Vulnerability in a new season

I gave my first lecture at BSF this week. I keep tearing up when I think about it, and so here I am, awake on the couch in the middle of the night because apparently it is time to write down my thoughts.

I entered into a new season this year; when I spent January asking the Lord what to do next, He handed me some new, unexpected assignments and reordered my life so that I could do what He asked of me. My children went off to school, and I stepped into two main things: He gave me women to pray and intercede with weekly, and He called me to be a substitute teaching leader at BSF. The former is an answer to a deep longing of my heart, the latter is…well, I’m still wrapping my mind around it because it’s new and unexpected and feels almost comical a role to be placed in.

Let me explain, the women in BSF are the same women who helped “raise me up” like sweet spiritual mother voices when I taught the students there 4 years ago; they’re faithful and wise and precious; some have walked with Jesus longer than I’ve been alive. If you looked through resumes to pick the most qualified person to fill this role, I’d be at the bottom of the pile. But Jesus tends to pull from the bottom of the pile, so here I am…brand new and learning on the job. And they’re helping me…and really, it’s probably the most biblical display of womanhood that I’ve ever been a part of; seeking Jesus together as we walk in obedience to what He called us to do, learning what it means to depend on Him for all things.

There’s the snap shot of my new season, and in it, I gave my first lecture. And I want to tell you why I keep crying when I think about it.

People only see me as I am today; depending on how long we’ve walked together or how many cups of coffee we’ve shared, you may know more or less of the experiences that shaped me. Maybe you were there through my joys and my losses, or maybe you’ve heard me process them, or maybe you have no idea what mountains I’ve climbed, what rocky ground I’ve crawled across, what stones have been hurled at me. While some of those experiences equipped me for my current assignment, others add an extra layer of vulnerability to it.

When I was growing up, I learned 3 lessons (spoken or implied, they settled in deep and took residence in my thinking): 
1) I had nothing to bring to the Body of Christ because I was female.
2) If I did have the audacity to bring anything to the Body, it would inevitably cause harm.
3) No matter how valuable, no one would want what came from me.

Obviously these are not so much lessons as they are lies. But it took me well over 30 years to even believe I was worth the full value of a human, so they had no problem finding ground to grow in me. What is interesting, is they didn’t produce someone with “self-esteem” problems, so to speak. I actually like me; I enjoy being who I am, I make myself laugh, I like the way I see the world, I enjoy the things I write, I am genuinely content with my quirks and ok with acknowledging my weaknesses. Instead, I feel like I’ve spent a lot of my life hidden under years of paint and mud wearing a coat of lament that no one would be willing to take the time to search me out. 

But Jesus washed me, and dignified me, and told me the truth again and again…and for years, I’ve learned to walk obediently and without expectation.

But it’s the “without expectation” part that He’s been slowly dissolving…and I think that’s why I feel so vulnerable in this season. Because I can see His intention and it carries expectation…and that feels terrifying to me.
It feels risky.
It feels vulnerable.
It feels uncomfortable.
It feels like I’d much rather crawl back into the prayer closet because I know I’m safe there.

I know that the Lord moves when He has me speak in front of people. 
And to me, the weight of that is staggering.
Maybe after reading the lessons I learned above you can understand why.

I am a woman, but my hands are not empty.
I would rather never speak than cause another spiritual harm.
And I am who and what God made me and nothing more.

The thing is, when we hear people share their thoughts on scripture from the front, we only see what they offer to us…we don’t watch how that offering was gathered. So I can sit in front of a group to share, and they hear the carefully prepared words I wrote on a page…but they didn’t see how I found those words, they don’t know where I traveled to gather them, they didn’t watch me wrestle and dance with the Lord for understanding. They only see the offering. And that is ok, because that part was FOR them; but let us never look at the offering of another and overlook the fact that there was preparation, that we are looking at the fruit of another’s labor.

After my first Ephesians study several years ago (which was the first time I ever invited women to listen to my thoughts on scripture in the way that I am shaped to speak it), I had someone who hadn’t come ask me to give them what I had written. And I surprised myself by saying, “No.” To one woman I looked like a person casually talking about scripture in their living room, but I was actually a person shaking off 3 lessons I learned; speaking out loud to others in my living room felt like stepping out of the boat in the middle of a storm to walk on water. I felt such vulnerability that the Lord had gone before me and set several friends beside me to physically steady my steps.

The Lord gave me this dream at that time: http://bigandlittlewords.blogspot.com/2023/06/consumers-or-contributers.html
In this dream, I am the mother camel.

I have been thinking about that dream, about my vulnerability, and about the women God has set beside me in THIS season to steady my steps. And while I tear up for multiple reasons, that’s the main one. These faithful women heard my words, but they also see my person; they covered me in prayer, they encouraged me, they tended to my needs…and afterwards, they gathered me in. They make me feel safe, like they will keep me tucked under their wings while I gather strength in my legs. 

At the heart of it, expectation is brand new to me. It brings with it the vulnerability of being consumed; if not by others, than by self or by the enemy. And so my faith must grow and stretch as I cling to Jesus…but today I just wanted to write down that I am grateful for the women I serve alongside.

He's faithful to redeem.

 Almighty Weaver
©7-4-2025 hannah mclean

Almighty Weaver
i rest in Your hands
You who made mountains
You who formed man
Almighty Weaver
the Maker of parts
only Your love can 
join body and heart

Your blood binds what’s broken
and makes new what’s old
Your love falls on ashes
and brings forth the gold
Your truth walks through prisons
and unlocks the doors
Your hands lift the least of these
making them more

Almighty Weaver
redemption’s Your way
You bring dead to life 
and You turn night to day
You see beyond moment
call forth what will be
in the land of the living
Your goodness i’ll see

Broken heart and broken body

“The body keeps the score,” they say.

Of course it makes sense. The failures of my body trace with striking clarity to loss. And it makes sense that when the heart breaks, the body breaks also.

As a child, this body carried its first coffin; a coffin filled with the empty, frail body of a brother who was loved. The same hands that had wrapped around the handle picked up a shovel too big for its 7-year frame and put dirt onto his grave. The ears that used to listen for his voice heard instead the dirt falling onto a cement vault echo in the sudden silence.

As a teenager, this body walked beside the second coffin; cradling the hearts and well-being of the little siblings that carried it with their own tiny hands. Another piece of my heart—loved more deeply than I have ever loved another because now I understood loss—shut inside a wooden box that swayed beside me. And again, these hands picked up a shovel and mixed my tears with the dirt.

