A paraphrase of Psalm 143

Sometimes I find a Psalm that mirrors my heart’s cry, and in it I find the healing balm of companionship in my suffering. Here is my paraphrase of Psalm 143:

"Lord, hear my prayer! I’m crying out for mercy; pleading with You not to bring the judgment I deserve, but instead to bring Your faithful, righteous nature to tend to me because my life is all out of sorts.

I want to serve You freely, but the enemy won’t let up. He pursues the entirety of me; he crushes my whole life into the ground. My body fails, I cannot endure the pressing: I am dejected—thrown down. His foot won’t lift from my back; his figure and shadow block the light, and darkness overwhelms me. My spirit faints, Lord. My heart is appalled by self and circumstance.

As I sit here in the darkness with the oppressor’s strength upon me, I turn my mind to consider You; I lean upon the testimonies of what You have done…Your work and Your love, the ways You have worked in me and on me, turning my previous seasons of fainting in parched deserts into flourishing vineyards of flowing new wine. I remember who You are, I remember Your heart for me and Your power in me and Your love for me. I stretch out my hands to You. You say if we thirst, we are to come to You, and I am like a scorched land—dried up and emptied of life. I hunger and thirst for You and I will be satisfied.

Quickly, Lord. I languish. I need Your hand and Your help now. My spirit fails. Don’t turn Your face from me or hide the light of Your countenance from me. If You turn away, all is lost for me.

Let me hear You this morning—in the opening of my eyes to the promise of light, I trust if I listen, I will hear the song of love You sing over me.

Make me know the way I should go, for all of my hope for standing or moving from beneath the enemy’s strength is found in You. You are ALL of my hope. ALL of me is crying out to be lifted by ALL of You. Deliver me! I have run to You for refuge, let me find deliverance in the shelter of Your presence.

Teach me Your will, for You are my God. Not enemy or self or any other thing gets to direct me from this point. I want things Your way, according to Your will—no lesser thing will do. Your Spirit is good, only You can lead me on level ground, in right ways, so that I rise in good standing with solid foundation beneath my feet. I want my feet to land upon the narrow way, the path of life.

For Your name’s sake, Lord, preserve my life. I am Your servant, I carry Your name as I journey through this life. I want people to look at me and see Your love, your righteousness and Your standards at work; I want them to watch you intimately weave Your life into the life of one You made. If You are not working in me and on me and through me, I will tarnish Your name. For Your name’s sake, I need You to lift my soul from this trouble in a display of Your righteousness at work. I need You to flood me with Your steadfast love and cut of my enemy’s power over me through it. Your love destroys the oppressor’s grip, it causes the adversary’s vexation to cease, it overrules the afflicter’s power to destroy.

I long to serve You well. In every way the enemy hinders this longing in this season, for the sake of Your name, make manifest Your victory and lift me up."

Rewriting the narrative

Woman
©12/14/2021 Hannah McLean

I am not a broken thing
I am whole
I am a healing woman
[Isaiah 61:4]

I am not a worthless thing
I am loved
I am a dignified woman
[Proverbs 31:25]

I am not a helpless thing
I am kept
I am a fortified woman
[Psalm 18:31-35]

I am not a forgotten thing
I am known
I am an intentioned woman
[Psalm 139:16]

I am not a shameful thing
I am redeemed
I am a beautified woman
[Psalm 96:9]

I am not a silent thing
I am sealed
I am a joyful woman
[Psalm 16:11]

I am not a useful thing
I am filled
I am a devoted woman
[Psalm 40:3]

A thing has been
But a woman will be
For my identity comes not from my woundings
But from my Maker

What my ruin cannot rob me of

It was one of those day. They don’t happen often, maybe a handful of times in my life. I looked in the mirror and my involuntary reaction to what I saw was to weep. I bawled. The body of the person looking back at me was so broken, so fallen, so grotesque that the hope-extracting question that lingers in the back of my mind hit me like a whip and left a ringing in my ears: “Is my body so far gone that it is irreparable?” I wanted to respond with, “No. With God all things are possible;” but my memory knows the paths my body has walked and limped and staggered and dragged itself. So instead I let myself sink to the floor and give the tears the time they needed to fall.

