When John and I had our first child nearly 6 years ago, I went through an identity crisis. I was accustomed to 50 hours a week in the prayer room. Suddenly I could barely stay awake for 10 minutes of prayer in the hiddenness of my own home. For one year, the Lord allowed me to experience massive inner turmoil, because He saw the healing that would come at the end of it. Every day of that year I was torn between feeling such delight in mothering our child and a condemning sense that I was no longer wholehearted because I could not join in the corporate life of prayer like I used to. The accusation came from within—absolutely no person told me I was a failure. It surfaced out of wrong and wounded ideas about God. And it was energized by a religious spirit of torment.

The biggest breakthrough came when I repented of idolatry of the heart: Appearing wholehearted had become more important to me than actually being wholehearted. I was worshipping images of devotion rather than the Recipient of devotion.

Matthew 6 became the bread of life to me in that time because there Jesus defines wholeheartedness differently than we tend to:

Take heed that you do not do your charitable deeds before men, to be seen by them. Otherwise you have no reward with your Father in heaven. Therefore when you do a charitable deed, do not sound a trumpet before you as the hypocrites do…that they may have glory from men. Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward.  But when you do a charitable deed… [let it be] in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will Himself reward you openly (verses 1-4).

“Your Father who sees in secret…” God’s not measuring the appearance of righteousness, only the reality of it. He actually sees in secret… every movement of my heart for Him that is never seen or affirmed, every choice to serve others instead of serving myself, each prayer that comes from my heart whether it’s on a microphone or not… He sees in secret. Who am I in secret—when no one’s looking or applauding?

“Do not sound a trumpet before you as the hypocrites do…that they may have glory from men… They have their reward.” Sometimes when I find myself living for man’s praise rather than God’s, I say to myself something like this: Now that you’ve been applauded, do you feel better? Aren’t you glad you had 1 minute of feeling awesome! But it ends there. What’s unto man ends with man. But what’s unto God is never forgotten and rewarded forever. Had that deed been done unto God, it could have been reward which you experienced for all eternity, but rather you traded it for a minute of man’s praise! From now on, live for Your Father’s smile!

“[He] will Himself reward you openly…” Jesus promises the Father will reward those who live before Him in secret. And He promises to do it “openly”—in front of others—because the soul’s desire for justice and reward is a trace of God’s own image stamped upon us. The longing to be affirmed is legitimate. The question is simply: Who do I want affirmation from, God or man?  If man, then I may strive to attain it, but my reward ends there.

That day I repented from living before man’s eyes, something like a bronze ceiling broke open over my heart. I felt my love could fly into the heavens, right into the heart of Him for whom I was made. Now every moment mattered. Now no service was too small. Now each day became a love song I could sing in a thousand different ways. What a glorious way to live—to know we are gazed upon and cherished in secret. And to know that He is storing up reward that will never wear out!

“The Lord knows the days of the upright, and their inheritance shall be forever.” (Ps. 37:18)

“Oh, how great is Your goodness, which You have laid up for those who fear You…!” (Ps. 31:19)

Feeble footsteps forward are better than no footsteps at all. In the course of a year, moving forward one inch a day gets us a lot further than no movement. We often cower in the face of the mighty things in our walk with God, such as prayer, fasting, working through deep-rooted issues of the heart (fear, anger, etc.). We see these things as mountains or marathons—unattainable, insurmountable.

But God defines mighty differently than we do. He does not call “mighty” that which is easy for us to do in our own strength. What He calls mighty is the movement of our hearts to keep putting one foot forward again and again when it’s hard, seemingly unrewarding and weak.

God uses the “smallness” of our steps to produce humility in us rather than an arrogant, self-sufficient spirit.  God does not despise feeble footsteps; it is we, who wrongly measure our growth in comparison with others, who negate their worth.

There is great fortitude in feeble footsteps.