This adult body carried the third coffin; the nine of us together, but still it felt too heavy for a body worn by grief. It shoveled dirt onto the grave of a man I never got to know, locking the little brother I loved in time where he would rest further and further behind me as I had to keep living. 

This body wrapped its family in arms and absorbed the tears that were poured out on its shoulders. It sang songs to comfort and to remember. It lent its voice and back to the bent and broken, stood up tall when others couldn’t and clung to the ground while others stood for me. These eyes have looked upon lifeless bodies of ones I loved and watched sorrow pulsing through the living bodies of ones I love…and still they choose to see. 

And what body could bear up under all that? 

Not mine. Death is separation, and my body physically internalized every death, dividing under the weight of grief. The infirmity that entered as a child wedged its way into the picture of my well-being and marked me; the infirmity that entered as a teenager waged its war alongside the first; the infirmity that entered as an adult severed the cord that tied the body and soul together…leaving this body a crippled thing, limping through life alone, longing for connection to the heart it carried.

And that is what the Lord is restoring right now; the unity between a body and soul severed by trauma. For the first time, there is peace as my soul reaches out its own healed hand to lift my body with it to new life.

on the path of healing

unwoven
©6-26-2025 hannah mclean

my body housed
its broken heart

burdened by the weight of loss
it could not bear up
cracking beneath it

and when hands could only hold
one thing together
it chose the soul
while the body fell aside
in a heap of rubble

i’ve walked hand in hand
with my broken heart
i’ve watched as Holy Hands
gathered every piece
that fell along the road of suffering
and mended me back together
and it is well
with my soul

but i have never walked hand in hand
with my broken body

no
 

my fists have pounded upon its bruises
my feet have kicked its aching back
my mouth has torn it apart
as it lay in the dust
shame and blame and disdain
covering it in heaps and mounds
undignified and stripped of worth
while all it ever longed for
was compassion

years have passed
i’ve looked at it again and again
from a safe distance
i’ve learned to draw near even though it hurts
i’ve renounced my curses and
chosen to bless
i’ve shoveled off years of shame
and unburdened it of decades of blame
and fought disdain
and fought disdain again
i’ve told it the truth
fearfully and wonderfully made
by design not function
i’ve even mustered compassion
from time to time

but i remain
a weaving too long upended
the strands still too mixed up within the debris
of too many storms
over too many years
to find their way back together

because my body housed
its broken heart

and only one has been made well

His holy ways

“He also made the lampstand of pure gold. He made the lampstand of hammered work. Its base, its stem, its cups, its calyxes, and its flowers were of one piece with it.” Exodus 37:17

Your lampstand

©4-2-2025 hannah mclean

 

let me be Your lampstand
hammered, yes
for that is Your holy way
but sanctified in the working
drawing out beauty
in Your careful markings
for function and for delight

but also pure gold and
one piece
unbroken by the force of the blows required
for base and stem and cups
for filling and for fire

let me be Your lampstand
fitted for light
a vessel for worship
for drawing and
for burning

behold, Father,
my stems stretch forth for You
hard fought for oil fills my cups
may Your holy fire burn upon me
drawing other to Your light
and to Your life

may my eyes see the care
of Your shaping

may my heart find joy
in the emergence of details
drawn forth in my forming

may i not overlook the wonder
of the purifying

may worship pour forth to You
as the light of Your Spirit’s presence
shines in and through me

let me be Your lampstand
for Your glory

A moment of decision.

1 Kings 13:8–9a And the man of God said to the king, “If you give me half your house, I will not go in with you. And I will not eat bread or drink water in this place, for so was it commanded me by the word of the Lord…”

I keep thinking of this passage I taught on in children’s church the other day. The kingdom of Israel had just been divided, and Jeroboam, a man who had been a servant of King Solomon, is suddenly lifted up by the Lord and placed into the position of king over 10 tribes of Israel. But in spite of the promise of God that He would put an eternal blessing on Jeroboam as king if he’d walk with Him, this new king went rapidly and devastatingly wayward and led the people of Israel into an idolatrous, heretical lifestyle far from God. 

And the Lord is great in mercy; as He did repeatedly in the times of the kings of Israel, He sent a prophet to Jeroboam in his decent into wickedness to call him back to the path of righteousness. But King Jeroboam didn’t receive the word, instead, he tried to use the power he had as king to harm the man of God, and God would have none of it. In an instant, He stripped him of his power even as he stretched out his hand, drying up the authority of his voice raised against the Lord. Then when Jeroboam had been restored through the prayer of the prophet on his behalf, instead of repenting, he looked at the prophet…and invited him to come home with him and partake in the pleasures of his earthly kingdom.

I love how this prophet looked back into the eyes of this king—this king who had chosen wickedness and forfeited the blessing of the Lord for the confidence of his own control and construction—and said, “No. I want nothing to do with the kingdom you are building; I want no part in the best you have to offer, nor will I even take a portion of the least of what you could set before me. You have made your choice, and I have made mine.”

There’s something about this moment of decision that feel so important right now.

"I want you to describe My heart to them."

This morning, as I am finishing up my BSF study on suffering, I was reminded of something I wrote for a women's day that I had at my house this Summer. The Lord had given me an assignment for the day, and one of the parts of it was this: "I want you to describe My heart to them." That's a seemingly impossible assignment. Thankfully, through prayer, He highlighted specific verses that each woman needed to hear for me to expound on. As I reread it this morning, I thought it would encourage someone's heart, and so I have decided to share it here:
 

The Lord is your deliverer; with careful precision He reaches forth His hand on your behalf with strength enough to cast mighty mountains into the sea and a touch gentle enough to lift a single grain of sand. His deliverance carries the perfect measure; with mercy enough to cover the folly of our choices and grace enough to minister to the bounds of others, He looks upon our lives with perfect knowledge and steadfast love, and strides with confidence into the rushing waters of our Jordan Rivers so that all that stands between our days of slavery and wilderness would lose its power to keep us from setting our feet onto the ground of our promised land.

This Deliverer holds nothing back; He keeps no tally of our earning or record of our merit or demerit; He does not stumble or draw back at the flex of our enemies’ chariots and military might; He finds no hinderance in the shouts of man or the number of swords raised against you. He is willing to rend the heavens for you. You are of such worth to Him, so fiercely does He choose you every time, that He is willing to pour all out for you.

