golden clay

It’s the middle of May in northern Ontario. We’re battling wind and waves before our canoe betrays us entirely.

The water is so cold, it burns.

And it’s a race against the clock to get out of the lake and get warm. “Help us, Lord,” I say.

Tipping moments.

Is that what it takes to launch us over the edge of indifference and passivity?

A brutal awakening of the senses?

Later, on a Saturday, we sit across from him as he picks away at his sesame seed cake. I gulp down my freshly-pressed coffee like it’s going to save my life.

And he mentions how he’s waiting. He’s waiting for eternity to be imminent before dealing with decisions of the soul.

And when I’m drying off from the frigid lake and shivering uncontrollably under five layers of blankets, I realize I do the same thing.

I wait. I wait for the devouring eyes of eternity. I wait for the moment it’s about to pounce on me before I realize that I want a greater treasure-store in heaven.

My soul is secure. But where is my treasure?

I’ve invested all my savings plans in the pleasures of the flesh, in the snooze button, in the sufficient bank account, in the approving eyes of my co-workers.

Until I reach the tipping point.

In the middle of a lake. Immersed in frigid waters. There is nothing left except.

“Help us, Lord.”

But I don’t want God to be my last breath. Or my dying wish.

I want Him to be my morning song. And my First Thought.

And tipping points can put you right-side-up again. If you don’t throw it in the category of coincidence.

“Let me hear in the morning of your steadfast love, for in you I trust. Make me know the way I should go, for to you I lift up my soul.” Psalm 143:8

I remember the first time I was stung by a nest of mud wasps on a creek bank somewhere near the west coast of Canada. Like being pricked with countless sharp needles on my face, neck, arms. Then, throbbing, burning underneath my skin. 

And that’s how his words felt.

Later, we talk in the car and she mentions his name, a subtle comment about his faults. I want her approval, a closer connection. So, I monologue his faults and we laugh together in agreement.

I get her on my side.

Isn’t that the instinct of war? And human hearts.

But I toss a lure to someone else, something about his hurtful words. But it’s someone who’s wiser than both of us and he doesn’t bite the line.

And it’s then I realize that he is giving me permission. Permission to forgive. Permission to leave resentment in the grave.

I start to notice it with others, how some people give you space to love. To forgive. How there’s no pressure to bond over someone else’s mistakes.

It’s a taste of the presence of Christ.

Because no one in their right mind would sit down to coffee with Jesus and whisper to him all the things they hate about their parents—as if the scars in His hands didn’t exist.

I remember how she was a sweet taste for her daughter when she never spoke one unkind word against her abusive husband. A chance for her daughter to move forward.

Because bitterness can sting more than offense. And its taste is never sweet.

Oh, to have a presence like Christ. A presence that gives others the permission to forgive. To love.

To loosen the burden of bitterness.

Good Friday. The day that doesn’t make sense.

Like her urgent phone call the week before to pray for life, for the rhythm of a pulse.

Or her words across the dinner table over the steady hum of an oxygen tank, as the rays of the evening sun filtered through the big glass door. “I don’t know what I would do without faith in this season.”

All week I have struggled with words, because I can barely even grasp the edges of His ways.

And Good Friday is covered with the shadow of death.

Like two thousand years ago when darkness was winning.

Like this week when cancer was winning and kidneys were failing.

And funerals were happening. And the phone call was filled with silence because words disintegrate in the midst of grief.

And the valley, the shadow–it’s twofold. Because the valley implies the mountain peak. And the shadow implies the light.

And Good Friday implies Sunday. And the empty tomb implies a risen Saviour.

And if death doesn’t make sense to us, neither does eternal life. Neither does the death of a perfect man.

It’s simple: His propitiation for our sins. But redemption, it’s mind-blowing.

Because the gospel compares to no other narrative. It’s a truth like no other. It has nothing to do with us. We can’t bring it down to our level, box it up, and explain it in bullet points.

It’s simple, but it doesn’t make any sense.

Death is hard to understand. But the love of God–that’s harder. The salvation of mankind–it’s absurd, it’s ridiculous, it’s unfathomable.

And thanks be to God, it’s true.

And thanks be to God, Sunday’s coming.

And thanks be to God, one day the shadow will be gone for good.

“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade.” 1 Peter 1:3-4

It’s always a dangerous thing to pray. Dangerous for the flesh. Dangerous for the enemy.

I ask her to pray for an opportunity for me to be bold. And she does.

It comes on a Thursday night at dinner. They bring up religion. What is heaven like? They speculate. What is God like?

My heart starts pounding. And I sit there quietly, thinking of all the things I should say.

I go back to my hotel room and feel like weeping for my hypocrisy of silence.

I claim His benefits. And dodge the costs.

Sometimes the days of half-hearted closet Christianity outshine the days of courageous, out-spoken faith.

In my hotel room, I flip to the book of Matthew, where Peter denies Christ in one of the most crucial hours of history.