When the wells of sorrow or disappointment or discouragement or whatever painful mix those salty waters held finally ran dry, I stood and dried my face as I heard myself whisper, “Grieve quickly the things you cannot change.”

Twenty years have taught me that it’s on the days like these that I know I need to cover my broken body with a garment of thankfulness. So as I opened the door that allowed me my moment of confrontation, I chose to be grateful that even in my state of perpetual ruin, I can still serve the Lord.

And with that truth a necessary crutch, I continue my limp as I wait for tomorrow, because tomorrow is a new day…and maybe that one will be the day of redemption.

———

John 12:1–3 “Six days before the Passover, Jesus therefore came to Bethany, where Lazarus was, whom Jesus had raised from the dead. So they gave a dinner for him there. Martha served, and Lazarus was one of those reclining with him at table. Mary therefore took a pound of expensive ointment made from pure nard, and anointed the feet of Jesus and wiped his feet with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.”

new seeds

Isaiah 43:16–19 “Thus says the Lord, who makes a way in the sea, a path in the mighty waters, who brings forth chariot and horse, army and warrior; they lie down, they cannot rise, they are extinguished, quenched like a wick: “Remember not the former things, nor consider the things of old. Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.”

a new thing
©10-27-2021 hannah mclean

Father
Maker of ways unseen
Opener of springs in dry places
Bringer of new life to barren lands
Source of prevailing hope

i set my mind on Heaven
i set my heart on the Is, Was and Will Be
i set my hands upon the plow
and move my feet onward

help me tend the land
where i stand
fallow ground no more
cast Your new seeds
and bring forth in me
Your vision
Your purpose for forming

i will worship and praise
with my feet upon the way
You unfurl before me

hidden no more
may my faith find sight

You formed
for Yourself
receive Your worth

the undoing

un
©10-10-2021 hannah mclean

it’s the words
that buried themselves
in the deepest parts
of me
hidden in places
i haven’t thought to seek
emerging from the shadows
in the moments
of my own emergence
to convince me
to back down
to remain within the confines
of their hinderances

unwanted
unaccepted
unnecessary
unwelcome
unknown

i know what it is
to be Lazarus
called out from my tomb
with new breath in my lungs
and grave clothes
binding what was once dead

but what of Jesus’ words before
the miracle of new life
“did I not tell you that if you believed
you would see the glory of God?”
a life redeemed is one of glory on display
the extent of which
is only fully seen in the unbinding
of the remnants of death

unwanted
unaccepted
unnecessary
unwelcome
unknown

my soul cries out
for deliverance from the pain
of these words
from their power to stifle
growth in me
from their enduring pursuit of
convincing me
to shut up the
wells of life
that begin to flow forth from
the places they seek to keep residence

the soul ties of silence
insist my knees bend
to their masterful reasoning
for only when my words
remain hidden inside my mouth
do these words
return to their crevices within

unwanted
unaccepted
unnecessary
unwelcome
unknown

but in the lifting of my ear
i hear resounding over
their degrading cadence
a different song
the sound of glad rejoicing
of love that quiets and
of exultation from holy lips
for He has tended to this broken
He has gathered in this outcast
He has taken on Himself this shame
He has brought near His side this one
who has stood wishing on the outside
and He has made known

for only in the presence
of the Lord my God
do the “un”s meet the silence
of their own undoing

wanted
accepted
necessary
welcome
known

 

----
"The Lord your God is in your midst, a mighty One who will save; He will rejoice over you with gladness; He will quiet you by His love; He will exult over you with loud singing. I will gather those of you who mourn for the festival, so that you will no longer suffer reproach. Behold, at that time I will deal with all your oppressors. And I will save the lame and gather the outcast, and I will change their shame into praise and renown in all the earth. At that time I will bring you in, at the time when I gather you together; for I will make you renowned and praised among all the peoples of the earth, when I restore your fortunes before your eyes,” says the Lord. ~ Zephaniah 3:17–20

from womb to woman

Psalm 139:13–18 “For You formed my inward parts; You knitted me together in my mother's womb. I praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are Your works; my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from You, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in Your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them. How precious to me are Your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! If I would count them, they are more than the sand. I awake, and I am still with You.”