“I see your battles, my beloved child, I know the way the battle drums stir your heart to fear. I know your pain of feeling without defense. But “I will fight for you…” I know your hand lacks the victory that you need, but “be still,” in Me, you lack nothing.  [exodus 14:14]

The Lord is your strength. Come as you are, He says; when your arms are dragging in the dirt, when your knees have buckled, when your heart is too crushed to do another day of heavy lifting…your weakness is no burden to Him, your places of nothing are welcome with Him. No shame is found under his gaze; your deficits but a palette to display His sufficiency of might.

He knows the means of your depletion; He saw the woundings that your back bore up beneath, He heard the groaning of your heart as it bent beneath traumas it was never meant to carry.

When your body gave way, His steadfast hand held you together…and where you still struggle to regain what was lost, He holds your together still. He knows the lament of what torments you from beside the road where life’s trials have left you; but weakness is not a lesser thing in His kingdom. In His kingdom weakness is where His strength is perfected in you. Weakness is where His grace finds its most fertile ground, its most open avenue for redemptive work. Weakness is where you learn what it feels like to be kept in the care of the Almighty’s love and power…the place where the meekness and might of the Sovereign One cradle and lift with such precision that you will be undone by finding yourself thoroughly known, completely safe, desired not for what you offer, but for who you are. He is your strength, beloved, the strength that searches out the atrophied, the wilted, the withered…that beckons the stumbling, the bent, the needy…that delights as much in sustaining you as you in being sustained.

“I am always with you; close enough to hold your right hand. I guide you with My counsel and I will one day take you with Me into glory. You flesh and your heart may fail, My child, but I am the strength of your heart and your portion forever. Your portion finds no lesser measure on the threshing floor of your weakness. No, because your threshing floor affords you vision that you may set eyes upon the most vivid grace.  [Psalm 73:26]

The Lord is your redemption. All that the cruelty of sin has rendered “other than intended;” all that its force has twisted into “not as it should be;” all that it has left broken, splintered, cracked, precariously patched together need not remain, for the blood of Jesus makes all things new.

And maybe the enemy has told you that your broken places, relationships and dreams are too far gone, that your wounds have festered too long, your bones set too awry, your bruises go too deep for the blood to find its way there….maybe he has told you that its your fault, your choices are what brought your city to ruin, and maybe that part’s true, but then maybe he said that because you’re guilty—still struggling, still striving—that the blood is not for you right here, right now…maybe he has convinced you that you have to wait upon another to recognize or apologize or rectify the wrongs that punctured your soul before you can partake of what the blood offers…but the enemy’s a liar and a thief. There is a Redeemer, and He is yours.

With the joy of you made new before His eyes, He saw His redeeming work through to the new beginning…and He has never stopped desiring for you to reach out your hand to Him, or lift up your eyes to Him, or release your hearts cry to Him. It’s not beyond His touch, and you are not beyond His love, and His heart was never persuaded by your strives toward perfection, it has always been motivated by His perfect Love and lavish grace for those He set His heart upon. And you are His, marked by His own hand and His own heavenly heart.

“Whoever comes to Me, I will never cast out. I long to turn your mourning into dancing, I died to loose your sackcloth and array you with the gladness of one who has taken part in my redeeming work for the reunification of your body, soul and spirit to Me. Your glory will sing My praise and not be silent, for I am the Lord your God…I gave Myself so you can be whole; a wholeness that depends not on perfect circumstances, perfect bodies or prefect paths but on the perfect lamb of God given for you. [Psalm 30:11–12]

The Lord is the source of all that is Good. Lift up your eyes. Your sorrow stems from the failure of your measures. The one you clung to with expectation of fullness forever failed you. The title that afforded you your certainty of worth was stripped away. The safety of the stronghold where you always ran to rest and renew stands in ruin. But lift up your eyes and look into His.

Whatsoever was withheld or lost or forgotten; whatsoever sat upon the scales where you found yourself too few, too weak, too weary; whatsoever set itself beside you and amplified all that you are not…those whatsoevers are but lesser things…mere echoes of a Greater. Things able to be emptied will only leave you empty because they have merely borrowed of the goodness of God. But the Lord says to you, “Oh, taste and see that I am good! I long for you to partake of every part of Me, I long to draw you into the refuge of being surrounded by the well that never comes up dry. Drink forever, draw as deeply as you wish, fill your cup 10,000 time and then 10,000 times more. The young lion—man’s vision of the hope of strength and might—will suffer want and hunger; but those who seek Me lack no good thing…not now, not ever.”  [Psalm 34:8–10]

The joy you long for, the hope you cling for, the peace your wrestle for, the grace you search for…there is no end, there is only satisfaction and fulfillment of person. Unwind your fingers from around the worn out reflection in your hands, I promise that in the laying down of what could only pacify, your hands will be left free to fall open before the One who satisfies the seeker with the best of His bounty. Lift up your eyes, He is not far off, The Source of all goodness is near you and with you and in you. Your search is over, He is forever enough.

The Lord is the lifter of your head. There are many reasons why you may feel cast down, why your eyes struggle to rise and meet His.

Beloved, He isn’t disappointed in you…yes, He knows the ways you failed, the number of times you faltered, the many expectations that you didn’t meet…but the only expectation He ever had of you was to need Him. He does not look upon the weak things and lament their lack of strength; He does not look upon the ones regarded as nothing in your neighbor’s eyes and agree; He does not look upon the foolish to the world and scoff at them. He says, “What a beautiful one to display My strength upon, My glory upon, My wisdom upon.” Poor and needy and lowly and longing…these are the ones He’s searching for. Ashes are but the precursor to crowns, garments of shame are only what come before the blood-washed robes of white, the guilt of sin but fertile soil for the grave He was buried in that will blossom into gardens of new life.

Beloved, He sees your sorrow, your waning hope, your struggle for joy. He gathers every tear you’ve cried inside a bottle, considering your pain too costly a thing to overlook. He understands the source of your cries, even if you don’t. He knows the seemingly eternal struggles to brighten up your countenance, the misfirings of your mind, the score of your trauma as it tallied its way into your body’s inter-workings. But your season of depression is not forever because He is the one who lifts up your head. May you sense His bending to join you in the dust, may you feel His hand cup your face with a touch so gentle that all that is fragile in you will not break within it, may your eyes lift as He lifts your face to His. He wants you to see Him.

The Lord is your safe place. I know you are afraid right now; things too big for you to carry curse your mind with a thousand questions…but He knows all things for you. The rising pressures that magnify your lack of control cause you to cower…but He is sovereign over all things for you. The ones who caused you pain press in upon the ones you love…but He is a shield for you.