Some of the things that keep me from valuing and taking feeble footsteps are:

1.  Comparison. I disqualify the worth of my “baby step” by comparing it to the seemingly big step of another. I say, “Since my step is small, I might as well not take it at all.”

2.  Excuses and Blame-shifting. Such as: “It’s too hard to fast when you’re a mom. It’s  too hard to abstain from food when I’m serving it to my kids.” The truth: Where there’s a will, there’s a way. (What about starting with no sweets? This can go a long way when all you want is some chocolate to ease your frazzles from a full day!) The kind of excuse we tend to entertain the most is blame-shifting. For example: “I just can’t live with a joyful heart when I am regularly treated so rudely.”

Hmm… NOTE TO SELF: There is ultimately only one garden you’ve been commissioned to tend and keep: yours. You will not give account for your brother’s mistreatment of you. But you will give account for what you grow in your own garden in response.

3.  Waiting for the desire. “Since I don’t want to fast and pray out of legalism, I will wait until I have desire.” The problem is I stopped asking God to give me desire, to enlarge my heart, to draw me. Oops—big oops. (The glorious thing is that when He does put desire in me, I will have humility in the thing because I’ll know where I was before His help came.)

I’ve found that hunger begets hunger. When He gives hunger to take a feeble footstep forward, soon I am hungry to take another step and another—faster and further-reaching. Then suddenly, like a wee-one who has learned to walk, I realize I can run! …But not without taking feeble footsteps over and over, until the muscles have been trained in the motion!

Here are some synonyms for fortitude: Strength, Courage, Resilience, Guts, Staying power, Grit, Stamina, Determination, Endurance.

This is where feeble footsteps lead!

Every marathon runner was once a baby who learned not to despise the smallness of his/her steps. Each mountain climber was once a toddler who learned to get up after he/she fell down.

And even once we are grown… A marathon is only completed one step at a time. Not even the weakest step should be despised.

Oh, the fortitude of feeble footsteps! How can we expect to move forward without them?

It’s a very risky thing to suppress the truth when the word of God comes to you.

If I don’t receive His word to me today, I might not be able to hear Him speak so well tomorrow. Heart-hardening = hearing loss.

He says, “Today if you hear My voice, do not harden your hearts” (Heb. 3:7-13), because we do not have the guarantee that we will even be able to hear His voice in a year or two if we keep refusing Him. “Today,” explains the author of Hebrews, “lest any of you be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin” (Heb. 3:13).

In C. S. Lewis’ The Magician’s Nephew, the first book of the Chronicles of Narnia, Aslan (a lion depicting Jesus) explains to a boy that his uncle cannot hear the truth anymore; he has repressed it for too long. Aslan says something like this to the boy: “When I talk with you, you hear My words. But when I talk to him, he only hears an animal roaring.”

We were made to have vibrant hearts that leap when we hear His voice! Sin hinders our ability to hear. We imagine we can cling to a little bitterness, foster a bit of envy, enjoy some immorality…and then later pick where we left off with God. But we have no such guarantee! Our hearing is hampered as we resist conviction, and we might not be able to hear Him at all if we continue to willfully sin. No wonder Paul says, “He has now reconciled you…to present you before Him holy and blameless…if indeed you continue in the faith…steadfast” (Col. 1:22-23).

One of my favorite IHOP choruses goes like this:

“Your love is not a concept, it’s a Burning Heart that demands a response
So take me past the language, and put deep in me a desire for abandonment.”

Love demands a response. Heart-hardening = hearing loss. My ability to hear Him is affected by my response to Him.

What kind of response is He looking for? Simply a real and humble one. I think He says to us, “Let go of all that pretending nonsense. Be real with Me. It’s the real you I died for.”

When I was 14 years old I began falling into some sin. Shaken by my desire to continue in it, I confided in one of my sisters, who gave me powerful advice. It radically rescued me out of the trap of the evil one. She said, “You need to pray for a hatred of this sin.”

That night I began praying that God would give me a hatred of the sin, and a couple of days later, I found myself refusing that sin. I could not continue in it because God was changing my heart.

