Mar 4, 2020 | The Good Word
This week, we’re in Proverbs 2!
Hi there! If you missed a week or two, no worries! I extended an invitation a few weeks ago to join me in walking through Proverbs. Jump in ANY time. You can read the chapter we’re looking at before reading on (optional but definitely good for you if you can swing it!) I also recommend asking a friend to join you on the journey. (Click this link to take you to the introduction to this series if you want to know more.)
When wisdom enters your heart,
And knowledge is pleasant to your soul,
Discretion will preserve you;
Understanding will keep you… (Prov. 2:10-11)
You know one thing that can really be hard about running the race of faith?
It’s definitely not a sprint.
And Jesus made this one promise that I think of often: “It’s impossible that no offenses will come.”
Gosh, that’s a tough part about being human. I recently experienced one of those internal wrestling matches with being offended. I asked for help with an upcoming event, and received an immediate “Yes! I can help!” followed by a different response a couple of days later, when something better came up.
I wanted to say, “Oh man, I’m so disappointed! Are you sure you can’t keep your word?”
But I sensed that quiet, gentle, you-have-to-calm-down-to-hear-it voice saying, “Trust Me.”
I knew God to be an Author and an Orchestrator, and I trusted everything was going to be okay. (And it ended up working out for my good!!)
That was a tiny little disappointment in the grand scheme of things, but the big truth is, life is going to happen. It’s a funny thing — we never say anyone gives offense, we just say we take it. Surely we can choose not to take it, right?
And sometimes, let’s just go ahead and put this truth out there, too — we are going to be the offender.
The question isn’t if — rather when — and more importantly, what are we going to do on the other side?
Do me a favor and picture yourself swimming your race of faith for Jesus. Now, picture yourself in one of those super cool Olympic swimsuits that’s incredibly well designed to be efficient like sharkskin and streamlined and produce almost zero drag. You jump off the starting blocks and dive in and you’re slicing through the water like a sharp knife in soft butter.
Suddenly, something happens. Maybe a mistake you made you can’t shake the shame of. A mistake someone else made you can’t shake the hurt of.
And you suddenly discover something is tied to that hydrodynamic swimsuit of yours. Maybe it’s just a thin little slip, a small scarf. Maybe it’s thick like a strip cut from a bath towel, and there it is, tied right at your shoulder, creating a bunch of what swimmers call “drag” and man… it is a drag.
Sure you can keep swimming, but this is going to slow you down. And if you keep picking up thick slices of bath towel as you go? It might get so tough you decide to stop swimming altogether.
Where do we go to figure out what is weighing us down? It’d be great if you could hop out of the pool, look in a mirror, see what was hanging off your suit, and stand there and untie one thing after the other, right?
Well I’ve got some good news. This Word we’re reading through? It’s like a mirror for your soul.
If you put on your literary hat while reading Proverbs 2, you’ll notice words like Wisdom, Knowledge, Understanding, and Discretion are personified. The Message version really brings it out if you want to see it clearly. The Word is explaining this principle: Lady Wisdom and her posse, like people, can be your BFFs. They can come alongside you and point things out that you wouldn’t see otherwise. They can whisper to your soul, help you avoid the dangers and snares of bad choices and bad relationships.
The more you read the Word, the more you can hear their voices. Dig in deep, and they’ll show you good things, help you ask hard questions. Like these:
Jesus, are there things in my life that are dragging me down?
Is there something I need to let go of so that I can move forward with freedom?
Is there a slice of bath towel I need to untie to keep swimming?
Sometimes these questions can bring up simple moments from weeks ago, complex and deep hurts from years ago, or habits that are taking you places you don’t want to go. (We’ll talk more on that later.) Either way, I highly recommend asking those questions, and turning to that friend that you are turning to to talk most honestly — and/or possibly even looking for the guidance of a trusted Pastor or Christian Counselor if complex and deep hurts start coming to the surface and you need help moving forward.
This is One Step Deeper for this week: Ask God for the wisdom to see what past hurts or experiences might be dragging you down, and for the wisdom to figure out how to let God untie that drag so you can move forward. Remember that verse I started out with? When wisdom enters your heart, and knowledge is pleasant to your soul? Discretion will preserve you and understanding will keep you.