He is the refuge that covers and keeps you in the raging storms and crashing roar of waves that have flattened a thousand ships…He is the assurance of a way to the other side.

“Be still, and know that I am God.” Your safety does not stem from stability of circumstance but from presence of Faithful and True. I know your fear, but I am near you. If you will enter in, I will walk beside you into the dark places within you, I will hold your hand and shelter you through every vulnerability, I will stand beside you until you rise again. Whether your head trembles within a lion’s mouth or your heart dances in the passing breeze, you are as safe now as you will ever be. For My name is a strong tower, run into Me and learn what it is to be safe. [Prov 18:10, Psalm 46]

The Lord is love. It is not only that He loves, it is that He IS love and His affections flow from the heart of who He is. Fierce and full and forever, as much today in your state of disrepair as in the glories of heavens courts when your sanctification is complete. You never earned your endeared position, you need not DO to receive or DESERVE to take part. His love followed you from before the weaving of your form inside the womb began…and it will not wane even in the returning to dust. His love is perfect, without spot or blemish, without failure or fault, without beginning and therefore, without end, unable to be added to or taken from; His love extends—reaching through both sunbeam and shadow, as overflowing in the valley and in the heights.

Pursuing, He spends and spent His life longing for you to enter into the flow that pours from Him. Extending His hand, yet never forcing you to take part; He spreads Himself before you along the path you walk, hoping that your knees will fall upon Him and feel the wonder that He’s gone lower still, wanting only for you to find Him when your hand reaches out for one to cling to, to hold onto. The love that never fails, never comes up dry, never pales into comparison, but instead shines with such glory that all lesser loves cower.

Taste and see, He calls to you. Lay hold of the beauty that blossoms in you when you plant yourself within the flow of my affections.

My love bears all things; My love believes all things; My love hopes all things; My love endures all things…without end. Without end. [1 Cor 13:7]

The Lord is your Healing. Every wound on body, soul and spirit. Every sorrow of heart and mind. Every moment that marred you from birth to this very moment. Nothing is outside His reach, His desires or His care. Lean in and find that wholeness is found in Him.

“How precious is your steadfast love, O God! The children of mankind take refuge in the shadow of Your wings. They feast on the abundance of Your house, and You give them drink from the river of Your delights. For with You is the fountain of life; in Your light do we see light. [Psalm 36:7–9]

Even there

Even There
@1-4-2025 Hannah McLean

If the wings of the morning bid me ride
If the waves pull me out to sea
If the night folds on me like covering
If the light seems as darkness to me

Even there

Even there,
You're the Lord who searched me
Who has known me before I met time
Even there,
You're the Lord who has found me
Who has hemmed in before and behind
Even there,
Your sure hand is on me
Your thoughts of me more than the sand
Even there,
You're the Lord who has formed me
Who causes my frail frame to stand

Father, even there You will lead me
May the hold of Your hand be my peace
For when rising and falling and darkness and flight end,
You will never cease

 

---

 

Psalm 139:7–10 "Where shall I go from Your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from Your presence? If I ascend to heaven, You are there! If I make my bed in Sheol, You are there! If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there Your hand shall lead me, and Your right hand shall hold me."

laying down the nets

Matthew 4:18–20 “While walking by the Sea of Galilee, He saw two brothers, Simon (who is called Peter) and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea, for they were fishermen. And He said to them, “Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men.”Immediately they left their nets and followed Him.”
 

leave your nets

©hannah mclean 10-12-2024

 

will you leave your nets
and follow Me?
will you lay down old
the new to see?
will you trust your works
can leave your hands
and pick up where
Redeemer stands?
 

will you forfeit
all you’ve ever known
and follow Me
from house and home?

it matters not that
men say “no”
it matters not where
men say “go”
it matters only
if you choose
to follow Me
your nets to lose
 

a better word
i have for you
a better work
your hands to do
I look across
your narrow sea
and call you out
“will you follow Me?”

The feet of Jesus

Revelation 1:12–16 “Then I turned to see the voice that was speaking to me, and on turning I saw seven golden lampstands, and in the midst of the lampstands one like a son of man, clothed with a long robe and with a golden sash around His chest. The hairs of His head were white, like white wool, like snow. His eyes were like a flame of fire, His feet were like burnished bronze, refined in a furnace, and His voice was like the roar of many waters. In His right hand He held seven stars, from His mouth came a sharp two-edged sword, and His face was like the sun shining in full strength.”

I read this passage today, and looked down at my paper to answer the correlating questions. “What stands out to you in John’s description of what He saw and heard?” I could think of only one thing. It wasn’t the lampstands or the golden stars that danced across His palm, nor was it the two-edged sword or the flaming eyes. It was His feet. “Burnished bronze, refined in a furnace.” Something that is burnished has been polished until it shines, or in this case, refined by fire until it carried a sheen found through no other means. His feet, standing amid the splendor and majesty…His feet that knew not just the courts of heavens but the fires of earth.

To be honest, when I think of Jesus’ feet I don’t usually think of burnished bronze. I think of dirt and blood and sandal straps too holy to be unloosed by the best of human hands. I think of roads filled with travelers, journeys up mountainsides and maybe even the floors of fishing boats.

My mind travels through stories recorded for us in scripture of those holy, yet human feet; sick were laid at them, former-lepers fell in gratitude at them, redeemed women washed the dirt from them with their tears. People followed where their walked, sat at them to learn and even joined them atop the waters of the Sea of Galilee. They stood in a manger, in the homes of sinners, in His Father’s house and in the courts of earthly governments. They walked into gardens, up mountains, from city to city, even to the tomb of their friend. These feet that once were cradled by a mother, that were once pierced through by a soldier, that knew the feel of both womb and tomb; these feet that traveled the decent of heaven to earth and back again. These were the feet that stood out to me in John’s vision.

I know those feet. I’ve laid myself before them a thousand time, resting my head upon them in prayer. I’ve wrapped myself around them, rained my tears upon them, broken open my alabaster box at them to pour out my worship. I’ve followed them through the veil and to the throne, walked beside them into the broken caverns within me and known the healing that comes as they’ve led me out. They’ve joined me in my floods and in my fires, stood beside me in the valleys and in the heights, waited with me when I had no strength to move.

I found His feet before I found His face; for me it was the entrance point to relationship when I did not yet know how to receive love. These holy feet that humbled themselves to meet me in the dirt, pierced through so that my gaze could learn to look up in wonder at the One who drew near.