We do not have to fight the war against sin alone. If we will open to Jesus, and ask Him to give us a hatred for sin, He will help us. He will fight jealously for us and with us.

I don’t ever want to stop hearing Him. I don’t want to harden my wounded heart with bitterness. I want to just open my bleeding heart to Him and let Him speak into it… then do whatever He says.

I’m convinced everyone possesses a God-given longing for greatness. As believers, we might have thought this longing was from some dark place in our souls, or from the devil. Perhaps we have tried repeatedly to repent of it.  But when two disciples asked Jesus for a position of greatness in His Father’s kingdom, He didn’t rebuke them for their desire. He did shock them with how to fulfill it. “Whoever wishes to be great…must be the servant” (Mt. 20:26-28). Our longing for greatness is not wicked. Our self-exalting attempts to satisfy it are!

How do we get power on the inside to walk the path of greatness that Jesus sets before us? Where do we get the fuel to serve without resentment, without regard for recognition?

Here’s how: When we know our dearness to God and His promise to one day openly reward every choice for humility and servanthood in Him, we are empowered to go low and serve. Just before Jesus washed His disciples’ feet, He was pondering His greatness (Jn. 13:3). Reclining at a table, He was thinking about how He had power over all things; how one day all would bow before Him; how He would soon ascend to sit at the right hand of the Father. He remembered how all the angels stood in awe of Him in heaven! And as such thoughts filled His mind, He arose from the table and went to the lowest place. Without resentment He bowed down to wash the dirtiest part of the very ones who were about to abandon Him—even deny Him—in His darkest hour.

In Colossians 3:1-14, Paul reveals the same movement of the heart. I would paraphrase it something like this:

You’ve been raised and seated with Christ on the most powerful throne in the entire universe. Fill your thoughts with this. You’re going to be glorified with Christ when He appears. The Father will openly reward every hidden act of love. In the twinkling of an eye, your body will be changed to display the measure of glory you cultivated during your earthly life. So starve out the cravings of your old nature: sexual immorality, greed, and grasping after worldly things to satisfy your eternal longings. Completely turn your back upon anger, slander, and unclean speech. For (remember!) you have taken off your old self, and you have put on the new self, which is growing in glory as it grows in Christ. Therefore, as ones appointed for greatness, set apart for God and deeply loved by Him, clothe yourselves with tenderness and humility… and above all, put on love.

Paul told the Corinthians that they were acting like “mere men” by their envious fractions (1 Cor. 3:1-3). His implication is that if they knew their greatness, they wouldn’t have to squabble anymore over who belongs to whom. A thief wouldn’t need to steal anymore if he knew he were already rich with inheritance.

So, why do we grasp for men’s approval when the King of the Ages is lovingly watching us? Why do we care if our good deeds go unnoticed by people when we have a Father who sees in secret and will openly reward us in the next age? Oh, when I know it deep in my heart, I will gladly serve (in prayer and deed) those who might never know or thank me.

Now, God doesn’t tell us we have to feel kind and humble. He says to put on kindness and humility. And as we make the choice to cultivate His nature, He’ll meet us there; and He’ll change our emotions in time.

Greatness is forged by choices for love and righteousness, whether we feel virtuous in the moment or not.

In Matthew 5:19, Jesus said that the one who follows His teaching—namely the teaching He was giving in Sermon on the Mount—and teaches others to do the same will be great in the kingdom of heaven. When we are faithful to be a servant to the Word, regardless of the persecution or disapproval it brings from others, we are at once serving God and others. We have become the servant of all.

Father, I set my heart again today to put on Christ’s character. And if, in the moment, I don’t feel it, that’s ok. I’m going to put it on anyway. Thank You that You will transform my emotions in the process, and You will one day openly reward each choice for love and holiness.

