Tent Stakes
For
me, this is cornerstone. This is glue.
This is mission-critical.
They
came out of a time in life where I was not in contentment or harmony with who I
thought the Lord was. I had spent sweet
developmental years creating ground on which God and I operated in a love
drenched, insight fueled, experiential relationship. I knew who God was because
I had experienced him.
Then,
we got bad news. I could not reconcile the character of God with the
devastation I was looking at in the natural world, personal and specific to the
ruin that now described my hopes and expectations. Not only that. How in the
WORLD, once that door of the autricitys of the world is cracked open and you
peek inside...do you continue to operate with the kindness of God as your
mantle?
This
post is not going to satisfy the above incompatibility of God’s kindness and
world atrocity. Through experiential shaping and divine listening I have come
to understand it all comes down to what questions I am asking. And I plan to write some essential thoughts
about that next month. But here I would
like to pass on my personal tool that is based in Isaiah 54, my life passage.
In
the midst of the devastation, God showed up with out-loud, neon Favor for all
the world to see. Like, inexpiable undeniable miracles that resulted in
provision for our family I could have never imagined or dreamed up. I
realized I wasted grief assuming God was a party to the ruin that scared me to
doubt the goodness of the future.
I had prayed Habakkuk 3:2, and he answered:
I stand in awe of your deeds, Lord.
Repeat
them in our day,
in our time make them known;
I
then said to the Lord: “I am convinced and I commit to you, Lord, that I will
NOT forget. Next time things look on the
outside that you are not for me, I will declare and root and choose to believe
that you are at work in ways I do not see with my natural eyes. Because I saw
you do it before. I know life is hard. I
know this is not the only gut wrenching hard thing that will come upon me. I
know people get sick. I know life here in earth’s context is not as it should
be: people die, people betray, precious things are lost. Keep your promises on my lips,
Lord, even when these things hit me over and over like waves of doubt Let me
surf on the truth that Jesus is perfect theology and His character is clear to
me and unchanging.” {Psalm 119:172}
Out
of that prayer came tent stakes. These are core messages that I commit to hold
tight to in the midst of those waves and outside evidence that God might not be
for me. They are my roots and I insist
on claiming their reality no matter what the circumstance. This is the
invitation from the Lord:
“Enlarge
the site of your tent, and let your tent curtains be stretched out; do not hold
back; lengthen your ropes, and drive your pegs deep.” Isaiah 54:2 CSB
You
need to develop your own core messages (AKA tent stakes) that speak to your
uniqueness. However, in the spirit of
explanation, a few of mine are:
● God’s presence is the only
thing that makes me well and it is what I pursue above all else. {Psalm 103; Isaiah 53}
● God is invested and knit into
MY cause and MY fulfillment even as he unfolds HIS cause and HIS fulfillment
wrapped around the whole earth. I. Am. Not. A Pawn. {Psalm 9:4; Psalm 18}
● Jesus is perfect theology {John 14:9}
● Small, mundane things are the
stuff of holiness {Zech 4:10}
One
more application to this offering is in addition to over-arching life tent
stakes, sometimes in life I have needed to create a couple of handlebars of
faith for a specific situation. Maybe
you are starting a new business or new pursuit, maybe you are going through a
time of illness…What stakes do you need to claim?
Should
you get into God’s Word, and should you ask him for an anchor….I would wage
that you will get one. And make that
sucker a tent stake! And when doubt creeps in…”St. Benedict” it. I made “St. Benedict” a new verb. His famous quote is, “Begin again.” So, when my mind wanders in prayer or yoga or
should an anxiety nag while I am driving or trying to go to sleep, I “St.
Benedict” it. Which means I bring myself
back again, and again, and again, and again to that which I am determined to
cling to: my tent stakes.
Beautiful. Thanks Mandi for the inspiration and encouragement.
ReplyDeleteIt means so much to hear this! It's such a vulnerable thing to share writing! Thank you!
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