foreknown
©9-28-2021 hannah mclean

as Your hands formed
Your eyes saw
not just what You were creating
but what i would become

with many thoughts
You molded me
weaving within my very being
what the touch of Your hands
feel like upon my life

the impressions of
Your holy fingerprints
brought me from
substance to soul
marking me in Your making
with the knowledge
of Your wonder

foreknown
for a purpose
unfolding as time
turns the days
ordained for me

and today i worship
for even now
from womb to woman
i am still with You

A poem from my time in Isaiah 58

"And the Lord will guide you continually and satisfy your desire in scorched places and make your bones strong; and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters do not fail. And your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt, you shall raise up the foundations of many generations; you shall be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of streets to dwell in." Isaiah 58:11–12

o Father Who stands with me
in flames
and forges through the wilderness
when gales of sand and wind
whip my face
Who hears my voice
cry out through mouth
parched and
jaw pained from gritted teeth

o Father who fills
faster than life draws
to You my knees bow
my hands lift up
and my heart wholly reaches

i thirst
i come
You fill
until
i overflow

o Father Who brings the good growth
Who gives courage to break up fallow ground
Who gives strength to uproot weeds that strangle
and dislodge rocks that hinder
make me a watered garden
nourished from within and out
by Holy love

strengthen my bones
make me stand tall
my backbone unshakeable
my legs unbreakable
my hands strong enough
to build
to raise up
to repair
to restore
be the fortitude that forges
through my being
planted by Your hands
with precision
and permission
to being glory to You
make me able to bear up
beneath the weight that
falls upon my shoulders

o Father
all sufficient
i rest inside Your keeping

A meditation on Psalm 73: "Nevertheless"

I’ve been reading Psalm 73 the last few days and my meditations on the truths there have been so powerful and timely for me that I wanted to share them with you.

Before I launch into the passage I want to speak specifically about, I’m going to give you a brief overview of what’s going on in this psalm. The psalmist here is looking at the world around him and he sees incredible wickedness; people are doing terrible things, oppression is rampant and people marked by arrogance, violence, mockery, and evil are prospering. They are flourishing in the world, with just blatant disregard for God and certainty that there is no consequence for their actions. And the psalmist is looking at all this happening and is crying out, “Why do the wicked prosper?! What is going on?!” He’s like, “God, I have not joined them, so why do I suffer and they flourish?” And finally, it says he goes into the house of the Lord and God shows him their end.
    If you are struggling with what you see in the world around you and want clear vision, that comes from the Lord, go get in His presence and seek Him.

The last portion of this psalm ends with the passage I want to talk about. Verses 23–26:
“NEVERTHELESS, I am continually with You: You hold my right hand. You guide me with Your counsel, and afterward You will receive me to glory. Whom have I in heaven but You? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides You. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.”

My favorite word in this entire Psalm is “nevertheless.” This word is a hinge between the beginning and the end of this psalm. The verses before are in 3 pieces: First, the psalmist lays out his complaint before God: Why do the wicked prosper?! Second, he goes into the house of the Lord and sees things through God’s eyes. And third, he is humbled. Right before this passage, the psalmist lays out his heart before God…and it is tainted by sin. He confesses that his heart is pricked and his soul is embittered…not just a bitter heart, but a bitter soul—your soul is the entirety of your being. In watching the evil unfold in the world around him and seeking to understand it with his own eyes, he became bitter and his actions overflowed in sin toward God: He says, “I was brutish and ignorant, I was like a beast toward You.”
    We must be very cautious; if we try to navigate the evils of this world in our own strength, vision and righteousness, we will find ourselves overcome by the darkness.

This “nevertheless” is gloriously full. It is full of wonder, of mercy and grace, of humility…and it leads to worship.

    When we seek God for clear vision, He doesn’t just show us one angle. We see 3 things in this Psalm that He gives us clear vision of: He showed the psalmist that the wicked’s prospering had an end. He gave the psalmist a greater understanding of God—that He is a God of righteousness and justice who will eventually make all things right. And He revealed to the psalmist the condition of his own heart. Because here’s the truth, there’s not such thing as “good people” and “bad people”…here are just sinful people who need Jesus…and some of us are already clinging to Him to be counted righteous before a holy God, and some of us are not yet.