Peter, friend of Jesus. Unfaithful. Afraid of what others think.

Like me.

But I didn’t sign up for hiding behind the dashboards of my blog or underneath my introverted personality label.

And I’d rather stand with Christ while my hands sweat and my voice shakes and my face burns than not stand with Him at all.

I flip to Acts and joy comes to me there.

Because the once quavering Peter addresses the crowds like a different man. “God has raised this Jesus to life, and we are all witnesses of it,” he proclaims. (Acts 2:32)

Changed after being with the risen Christ.

And I know the risen Christ too, but I’ve been with Him so seldom lately.

I’ve neglected the prayer closet. Maybe that’s the problem.

Because it’s hard to be a closet Christian when there is intimacy with Christ in the closet.

And, perhaps, the start of courage begins behind closed doors in the quiet before the dawn. On bended knees.

She brings it up over the phone when it’s almost midnight and my eyes are heavy. “Would your identity still exist if everything but Christ was stripped away?”

It scares me the way he talks about the Christian life.

Like when we run down to the beach in the middle of March. I watch two of my friends sprint past me and into the frigid Great Lake, chunks of ice still layered across the shoreline.

I dip my toes into the water and watch.

It’s polarizing.

Because I want to jump in the water too.

But it’s frigid.

It scares me the way he talks about the Christian life.

A life set apart. Offered up.

That’s what I want: to be immersed. Fully His. Brought under the water. Raised up to new life.

But the water is frigid.

I want increased sensitivity to His mercy, to His goodness, to His grace.

But I dread the waking up of my senses.

I want closeness with God.

But not the sacrifice of holiness.

I want the Spirit inside me.

But not His whispers of conviction.

I want Christ.

But I also want my life.

It’s polarizing.

Because I forget reality. The path is wide. Or narrow. And I can only choose one.

I’ve made my choice.

And like that, in the middle of March, I charge into the frigid water.

“Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.” Matthew 7:13-14

(Re-posting: Please be encouraged to make every dot on the timeline count.)

I remember, in my first year of university, studying the timeline of music history.

It’s funny how we put time on a line and scratch dashes through it and history seems small when it’s cut down to two 8.5×11 sheets of paper.

I laugh and tell Mom almost every week, “I don’t remember anything!”

Except for some things.

Almost a year ago, I held his hand while Dad played him his favourite hymn for the last time and the evening sun streamed through the window in the palliative care unit. I remember the deep orange of the setting sun.

It was a point on my timeline that seemed to change everything.

Last month, I walked out of my last exam and read the text that her first baby girl was born. It was that feeling of smallness, like I was looking down from space at my tiny human frame bent over a text, under millions of stars.

Another point.

Every point opening my eyes to the shortness of life.

Why does life seem so short if eternity doesn’t exist with which to be compared?

Ecclesiastes 3:11 “He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man’s heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.”

My thoughts are black. Evil is the guest of my imagination. And it’s only the first day of the week.

I text her for accountability and remember what she once told me. “Sometimes, Kate, battling sin is the way we honour God in our day.”

She thinks backwards. Like all the Great People.

I’m ashamed that I need to battle. Ashamed that I need to repent.

So, I lay my weapons down as soon the Dragon enters the room.

But failure is not contact with the dragon. It’s the refusal to fight.

I want to think of it backwards like her. That temptation is an opportunity.

An opportunity to pick up the sword. And fight like one who has been bought with blood from the Ultimate Victory.

An opportunity to see the defeated Dragon. No smoke. No mirrors. No special effects.

A chance to say ‘no’ to sin.

A chance to win glory for the King.

“But flee from these things, you man of God, and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, perseverance and gentleness. Fight the good fight of faith; take hold of the eternal life to which you were called.” 1 Timothy 6:11-12

There. On the second floor of the University Community Centre, I told her how I envisioned my life. Like a straight line–like the smooth edge of the horizon against the calm of a Great Lake.

That was four years ago.

Now, I sit on the couch in a house that looks like all the houses beside it. Just off the busiest highway in North America.

Nothing has gone as planned.

A child’s ideal. An adult’s reality. Two incompatibilities.

What did David understand as he cared for his father’s flocks? As a boy, did he dream of a simple life? As a man and a king, did he view his past with amazement?

Or Jonah. Did he plan to be swallowed by a fish and spit out again?

And was it what Paul expected when he was chained to prison walls, confined to house arrest?

It’s a comfort as the fog rolls in on a Saturday and I can barely see the house next to me. It’s a comfort that life is not like the horizon on a clear day. That nothing went as I planned.

Because my plans are like me–flawed, imperfect.

My plans are small. And I cannot think high enough thoughts. I cannot plan big enough plans.

But I know Someone who does.

Who is.

And she asks me what God has been doing in my life. And I stumble to answer.

I don’t know, but I know He’s doing something good.

“For it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.” Philippians 2:13