Starting the journey of dealing with past hurts can be so daunting you’d rather just keep limping along — but when you find that understanding that helps put the past into perspective and breathes fresh hope into your future? It’s like the pain of getting a big splinter removed from your foot — yes, it will hurt at first, but on the other side?
What blessed relief.
Go Deeper this week, friends!
xCC
Extra Credit: Can you write down a thought for your soul today? Maybe a specific verse from Proverbs 2 you’d like to mull over for a while? Ask Jesus if you’ve got drag on your swimsuit and pray for His help to move forward. Jump onto the With Love, From Here Facebook Page if you’d like to respond to this post, share something God has said, or even ask for help finding counsel… Let’s run the race together, friends!
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I hope you’re encouraged today, friend.
If so, I’d love to welcome you to subscribe here for a weekly dose of encouragement.
***
Feb 27, 2020 | The Good Word
Here’s Proverbs One if you’d like to read it first!
Last week, I shared an invitation to jump into Proverbs together. You can dive a little deeper by reading one chapter each week to give you some context for the discussion below, or you can jump right in. I hope you’re encouraged to get a little deeper every week!
For those of you who caught last week’s post and my invitation to jump into Proverbs, let’s jump right in with a question about the homework I gave you.
{If you didn’t catch last week’s email… don’t worry! Jump in anyway!!!}
So…Homework? What homework, you ask?
Well, I asked you to take a gander at Proverbs 1, and I asked you one more thing — bring a friend. Let someone join you on your journey toward deeper faith. That homework is strategic!
How did you do with that? Got a co-runner for your faith marathon?
Here’s why I’m asking. While we visited my sister’s family in Colorado a few years ago, my brother-in-law shared some crazy statistics in his Sunday morning sermon. (These impressive stats came from Vital Friends (by Tom Rath in case you want to check that one out. I haven’t read it so I make no promises.)
Here is a little sampling of what my brother-from-another-mother shared:
- If your best friend eats healthily, you are five times more likely to have a healthy diet yourself.
- Married people say friendship is more than five times as important as physical intimacy within marriage.
- Those who say they have no real friends at work have only a one in 12 chance of feeling engaged in their job.
- Conversely, if a person has a “best friend at work”, he or she is seven times more likely to feel engaged in his/her job.
Long story short… Proverbs jumps right in by asking who you’re hanging out with and warning you to be careful in the choices you make.
You’re also invited to soak deep into the wisdom of God instead of drinking from fountains of foolishness. (Let’s be honest, if we spend much time on Facebook, we know there are plenty of fountains of foolishness available to drink from.)
Now, after asking yourself a question about who your people are, I’m going to add on one more.
How honest are you with your person or people? Are you saying “I’m fine” when you’re anything but? Are there deeper issues that you know are lurking somewhere beneath the surface, but you’re afraid to speak up?
I once had an incredibly wise and wonderful mentor, many moons ago in Scotland, who said that you can be honest, or you can be more honest, or you can be “most honest.”
I’m not going to plead with you to be most honest with a stranger in line at the grocery store, but I am going to encourage you to be most honest with someone. If you have a spouse, I think that’d be an ideal person. A parent. A trusted friend. A pastor. A counselor.
As we continue walking through Proverbs, the wisdom you find may uncover some things in your soul that you haven’t truly dealt with. The hindrances that keep us from running our race well are so much more often internal than external.
If you have that person you can be most honest with, do your best to be most honest with them. Especially if you find yourself challenged to let go of something, step into something, or deal with something as our journey through Proverbs continues. The enemy of your soul would love to grab that seed before it has a chance to take root in your heart. So find that trusted person, and aim at most honest whenever possible.
Have you ever noticed how much more often you remember something if you tell someone else about it? Share what you’re learning, and somehow it seems to stick to your own soul a little better.
I love that blessed old African proverb:
If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.
We’ve got a long race ahead of us, friends. For the glory of God, we simply have to do it together.
xCC
Now… write down a thought. Talk with Jesus about your friends and whether you’re being most honest. I’d love to have some “guest readers” sharing something Proverbs spoke to them — so feel free to share something you’re learning on the With Love, From Here Facebook page or shoot me a message. I’d love for this to be a two-way conversation!
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I hope you’re encouraged today, friend.
If so, I’d love to welcome you to subscribe here for a weekly dose of encouragement. Join me on this journey through Proverbs and never miss a post! I’d also love to welcome you to share this email with a friend and ask them to join you on a walk through Proverbs. We’re just looking at one chapter a week together — slow and steady, moving out into deeper waters.
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One little update from the Collie corner: We celebrated Blake’s 9th Birthday this week. I can’t thank you friends enough for your prayers. He’s doing so incredibly well and I am so incredibly grateful! Please continue praying for the restoration of his left field of vision (20/20 in 2020!) and the complete healing of his short term memory. He’s doing so, so well, friends. It is a joy to tell you that! Raise a Hallelujah!
Feb 19, 2020 | The Good Word
From the day my Dad and brother first tossed me into the pool to force me to learn how to swim, (great story for another day) I have felt completely at home in the water. Ya know, once I learned how to swim. Most every summer day of my childhood after that included riding my bike to swim in the pool nearby or hopping back and forth from the pool to the ocean when we were down at the beach.
In high school, I swam on the swim team, (big time sprinter here), helped coach a kids swim team, surfed a little and lifeguarded as a summer job. I felt just as comfortable holding my breath while swimming from one end of the pool to the other as I felt twirling my whistle on the lifeguard stand.
Until.
Fast forward a good seven years. I had the opportunity to take a crash course on scuba diving and then head out for the day to dive around Sodwana Bay in South Africa. Beautiful location, great opportunity.
Except.
Holding my breath for ages was not a problem, but the idea that I’d be twenty feet below the surface breathing from an Oxygen tank for an extended period — I just couldn’t get used to it.
I’d been through the “educational” part of the diving training, and it was time to practice in the pool. I was psyching myself up to be able to give it the good old college try. Mouthpiece clenched between my teeth, three feet below the surface, we got to one part in the lesson where you have to pretend to knock your mouthpiece out of your mouth (because someone else’s flipper could do that underwater). Then you slowly stretch your arm out, grasp the mouthpiece, clear the water from it and begin breathing again.
That *slowly* thing was what got me. I could snatch the mouthpiece out of my mouth, grab it, stuff it back in and clear it, five seconds flat. What the instructor was looking for was that I could handle slowly, purposefully removing it, and not panicking to get it clenched in my teeth again.
I tried it. It was unsatisfactory. She pointed to someone else to take a turn. She asked me to try again. Once again, I was changing tires on a Nascar track. Fast. She demonstrated again, the art of slowly removing the mouthpiece, letting it fall to her side, gracefully stretching her arm out, gently bringing the piece back, and so on.
After three or four attempts, I pointed, much less gracefully, to indicate that I was headed for the surface to breathe some Oxygen that wasn’t inside a compressed tank.
I don’t know exactly what it was about the breathing underwater thing that just didn’t gel with me. I opted for a long luxurious walk down a deserted beach instead that day — and really enjoyed it — but also knew I’d missed out on some of the special sights below sea level that day.
The trouble was — I just couldn’t slow down.
Does not wisdom cry out,
And understanding lift up her voice?
She takes her stand on the top of the high hill,
Beside the way, where the paths meet.
She cries out by the gates, at the entry of the city,
At the entrance of the doors:
“To you, O men, I call,
And my voice is to the sons of men.
O you simple ones, understand prudence,
And you fools, be of an understanding heart.
Listen, for I will speak of excellent things,
And from the opening of my lips will come right things…
{Proverbs 8:1-6}
A couple of years ago, a lovely group of subscribers joined me on a Deep Dive — a 30 Day journey through the book of Proverbs. We read a chapter each day, and enjoyed the insight and revelation that came from a book that is so timeless it’s somehow always timely. It seems to speak to everything.
Over the past few weeks, we’ve been looking at the idea of inheritance — this beautiful theme that runs a unique-colored thread throughout the pages of Scripture. One of the most important things to notice is that we often miss out on our inheritance simply because we don’t know what is rightfully ours. We might have some knowledge, but we are lacking wisdom, we are starved more understanding.
So I’m taking a lesson from the day I just couldn’t slow down enough to earn the opportunity to dive deeper and offering an invitation for you to join me. We’re going to begin slowly walking through Proverbs again, listening hard for Wisdom as she cries out from a high hill, searching for an understanding heart.
You’re welcome to open your email as usual each week to jump into thoughts and reflections on each chapter, but I’d love to also invite you to consider doing two things — investments that I think will provide greater dividends:
1. I’ll post a link to the chapter of Proverbs we’re walking through each week, right at the top of the email. (We’ll be going in order, starting at chapter one.) You can read each week’s chapter, slowly throughout the week leading up to each Wednesday, or you can just click that link when Wednesday’s email arrives, and read that chapter just before you jump into the thoughts. Again — you’re absolutely allowed to not read it, but I think reading that one chapter each week really will pay off.
2. Invite a friend to join you on the journey. This link will allow them to subscribe and receive the emails, too. See if you can take a moment to talk with that friend/spouse/roommate/coworker about that one chapter of Proverbs — just one little thing that struck you in a new way for the first time, or really spoke to you. The thing is, the more we give a little of our daily thoughts to thinking about God, the more He guides us and helps us to see Him, to understand Him and to know what He is like. You’ll be amazed at the compound interest that explodes out of investing in the things of God.
3. (Yes, I said two — this is just an optional fun idea.) If you’d like to — not homework, no pressure — I’d love to welcome you to share something that was meaningful to you from that week’s chapter. Share it on the Facebook Page of With Love, From Here, or just shoot me an email. I’d love to include a “Reader’s Thought” each week if I can just to add a bit more encouragement!
This time around, I’m hoping I can slow down enough to clear the mask, get the Oxygen flowing and graduate from the swimming pool to the deeper waters. I hope you’ll join me and look forward to what we’ll discover together!
Ready to dive in? Me too.
xCC
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I hope you’re encouraged today, friend.
If so, I’d love to welcome you to subscribe here for a weekly dose of encouragement.
***
Invitation link to copy/paste share: https://mailchi.mp/020d35a1133b/subscribe-caroline-collie
Feb 12, 2020 | The Good Word
I’ve got a little riddle for you this morning. What do Saving Private Ryan, The Avengers: Infinity War and my homeschool classroom all have in common?
Give up?
There’s something important behind enemy lines — and somebody has to be brave enough to get up and go get it.
For the past couple of weeks, I’ve been sharing a few thoughts on the concept of inheritance. This one word seems to hold a wealth of greater understanding because it is a theme we find on repeat through both the Old and New Testaments.
As I shared, with the story of the literal inheritance I received after losing my Dad, sometimes something rightfully belongs to us, but we still have to take some steps, and go through a process to receive what is already ours.
As Christians, we’re due a whole lot — we have an incredible inheritance, paid for by the death of Christ on the cross. He is the only rightful heir to all of Creation as the perfect Son of God, but He chose to pave the way for us to be adopted into the family, children of God and co-heirs to the inheritance.
If I also mention that the Holy Spirit is the deposit — the guarantee of our inheritance — then I think I’ve about caught you up to speed on where we are in the conversation.
So. The Holy Spirit, alive in you and me, is the “proof in the pudding.” And if we want to walk with that Holy Spirit, we’re going to have to slow our pace and listen carefully. And, if we listen carefully and begin to yield to the lead of the Holy Spirit, there is going to be fruit. Paul wrote to the Galatians about this:
The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. {Gal. 5:19-23}
Did you spot that magic word in there again? Who wants to inherit the kingdom?!? If we are living according the flesh (something we read about in Galatians 5 last week) we are not walking in the Spirit — and the fruit of that choice will be obvious in the way that we live.
But when the Spirit is behind the steering wheel, the car looks a little further down the road (remember that?) and you begin to steer straight between the lines. Suddenly there’s love, joy, peace! Patience and kindness are in abundance. Goodness and faithfulness, gentleness and self-control are a part of the picture.
Now — here’s where the problem comes in. Those beautiful fruits of the Holy Spirit are a part of our inheritance. We are in the business of inheriting the kingdom of God — not just someday, friends! Now! If those fruits should be mine right now and they are not — who do you think is failing to drive between the lines again?
Let’s look at a practical example in my own life to illustrate what it means for a slice of your inheritance to be captured and held behind enemy lines.
I’m a homeschool Mama. And as a homeschool Mama, I have a deep-set belief that children are amazing creatures created in the image of God, and they are all unique in their gifting and strengths. This means I also believe that they will not all learn at the same pace. Not all subjects will be equally easy or equally challenging to all children. Their education cannot be a conveyer belt. I believe if we faithfully show up and do our part, God will bless our efforts and we will progress at the right pace for each of the children God has given me.
I have one precious darling daughter who has struggled with learning to read more than her brothers did. The process was a slower one. I began to get anxious about this one sweet girl and what I was doing wrong and what we needed to do differently.
My belief slowly migrated from “I trust she will learn to read when her mind is ready to put together all the things she’s learned so far” to “This isn’t working and if it doesn’t start working soon I’m going to start freaking out.”
Did you see what happened there? When I stopped holding onto that core belief about my daughter, I let go of trust — and before I even realized it, my peace was gone. Instead of a sense of peace abounding as we showed up to do the next thing and continue the process, anxiety was on my doorstep whispering big discouragement.
Maybe you can relate in some area of your own life? Paul was writing to the Corinthians about forgiveness once, and he commented “so that satan does not outwit us. For we are not ignorant of his devices.” {2 Cor. 2:11}
It started in the Garden of Eden and it’s still the same old trick. The enemy whispers Did God really say? and we start to question what we think we know — and suddenly our joy is behind enemy lines because we don’t believe God is really in our corner. Or our gentleness is behind enemy lines because we think the Father is a harsh task master, instead of a loving God who disciplines those He loves. What really causes us to lose kindness or goodness or self-control? Our actions don’t come from what we say we believe. Our actions spring forth from what we really, truly do believe.
How do we take back what was stolen? How do we drop from the proverbial helicopter behind enemy lines to save Private Ryan?
I hope you already know the answers: we read the Word, and we pray. Prayer storms the gates and takes back what is rightfully part of our inheritance. Getting our truth from the Word can remind us what we so easily forget: God is on the throne, and He is good.
He is good, and if my daughter takes longer that the average kid to read, it is okay. We will do our part and be faithful, and He will lead us. If she needs testing for a learning disability, He will lead us. If we need to just keep faithfully plugging away, He will lead us.
I’m grateful to say that thanks to the power of the Holy Spirit, I didn’t freak out. I didn’t drop hundreds of dollars on new curriculum or sign my daughter up for unnecessary testing. Eight months or so down the road, she is reading beautifully and making great strides. Maybe there are other seven-year-olds with better skills, but I love to think of how incredibly talented she is as a little artist and remember — God had something unique in mind when He created her. Perhaps I should choose to trust… and be faithful.
Is something that’s rightfully yours behind the gates of enemy lines today? Have you ever considered the possibility that you’re forfeiting it by choice? You have a good inheritance, friend. But what you believe will determine how you walk.
Be bold! Go after what’s rightfully yours! Storm the gates in prayer! Hold fast to God’s Word and His promises! Don’t be ignorant of the enemy’s devices. If something that belongs to you is in enemy-occupied territory, by all means — take it back!
xCC
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I hope you’re encouraged today, friend.
If so, I’d love to welcome you to subscribe here for a weekly dose of encouragement.
***
Feb 5, 2020 | The Good Word
Can you remember learning to drive?
I have this vague, strange memory of being at the ripe, young age of 15 or so, and admitting to a friend that I just couldn’t figure out how to keep the car going straight. I felt like I was constantly moving the steering wheel to stay in between the lines… and I didn’t think my Driver’s Ed teacher was going to smile, wink and pass me if I kept it up.
That friend was a year younger than me, and I’m still perplexed as to how he knew what advice to give because he should not have been operating motor vehicles at the time. Nevertheless, he had some wise words that helped me overcome that pesky wobbling-wheel syndrome:
You have to look further down the road.
That was it. Instead of looking at the lines directly beside the car on either side of me, I needed to look in the direction I wanted to drive. That change of focus naturally stopped me from constantly correcting course every ten seconds.
Last week, I started a conversation about the word inheritance. It’s a word that took on a lot more meaning when my Dad passed away, and it’s a word that I found with overwhelming frequency, as I searched for it and noted every instance in my Bible, from cover to cover, in the years that followed.
To review, we know that there are things that we inherit because of Jesus. The Son of God, and heir to everything in creation, died for us and paved the way for us to become adopted into the family of God — children of God, and therefore, co-heirs in the inheritance.
Now, Paul wrote on the subject of inheritance more than a few times, and in his letter to the Ephesians, he explained:
In Him [that Him is Jesus] you also trusted, after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation; in whom also, having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, to the praise of His glory. {Ephesians 1:13-14}
Now, I had my heart set on giving you three bullet points to ponder today on this subject. But the first bullet point I scribbled out to help me remember it challenged me to think that hurried pace through.