And I love this “nevertheless”…the psalmist has seen the righteous justice of God and it has revealed the wickedness of his own heart. He had tried to understand the world around him in his own strength, he had RIGHTLY cried out against wickedness and RIGHTLY desired justice. He had suffered and observed oppression and had risen up when there seemed to be no consequence for the evil he saw and experienced. But to maintain a pure heart before the Lord when we try to understand the world around us, it is vital that we go to Him to process because on our own we are no less wicked apart from Jesus that the ones we cry out against.

And this psalmist sees that. And you can almost hear his sigh of relief as He says, “Nevertheless, I am continually with you.” I’m still with You! You’re still with ME! You hold my hand so my flesh does not cast me down completely. You are so kind to offer me Your counsel when I cry out, You are so faithful to guide me. And I marvel that even now, You will still receive me into glory. Nevertheless.

And I love that this full and humble sigh leads to a heart that pours out in worship: My longing is YOU, Lord! My desire is YOU! My strength is YOU! My portion is YOU! At the end of the day, You are all I want and I have You.

When our response to the wickedness and injustice around us reveals the wickedness of our own hearts, let us rejoice, delight and wonder at the “nevertheless” that we find in the mercy of God. Because we must remember that our God is His beauty is incredibly patient. He knows the end of all things, and with Him, justice delayed is not justice denied. It is just that He does not want ANYONE, no matter how vile, to die without knowing salvation in Jesus. And so He waits. And as people who believe He is righteous and just, we must humble ourselves before Him. And it can be so painful to wait with Him. We must lament how our impatience can lead to bitterness of heart and soul, and how this effects the way we view our Holy, timely God. And we must marvel and cling to our own “nevertheless” and the mercy it holds as we consider with clarity things through God’s eyes. Let us be worshipers of God in the face of wickedness and oppression.

Because at the end of the day, you and I need Jesus…no matter how many years we walk with Him, we will never need Him less. And what a glory it is to say, “nevertheless” He’s with me! He keeps me when I struggle with sin, He guides me with His counsel when I can’t see the whole picture, and He afterward will still receive me to glory! Whom have I in heaven but You, God?! Earth has NOTHING I desire besides You. My flesh and my heart may fail again and again and again…but glory be, YOU are the strength of my heart and my portion FOREVER.

So I leave you with this: IF you are struggling to see past our unraveling society and what it holds, cry out to God for vision. And then repent. Marvel. And Worship.

“Nevertheless”

A meditation on Psalm 84:5–8

Psalm 84:5–8
5 Blessed are those whose strength is in You,
    in whose heart are the highways to Zion.
6 As they go through the Valley of Baca
    they make it a place of springs; 

    the early rain also covers it with pools.
7 They go from strength to strength; 

    each one appears before God in Zion.
8 O Lord God of hosts, hear my prayer; 

    give ear, O God of Jacob! Selah

Verse 5 begins with the declaration that the one who has no strength within themselves, and must draw fully from the Lord, is blessed. Being in a position where we feel the full force of our weakness is not pleasant, in fact, it is downright painful, but here the Lord tells us that this place of desperate want is a place of blessing. And as the psalmist continues, we will begin to see some of the reasons why.

This verse completes this declaration by adding that the means of blessing is not just the weak one finding their strength in the Lord, it is also that the highways of their hearts lead them to Him. A highway is road that is well-traveled; much work has gone into laying its foundation, maintaining and building up the place where feet continually tread. And where do these highways forged upon the heart lead? To Zion; the dwelling place of God. Namely, whether you are in the Valley or in the heights, build the highways in your heart to lead you to the Lord—make your course to His arms and His keeping so continual that it becomes second nature; it makes me think of Nathan’s Grandma Lillian who sat at the piano in her advanced state of dementia and played hymns…she may not have remembered our names, but she remembered His.

