not by might

I am sitting in my living room, my husband has taken my daughter to run some errands, and the only noise is the dull drone of football commentary coming from the television. The image is one of quiet - serenity, even - and I have to confess: I feel it.

We are okay. It's strange to write those words, strange that they are, in fact, true. I don't think I ever sincerely believed they would be. It makes sense. I believed more in my own belief than in God Himself, so of course I doubted. I believed in belief and faith and hope and love and all the other things. These are my deities. These are the golden calves - the things I stupidly worship. Who wouldn't? Tragedy, suffering, sorrow, heartache - all the evidence the world needs to prove that God doesn't exist. Where is this God of ours now? And yet, we must hang onto something - it's how we're made. We can't do it alone.

I saw a woman yesterday on Oprah selling a book called, "Eat, Pray, Love." Perhaps that's the answer, or at least one we can all practically approach: eat a little, pray a little (we're not sure to whom), and of course - of course - love. Love, love, love. But is love enough? Certainly food doesn't fill me up, at least not for long. And if I'm supposed to be praying - well, give me some kind of guideline. If we're all going to go ahead and throw up our hands and admit there's something - someone? - out there who might hear us praying (even, as the author said, it's a "universal power"), then perhaps we shouldn't eschew the idea that there's a god? Maybe even just One?

I am convinced there is no god, there is no deity - there is no good thing or good idea or good concept or GOOD at all - apart from Jesus Christ. Conor and I are reading a book called "Heaven" by a writer named Randy Alcorn and while I love it - I love it - it's strange: he's actually talking like heaven is a real place. He's capitalizing it. Heaven. It's no different than New York or Milan to him. It's a place. But where? I don't know. Neither does he. Conor and I look at each other on occasion and it's like a mutual resignation to partial insanity - "Okay, so... do you believe this? Whew... me, too." And thus, we keep reading. Perhaps it's for comfort. Perhaps it's because I've never had much of an interest in heaven - Heaven - before. And now I think about it almost constantly. I believe it's real, physical, tangible, that there are angels and people - though they're not the same - and that God dwells with them there. God dwells with them. I don't know a lot. I don't suspect most of us do. But I can tell you: I believe it. I believe in the whole thing. And I don't think I'm entirely responsible for that belief. It's a choice - of course - on some level, but the choice is more in the not-rejecting of it than in the accepting. If I believe any of this, if I have a faith in Jesus, in the person of Christ, if I can truly rest on what He's saying to me, even today, even while I miss my baby daughter more than I can ever, ever express, it's because He gave it to me. My faith, my hope, my love - these are all copies. The real ones must be placed within me. If I believe, it's because He gave me the belief in the first place. If I rest, it's because He quieted me.

There's a story in Mark of a father whose child is possessed. When he asks Jesus to heal his son, he uses the word "if" - "If you can do anything, take pity on us and heal him!" Jesus, taken aback, says bluntly: "If I can? Everything is possible for those who believe." And the man, in a moment that will forever define the conflict in the human heart, responds frantically, "I do believe! Help me overcome my unbelief!" We are a mixture of our own dreadful attempts to believe and our desperate, desperate need to have that belief fastened within us. Part of us must do the confessing - and part, the receiving.

Love is not enough. Faith and hope and joy and determination and perserverance and commitment and peace and patience and goodness - they're not enough. They're just pretty words for pretty books that perhaps we'll buy to make ourselves feel better - for a time. But ultimately, the richness and fullness of these things cannot be tapped into unless and until something - Someone - allows it. As humans, we're entirely devoid of and entirely barred access to them all - if not for the cross of Christ.

"Not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit..." Pitch the book. Pitch them all. Don't go running toward something that, at the end of the day, will leave you feeling empty and alone. There is no person, there is no answer, there is no trick or tactic that will ever, ever be to you what He will. Do not be deceived.

Conor, Sellers and I are making it... we are walking. We miss our girl. I go into her closet twenty-five times a day and smell the clothes she wore, the clothes that are soaked in her sweet scent. I wonder what she's doing, if she's sleeping - do they sleep in Heaven? - or eating, or if she's even still an infant. I hope she is. I pray she is. My heart aches with the grief of what could have been. But were it not for the cross - for that moment in history where my eternity was secured - I would despair. I rejoice that He offers it. Yes, somehow, we are making it. But it's not by our might. Or by any power. Or by faith or hope or love. It's by His Spirit. May it fall afresh upon us.