The Day of the Lord is coming. It is His day. Christ will come back to the earth to restore it by bringing every government and every facet of creation (including all the animals—see Isa. 11:5-9) under the leadership of His righteousness, humility, and justice. He will reign, in joyful partnership with His people, until everything is brought under His feet. Then He will do what no king has done before. He will take it all—every achievement, every government, all the money, all the honor—and give it to His Father (1 Cor. 15:22). “I did it all for love, Father! All along, I’ve been serving You, not Myself. I did it all for You! You are the portion of My inheritance and My cup!”

What does a squirrel have to do with all this? Just keep reading. You’ll see!

In His Day and the ages that follow the Lord will fulfill every promise He has made to us. He has so much goodness stored up for those who live before His eyes and wait for His recompense (Ps. 31:19). No eye has seen, no ear has heard, nor has it even entered into the heart of man all that He has prepared for those who love Him (1 Cor. 2:9). No good thing will He withhold for those who walked rightly before Him (Ps. 84:11); for the meek, those who wait, will inherit the earth and enjoy great peace; and God will fulfill the desires of their hearts (Ps. 37).

So many promises. We are waiting for SO MANY promises in the Word, not to mention the personal dreams that God has planted within our hearts!

Lord, are Your promises for now or then?

Jesus didn’t receive all His promises in this age. Why do I think I will? He’s still waiting… why wouldn’t I? He saw this age as mostly about walking in joyful servanthood—being confident that His Father sees and will reward one day. Shouldn’t I? Is a servant greater than His master?

Neither did the saints receive the fullness of what they were promised…yet (Heb. 11). They are still waiting… Why wouldn’t I?

Now some of the traffic in my soul begins to settle. The “road rage” is receding. I don’t have to grasp or strive to fulfill what God spoke to me. I just need to be faithful in the little things. I just need to be holy in the midst of the pressures. And to just wait…

Does this mean I look for a life of misery? Do we conclude that all God’s promises are for then, not now?

No, no! Abraham and the others of Hebrews 11 would tell us that part of faith-filled waiting is believing that He will break into this age with signs of the age to come. The author of Hebrews calls them “powers of the age to come.” Healings and miracles are powers of the age to come.  A little bit of manifest anointing on our ministry is power of the Millennial kingdom when we will see massive results when we sing/play/pray.

God wants us to live in a posture of expectancy for Him to break in NOW with “partial signs” of what He’ll do in fullness one day. He wants to testify of that Day to our hearts and to those who do not yet believe.

And here is how God spoke of this to me through a squirrel:

There are lots of squirrels in our yard. Abby (age 5) and Andrew (age 2 ½) ask on a regular basis to hold them. I got so tired of explaining to them that squirrels always run away from us that one day I told Abby, “I’m sorry, sweetie, but you will not be able to hold squirrels until Jesus comes back to be King over all the earth. Then you will get to be friends with all the wild animals!”

Well, the next day a baby squirrel walked right up to her, as if begging to be held. She picked it up! She held it for a long time. Andrew did, too. They played with it for about 2 hours before we let it go back to its home.

What a laugh! I think God was winking at me and saying, “Now dear, I can break in with powers of the age to come anytime I want to!”

He might have also been asking, “Will you live with a looking heart—eager for Me to testify of the coming Day?”

Yes, Lord, I will! I will believe again that You want to heal today, not just then. I will look for You to make Your name great in our eyes today, not just then.

And at the end of His Day (which I believe is the end of the Millennium), we will all agree with Christ that our Father is our exceedingly great reward! The reason we will love holding squirrels (or living out our dreams) so very much is because we will experience His pleasure as we do it! And forever, living out our dreams will be about fellowship with Him.

I grew up in a religious environment where deep things of the heart were not so easily expressed, even positive things like joy. Once, in the beginning days of IHOP-KC, I was telling the Lord, “I want to have joy! Give me Your joy!” Remembering that Mike Bickle had taught on the joy of Jesus out of Psalm 45:7, I turned to it:  “You love righteousness and hate wickedness; Therefore God, Your God, has anointed You With the oil of gladness more than Your companions.”

