Knowing Him as the Sovereign & Ever-Present One

Still a whirl of emotions. So hard to control or to know what to do. Am sitting in a huge concert hall, waiting for an opera to begin of all things. Maybe being with friends will add some joy and vivacity to life. I need that now. But more than anything, I want rest and reassurance. My soul seems filled with sadness and burden.... O Lord, how I need You. Teach me to trust You this semester. Lord, grow in my heart. Be who I cannot be. Teach me to rely on You more and more. Thank You that You are always near. Thank You that You are always the answer.

I still remember writing those words. I was waiting for an opera to begin, and I felt all alone. Even as the house began to fill and people I knew came and sat around me, this lonely feeling rose up in my heart. I remember wanting to run out of the theater in tears but was so afraid of what my friends would think. That’s when those words came forth in silent prayer: O Lord, how I need You. I knew I just couldn’t do it any more. I didn’t want to be with friends at the opera, but even more, I was so overwhelmed by the various things happening in my life. In desperation, I cried out and found rest in the God of the universe. Sometime in those three long hours, Someone special reached me. I knew He was near and that He cared for me. He was what no one else could be – the peace, the assurance, and even the strength to go on in spite of everything.

In the weeks since that awful day, I have prayed that prayer over and over again: O Lord, I need You. Those simple five words uttered with a genuine heart have changed my semester. Jeremiah’s prayer in Lamentations 3:55-57 has become so real. “I called upon Your name, O Jehovah, from the lowest pit. You have heard my voice; do not hide Your ear at my breathing, at my cry. You drew near in the day that I called upon You; You said, Do not fear.” I am beginning to realize and experience how available our God is. No matter how low I am or how weak, He is always so near, only a cry away. O Lord, I need You.

The past few months have been really hard. At school, all my classes this term seem so hard and have apparently insurmountable piles of homework. I have found my function as a friend tried over and over as I tried to shepherd and comfort friends whose family members have died or have been diagnosed with cancer. To top it off, I am still struggling with a long-term illness yet to be fully diagnosed. In the midst of all of this, it is easy to question God and ask why He would allow yet another thing to happen. Isn’t it already enough?

Yet as I cry out to the Lord in prayer, I find new assurance. There is One who has arranged all these situations in my life. It’s true that it’s not how I would have planned it. It’s not even what I thought I wanted. But over and over again, I’m realizing how God is taking caring of me and answering my prayers. He still loves me and is using this apparently tumultuous situation to gain my heart.

In so many little ways, I see God practically shepherding me. There is the classmate who takes notes for me in one of my classes because my hands hurt too much to write in the morning. He’s my lab partner, too, and he does all the hand-intensive work. There’s no reason why we ought to be friends, or why he should go out of his way to do anything for me. I could have easily been stuck with someone else. But instead, I see the Lord providing me with someone to physically care for me. There’s the other former classmate who’s kindly offered to be around and help me actually get studying done. Then, too, there’s the stuffed animal my little sister randomly gave me last year; it’s always there whenever I’m in too much pain to sleep. My faithful prayer partner, the lovely couple from church, the list continues on and on.

Somehow when I see all these people surrounding me, I realize how much the Lord really cares for me. I confess that I don’t understand what He’s doing, but I know it’s sure to be marvelous. As He provides for me in all these little ways, He must be arranging my life in way that is best for me. Humbling myself before Him and acknowledging Him as the sovereign One in my life is no longer a fear but a comfort. I see Him as the One whose heart is always good towards me. And more than anything, I realize that He’s causing me to turn to Him more and more. As I realize again and again how weak I am, He continues to remind me of how available He is to meet my every need. Something as simple as whispering, O Lord, I need You, is all that I need to find rest. Turning back to Him always brings peace. Through all my struggles, the words of this hymn resonate with my experience:

Turn your eyes upon Jesus,
Look full in His wonderful face,
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim,
In the light of His glory and grace.

Turn...

This hymn more or less sums up my experience since school started. Everything -- school, friends, family, personal -- has been a whirlwind. I don't know what to think or what to base my hopes on. I wonder sometimes if my whole world as I know it has vanished. It is definitely overwhelming at points.

BUT there's salvation by turning to Him. Hidden in Him, I can soar over all my situations. I know He loves me and is taking care of me.

O soul, are you weary and troubled?
No light in the darkness you see?
There’s light for a look at the Savior,
And life more abundant and free!

Turn your eyes upon Jesus,
Look full in His wonderful face,
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim,
In the light of His glory and grace.

Through death into life everlasting
He passed, and we follow Him there;
O’er us sin no more hath dominion—
For more than conquerors we are!

His Word shall not fail you—He promised;
Believe Him, and all will be well:
Then go to a world that is dying,
His perfect salvation to tell!

Thank You, Lord.

History and what it is...