I know those feet. And when I look upon John’s vision, I can’t help but think that even if the rest of heaven is unimaginable in beauty and purity, shocking in width and wonder to we who wait on this side of eternity, the feet of our Lord will be familiar to us.

For those feet stood with us in the furnace. Those heavenly feet of burnished bronze.

Fault and chastisement

I have spent my entire adult life battling health issues. Literally less than 2 months after my 18th birthday I got a diagnosis that seemed to determine the course of everything that followed; and when a doctor associated it with Celiac’s Disease (an autoimmune disorder that I believe was triggered in me after the death of my little brother when I was very young), I took the blame for the catastrophe that was my body. At every bump and pit along my health journey, I have looked backwards continually at my 18-year-old self and said, “It's your own fault.”

When my body fell apart at the failure of my thyroid, it was my own fault. When I lost my ability to speak after complications with surgery, it was my own fault. When I had to work extra hard for the smallest step forward or when my body fell 10 steps back, it was my own fault. When my body couldn't recover after giving birth...when I miscarried my babies...couldn't regulate my blood pressure...my fault, my fault, my fault. For years and years, I have owned my body's weakness and failures as the consequence of my ignorant teenage choices to not stay off gluten. "It's your own fault," my internal drill sergeant reminds me, "suck it up and accept your consequences. You gave up your chance at health when you were young, so stop complaining. You didn't respect it while you had it, you don't deserve it back. Stand up and keep moving forward."

In some weird way, this acceptance of blame has sort of wrangled my emotions as I have rollercoastered through the ups and downs, reminding me to keep standing instead of rolling over and giving up. It has forced me to find my contentment outside of my circumstances.

And that’s not all bad.

But it’s also not good. Yesterday my drill sergeant’s voice started to bother me, some part of me that the last 24 years hasn't hardened, some part that hasn’t been snuffed out by my body's failures suddenly stood up and pushed back.

“I don’t think that's true,” this unusual spark of resistance called out over the familiar wrestle to quench my sadness. "I don't think it’s my fault."

I tried. I tried to get better. I did everything I knew how to for years and years. I have worked hard for my wellbeing (physically, mentally, spiritually, and relationally), and while I have laid hold of much holistic healing, my physical body still languishes in the dirt. I’ve learned how to rewire my brain toward it over the years; I’ve found moments I have actively felt compassion for it, I’ve intentionally reconnected to it (overriding a trauma response of disassociating) in spite of the emotional turmoil I endure by allowing myself to remain in it, I’ve actively painted it with dignity and value and reminded myself of its goodness by design. And every time I think I’ve got to be done, that the bottom of this gangrenous wound has to be uncovered, I keep finding more.

So today I have been processing my internal resistance. I’ve considered the little voice that stood in the face of the commander and said, “It’s not my fault.”

What is the truth?

The truth is that I have never looked at another sick or suffering person and thought, “It’s your own fault. Suck it up.” I’ve never bypassed compassion and commanded someone to get in line under their responsibility for their own weakness. Why would I judge myself with such harshness when I have never thought so harshly about another?

The truth is that there is much in my life that has affected my body that I have not chosen.

The truth is that association and causation are not the same thing. I don’t know why my thyroid failed me when I was 18-years-old.

The truth is that even if I had messed up everything in my life in regards to my health, I still deserve the basic human compassion that shelters the path of suffering.

“What is the truth?” I asked the Lord.

And He said to me, “Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But He was pierced for our transgressions; He was crushed for our iniquities; upon Him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with His wounds we are healed.” [Isaiah 53:4–5]

The word “chastisement” set itself on me, its definition laying out the reality of this lie’s root. To chastise means to censure severely, inflicting punishment on (as by whipping). A censure is a judgment involving condemnation. For 24 years I have carried the condemnation of my broken body; the sentence of a life in the dust has whipped me into line every time I have bucked beneath it. It has pressed upon my shoulders with such weight that I’ve given it permission to remain because I have owned it as a righteous judgment against me.

But He said to me, “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” [Romans 8:1]

Break every chain, Lord. No more lies.

He has borne my grief and sorrow, He has been pierced and crushed and chastised and wounded for my peace and for my healing.

“It’s not my fault,” I said over and over again today. Practicing the truth so that the next time the lie falls from my mouth I can crush it before it lands. May the whip that has fallen so many times be absorbed by the One who lent me His body so that I can walk free.

The eager rose bush

I went out to look in my flower bed this afternoon, and found myself standing in front of my rose bush. I bought it this Spring at ALDI, a bare twig maybe 10” tall for $7 figuring that even if it flopped, it was worth the $7 risk because…what if it didn’t? And there in my flower bed stood the former twig. While it still had only 2 branches, it was now 3 1/2’ tall, boasting three 4” roses and 2 more in lesser states of bloom. It stretched itself toward the sky, straight upright, confident that it was capable of great beauty, and it opened up its blossoms into sweet aromatic pedals of many shades of pink, unaware that a single branch was not suppose to stand so tall nor hold so many roses.

Its two overflowing branches made me laugh as I thought, “I want the confidence of this rose bush.”

This rose bush apparently had not been informed that it had fallen into my uninformed hands; it was unhindered by its time of pruning, its season of waiting to find its garden, its time of not yet being planted in the right soil. In spite of its dormancy and its apparent dying, it was eager to flourish without hinderance the moment it touched the earth.

It seemed to call out to me, “Why wouldn’t I go all out? This is what I was made for!”

It didn’t know I would stand and admire its blooms, but it knew its blooms would hold all the beauty embedded in them by its Maker. It seemed to have the glorious understanding that to bud and to blossom and to burst into full bloom in the light of the sun was what it was made for….and so it threw its branches out into the open air and simply lived to the fullness of its potential for its age and stage of growth.

I want to be like the rose bush.

I was talking to the Lord this morning about my desire to learn how to dream by faith. I've learned in my 43 years that while I am a dreamer by nature—one who dreams big for the people in my life—I am crippled in my ability to dream for myself. Maybe it’s the remnants of disappointments of the past, or the lingering effects of being pressed down…maybe it’s the leftover shades of fear not yet washed from my nature… wherever it comes from, I find myself wishing to confront my limp.

While it is true that I sometimes do big (for me), uncomfortable things; I mostly just do them in obedience, expectation doesn’t usually have a seat at the table. I invite people to a Bible study without the expectation that anyone would come. I publish a book without the expectation that anyone would buy it. I write a blog without the expectation that anyone would read it. I share a testimony without the expectation that anyone would believe it. I sing a song without the expectation anyone (but my dad) would want to listen to my voice. And maybe it's not so bad a thing to be surprised from time to time if someone shows up or stops to listen or finds themself blessed, but I do think it is a strange position to be in to repeatedly reach out my hand assuming I will probably find only empty air and to have genuine peace at having reached out anyway.

