"Now the Lord said to Abram, 'Go...'
So Abram went..." "And he (the Lord) brought Abram outside and said, 'Look toward heaven, and number the stars, if you are able to number them.' Then he said to him, 'So shall your offspring be. And he (Abram) believed the Lord, and he counted it to him as righteousness." "After these things God tested Abraham and said to him, 'Abraham!' And he said, 'Here I am.' He said, 'Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you.' "So Abraham rose early in the morning, saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him, and his son Isaac." I have been reading in the book of Genesis lately about the most ancient Hebrew patriarch Abraham. One of the most astonishing occurrences across the pages of mid Genesis is Abraham's quick obedience to whatever the Lord commands. When God speaks, Abraham listens. When God speaks, Abraham believes. When God speaks, Abraham immediately obeys. How many of us can say we have the same track record as Abraham? Not I! When God speaks, Audrey tries to speak louder. When God speaks, Audrey questions. When God speaks, Audrey only sometimes tentatively obeys. The first order of business in changing a stubborn heart into an obedient one must be to ask the Lord to do it. Even with the most disciplined striving we could no more transform our hard heart to a soft one than we could change the sun into the moon. God is the only one who can change a human heart.
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The world is broken, and this I despise.
Idealistic in nature, when the world is darkened by midnight theater shootings, or painfully sick friends, or lifelong struggles through devastating relationships, or the inevitable death striking final-- everything inside me twists and turns and wrenches apart. I stubbornly plant my heals down firm into the dry, cracked earth of "should be's" all the while watching in delusion as the world sinks lower and lower into the darkness of the broken. My heart looks around and screams loud,"THIS ISN'T HOW IT'S SUPPOSED TO BE!" but nothing breathes out except the subtle sound of giving up, "But this is how it is." I can't watch the nightly news. I can't take it in. All that decay and destruction. Is there anything good going on in my city? Of course there is. But even the good, can it be argued that it is whole? My insides revolt in protest as they finally quiet and settle down into momentary acceptance. I accept this marked land for now but not for forever. In the meantime I search the Gospels for Jesus. Is he anywhere to be found in his world so fractured? Selfish. Selfish. Stubborn. Self-Sustaining. Argumentative. Competitive to a Fault. Easily Angered. Loves to be Right. Complaining. Slow to Forgive. Remembering Wrongs. Those words have paraded ugly inside my head since my wedding day nine months ago. They make no assignment to my husband. Rather, they dance around my heart and silently gloat in their description of me. I am incredulous to think these words are new-found married characteristics. Surely they didn't just pop up in these past few months. Yet, they seem new somehow--more harried and pointed. More inescapable. And I guess, in a way, they are. Marriage has been wonderful. It is a whole new adventure filled up with exhilarating realities and still unknown possibilities. My man is unlike any other. Full of compassion and patience, he calms and steadies the artist vibrancy in me. I am grateful, thankful, delighted to be his. Still, marriage has pushed on my heart and stamped on my pride in a way nothing else has been able to thus far. Growing up as one of four brothers and sisters in a tiny house, always sharing and compromise wrestling, I thought I had been well equipped to enter one new house with one new boy. But this beauty, owning another and being covenant owned in love is a different kind of reality. There is no escaping, no hiding your true heart landscape, no retreating to your own room or private soul corner. I am laid open and bare where pretending (even to myself) cannot stand in the brightness of marriage daylight. And this! This is good. This harsh light living is the very thing I needed for the heart sharp edges skillfully concealed in corners to finally be exposed. Marriage is less about my longing for warm fuzzy happiness and more about my deep soul need for conformity to Jesus-likeness. For an artistic idealist, this is a jagged pill to swallow. For a Christian learning to be more in love with Jesus and husband, this is a breath of fresh air. I am thankful for the warm fuzzies and butterflies that accompany marriage. But even more so, I am grateful for the opportunity to come out from hiding, to vulnerably bare all in hopes and trusts that Jesus will continue what he started in me and my husband will continue to delight in the character that is being new birthed. Psalm 119:68 "You (Lord) are good, and what you do is good; teach me your decrees." I should be in bed.
Although it's late and I need to be winding down for the night, my heart is wound up with many indefinable hopes and excitements in God and his very strange faithfulness toward me (us). If his constancy toward me was based on who I am and the character found therein, indeed there could be no sensible accounting for it. Tonight I am reminded once again of the good news of the Gospel. (I could never be reminded too much or too often.) God's faithfulness and loyalty to me is based on his ever steady character. A character filled up with mercy and tempered with justice. He looks at me and sees his perfection-- Jesus the Christ. So in this vein, and very quickly before I turn in for the night I want to remind myself and you of Psalm 46:10. It is a verse plastered all over coffee cups and the backs of youth group t-shirts but for whatever reason feels fresh to my heart and mind tonight. “Be still, and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth!” How good is he! God is good. He is what's best. Let's be still and look on him and know him and fill up with joy at what we see. "With my first breath I drew in depravity, needing your mercy even in my first hour." So say my favorite lyrics from one of Bethany Dillon's newest songs.
Depravity: moral perversion; impairment of virtue; a corrupt practice; a depraved condition I have lately and yet again been made acutely aware of my own tendency to depravity. I have a tendency to perversion. I have a tendency to corruption. I tend toward impaired virtue. Even in my good deeds and kind actions, my motives will be found tainted if truly scrutinized by the magnifying glass of honesty. Most days I feel tethered to this reality. And in some ways I am. Until I live in a new body with eternity as my reality, I will continue to live with the pock marks and scars of a broken nature. If I were to bring this up among those of you who do not know Christ, chances are you might tell me I'm being too hard on myself, too dramatic. After all, I'm only human-- and a good human at that. What more can be expected? Perfection or something near to that? No, indeed, when I attempt something near to perfection I will inevitably fail. When I attempt goodness I will attain the shell of it but miss the purity that motivates it truly. I am not good. As bleak and as frustrating as this may seem to my heart and sound to your ears, it is good news when viewed against the backdrop of the Gospel. I am not good. Yet, I know the One who is. I am not capable of doing good with purely good motives. Yet, I am being made into the likeness of the One who boasts all the reality of good in his nature. Jesus came to be good for me, on my behalf, when I was and am incapable of it. This is the good news of the Gospel, and in this news I find much delight. "For we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin, as it is written: None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.” -Romans 3:9-12 "For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God." -2 Cor.5:21 "He (the Father) has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins." -Colossians 1:13-14 |
welcome Audrey DeFord is an artist, illustrator, wife, momma, believer. But not in that order. She currently resides in Texas with her husband Sam, baby girl Flora, French bully Shortstack, & 12
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