Verse 6 speaks to the valleys of life that we would not choose, the places of such pain, grief and despair that they are referred to here as “the Valley of weeping.” Be it loss or lack, whatever has dragged us down to this place of want and sorrow, we find what comes to the saint who has cast themselves upon the strength of the Lord and whose heart runs with weariness and desperation to Him; “springs.” A spring is a place where water moving underground finds an opening to the land surface and emerges. A spring draws water from an aquifer, which, get this, is a water-bearing rock. So essentially, the psalmist is saying that as we go through the Valley of weeping, we learn to draw living water from the Rock. And in case we languish along the way, there has been an “early rain,” where God has gone before us and provided pools of water from which to drink. I wish I could lay out how clearly this moves my heart—from my own experience, oftentimes those pools are found in the people who stand beside us in our pain because they’ve been there before. He knows the paths that we must tread; every jagged edge of every rock at the bottom of every valley has pressed first into His flesh before it has reached ours. He is sufficient to bear us up.

And can I point out, it says, “as they go THROUGH the Valley…” There is time to laugh and a time to weep, and both are seasons filled with purpose. But we need not remain in the Valley forever.

Verse 7 tells us that even as we draw our strength from the Lord; the revelation of new and endless weakness only leads us into new and endless aspects of coming to KNOW God’s strength. When we lean fully upon Him, His arms draw us nearer and nearer His kind and merciful face.

And finally, to end this wonderful meditation, we must look at verse 8. Here the Psalmist appeals to the Lord by two of His many names: Lord of Hosts and God of Jacob. I have found that the uses of God’s name in the Bible are so intentional that to investigate why they are placed where they are leads to opening up layers of richness to both the passages I am considering as well as aspects of who God is. I found both of these names to be interesting choices, but the reasons I found for their placement are full of encouragement and beauty.

Lord of Hosts. This means Lord of armies…angel armies…myriads and myriads of angelic beings are at the service of the Lord. I often use this name when I pray for things surrounding great battles; and while that could absolutely be appropriate in this context (Valleys of Weeping can bring about many battles of the heart, mind and emotions), I found another consideration that blessed my heart. One of the reasons God made angels is to minister to humans (Psalm 91:11–12, Matthew 4:11, Hebrew 1:7, etc); here the Psalmist, staggering his way through a seasons of great darkness—emptied of self—cries out to God for what he needs—many, many angels to tend to his many, many wounds.

God of Jacob. This one I just can’t get over. Let me tell you about Jacob. Jacob means “deceiver, cheater;” from the womb he bore a name that spoke into his life choices, and there was great cost to the choices he made. He cheated his brother Esau out of his birthright, and tricked his father into giving him the blessing not intended for him. And as a direct result, he had to flee his home and never saw either of his parents again. He continued his journey by working for 20 years for a man whose character flaws matched his own and then some. But instead of growing in bitterness and zeal for self, Jacob grew in humility. And when he was finally heading home, he heard word that his brother Esau, whose hatred and pursuit of revenge had caused him to flee, was coming to meet him with what was essentially a small army. And Jacob was undone; he took all his fear and despair and humble acknowledgement of guilt. His tired legs from running, and he grabbed hold of God with both hands and wrestled with Him—his determination that he would not rise without the blessing of the Lord left him not just with a limp, but with a new name and a family that carried the promise of the Messiah. Jacob reminds me that the moments of wrestling with God in the valley of weeping are the moments that change the way we walk; they bring about conviction and the certainty of proven faith if we will but drink from the springs of living water that are called forth from the Rock of Ages when the force of our fall breaks the hard places within us. Let us call out to the God of Jacob; the God who has seen our choices that didn’t pan out, our sin that caused great loss, our compilation of offenses done against us, our emotional turmoil that causes us to blunder and falter amid the failure and despair of life….this God of Jacob who has seen and even still will go before, stand beside, and come behind us to redeem to the uttermost any and every broken life with compassion and gentleness and the authority of perfect love.

The lower shelf

I’m in the process of going through a “forgiveness journey,” venturing through the book Forgiving What You Can’t Forget by Lysa Terkheurst; it’s been an interesting trek as it has unveiled aspects of my life that have really caused me to limp in areas where I should stride.