I remember the spot in the prayer room where I was standing that day. I stood there in shock. God, You mean to tell me that the reason Jesus has more joy than any other human on the earth is because He loves righteousness and hates wickedness?

Wouldn’t you think it would say, “You love righteousness and hates wickedness, therefore You are so angry and annoyed because there is no one who is righteous—no, not one!” But no! “Therefore,” the Scripture says, He has more joy than anyone!

I wondered, Could it be, Lord, that the more righteous I become the more joyful I become? And I imagine He broke into a smile when I asked this of Him and said, “Yes! Blessed are they whose way is blameless! Their hearts are not weighed down! They are free to love! Free to enjoy My goodness!”

When you read the Gospels’ accounts of Christ, do you see the happiest man that ever walked the earth?

Sometimes God acts in ways that we don’t understand. Maybe we don’t always see His kindness in His severity (because we don’t have all the information like He does). More times than I can count, while reading the Gospels I have exclaimed to the Lord, “What You said to that person seems downright rude! Help me see what You saw, that I might understand what You said!”

It is not accusation to dialogue with the Lord in this way; it is wrestling. Accusation insists I know something God does not. Wrestling insists God knows something I do not and reaches for renewing of the mind.

So as we see the way Christ interacted with people, we can—and should!—ask the Holy Spirit, “Show me what this scenario looked like considering this Man was the most gracious, merciful, joyful man that ever walked the earth?” As we hear His words we can ask, “What would have these words sounded like, considering He was the holiest and happiest man ever?”  (It is Christ’s promise to us—that the Counselor would take belongs to Him and disclose it to us!)

How different instruction sounds when it comes from a heart that’s full of joy; and correction, when it flows from a heart of compassion! His zeal to deal with sin is simply His passion to set His people free into the joy He created them for. He just wants to remove what hinders love.

I see myself very differently when I look through His eyes of joy. Only then can I interpret His discipline rightly! I see others differently, too—enabled to rejoice over my companions, even as He does! “As for the saints who are on the earth, they are the excellent ones in whom is all my delight” (Ps. 16:3). Usually when I am cranky with others it is because I think God is cranky with me. It is in beholding His glad heart that I become a person of gladness.

How this makes sense of what we know about Jesus and the people who loved and hated Him! Children love vibrant people. They don’t like ol’ cranks! Sinners like genuine and happy people, not stiff and mean folks. And ambitious religious leaders hate lively ones who put people before their program.

Could we stop accusing Him? Could we enter into the wrestling of faith, assuming He knows something we don’t—that if we knew all He knew we would never suspect Him of being too harsh again?

Let’s allow the Holy Spirit to make Ps. 45:7 the holy lens through which we interpret all His words and deeds.

God is not just a bridegroom, He’s the Bridegroom. He’s not just one among many; He’s the Only. He does not follow our definitions of bridegroom; He is the Definer.

In the days of the Old Testament prophets, God described His affection and commitment toward Israel as that of a bridegroom toward his bride; He told them He missed the devotion of their youth, how as a bride they loved Him; and He promised to do such a work of recall in them that they would one day be fully devoted to Him as Husband (Isa. 62:5; Jer. 2:2; Hos. 3:1). When God took on flesh, He proclaimed Himself to be the Bridegroom of old (Mt. 9:15). It was not merely a disclosure of His desire for the heart of man; it was a statement of His Divinity. When Christ called Himself the Bridegroom, He declared He is Yahweh—the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob; the God who parted the Red Sea. He was saying, in essence, “I’m here to betroth you to Myself forever.”

Before God made the heavens and earth, He was the Bridegroom. Out of the overflow of His heart, His mouth spoke, “Let there be light,” and “Let Us make man in our own image.” These great decrees, and all the creative commands that lay between them, are the beginning of the record of His pursuit of the human heart.