Based on those words from Paul, we know that the Holy Spirit is a guarantee — some versions say it’s a pledge of our inheritance, or a deposit of our inheritance. The Holy Spirit is that earnest money you put on the table because you have every intention of buying that house.
In our lives, the Holy Spirit can be a whisper we occasionally nod toward, or maybe sing about, or just furrow our brows about because we don’t feel super comfortable with our understanding of the Third Person in the Trinity.
So instead of the three bullet points I was ready to hurriedly type for you today, I want to share with you just one.
Paul wrote to the Galatians:
Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. {Gal. 5:16}
The Holy Spirit is this promise that God deposits in us, that we have a good inheritance, that He is just getting started — but that He is very far from finished with the work that He plans to do, right here in our own hearts and lives. (Remember what we talked about last week? We’re still in Act Four!)
Matthew Henry commented on this and I hope you’ll forgive the fancy, formal language and dig in for a moment to these powerful words:
“Accordingly the duty here recommended to us is that we set ourselves to act under the guidance and influence of the blessed Spirit, and agreeably to the motions and tendency of the new nature in us; and, if this be our care in the ordinary course and tenour of our lives, we may depend upon it that, though we may not be freed from the stirrings and oppositions of our corrupt nature, we shall be kept from fulfilling it in the lusts thereof; so that though it remain in us, yet it shall not obtain a dominion over us.”
So I offer you a simple challenge this week. Remember how looking a little further down the road helped me stop wobbling between the lines and steer straight?
The Holy Spirit — that beautiful still-small voice, that wonderful deposit of God that whispers till we know-it-in-our-knower — He can whisper to you this week. He can lead you. He can guide you. He can see further down the road than you can.
But?
My guess is, especially if you’re anything like me, you might have to slow your pace to hear His voice. You might have to step back from a snap decision (perhaps to fuss at a kid? not that I’m speaking from experience, ahem, this is just an example) — step back from the quick decision, the quick word, the quick yes or no.
I read some beautiful words a few weeks ago that I was reminded of again, just before writing this today:
“The ability to choose cannot be taken away or even given away–it can only be forgotten.” {Greg McKeown, Essentialism}
Way back in Act One, when God gave us the Garden and the work, and the beauty of life with Him, He also gave us the dignity of choice. He didn’t create automatons or robots — He created human beings with options to choose from.
We still have that dignity — we still have choice — but He has also given us the Holy Spirit, to whisper to our hearts, a secret weapon, if you will, to help us to choose well.
What’s weighing heavily on your heart this week? Where does your soul feel a bit stuck? I’d love to hear from you and to know how I can encourage you. I’d also love to encourage you right now to slow your pace so that the Holy Spirit can help you see further down the road, hold the steering wheel firmly, and live this very precious day accordingly.
xCC
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If so, I’d love to welcome you to subscribe here for a weekly dose of encouragement. All you need is a name and an email, and suddenly, your inbox will be a bit more encouraging every Wednesday.
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Jan 30, 2020 | The Good Word
Join me, for a brief moment, if you will, in the past.
The year is 2013, and after a week of praying and hoping and fearing and waiting, my Dad has breathed his last breaths this side of eternity.
There are a thousand words for that moment, but let’s focus on this one for now: unexpected.
He and my mother divorced more than a decade earlier, so my brother, sister and I have the responsibility of settling his affairs. Suddenly everything that belonged to our father was ours — the good and the bad.
Dad’s alma mater, about which he was fiercely passionate, was East Carolina University — home of the Pirates — and in true Pirate fashion, he left us a treasure hunt.
If there was a map, we still don’t know where he buried it.
With my siblings living in other parts of the country, the title “Administratrix” fell into my lap, and while that’s a really fun word to say, turns out it’s rather a hard job to take on in the best of circumstances.
My Dad left behind financial obligations which had to be settled. He also left behind properties, which we inherited. The crazy thing was, we didn’t know what he owned or what he owed. We knew very little of the terms of many of his business-done-with-a-handshake agreements.
It’s a hard place to be in — knowing that there’s so much you don’t know, and realizing you have to learn what you don’t know, in order to then be able to go figure out what to do about it.
Now imagine for a moment, that I took the Death Certificate which confirmed that my Dad had passed away, and just carried it around with me. I didn’t go about finding out if there were debts to be paid. I didn’t go through the process of closing his estate, selling the business over here, that piece of land over there. I didn’t even go and transfer his property into the names of my brother and sister and me.