The week I am in currently is looking into events or lessons that impacted my life in profound ways (for better or for worse). I find myself considering some things I picked up along the way and how they have affected my gate.

Over the last several years I have been gathering words to help me heal from the warped view I received of my femininity and worth; I was not certain I had dignity and struggled to maintain my humanity in the face of the objectification that stripped me of personhood. I grew up believing I was a second class human, destined for the cast offs of life, always just out of reach of what I truly wanted. And I adapted—human beings are incredible in their ability to adapt—I trained myself that though I was free to dream without limits, I was to stretch no higher than the lower shelf and to be content with what I found there.

This translates in some interesting ways as an adult in the Body of Christ. Do you want to know how I answered the question, “How have these events or perceptions affected what you believe about God?”? I wrote, “His best love and blessing are for others, and I am just grateful for the crumbs of grace. My hand doesn’t reach high enough.” I find that over the years I have battled these words, “It can cause me to stop seeking the desires laid on my heart because surely I’ve received all He’s willing to give someone like me.”

I walk out my faith in this tension: I KNOW the Lord’s generous, lavish love—it has landed upon me with such gentleness and such force that it was shaped me forever—and yet I never stop marveling at it. I am a book filled with innumerable testimonies that witness of God’s outlandish heart for me…and the reason I probably remember each of these markings so vividly is because they still surprise me every time.

I wrote this down in my journal as I process that, imagery to my place:

I see myself as a little girl
looking longingly at the festivities
of a party…
while clutching my invitation
in my grateful hand.
Longing to belong.
I’ve entered through the gate,
eager to celebrate,
but unable to shake
the outside from within.
Courage and faith
moved my feet to come,
but it is only the certainty of love
that will embolden me
to enter in.

I know there are no second tier citizens in the kingdom of God; He doesn’t set aside a group of people who He withholds His greatest blessings from; He doesn’t mark some of us as acceptable, but not accepted; He doesn’t plant the longing for all into the hearts of those intended only for some.

Ephesians 1:3–10 says “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with EVERY spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as HE CHOSE US in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before Him. IN LOVE He predestined us for adoption to Himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of His will, to the praise of His glorious grace, with which He has blessed us in the Beloved. In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, ACCORDING TO THE RICHES of His grace, which He LAVISHED upon us, in ALL wisdom and insight making known to us the mystery of His will, according to His purpose, which He set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in Him, things in heaven and things on earth.”

In Christ, I get EVERY blessing because IN LOVE He chose to LAVISH the RICHES of His grace on me. This is the truth. It’s the truth the overshadows the lies to which I have adapted. It’s the truth that speaks the better word than the voices that set me up to settle for the dust. It’s the truth that lifts my eyes to the heights and gives me the courage to stretch out my hand. I may have approached Jesus’ feet to wrap my desperate fingers around the crumbs of grace that fell from His table, but He didn’t leave me there; His hand reached down to pull me up and He gave me a chair so that I could partake of the fullness of His feast.

So today I look upon my mud-smattered image and praise the Lord that no matter how much dirt has gathered and hidden my perception of place in this life, I hold within my hand the blood-bought, Spirit-sealed invitation to enter in and partake with all believers of the greatness of His lavish love and glorious grace.

Reproach

REPROACH: An expression of rebuke or disapproval; a cause or occasion of blame, discredit or disgrace; one subjected to censure [judgment involving condemnation; the act of blaming or condemning sternly] or scorn.

 

I can feel the pain of my soul—the entirety of my person—as I read this word and its meanings. Clearly this word remains stamped upon me; it covers beauty never realized like the defacing of graffiti, and mars like the careless application of a stamp slammed down with force. Reproach. The cause of shame…The subject of disgrace…An object to be scorned…A person to be despised…The one to be blamed…I want to accept these reproaches, to rationalize why they belong to me, to justify the hands that stamped them there (even my own). I want to examine each mark to determine its validity to see if the merit behind it should allow—no, demand—that I keep it to wear as a badge of dishonor, a warning to my future ambitions. 

But You look down at me from Your hanging place, where your blood stains both the wood and the ground beneath it. You’ve already determined the merit of my markings. You’ve already sorted what has been cast upon me, what has rested upon me, what ways I am to be despised.