Haffer, in justifying his story, reveals what real history is:

I am convinced that by telling my private, unimportant story I am adding an important, unrecognized facet to contemporary German and European history -- more significant and more important for the future than if I were to disclose who set fire to the Reichstag, or what Hitler really said to Rohm.

What is history, and where does it take place?

...It may seem a paradox, but it is nonetheless the simple truth, to say that on the contrary, the decisive historical events take place among us, the anonymous masses. The most powerful dictators, ministers, and generals are powerless against the simultaneous mass decisions taken individually and almost unconsciously by the population at large. It is characteristic of these decisions that they do not manifest themselves as mass movements or demonstrations. Mass assemblies are quite incapable of independent action. Decisions that influence the course of history arise out of the individual experiences of thousands or millions of individuals. (182-3)

Mercy all

I was really touched with this hymn this week. I realized that my very existence and who and where I am is all a mercy of Him. Praise Him!

'Tis mercy all, immense and free;
For, O my God, it found out me.

Depth of Influence...

Experience, not perception, of events and circumstances build reactions and philosophies. Until something actually affects our inner being and our private life, it cannot fundamentally changes our values and beliefs.

In his book, Haffner writes of the Nazi "takeover" of Germany:

All this was still something one only read about in the press. You did not see or hear anything that was any different from what had gone on before. There were brown SA uniforms on the streets, demonstrations, shouts of "Heil," but otherwise it was "business as usual." In the Kammergericht, the highest court in Prussia, where I worked as Referendar as the time, the process of the law was not changed at all by the fact that the interior minister enacted ridiculous edicts. The newspapers might report that the constitution was in ruins. Here every paragraph of the Civil Code was still valid and was mulled over and analyzed as carefully as ever. Which was the true reality?...

I must admit that I was inclined to view the undisturbed functioning of the law, and indeed the continued normal course of daily life, as a triumph over the Nazis. They could behave as raucously and wildly as they wished. They could still only stir up the political surface. The depths of the ocean of life remained entirely unaffected.(109-110)

Confusion and difficulty to perceive events breed inaction, as Haffner writes:

Daily life also made it difficult to see the situation clearly. Life went on as before, though it had now definitely become ghostly and unreal, and was daily mocked by the events that served as its background. ... now it was no longer possible to deny that daily life itself had become hollow or mechanical. Every minute merely confirmed the victory of the enemy forces flooding in from all sides.

Strangely enough, it was just this automatic continuation of ordinary life that hindered any lively, forceful reaction against the horror....

It was hindered by the mechanical continuation of normal daily life.... It is the cause of his reluctance to do anything that could "derail" his life -- something audacious or out of the ordinary. It is this lack of self-reliance that opens the possibility of immense catastrophes of civilization such as the rule of the Nazis in Germany.

...In this way, unsure of myself, temporizing, I performed my routine daily duties. At home, I gave way to fruitless and ridiculous outbursts at the dinner table. Excluded from events and passive like millions of others, I let events come at me.

And they did. (137-9)

How poignant his words, but how true to our experience! It seems even with the momentous days that we live in, my inner being and my reason for living have remained the same because my inner life has been unaffected. Part of it is youth and ignorance, and part of it is simply absence or distance from the happenings. I don't live in Washington or New York City, so how does it really affect me? True, prices have increased and the administration is about to change, but that remains far from my private life because it does not touch my inmost being.

How scary this was for Haffner who looked back and realized that a generation of Germans had allowed their country to be taken over by the Nazis all because it did not affect them. How could it? He says, "I was inclined not to take them very seriously -- a common attitude among their inexperience opponents, which helped them a lot, and still helped them." (104)

It's food for thought at least.

Youth...

What experience did Ponce de Leon and others hope to gain by finding the Fountain of Youth? What is so appealing about being young? Is it simply freedom from pain and responsibility?

Sebastian Haffner offers one hint in his book Defying Hitler, it was

...so full of innocent fun and youthful gravity, of dreams of the future and of universal fellowship and trust... (p. 80)

At the age of thirty-two, Haffner was already remembering his youth with nostalgia. There was something so carefree into those days, something he no longer had, something he left when he grew older or at least was no longer young.

Further, he casually observes the parents' role in the training of a youth:

Is is not said that in peacetime the chiefs of staff always prepare their armies as well as possible -- for the previous war? I cannot judge the truth of that, but it is certainly true that conscientious parents always educate their sons for the era that is just over. (p. 102)

Perhaps, this is why there always seems to be a generational gap, especially at the time of the younger one's youth. It is not so much parents' fault as it is to be blamed on the passage of time and the changes that necessarily come with it.

Quiet thinking...

Besides studying, catching up on sleep, and spending time with my family, I have been doing quite a bit of quiet thinking. Mostly, I've been contemplating my life and pondering what I value.

Here's a verse that touched my contemplating heart today:

All who are with me greet you. Greet those who love us in faith. Grace be with all you.
-- Titus 3:15

Thank You, Lord, for Your grace. Grace be with you all.

Enjoying His grace,
the well-spoken