If we didn’t walk through the process of settling his estate, we would not have received the benefits that were due us — we would not have inherited what we were supposed to receive, right?
I’d like to posit an idea to you today that I’m hoping to unpack more thoroughly over the next several weeks.
Sometimes, as Christians, we are walking around with a death certificate, but we aren’t going through the process to truly receive the inheritance that is rightfully ours.
Consider these thoughts from Paul’s letter to the Galatians:
For if the inheritance is of the law, it is no longer of promise, but God gave it to Abraham by promise. {Gal. 3:18}
For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus…And if you are Christ’s then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise. {3:26,29}
Okay — so we are heirs to something because of Christ, and therefore grafted into Abraham’s family tree.
Let’s zoom out and get “Big Picture” here for a moment. Like Shakespeare, perhaps, we’ll see this as a Five Act Play.
Act One:(Exposition) God creates the world, and He makes people. It would be appropriate to say He made children — unlike the rest of Creation, He made us in His image. He gives His children a garden to tend and work to do — they receive an inheritance from their Father. But there’s one thing every story that is worth a sheet of paper to write it on has: a problem. The snake in the garden deceives the children out of their inheritance. He convinces them they need to do something to be like God — but they forget that they already are. They were created to care for the Earth, to have dominion over it, to rule it and cultivate it and make it wonderful. But they’re tricking into choosing to define goodness in their own terms — apart from God. A downward spiral of shame and blame begins, that I’m sure you’re familiar with and in the end, they lose their inheritance.
Act Two:(Rising Action) God starts with Abraham. He makes a covenant with Abraham and promises to bless him. He has a plan to bless the whole world again, to bring the whole world back into the inheritance He intended for them in the beginning. Out of Abraham, He’ll make a nation that will be the beginning of a blessing to ALL the nations. The story is going somewhere — but the people keep failing. How is God possibly going to redeem and restore His fallen creation?
Act Three: (Climax) Jesus. I mean, I could really just write that one Name and it would be enough — but let’s elaborate. Hebrews 9:15 explains, “And for this reason He [He being Jesus] is the Mediator of the new covenant, by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions under the first covenant, that those who are called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance.” In this unexpected move no one saw coming, God sends His Son — the only rightful heir to everything (because it’s all His Dad’s, remember?) — and Jesus sacrifices Himself to purchase our freedom. We sold ourselves to the Pawn Shop of sin, and Jesus brought Himself to the counter — He paid what we owed, and we are redeemed.
Act Four: (Falling Action) This is the act we are in, right now. Present Day. In many ways it’s already resolved, but in other ways, not yet. We already have an inheritance. Paul explained to the Ephesians, “In Him [that’s Jesus, again!] also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will…you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, to the praise of His glory.” {Eph. 1:11,13-14} We are here. We have the death certificate — we know Jesus gave His life to redeem us. We are already the children of God, but we are still in a broken world. Let’s hold that thought.
Act Five: (Resolution) The return of the King. The moment when this world fades away, and somehow all things are made new. New Heaven. New Earth. We fully walk in our inheritance in every way. C.S. Lewis best described this part of the story at the end of The Last Battle, “Now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read: which goes on for ever: in which every chapter is better than the one before.”
Can you find yourself in the story? Did you see it? We’re in Act Four. Now, if my Dad hadn’t passed away, everything that belonged to him would still be his. And he’d be faithfully reading everything I write, encouraging me to keep at it, and feeding his grandkids peaches and peanut butter and jelly for dinner.
But since he passed away, what was his passed on to his children. And although the years of simultaneously grieving the unexpected loss of my Dad, combined with the messy, hard challenges navigating settling his estate were pretty painful, still we sit on the other side of our loss, blessed by what he left behind for us.
So these are the questions I’d like to unpack over the next few weeks: in what ways are we walking around with a Death Certificate, but not really receiving the inheritance Christ bought for us at the cross? While we look toward Act Five, when Jesus returns and renews all things, what is our inheritance now, in this already/not yet place?
When I was in the throes of settling my Dad’s estate and beginning to understand an earthly inheritance, I found so many whispers and echoes of the heavenly inheritance that is a gift to all believers. I hope you’ll join me to consider these things in detail. And I have a beautiful secret to whisper to you for now: you have a good inheritance.
xCC
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