I look around me and watch people in my life planning and dreaming with joyful expectancy; they start businesses, prayer movements and ministries that utilize their gifting and turn the fire that burns in their heart into a productive blaze. They sit behind tables filled with their creative endeavors and believe that someone would want one for their own. They walk into rooms and open their mouths with the expectation that someone will consider what comes out of them and choose to take part. And I watch them…marveling at what, to me, seems like magnificent boldness. Dreams and expectancy of possibility combining to gift the human soul.

Are you one of those people? A person who takes leaps of faith and builds with wild expectation? How did you become like the rose bush? Teach me your ways.

Judgment like a flood

Last night I had a dream about a flood that was coming. When I woke up from it, I got up for a minute, and when I did, I noticed that the lights suddenly went on in the main flood of the house. I went downstairs to see who was awake and found my son curled up with a blanket on the couch in a fully-lit main floor because he had a scary dream.

“What was the dream about, Son?”

“It was about a flood.”

I was suddenly wide awake. So we sat on the couch and I listened to his dream. It was a simple dream; he’d been playing with his sisters when his dad got a weather report that a flood was coming. So everyone needed to go upstairs, and when the flood came, the water went up to the top stair, but it didn’t touch any of us.

We prayed and I tucked him into my bed next to his daddy while I returned to the couch to seek the Lord. I did not remember my dream as vividly as I usually do when I receive dreams from the Lord, but when the Lord confirms your dream through your son, you pay attention.

Here is what I remember from the dream followed by the warning the Lord brought to light in the face of it:

I was visiting a city where I did not live, I was with my husband and a close friend. While we were there, a warning went out that a flood was coming, and we were trying to get to a specific place in the city to be safe. The people we were with (who lived there) seemed to be our work colleagues and it was clear that they didn’t really like us much, but didn’t dislike us enough to want anything bad to happen to us. Most of the people around us seemed to know there was a flood coming and were a bit harrowed from the bad weather they’d encountered in the recent past. There were some who were just going about their business as usual.

We were trying to get across town from where we were, and the scene I remember at the end of the dream was a place of decision. We were in the apartment complex of the people we knew because we had helped them get home; it was a building with open halls connecting the rooms like you’d find in the south or a coastal town. They were trying to get to their rooms, and the halls were filled with long, orderly lines of people doing the same. They finally said to us with a hint of worry and reluctant kindness, “The flood is almost here, I don’t know if you will be able to get back, you can stay in our room.” When we said we couldn’t do that, they offered to at least watch our stuff for us so that we didn’t have to worry about carrying anything across town.

So we handed them our bags (and anything in our purses that might weigh us down). I specifically remember asking my husband and friend if I needed my lanyard with my wallet and keys and decided that I didn’t, and I hung it around the neck of the person who was offering me help. We turned to leave and they turned to go into their rooms. As I walked past the stone supporting wall of the apartment building on my way down the stairs—the opposite direction of the people going up higher—I reached out my hand and touched it saying, “I cover you in the blood of Jesus.”

As we were strategizing about how to get where we needed with nothing but the clothes on our backs, the air around us was abuzz with hurry and worry because of the impending flood, but even with the knowledge of what was coming, not all people were preparing for it.

That is what I remember from my dream.

As I prayed and asked the Lord to reveal to me what He wanted me to know through these two dreams, He made the following things clear to me:

First, judgment is coming to the USA. This dream was not pointing to the final judgments of the book of Revelation, but instead a much nearer judgment of a righteous God on a wicked nation. There is only one way to walk through this judgment, and it is as the Israelites stood secure in their homes in Goshen through the plagues on Egypt in Exodus 7–12, and that is to be under the blood of Jesus.

Second, there is purpose behind this judgment that is not merely punishment (although we absolutely deserve only that); this judgment is to bring about repentance because God’s heart for humanity is and has always been to save them and unite them in Himself (Ephesians 1:10).

As I wrote out this dream and talked to the Lord about it, I kept bumping into the word “harrow” and “harrowed,” so I looked up its meaning. A harrow is a tool used to cultivate, it breaks up and smooths out soil for planting. And to feel harrowed means to feel plundered and tormented.

The judgment that is coming will be as if the harrow of God sweeps across the nation and it will do one of two things to any heart not secure under the atoning blood of Jesus: It will either soften your heart so that it turns to His in repentance (this is His deepest desire), or it will leave you feeling plundered because what is good will be stripped away from you (God is the source of all that is good, in the rejection of Him, you will lose whatever is of His goodness that He has graciously allowed you to hold in your hands).

I do not know what stands before us, but there will be judgment like a flood (the flood in this dream stood for judgment); cover yourself in the Redeemer’s blood. He has already finished the work of salvation for us to take part in…there is no other way to endure what is coming without Him. Repent. Pray (for yourself, your family, everyone you know and love, your city, our nation). Receive mercy. Find refuge in the God who has loved you from the beginning.

A prayer of surrender

Some seasons for me are messier than others; lately I've been bringing all the pieces of my heart in all their complexity and just pouring them onto the altar...and this has been my accompanying prayer of surrender: "Burn up what You will, Lord. Purify whatever remains after Your holy fire falls. And plant whatever You wish to grow in me."

And so in this season where I cannot sort, I can still be sanctified because the Lord always receives the sacrifices we make in surrender, even if they aren't pretty. 

 

Psalm 5:3 TPT "At each and every sunrise You will hear my voice as I prepare my sacrifice of prayer to You. Every morning I lay out the pieces of my life on the altar and wait for Your fire to fall upon my heart."

The expanse of His bending

"He raises the poor from the dust and lifts the needy from the ash heap." Psalm 113:7

 

The Lord was ministering to me with Psalm 113:7 yesterday, and this morning as I sat down with Him, I looked into the rest of the Psalm and I am undone.

Psalm 113 speaks to the Lord being HIGH ABOVE ALL nations; China, Russia, the USA, Germany, Mexico, Brazil, Israel, Egypt, Monaco, Nigeria…every nation with every earthly leader and every ounce of earthly government, prestige and military might. It says that not only are these beneath Him, but they are FAR beneath Him. And while the glory of the earth and its nations may seem impressive (Olympians, natural wonders, scientific and technological advances, etc.), His glory—the sum of His being—dwarfs not only all the earth has to offer but also the heavens. And from this declaration of the immense wonder, worth and power of God, the Psalmist rightly declares His holiness, “Who is like the Lord our God…?” No one. He is set apart in every way; holy, holy, holy the right declaration as He is beheld.