“I am the Lamb without blemish; My blood makes the marked ones clean; My love covers a multitude of sins and leaves the ones who receive it free. I’ll take it all— every marking, every declaration, every judgment, every disgrace, every ounce of blame…the sum of all your reproach.”

"You know my reproach,
    and my shame and my dishonor;
    my foes are all known to You.

Reproaches have broken my heart,
    so that I am in despair.
I looked for pity, but there was none,
    and for comforters, but I found none.

They gave me poison for food,
    and for My thirst they gave Me sour wine to drink."

Psalm 69:19–21

May I walk by faith, not by sight.

Shallow love

“Our problem is not our difference of opinions. It’s the shallowness of our love.” Francis Chan

I read those words today (and listened to the corresponding interview), and I have to say, my heart is weightily moved. Francis wasn’t looking around at culture and making an observation on the overarching secular scene; he was referring to the Church—evangelical Christians, people claiming the name of Christ and walking in ways that oppose His name. It makes me want to cry. Sincerely, I fight back tears as I write this.

How is it that we who claim to know what it is to be loved by the One True Living God—the God Who poured Himself out to redeem us even as we rebelled and turned our backs—how is it that our love lacks such depth? How is it that lives that claim to be touched and transformed by perfect love struggle and fail to show even the smallest portion of love to even our spiritual family? Shallow love. How can lives that have been touched by the deepest wells of love come up so utterly dry?

It’s Good Friday, nearing the end of this Holy Week; and I think the reason that this quote bowled my heart over in the way it did is because I find myself looking at a situation that is not only contradictory to reason, but troubling in its repercussions.

This day we look in our minds eye at our Savior hanging upon a cross: Innocent blood pours out of His rent body, flowing out of gaping wounds and around piercing nails; His holy, royal head hangs down upon his heavy, human chest; pressed into his smattered hair sits a crude crown of thorns—a far cry from the diadems of beauty that were made to adorn Him; His arms splay as His throat produces one last raspy sigh, “It is finished.”

Jesus was not murdered. Jesus laid down His life.

For Love’s sake.

“While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” He didn’t do it because we were worthy, well-deserving, lovely and lovable. He didn’t even do it because we asked. He did it because He is love and because He set His heart upon humanity—ugly, broken, sinful, wicked, wandering, rebellious, lost human beings.

We must not overlook this loving God. We must not forget this act of love we claim to have received, nor the heart of the One who acted on our behalf because a life lived in the wonder of this love will not remain shallow. It will not remain shallow because it has been saturated with love from the deepest of wells in the purest of ways; a love so real and so lovely that life springs up from the smallest drop and beauty emerges at the slightest touch.

So this good Friday, in this painful lament, I exhort you, brothers and sisters in Christ: Look upon the One whom we have pierced. Let His sacrifice rend your heart; if it has not ripped you open in sorrowful repentance then you have not lingered at the foot of the cross long enough to consider the deity of this Son of Man. Let our love for one another—the agape that is suppose to reveal Jesus to a longing world—begin in the utter humility of beholding God Himself die in our stead. Humility will not leave us in the shallowness of love; it is humility that leads us into the depths and propels us into the heights.

What a Savior. May we be a people whose love reflects His.

A Margin Meditation on Psalm 106

[Margin Meditations are things I wrote in the margins of my bible as I journeyed through it from cover-to-cover intentioning to glean something from every page.]

 "Intercession of a faithful few can turn away the wrath of God for the faithless many."

Followers of Jesus, do you believe this is true? There are examples of it ALL over the Bible.

Prayer is not necessarily intercession. It is not difficult to pray for someone or something; prayer is as simple as communing with God.

Intercession is a different sort of thing. We see in Psalm 106 that Moses “stood in the breach before [God] to turn away His wrath from destroying [Israel]” A breach is defined as “a break in a wall made by battering.” To stand in the breach would be to face great danger that the wall protected from, and it would require great courage.

We also see in verse 30 that Phinehas “stood up and intervened” to end a plague that Israel was experiencing because of their idolatry. To intervene means “to come between so as to prevent or alter a result or course of events.” Phinehas placed himself between righteous, angry God and his dying people and changed the course of the plague.

Who were these men to stand between God and the people who had continually and repetitively sinned and rebelled against Him? I will tell you my thoughts…They were men who knew the character and nature of God, who believed that His default is love, not anger. God’s wrath is a responsive attribute, it is provoked and poured out in precise measure to the sin and evil that caused it to arise. But does He take pleasure in administering it? No! However, He does take great pleasure in our turning back to Him. And intercession can stop His wrath as it appeals to the great mercy of His loving nature.

As you watch the year unfold, I want you to remember this meditation. Instead of wrath this year—because of intercession—we get severe mercy; what is going to happen is for the purpose of turning hearts back to the Lord.

And here is one other little gem I found in Revelation relating to this meditation: Unlike His love, grace, power or so many of His other attributes, the Lord’s wrath will end (Rev 15:1), because one day sin will end.

But until that day, may our lives reflect that we truly believe that “the effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much.” (James 5:16b)

The Saints on the Battlefield

I wanted to share with you a vision the Lord gave me several months ago, I wasn't sure what to do with it at the time, but feel like it is time to share. 

I was reading in Psalm 102 where the Psalmist speaks of Zion (the dwelling place of God), just going through my reading in the usual way, when I read a verse and suddenly found myself bawling—tears streaming out of my eyes. I was startled, and reread what I had just passed: Verse 14 says “For Your servants hold her stones dear and have pity on her dust.”

Suddenly I found myself standing on a huge battlefield, it stretched endlessly for as far as the eye could see in every direction. It was covered in rolling hills (similar to the end of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe), and sprinkled across these hills were saints (anyone washed by the blood of the Lamb). Every single one of them was holding in their arms a gigantic boulder; a rock so heavy it required all their strength and left no room in their hands for any other weapons. They were standing, looking out across the battlefield, which was covered with piles of rubble, and they were weeping. Not just “crying,” but weeping with the desperation and sorrow of ones who had just watched their loved ones be completely destroyed.

The battlefield was the Church. And the saints who remained standing at the end of the war were the ones who had not set down the boulders in their arms; the stones of Truth revealed to us in the Word of God. The piles of rubble were the fallen saints who had compromised and disregarded the Truth of the Bible.

Followers of Jesus, to survive the battle that is coming, you will only remain standing if you are rooted deeply in the Truth of the Word of God. You must consider the foundational truths found in the Bible of Who God is, what He is like, what He says is right and wrong to be dear…so dear that you are unwilling to lay them down for any reason to appease any person, including, for the ease of your own life, yourself. You must also remember who your enemies truly are (not each other or other people) and fight this spiritual battle not with physical weapons, but with prayer.

"The spring of him who called"

This song was inspired by a story found in Judges 15. Samson had just been given a miraculous, though strenuous, victory and he was very thirsty. And he called out to God, and the Lord opened up for him a spring--a well--of water for him to drink. There he drank and was revived and satisfied, and the name of this well was En-hakkore: The spring of him who called. 

I love that. I love that we have an abundant, lavish God who waits with compassion and eagerness to pour out His overflow at the sound of our voice. May your voice lift up to our Jehovah, and may He open for you wells from which to draw that meet the deepest needs of your deepest depths.

A Spring for the One who Calls
©1-12-21 Hannah McLean

Near quiet waters
You walk with me
though raging rivers
I see
Your gentle hand
keeps my heart at rest
though mighty
the testing may be

Your ears
they hear my cry to You
Your eyes
they see my plight
There are fountains for valleys
and wells for the one
who cries out
to the Lord of Life

There’s peace when the heart
has been shattered and torn
Hope when the
desolate longs
There’s joy for the soul
who can see no light
For the outcast
a place to belong

For His ears
they hear our cry to Him
His eyes
they see our plight
He has fountains for valleys
and wells for the ones
who cry out
to the Lord of Life

The bended knee
will be lifted up
The burdened back
be made straight
Innocence lost know
the years restored
Justice for the one who
must wait

For His ears
have heard our cry to Him
His eyes
have seen our plight
He has fountains for valleys
and wells for the ones
who cry out
to the Lord of Life