He created the heavens and earth to be the landscape on which His glory is displayed and the setting in which to pursue the heart of mankind. He chose the Cross before there were any trees for its timbers (1 Pet. 1:19-20). He knew us long before He brought us forth. The Father “chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless…” (Eph. 1:4, emphasis mine).

In Ephesians 5:32 Paul tells us that God’s design for man and wife speaks of a great mystery: Christ and the Church. In other words, man and wife did not come first in God’s heart, Christ and the Bride did. God gave marriage to mankind to bear witness to His plan to bring forth a treasured people unto Himself.

When God formed Eve out of Adam’s side, and saw their joy in each other, He didn’t think, “Oh, what a great idea to have a wife. I’d like one, too!” No, Adam and Eve were brought forth because the Bride was already in God’s heart.

This is why Jesus does not call Himself a bridegroom, but the bridegroom (Mt. 9:15). He is not one of many rising out of the ashes of self-seeking, sin-diseased unions. He is the Author, before whose glory all have fallen short.

Something in the human heart craves being part of a love story, just listen to the tales of the generations. To be joyfully loved is one of the deepest longings of the human heart. I think this is because God put it there. We were made to be part of a love story: His story. The meaning and the glory of our existence is hidden in Him. Outside of Him, man has no glory which will last.

Have you ever wondered why God likened His love for us to something that is so fractured and failing? Earthly marriage is beset with struggle, betrayal, and death. How is our broken picture supposed to lead us to the perfect one?

Perhaps the answer is simply this: When we see that nothing of this world satisfies the desire that burns within us, then we are ready for encounter with God.

I wonder if some of our marriage troubles are rooted in our expectation (even demand!) that our natural spouse would be to us the all-in-all fulfillment of our souls, when only One can be! Such idolatry, such grasping onto another to be that which only God can be, creates a climate of disappointment and sets up a spouse for failure—again and again! We have taken a good gift that was meant to lead us to Him, and we have exalted it above Him.

Our ache for perfect love is a God-given gift designed to lead us to Him. He is the Bridegroom—totally-other-than in righteousness and faithfulness. Here, as we consider our betrothal to the God of Genesis 1, exuberant celebration joins with a holy hush, and total transparency of heart joins with utmost reverence in our way.

He is holy. He is our Maker. And is our Husband.

Love is kind, not nice.

God is Love. God is kind, not nice. He would much rather offend us with tough truth now, so that we walk in the Light, than to see us be destroyed in our delusion. (But He’s patient, too—so much more patient than any of us.)

When Jesus speaks words that cut to our heart, He is usually speaking on a different level than we are hearing. We try to interpret His words based on what we see and know. He is speaking based on what He sees and knows.

For example, consider the rich young ruler who asked Jesus how he might be complete in righteousness. He was obeying the commandments of God, but surely he felt a distance between his heart and Christ’s, or why else would he ask such a question? Jesus’ answer was devastating! “Looking at him, Jesus felt a love for him and said to him, ‘One thing you lack: go and sell all you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me’” (Luke 10:21).

Immediately we think, “Jesus, really?! It’s so extreme! Why? Isn’t this guy keeping all the commandments?” Arguing. Trying to interpret His words based on what we see and know.

But Jesus is speaking based on what He sees and knows. “But at these words [the young man]^[ was saddened, and he went away grieving, for he was one who owned much property” (Luke 10:22). He saw the young man’s heart was entwined with a love for possessions, that it had a deceptive sway over his soul. (What Jesus would ask you to leave behind may be different. But Jesus never asks us to give something up without offering something better! He invited him to gain possessions which will never be destroyed!)

So we have 2 options: One, we can argue with Him based on what we see and know. Or two, we can humble ourselves and ask Him to tell us what He sees and knows.

We’ve all been in the arguing mode. It’s a very natural, human response. The prophets had it. We have it. The Lord knows our struggle to comprehend His other-than way of thinking. He listens as we spout off arguments. Then He waits to see if we will listen. Will we be quiet, and ask Him to tell us what He sees and knows… let Him define the terms, reveal our motives, break in with light.