Then the second half of the Psalm moves my heart is wondrous ways. Because then, this God who dwarfs the nations with His glory, presence, position and scope of vision reaches down through the distance of His exaltation and sets His hands into the dust to touch the ones with nothing to glory in; He puts those holy hands into the ashes of burned up lives and circumstance and picks up the ones who need; and with the humble of the world in His grasp, He covers them with honor. And then, He turns His eyes to the woman without, the lonely with the pain of unfulfilled longings, and He moves her to joy.

“Who is like the Lord our God…?” Our God who does not overlook the individual lives on whom death has left its mark. Our God who did not come to save nations—for nations are but a drop in a bucket to Him—but to save the people who fill those nations—marked with His image and the recipients of His affections. Who is like the Lord our God? Worthy of praise for all of time and yet concerned with the weak and lowly who have known only broken pieces and with the woman whose beating heart is cast down.

I don’t know if where you sit today is a place of authority at a table of honor or a pile of ashes from the life you’ve burned with your own sin. I don’t know if you hold in your hands everything you ever wanted or if your soul cries out from the bathroom floor in your longing for what you lack. But I do know this, the Lord our God is both mighty and meek. He is above the heights we could ever lift our eyes to and beneath the depths we could ever fall. He is worthy and yet willing, holy and yet love itself. Rest in His hands, it is there that joy will find you.

And do not miss the expanse of His bending, for the expanse is the door to understanding His praise.

Redeemed blessing

I am preparing to teach on Ruth 4 in Children’s Church on Sunday; it’s a chapter about Boaz redeeming Ruth. Last week I taught about how Boaz is intended to help us understand our Redeemer Jesus, so we considered the Redeemer’s heart. This week we will consider how and why He redeems. And because the book of Ruth is all about redemption, I found in the middle of this chapter a blessing that just strikes me in the best sort of way.

Look at this blessing in verses 11–12, “May the Lord make the woman, who is coming into your house, like Rachel and Leah, who together built up the house of Israel. May you act worthily in Ephrathah and be renowned in Bethlehem, and may your house be like the house of Perez, whom Tamar bore to Judah, because of the offspring that the Lord will give you by this young woman.”

I’ve read this blessing before and thought, “What strange women to draw blessing from.” Do you know the lives of Rachel, Leah and Tamar? Rachel and Leah were sold by their father to be wives to the same man; the pain of this sin against them on their lives is displayed in Genesis 29–30. Their relationships were fraught with toxic competition, striving for love, barrenness…reading those chapters makes me cry every time. But here in this blessing, it says, “Rachel and Leah, who together built up the house of Israel.” Redemption…under the blessing of the Lord, their lives brought forth the people of God. And then there’s Tamar, you can read about her in Genesis 38; lies, failures, sins by and against, a twisted pursuit of a son. And yet here it says, “May your house be like the house of Perez, whom Tamar bore to Judah, because of the offspring that the Lord will give you by this young woman.” Redemption…under the blessing of the Lord, the Messiah came forth through the house of Perez.

And today as I am considering and praying over the story, I head myself tell the Lord, “I am grateful that you did not build the lineage of Jesus on polished stones, but instead on stones that were hewn.” I struggle to relate to shiny, polished things…but hewn things…hewn things I can run my fingers across and understand the grooves of their forming. Forged from mountains and valleys, redeemed from fire and flood, purposefully shaped for stability.

Our Redeemer is good.

Missing you on the eve of Spring

For the Return of my Friend
©4/26/24 Hannah McLean

My face turns toward the Spring breeze
lungs breathe deep
and I am filled.
The sights and sounds and smells that surround me
pour out their promises in the way only nature may.
And in this air, I cannot help but hope.

Time is ever changing things,
this I know,
the tiny nose that once wrinkled up a baby face
now sets among features matured into a different beauty.

Soft found hard.
The trials of life have a way of shaping things,
like the persistent rushing river through the grand canyon
forging in its passing a thing of extravagant wonder.

And yet,
many water cannot change all things
for my love persists;
unable to be washed away by current
unwilling to be pulled away by wind and gale
ever beating as the heartbeat at the core of life itself.

Hope rides upon the fresh air
as things once dead beneath the cold of winter
emerge in victorious shades of living color.
If ever it was time, why not now?

I open up my doors
I throw wide my windows
and cast my voice and heart into the earthen air.
My longing for you to come stretches across the space
between us;
may it find its way to you
nudging your heart to turn my way
spreading out a bridge worth walking.

I will be here,
this you must know,
listening for the sound of your footsteps
across the freshly plowed earth.

mercy in the burial

John 19:38–40 “After these things Joseph of Arimathea, who was a disciple of Jesus, but secretly for fear of the Jews, asked Pilate that he might take away the body of Jesus, and Pilate gave him permission. So he came and took away his body. Nicodemus also, who earlier had come to Jesus by night, came bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about seventy-five pounds in weight. So they took the body of Jesus and bound it in linen cloths with the spices, as is the burial custom of the Jews.”

Matthew 27:59–60 “And Joseph took the body and wrapped it in a clean linen shroud and laid it in his own new tomb, which he had cut in the rock. And he rolled a great stone to the entrance of the tomb and went away.”

when holy God bent down and
stepped inside the flesh of man
He came upon the womb of a poor woman
His fanfare heavenly heralds
heard only by the least of these
dirt of stable cave and manger
strips of linen swaddling Him safe and warm
tended to by His mother’s hands
her adoring eyes looking upon Him
her mother heart bound to His with what had been
the purest of human love

when holy God bent lower and
stepped out of the flesh of man
He left upon the cross of crucifixion
His fanfare the taunts and curses of fallen man
heard from the hidden rooms of scheming to the highest public courts
flogging scourge and splintered cross
victory disguised in loss

at close of work
last breath breathed
last holy words but a mere echo in the minds of those who remained
last spectator of the spectacle of crucifixion homeward bound
last of the taunts of dying men dead with Him

the mangled body of Messiah
punctured the silence
“who will tend to the flesh of the Son of Man?”

