalm 88 and sang a hymn. Reading the psalm in the place where Jesus spent his final night before going to the cross, struck me in a way it hadn’t before.

“You have put me in the depths of the pit,
in the regions dark and deep.
Your wrath lies heavy upon me,
and you overwhelm me with all your waves” (Psalm 88:6-7)

Psalm 88 is the darkest of the psalms in the Psalter. Unlike other laments, it doesn’t end with words of praise. Despite its darkness, the psalm has brought me hope over the years when I’ve found myself in my own place of darkness. The mere fact that the psalm is in included in the Bible, and in the songbook of God’s people no less, tells me how compassionate our God is. He knows how fallen our world is. He knows our pain and invites us to share it with him. Our grief and sorrow isn’t neat and tidy. Sometimes we can’t even put our thoughts and emotions into words. But no matter how dark our emotions, we need to cry out to the God who hears us, for he alone is our salvation. As Matthew Henry commented, “before he begins his complaint, he calls God the God of his salvation, which intimates both that he looked for salvation, bad as things were, and that he looked up to God for the salvation and depended upon him to be the author of it.”

Like all of Scripture, each psalm has a here and now meaning for the author who wrote it. Psalm 88 was written by Heman, one of Israel’s worship leaders. As a worship leader, he wrote songs to help God’s people sing to God during all of life’s circumstances, both in the joys and in the sorrows. In Psalm 88, we can see that the psalmist obviously endured a significant trial in his life. He was in despair. He cried out to God day and night. He felt the weight of God’s judgement and the abandonment of his friends. God seemed far away—so far, darkness had become his only friend (v. 18).

But also like all of Scripture, Jesus fulfills Psalm 88. As Luke 24:27 tells us, when Jesus walked on the road to Emmaus with some of the disciples following his resurrection, “And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.” In Psalm 88, we hear Jesus with his friends in the Garden before his arrest echoing the psalmist, “For my soul is full of troubles, and my life draws near to Sheol” (v. 3). Jesus stepped into the darkness on our behalf. The night he spent in the pit was only the beginning of all that he would endure for us. He felt the full weight of God’s wrath at the cross in our stead. “Your wrath lies heavy upon me, and you overwhelm me with all your waves” (Psalm 88:7). He too was abandoned by his closest friends (v.8). Christ took on the curse of death, the darkest of all pits.

After my visit to that underground pit beneath the home of Caiaphas, I now read Psalm 88 with greater joy than ever before. I still rejoice that I can come to the Father and voice my sorrows, no matter how dark. I still turn to him in lament and ask for his help and rescue, trusting in him as my salvation. But I also rejoice, knowing that my Savior endured greater darkness—God’s wrath for sin—on my behalf.

When it seems as though I’m stuck in a pit of despair, I remember Jesus and the lengths he went to for my redemption. He went to dark places I will never have to go. And for that I rejoice.