I see myself in my 4 year old girl. She displays my own soul’s struggles in vivid color. She reaches to grasp why certain rules or disciplines are in place. I think in her mind, the world would be a lot better if I would just let off. But I see some things she doesn’t see… Likewise, if I struggle to grasp God’s goodness in His disciplines, then I have not grasped the severity of my sin and where it would take me if He left me to grow in it.

Just as He triumphantly rejoices over budding virtues of holiness in my heart as though they were mature plants, He points out the seedlings of wickedness in my heart with a tone I’d only expect to hear if He were looking at evil when it is full-grown!

He sees what is in our hearts, and He knows where those things will take us. No crooked word comes from His mouth. He does not exaggerate to make a point. Neither does He minimize truth to buffer its sting. “Faithful are the wounds of a friend…” (Prov. 27:6).

“Let the righteous smite me in kindness and reprove me; it is oil upon the head; do not let my head refuse it” (Ps. 141:5). I will count such wounds as favor, Lord, not rejection. For You discipline those You love.

The human mind is an amazing thing of God’s creation. It never stops, even when we sleep. God designed our minds to be a place of continual dialogue with Him, but this does not happen automatically. Unless we tell our thoughts where to go, they will slide down into darkness as easily as an egg rolls off the counter onto the floor!

Our thoughts are not neutral. We are either partnering with the intercession of Jesus or the accusations of Satan.

Recently Paul’s prayer for the church at Rome to abound in hope has been revived in my heart: “Now may the God of hope fill you will all joy and peace in believing, so that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit” (Rom. 15:13)

The God of hope! Seeing the end from the beginning, He “gives life to the dead and calls into being that which does not exist” (Rom. 4:17).  He is the One who looked at childless Abraham and called him a father of many nations. Appearing to Gideon who had a complex about being the least He called him a “mighty man of valor.” He described David as a man after His heart, although David had some serious issues which caused him to stumble badly. He affirmed Peter’s willing spirit when his flesh was still weak. He called Paul forth as a love-stricken apostle while he was yet a murderer of the saints.

What does He see when He looks at you? You would likely be surprised by what He’d say. My guess is that you might sometimes—even often—look at yourself with more of the Accuser’s eye than the Intercessor’s. Dark words. Dark thoughts.

Did you know He has great hope when He looks at you? He sees in the midst of your struggles (and through them!) to the glory He is producing in you by them. He sees the gold while it is yet covered in muck, being refined in the fire. He knows the greatness and beauty of the vessel while it is yet a mass of clay. There is a smile in the Potter’s eye as He works!

Or do you think somehow He has hope in His eyes for everyone but you? Not so! He sees where you have come from, the challenges you are facing, and where you are going. He calls forth the little seeds of promise in you long before they are mature.

I love to grow garden plants from seed. I start them indoors before spring arrives because it takes so much time for them to grow. If I want to get 3 tomato plants, I plant at least 20 seeds because they don’t all make it. So when I see some little sprouts poking their tiny heads through the soil, I’m excited! As I water them every day, I can’t help but sing over them and speak to them, because I am glad they grew some more. Within a month, they are 2 inches tall; and while they are far from being a fruitful vine, I rejoice over them. When I look at a little seedling, I see a full-grown tomato plant. If I, being fallen, can feel so much pleasure in the process of a seed’s growth, how much more our Father in heaven over His children?

When we see ourselves as the God of hope sees us, it becomes a lot easier to also see others as the God of hope sees them. You can’t give what you haven’t received.

Receive God’s perspective over you, and you will be able to give God’s perspective over others.

As a start, just ask Him on a daily basis, “I want to see what You see and feel what You feel when You look at me.” (This is not selfish, it’s essential. It’s about agreeing with God.) And pray this concerning others.

I find that most times I get into a cranky spirit I can trace it back to some agreement with the Accuser in my thoughts. It usually starts with an accusation concerning my own heart and the Lord. I think He’s annoyed with me, tired of loving me. Then I feel sure others feel the same way about me. Before long, I feel annoyed with others, tired of being patient.

Sound familiar?

The cure of such a funk is quite simple: We break agreement with the lies. Then we fill our minds with the truth of who God is (He is the God of hope) and what He sees (fruit coming forth from struggle, if we yield to Him in it).

And we pray Romans 15:13 every time our thoughts start sliding downward.

“Man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart” (1 Sam. 16:7). Mankind tends to put much emphasis on outward appearance. Many children grow up believing their worth is defined by how they look. Adults are tempted to make divers assumptions about others based on physical attractiveness. We think we know how fun, smart, or wealthy people are by what our eyes see. How misleading is our human evaluation! Through it we would not have recognized the Lord of Glory.

Jesus Christ, the Everlasting God, when He took on flesh, accepted an unattractive frame. Can you believe it? It almost sounds like heresy to say the God-Man was unattractive. But Isaiah says it clearly: “He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in His appearance that we should desire Him” (Isa. 53:2-3, emphasis mine). He had no special appearance that we should love Him on this basis.

People are ever grasping after a more stunning physical show—in our day there are all sorts of surgeries to change undesirable traits—and here is the Christ, the One most worthy of a stunning image, and He chose a plain one. He who is destined to be the Desire of all nations was born in an animal stable. He is more awesome than all the sons of men, yet He came to us with a physical appearance that did not attract people. When He reigns from Jerusalem, all peoples of the earth will stream there to learn from Him; but when He first came, He was despised and rejected.

One day, Christ will be the most sought-after and desirable Man in all heaven and earth. How we will crave His presence. We will love to hear Him speak and laugh and sing. Oh, the glory of His person! We will be so drawn to Him. For all the ages to come, we will be fascinated by His beauty! His joy, humility, wisdom, tenderness, and power will ignite yearning for Him again and again. But back to His first coming… He didn’t choose a stunning frame to attract crowds. He wanted His influence to come from the inside out.

When Christ came into the world, he said: “Sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but a body you prepared for me … Here I am… I have come to do your will, O God” (Hebrews 10:5-7, emphasis mine). It may be more accurate to say that the Father chose a simple frame for Jesus, and Jesus accepted it. He fully entered into the physical weakness of human experience (Php. 2:6-8). He knows what it’s like to cultivate grateful love with what you’ve been given, to receive the invitation to grow in inward glory. We struggle against bitterness over what the Father hasn’t granted; He rejoiced in what the Father gave Him (Ps. 40:8; 16:5-6).

The Lord is calling us to repent of internalizing man’s fallen definitions of worth. He wants us to agree with Him that His creation of us is good. He planned us with great thoughtfulness (Ps. 139)! He designed how all aspects of our person—appearance, personality, gift mix, and more—would blend together. And He loves how He made us. Oh, we should not hate what He so deeply loves!

I think the deceiver assigns demons to linger at mirrors, waiting to breathe foul lies upon us when we awaken in the morning and prepare for the day. He sows thoughts of rejection of the ‘raw material’ God has given us to work with, which leads to comparison, envy, and self-hatred. All the while, our heavenly Father would tell us there is stunning uniqueness in what we see as ordinary. Even through our lowly traits, He is inviting us to grow in glory on the inside, “the imperishable quality” of a yielded heart, “which is precious in the sight of God” (1 Pet. 3). God wants us to renew our minds according to what He thinks about us, rather than being conformed to the world’s evaluations of worth (Rom. 12:1-2).
What would happen if we took a minute to confess—to say it out loud—Psalm 139:13-14 before we got out of bed to look in that mirror? Perhaps it would transform the way we see ourselves and others. Perhaps a new culture (one of life and joy!) would be created within us that is more powerful than the culture of despair outside of us. Perhaps it would transform us, day by day.

O Lord, give us a new look at how You have made us.