and the least of his followers
stepped through the fear of man
brushed past the praise of man
and set their hands upon the broken body of their Messiah
His bloody wounds stained their garments
as they tended as a loved one would their own
strips of linen bound around Him once more
costly spices laid once more at His feet

i know the honor of preparing the dead for burial
is no small thing
a last moment to honor the one you loved
to allow the rawness of the loss to unleash the tears that only come
in the quiet

confronted with what was
and what will no longer be
how these men must have grieved as they were at last near
their lifeless Savior
as they touched His blood shed for them
smelled the reality of His ruin

did their tears fall upon His wounds
mingle with the spices
drip across the linens that soon hid
the cursed flesh from their view?

did they lament their failures to follow well
their bondage to men
their lost opportunity to be by His side
their silence in the face of unjust judgements?

did they wonder why they were allowed to do
what the faithful women standing nearby could not?

but isn’t that just like the Lord
to honor the lowest with such a great honor?
while these men may have been the greatest in the kingdoms of man
they were the failures in the Kingdom of God
the ones who followed Jesus in the shadows
the ones whose flesh crushed out their spiritual flourishing
the ones who, to this point, had counted shame they may feel from man
a more costly thing than shame they carried from sin
but they were still His own
and He received their sacrifices

He chose them to tend to His body
He chose joseph to lay Him down in his own tomb
because He took joseph’s death
and when He would rise on the third day
joseph would feel the reality that He also gave him life
He chose nicodemus to bring Him myrrh
because he could bury in the tomb with Him the wisdom of man
that he would walk away from the stone
a wise man
to teach the jews with the wisdom of God

Zechariah 12:10 “And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and pleas for mercy, so that, when they look on Me, on Him whom they have pierced, they shall mourn for Him, as one mourns for an only child, and weep bitterly over Him, as one weeps over a firstborn.”

such is mercy

when we look on Him whom we have pierced
every moment following changes
and some of us need a closer look
some must look into the face of the child in the manger
and some must feel the finality of covering His face with a cloth
that we may know the purest of heavenly love

The Fear of the Lord

Psalm 111:10 "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; all those who practice it have a good understanding. His praise endures forever! 

I taught in children’s church this Sunday, and my meditation and study in preparation for this lesson was SO FRUITFUL that I am going to share it with you.

Every time I approach the passage that I am going to teach, I ask the Lord, “What do You want me to tell the kids?” There are so many lessons to be gleaned from every passage that I need to allow Him to direct me. This past week, I was preparing to teach Joshua 2 where Rahab hides the spies from Israel and then ties a scarlet cord in her window so she will be spared when Jericho falls by the Lord’s hand. I read and reread the passage, waiting for most of the week until finally He said, “Teach them about the fear of the Lord.”

I don’t know if you’ve ever read Joshua 2 specifically looking for what it teaches about the fear of the Lord (I sure hadn't)…but whoa. What a wonderful story to help bring to the surface what the fear of the Lord is and what it looks like lived out. So I am going to share the gist of my lesson for children’s church if you are interested in learning more about the fear of the Lord as it was displayed through the life of Rahab. Go read Joshua 2 before you keep reading (it’s only 24 verses, so it won’t take long).

Scripture says multiple times that “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom…” The word nerd in me requires us to define three of the words in that sentence:

YIR’â: Fear of God, reverence (to regard AND treat with deep respect)

BEGINNING: The point in time or space when something starts

WISDOM: Knowledge and understanding that give you the ability to make good judgements

Wisdom isn’t just knowing things, it is being able to take what you know and use that knowledge to live your life the right way. So consider that: Without the fear of the Lord, we have missed the BEGINNING of how to use what we know to live our life in the goodness that God intends.

THE FEAR OF THE LORD FOLLOWS THE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT OF WHO GOD IS. In Rahab’s statement to the men in verses 8–12, she uses the name Jehovah four times; Jehovah is the formal name of the one true God. I was looking back through scripture, and while I certainly didn’t look on every page, I couldn’t find places where gentiles who weren’t believers used the name Jehovah. Rahab was acknowledging that the God of Israel was the true God. The others in her city were offered the same opportunity to fear God as Rahab was; she describes how they had watched Israel for 40 years—they saw God bring them out of Egypt, through the red sea, conquer kings—and the others in her city were terrified of Israel…but they did not acknowledge or revere Israel's God. But Rahab did, and she called Him by His name.

THE FEAR OF THE LORD DRAWS US TO GOD. Fear as we often think of it tends to send us fleeing and hiding, but the fear of the Lord has a different affect. When Rahah saw who God was, she drew near. She came close and tended to His people and spoke with the hopes that her voice would reach His ears.

THE FEAR OF THE LORD MELTS THE HEART IN BOTH HEALTHY FEAR AND HUMILITY. What happens when something melts? A hard thing becomes soft and movable. Rahab knew the God of Israel had the right to judge her; He had the right to give her city into the hands of His people. Her pride melted away in the face of the Lord, and she, with great humility asked for mercy. You can see her humility here in her plea in verses 12–13; she didn’t even ask for them to spare HER because of her kindness to them (she knew what she deserved), instead she asked them to save her family. All of Rahab’s pride was gone, she recognized that God could rightfully judge her and she humbled herself before Him.

THE FEAR OF THE LORD LEADS TO OBEDIENCE. Rahab obeyed. The men of Israel told her that she should tie a scarlet cord in her window to be spared Jericho’s plight and she did it…right away. They were barely out of sight and the scarlet cord was already being secured in the window. A heart that fears the Lord will look to Him with the posture that says, “I will do whatever You ask.” Rahab didn’t ask why a scarlet cord mattered, she didn’t ask when they would come back, she didn’t wait and see if she should bother doing what they said…she simply obeyed and put her hope in the God she had acknowledged as true. She would have done anything required of her. Her decisions showed that she had faith, and she is mentioned in Hebrews 11, a chapter known for presenting us with heroes of the faith. It says, “By faith Rahab the prostitute did not perish with those who were disobedient, because she had given a friendly welcome to the spies.” Her obedience by faith, and the actions she took because of it, saved both her life and the lives of her family.

Here is the thing: When you fear God, it will change the way you live your life…it is impossible to fear God and keep living however you want because NOONE is more respectable and exalted than Jehovah. Because He is who He says He is, when we acknowledge Him, it will effect everything about us. The fear of the Lord is one of the biggest things missing from the American Church. This deficit allows us to remain apathetic, half-hearted, lukewarm, and polluted. If we really believe the Bible is true and that the God of the Bible is who He says He is, there is a clear path we will find ourselves on…and Rahab the prostitute shows us what that looks like.

Books

I published some books on Amazon if you are interested: